"I suppose I am."
"Well, I butted into this party more or less by way of a joke. A joke and a promise, Jill, which I may tell you about one day. Or maybe I won't. Whether you were right or wrong had nothing to do with it at all; but from what the late lamented Weald was saying when I crashed his sheik stuff it seems you're right, and that really has got something to do with the flowers that bloom in the spring."
There was another silence. She accepted a cigarette from his case, and a light.
Presently she said: "And after we leave the train?"
"Somewhere in this wide world," said the Saint, "there's a bloke by the name of Essenden. He is going to Paris tomorrow, and so are we."
Chapter V
How Lord Essenden was peeved,
and Simon Templar received a visitor
1
NOW, once upon a time Lord Essenden had fired a revolver at Simon Templar with intent to qualify him for a pair of wings and a white nightie. Simon bore Lord Essenden no malice for that, for the Saint was a philosopher, and he was philosophically ready to admit that on that occasion he. had been in the act of forcing open Lord Essenden's desk with a burglarious instrument, to wit, a jemmy; so that Lord Essenden might philosophically be held to have been within his rights. Besides, the bullet had missed him by a yard.