Considering the point later, the Saint was inclined to doubt whether Mr. Tanfold had been there, for the stories he was able to tell of his adventures in the Gay City were far more lurid than anything else of its kind which the Saint had ever heard — and Simon Templar reckoned that he knew Paris from the Champs- Elysees to the fortifs. Nevertheless, they served to pass the time very congenially until half-past seven, when Mr. Tanfold suggested that they might have dinner together and afterwards pool their resources in the quest for "a bit of fun."
"I've been here a bit longer than you," said Mr. Tanfold generously, "so perhaps I've found a few places you haven't come across."
It was a very good dinner washed down with liberal quantities of liquid, for Mr. Tanfold was rather proud of the hardness of his head. As the wine flowed, his guest's tongue loosened — but there, again, it had never occurred to Mr. Tanfold that a tongue might be loosened simply because its owner was anxious that no effort should be spared to give its host all the information which he wanted to hear.
"If my father knew I'd been to Paris, I'm perfectly certain he'd disinherit me," Mr. Tombs revealed. "But he won't know. He thinks I'm sailing from Tilbury; but I'm going to have a week in Paris and catch the boat at Marseilles. He thinks Paris is a sort of waiting-room for hell. But he's like that about any place where you can have a good time. And five years ago he disowned a younger brother of mine just because he'd been seen at a night club with a girl who was considered a bit fast. Wouldn't listen to any excuses — just threw him out of the house and out of the business, and hasn't even mentioned his name since. That's the sort of puritan he is."
Mr. Tanfold made sympathetic noises with his tongue, while the area of flesh under the front of his mauve shirt which might by some stretch of imagination have been described as his bosom warmed with the glowing ecstasy of a dog sighting a new and hitherto undreamed-of lamp-post.
"When are you making this trip to Paris, old man?" he asked enviously.
"At the end of next week, I hope," said the unregenerate scion of the house of Tombs. "It all depends on how soon I can get my business finished. I've got to go to Birmingham on Friday to see some manufacturers, worse luck — and that'll probably be even deadlier than London."
Mr. Tanfold's head hooked forward on his neck, and his eyes expanded.
"Birmingham?" he ejaculated. "Well, I'm damned! What a coincidence!"
"What's a coincidence?"