The Saint met his eyes lengthily.
"If you were rolled flat, you could rent yourself out as a window," he said. "Instead of which, you have the colossal crust to sit there and spew that pap at me even after I've told you that I know more about Matson than you did."
"Yes," was all Kinglake replied.
"You aren't even going to make an issue out of the Blue Goose and my going there."
"No," Kinglake said curtly.
For once in his life, Simon Templar was frankly flabbergasted. He searched the shreds of his brain for a better word, and couldn't find one. Theories whirled through his head; but they were too fast and fantastic to be coordinated while he had to think on his feet.
Which was where he was thinking, since Kinglake's impenetrable stonewall had brought him up there, shrugging off Detective Yard's clumsy physical obstruction as if it had been a feather which had accidentally drifted down on to him out of a cloud.
"I've met an astonishing variety of cops in my time," he remarked absorbently; "but you, chum, are an entirely new species. You don't even attempt to give me the guileless runaround or the genteel brushoff… Have you said your last word on the subject?"
"Yes," snapped the Lieutenant. "Now will you kindly get the hell out of here and go on with the survey you were talking about?"
"I will," retorted the Saint. "And don't blame me if you find G-men in your G-string."