He strolled across the room and sat down again in an armchair beside the bookcase that was crowned with the bouquet of chrysanthemums. He felt curiously tired; but it was a tiredness of the spirit and nothing to do with his mind or body.
"I know practically everything," he said. "Including the name of the master mind you're trying to protect. Suppose I tell you all about it."
14
"We begin," said the Saint, after a little pause, "with the stealing of a three hundred thousand dollar shipment of iridium at Nashville, Tennessee, not so long ago, and our first two murders — Comrades Smith and Gobbovitch, or whatever their names were, who got a load of lead in their lunch baskets."
"I know all that," she said, with a gesture of her slender hands that might have been an effort to brush away the vision that came behind his words.
"I expect you do," said the Saint. "But we ought to begin at the beginning. Because this robbery really opened the way for the black market. It actually created a sudden and very serious shortage. And then the manufacturers who use the stuff, who were suddenly caught short like that, were informed that they could still get supplies — at a price. Some of them were in a spot where they were glad enough to get it at almost any price."
He glanced again into the jet-black eyes that were fastened on him; and he was still sorry, but he was only more sure.
"The black market salesman, no doubt, had inside information about who was most badly in need of his merchandise. Two of these guys were the late Mr Linnet, and Mr Milton Ourley There may have been others, but I don't happen to know about them. I know that Linnet had some misgivings about selling out his country for the benefit of your private angel, but the Ourley Magneto Company was not so fussy."
He looked at his watch and checked it by the other clock in his mind.
"Meanwhile, I had decided to stick my delicate nose in. I made a statement to the newspapers that I was going to clean up this black market, and I said I already knew plenty that would make it unhappy for the operators." It was a lie. I didn't know a thing. But I figured that it might scare the operators into trying to cool me off, which might give me a chance to get a line on them; or it might encourage somebody to come and sing to me a little for any one of various reasons. It isn't the newest trick in the world, but it often works. This worked. It brought me a little bird named Titania Ourley. Maybe you know her."