"Milton," said Mrs Ourley glacially, "I heard you and Mr Linnet talking about iridium last night. And since Simon is trying to break up that racket, I thought it would be a good idea to bring you two together."
Milton Ourley stared at the Saint, and his broad chest seemed to shrink one or two sizes. That might have been only an impression, for he stood as solid as a sawed-off colossus on his short stocky legs. Certainly he did not stagger and collapse. His glare lost none of its fundamental bellicosity. It was only quieter, and perhaps more calculating.
"Oh, did you?" he said.
The Saint fingertipped a cigarette out of the pack in his breast pocket. For his part, the approach was all ploughed up anyhow. He had given Titania Ourley little enough script to work with, and now that she had gone defensively back into simple facts it was no use worrying about what other lines might have been developed. Simon resigned himself to some hopeful adlibbing, and smiled at Mr Ourley without the slightest indication of uncertainty in his genial nonchalance.
"You see?" he murmured. "Tiny has brains as well as beauty."
Ourley's red face deepened into purple again.
"You leave my wife out of this!" he bellowed. "And as for you, you can get out of here this minute, Mister Templar. When you've got any authority to come barging into other people's affairs—"
"You heard the name," Simon replied softly. "Did you ever hear of the Saint asking for any authority?"
"And seem a saint when most I play the devil," said another voice, a deep cultured voice from somewhere else in the hall.
Simon looked around for it.