"I wouldn't quibble. I imagine you ought to have a priority number even to buy stolen iridium. The point is that it's an illegal market."
"But how could a respectable manufacturer buy in a market like that?"
"Respectable manufacturers have contracts with the Government. They want to fill those contracts, patriotically or for profit or both. If the only way they can get vital materials is that way, any of them are still liable to buy. It's just about as safe as any form of criminal connivance. Only one or two men in the firm would need to know, and iridium is compact and easy to handle in the quantities they use, and it would be the hell of a thing to track down and hang on them individually. So they have some iridium, and none of the workers who are using it is going to ask questions or give a damn where it came from, and maybe they had it in stock all the time."
"How would they set out to buy it?"
The Saint stretched his long legs patiently, and regarded Fernack with kindly tolerance.
"Henry," he said, "this frightful finesse and subtlety of yours is producing the corniest dialogue. You make us remind me of the opening characters in a bad play, carefully telling each other what it's all about so that the audience can get the idea too."
"I didn't—"
"You did. You know just about as much about iridium and the black market and how and why it works as anybody else, but you're feeding me all the wide-eyed questions to see if I'll let something slip that you don't happen to know. Well, you're wasting a lot of time. I hate to tell you, comrade, but you are."
The detective's rugged forthright face reddened a little deep under the skin.
"I want to know who told you to stick your oar into this."