"You made him talk?"
"I hypnotized him," said the Saint blandly, "and he talked. Then I came right along here."
The girl shook her head ruefully.
"I'm luckier than I deserve to be. If I'd thought I should ever live to fall for a gag like that—"
"It's an old gag because it's a good one, darling. Given the right staging, it never fails. So I shouldn't take it too much to heart. And now let's go home, shall we?"
He stood up, and Jill Trelawney was at a loss for anything more to say at that moment. She could only think of one feeble remark.
"But what are we going to do with — this?"
She indicated Gugliemi, and Simon looked at the man as if he had never seen him before.
"I'll take him back to Upper Berkeley Mews," he said. "I think I'd like to have a little private talk with him; that break of yours might turn out to be the most useful thing you ever did."
And take Gugliemi he did, with one hand holding the man's arm and another jamming the muzzle of the automatic into his ribs, all the way from Lambeth to the studio in Chelsea, in a taxicab which they were lucky enough to find as soon as they emerged onto the main road. He left Jill at the studio, saying that he would return in an hour; and he himself went on in the taxi with Gugliemi to Upper Berkeley Mews.