"I've met him a few times," said the Saint casually.
He appeared to be speaking the truth; and Mr. Teal was not greatly surprised — the Saint had a habit of being acquainted with the most unlikely people. But Teal's curiosity was not fully satisfied.
"I suppose you're here for the same reason as I am," he said.
"More or less, I take it," answered Simon. "Do you think Yearleigh will be murdered?"
"You've seen the anonymous letters he's been receiving?"
"Some of 'em. But lots of people get anonymous threatening letters without getting a Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard sent down as a private pet."
"They aren't all M.P.'s, younger sons of dukes, and well-known influential men," said the detective rather cynically. "What do you think about it?"
"If he is murdered, I hope it's exciting," said the Saint callously. "Poison is so dull. A hail of machine-gun bullets through the library window would be rather diverting, though… What are you getting at, Claud — are you trying to steal my act or are you looking for an alliance?"
Mr. Teal unwrapped a wafer of chewing gum and stuck it in his mouth, and watched the Saint fixing buttons in a white waistcoat with a stolid air of detachment that he was far from feeling. It was sometimes hard for him to remember that that debonair young brigand with the dangerous mouth and humorous blue eyes had personally murdered many men, beyond all practical doubt but equally beyond all possibility of legal proof; and he found it hard to remember then. But nevertheless he remembered it. And the fact that those men had never died without sound reason did not ease his mind — the Saint had a disconcerting habit of assassinating men whose pollution of the universe was invisible to anyone else until he unmasked it.
"I'd like to know why you were invited," said Mr. Teal.