"To throw in a nice note of confusion. And most likely, in the hope that the confusion might take some of the heat off Blatt."
"If there ever was a Blatt before you thought of him."
"There was a Blatt," the city editor intervened scrupulously. "I think I told you, Vaschetti spoke about him and described him."
The Lieutenant handed the gladstone back to his assistant, and kept his stony eyes on the Saint.
"That doesn't make any difference," he stated coldly. "All I care about is that whatever went on here was done inside the city limits of Galveston. There's no question about my jurisdiction this time. And I'm tired of having you in my hair, Templar. You wanted Vaschetti out of the calaboose. You arranged to meet him here. And I find you in his room in the middle of a mess that makes it look as if he could have been pushed out of that window instead of jumped. You've been much too prominent in every bit of this — from finding Matson's body to going around with Olga Ivanovitch. So I'm just going to put you where I'll know what you're doing all the time."
"Has there been a political upheaval in the last half-hour," Simon inquired with sword-edged mockery, "or do you happen to be kidding yourself that if you bring me into court on any charge I won't manage to tie this job in with the Matson barbecue and raise holy hell with all the plans for a nice peaceful election?"
Kinglake's jaw hardened out like a cliff, but the harried expression that Simon had noticed before crept in around his eyes.
"We'll worry about that when the time comes. Right now, you're going to do all your hell-raising in a nice quiet cell."
Simon sighed faintly, with real regret. It would have been so much more fun playing it the old way, but he couldn't take any more chances with that now. This game mattered so much more than the old games that he had played for fun.
"I hate to disappoint you," he said, "but I can't let you interfere with me tonight."