Simon Templar nodded.
"Strange as it may seem, there is. Believe it or not, Claud Eustace, somewhere in this great city — I wouldn't tell you where, for anything — there are left two trusting souls who don't even recognise my name. They have just come down from their hermits' caves in the mountains of Ladbroke Grove, and they haven't yet heard the news. The Robin Hood of modern crime," said the Saint oratorically, "the scourge of the ungodly, the defender of the faith — what are the newspaper headlines? — has come back to raise hell over the length and breadth of England — and they don't know."
"You look much too happy," said the detective suspiciously. "Who are these fellows?"
"Their names are Uppingdon and Immelbern, if you want to know — and you've probably met them before. They have special information about racehorses, and I am playing my usual role of the Sucker who does not Suck too long. At the moment they owe me five hundred quid."
Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal's baby blue eyes looked him over thoughtfully. And in Chief Inspector Teal's mind there were no illusions. He did not share the ignorance of Messrs. Uppingdon and Immelbern. He had known the Saint for many years, and he had heard that he was back. He knew that there was going to be a fresh outbreak of buccaneering through the fringes of London's underworld, exactly as there had been so many times before; he knew that the feud between them was going to start again, the endless battle between the gay outlaw and the guardian of the Law; and he knew that his troubles were at the beginning of a new lease of life. And yet one of his rare smiles touched his mouth for a fleeting instant.
"See that they pay you," he said, and went on his portly and lethargic way.
Simon Templar went back to the apartment on Clarges Street. Uppingdon let him in; and even the melancholy Mr. Immelbern was moved to jump up as they entered the living-room.
"Did it win?" they chorused.
The Saint held out the paper. It was seized, snatched from hand to hand, and lowered reverently while an exchange of rapturous glances took place across its columns.
"At five to one," breathed Lieut.-Colonel Uppingdon.