placed each other in the lobby of the hotel with the regularity of a row of balls trickling up to the plunger of a pin-table.
After that, the Police Commissioner personally called a halt.
"It may be a very promising lead, Fernack," he said in his bleached acidulated way, "but I Cannot place all the reserves of the Police Department at your disposal to follow everyone who happens to get in touch with Mr Templar."
The Saint, who had hired every one of his visitors for that express purpose, enjoyed his own entertainment in his own way.
It was still going on when he had a much more succinct call from Washington.
"Hamilton," said the dry voice on the telephone, for enough introduction. "I saw the papers. I suppose you know what you're doing."
"I can only try," said the Saint. "I think something will happen."
He had visualised many possibilities, but it is doubtful whether he had ever foreseen anything exactly like Titania Ourley.
2
Mrs Milton Ourley was a great deal of woman. She was constructed according to a plan which is discreetly called statuesque. She wore brilliantly hennaed hair, a phenomenal amount of bright blue eye-shadow, and fingernails that would have done credit to a freshly blooded cheetah. Her given name, naturally, was not her fault; but it might have been prophetically inspired. If she was not actually the queen of the fairies, she certainly; impressed one as being in the line of direct succession.