"Three weeks," drawled the Saint laconically, and walked out of Scotland Yard warbling a verse of the comedy song hit of the season — written by himself.
"I
Am the guy
Who killed Capone —"
As he passed the startled doorkeeper, he got a superb yodelling effect into the end of that last line.
And that was exactly thirty-six hours before he met Jill Trelawney for the first time.
And precisely at three o'clock on the afternoon after he had first met her, Simon Templar walked down Belgrave Street, indisputably the most astonishingly immaculate and elegant policeman that ever walked down Belgrave Street, was admitted to No. 97, was shown up the stairs, walked into the drawing room. If possible, he was more dark and cavalier and impudent by daylight than he had been by night. Weald and the girl were there.
"Good-afternoon," said the Saint.
His voice stoked the conventional greeting with an infinity of mocking arrogance. He was amused, in his cheerful way. He judged that the rankling thoughts of the intervening night and morning would not have improved their affection for him, and he was amused.
"Nice day," he drawled.