Prince Schamyl took the paper and read it through. He was a tall well-built man with a pointed black beard and twirled black moustaches like a seventeenth-century Spanish grandee; and when he had finished reading he handed the paper back with a slight bow, and fingered his moustaches in some perplexity.
"Why should I repudiate it?" he inquired. "It is exactly what I said."
Teal chewed for a moment on the spearmint which even in the presence of royalty he could not deny himself; and then he said: "In that case, Your Highness, would you be good enough to let us give you police protection?"
The Prince frowned puzzledly.
"But are not all people in this country protected by the police?"
"Naturally," said Teal. "But this is rather a special case. Have you ever heard of the Saint?"
Prince Schamyl shrugged.
"I have heard of several."
"I don't mean that kind of saint," the detective told him grimly. "The Saint is the name of a notorious criminal we have here, and something tells me that as soon as he sees this interview he'll be making plans to steal this crown you're buying. If I know anything about him, the story that you make some of your money out of selling girls to harems, and that you exercise this droit de seigneur, whatever that is, would be the very thing to put him on your tracks."
"But, please," said the Prince in ingenuous bewilderment, "what is wrong with our customs? My people have been happy with them for hundreds of years."