"Titwillow," said the Saint. "Sullivan Titwillow. Yes, Mr Matson and I are partners in an illicit diamond buying syndicate in Rhodesia. I hope I haven't kept you up… Oh, and by the way. Don't jump into bed as soon as I go, because you'll have at least one other caller tonight. His name is Yard, and he is the Law in Galveston. Please be nice to him, because I think his feet hurt."
He left the baffled day clerk on the front stoop, and returned to the cab which he had kept waiting.
He was whistling a little tune to himself as he got in, but his gaiety was only in the performance. The presentiment in his mind was growing more solid in spite of anything he could do. And he knew that he was only trying to stave it off. He knew that what-ever happened, Fate had taken the play away from him.
"My name, if anybody should ask you," he said to his driver, "is Sugarman Treacle. I am a Canadian in the lumber business. I have sold myself on the job of investigating public vehicles with a view to equipping them with soft pine blocks and coil springs as a substitute for rubber during the present tire shortage. Please feel quite free to discuss my project with any rival researchers who want to talk it over with you."
"Okay, Colonel," said the cabby affably. "Where to now?" And then the Saint's presentiment was much too firmly materialised to be brushed off. It was something too outrageously coincidental to have ever been intelligently calculated, and at the same time so absurdly obvious that its only concealment had been that it had been too close to see.
The Saint said: "Do you know a joint called the Blue Goose?" "Yeah," said the other briefly. "You wanna go there?" "I think so."
"I can get you in. But after that you're on your own." Simon raised one eyebrow a millimeter, but he made no comment. He said: "Do you think you could shake off anybody who might be following us before we get there? My wife has been kind of inquisitive lately, and I'm not asking for trouble."
"I getcha, pal," said the driver sympathetically, and swung his wheel.
The Blue Goose had a sign outside and several cars parked in front; but the door was locked, and the chauffeur had to hammer on it to produce a scrap of face at a barred judas "window. There was a line of muttered introduction, and then the door opened. It was all very reminiscent of Prohibition, and in fact it was much the same thing, for the state of Texas was still working on the package store system and hadn't legalised any open bars.
"There y' are, doc," said the cabby. "An' take it easy."