"You know where you're going?"
"Yes." Simon stood up and crushed out his cigarette. "You may hear from me again tonight."
The Lieutenant held out his hand and said: "Good luck."
Thanks," said the Saint, and went out.
Rowden and Yard and the Times-Tribune, standing in a little huddle down the corridor, turned and fanned out to stare at him as he strolled towards them. Then the Lieutenant's voice came from the doorway behind him.
"Mr Templar is leaving. Now you can all come back here."
"You know," Simon said earnestly, to Detective Yard, "I do wish your first name was Scotland."
He sauntered on, leaving his favorite plainclothes man gawping after him like a punch-drunk St Bernard whose succored victim has refused to take a drink out of its keg.
Kinglake's trephining eyes reamed the blank questioning faces of his returned entr'acteurs. He clamped his teeth defiantly into his stogie, and drew a deep breath. In that breath, every wisp of the convenient alibi that Simon Templar had suggested was swept away, and he was standing solidly on a decision of his own.
"If you want to know what we were talking about," he clipped out, "Templar was giving me a stall, and I pretended to fall for it. Now I'm going to see where he takes me. Yard, you can take charge here. I'm going to follow the Saint myself, and I'm going to bust this whole case if it takes me till Christmas."