The telephone played with its own static.
"What happens with Ourley?" it asked after a while.
"I just did a little more for him," said the Saint. "You could never hang anything on him in a court of law so far as this case is concerned; but he still has Titania, and I've come to the conclusion that as a life sentence she's even worse than Alcatraz. And with the encouragement I gave her a few minutes ago, she should be even better company than she was before."
"That Sinclair girl ought to get about ten years, with Fernack's testimony of what he heard from outside the door before he broke in," said the telephone callously. "She's a good-looking number, though, isn't she? What happened to you? Are you slipping?"
"Maybe I am."
"Well… Whenever you're ready, there is something else I'd like to talk to you about."
The Saint laughed a little, and it was silent and all the way inside himself, and deep and unimportant and nothing that could be talked about ever.
"I'll catch a plane this afternoon and meet you at the Carlton for dinner. I was just wondering what I could find to do."
He lay on the bed for a little while longer after he had hung up, smoking his cigarette and thinking about several things or perhaps not anything much. But he kept remembering a girl with hair that had been stroked by midnight, and eyes that were all darkness, and lips that were like orchid petals. And that was no damn good at all.
He got up and began to pack.