Mr. Tombs's expression wavered uncertainly; and it may be mentioned that that waver was not the least difficult of the facial exercises which the Saint had had to go through during his acquaintance with Mr. Tanfold. For the expression which was at that moment spreading itself across Simon Templar's inside was a wholly different affair, which would have made the traditional Cheshire cat look like a mask of melancholy: even then, he had not outgrown the urchin glee of watching the feet of the ungodly planting themselves firmly on the banana-skin of doom.
Nevertheless, outwardly he wavered.
"Photograph?" he repeated.
Mr. Tanfold drew out his wallet, extracted a photograph therefrom, and handed it over. The Saint stared at it, and beheld his own unmistakable likeness, except for the hornrimmed spectacles which were not a normal part of his attire, wrapped in a most undignified grapple with a damsel whose clothing set up its own standard of the irreducible minimum of diaphanous underwear.
"Good Lord!" he gasped. "When was this taken?"
"You ought to remember," said Mr. Tanfold, polishing his finger-nails on his coat lapel.
"But — but —" The first dim inkling of the perils of the picture which he held seemed to dawn on Mr. Tombs, and he choked. "But this was an accident! You remember, Tanfold. They wanted her to sit on top of a step-ladder — they asked me to help her up — and I only caught her when she slipped—"
"I know," said Mr. Tanfold. "But nobody else does. You're the mug, Tombs. That photograph wouldn't look so good in a Melbourne paper, would it? With a caption saying: 'Son of prominent Melbourne business man "holding the baby" at artists' revel in Paris' — or something like that."
Mr. Tombs swallowed.
"But I can explain it all," he protested. "It was—"