"He was a low criminal," said the Saint virtuously. "Your memory is failing you, Herbert. Let me read you some of the best passages."
He turned to a page he had marked.
"Listen to this, Herbert," he said. " 'Simon Templar was never particular about how he made money, so long as he made it. The drug traffic was only one of his many sources of income, and his conscience was never touched by the thought of the hundreds of lives he ruined by his insatiable avarice. Once, in a night club, he pointed out to me a fine and beautiful girl on whose lovely face the ravages of dope were already beginning to make their mark. "I've had two thousand pounds from her since I started her on the stuff," he said gloatingly, "and I'll have five thousand more before it kills her." 1 could multiply instances of that kind by the score, and refrain only from fear of nauseating my readers. Sufficient, at least, has already been said to show what an unspeakable ruffian was this man who called himself the Saint.' "
However hard it might have been for Mr. Parstone to place the name of Simon Templar, he was by no means ignorant of the Saint. His watery eyes popped halfway out of their sockets, and his jaw hardened at the same time.
"So you're the Saind?" he said.
"Of course," murmured Simon.
"Id your very own words, a low cribidal—"
Simon shook his head.
"Oh, no, Herbert," he said. "By no means as low as that. My reputation may be bad, but it's only rumour. You may whisper it to your friends, but the law doesn't allow you to put it in writing. That's libel. And you couldn't even get Chief Inspector Teal to testify that my record would justify anything like the language this book of yours has used about me. My sins were always fairly idealistic and devoted to the squashing of beetles like yourself — not to trading in drugs and grinding the faces of the poor. But you haven't heard anything like the whole of it. Listen to some more."
He turned to another selected passage.