Mr. Oates left his office early that afternoon, and therefore he did not even think of the movements of his new secretary when she went home. But if he had been privileged to observe them, he would have been very little wiser; for Mr. Oates was one of the numerous people who knew the Saint only by name, and if he had seen the sinewy sunburned young man who met her at Piccadilly Circus and bore her off for a cocktail he might have suffered a pang of jealousy, but he would have had no cause for alarm.
"We must have an Old Fashioned, Pat," said the Saint, when they were settled in Oddenino's. "The occasion calls for one. There's a wicked look in your eye that tells me you have some news. Have you sown a few more wild Oates?"
"Must you?" she protested weakly.
"Shall we get him an owl?" Simon suggested.
"What for?" asked Patricia unguardedly.
"It would be rather nice," said the Saint reflectively, "to get Titus an owl."
Patricia Holm shuddered.
Over the cocktails and stuffed olives, however, she relented.
"It's started," she said. "Hammel and Costello had a long conference with him this morning. I suppose they finished it after lunch, but I'd heard enough before they went out."
She told him every detail of the discussion that had taken place in Mr. Titus Oates's private office, and Simon Templar smiled approvingly as he listened. Taken in conjunction with what he already knew, the summaries of various other conversations which she had reported to him, it left him with the whole structure of the conspiracy clearly catalogued in his mind.