Her face flamed but she made no retort.
Simon started to pick up the suitcase, and was momentarily taken aback by his own lack of strength. It was a little distressing to discover that old age had caught up with him so quickly — in the space of a mere few minutes, to be exact. For he had handled the two limp gangsters without much difficulty.
He took a fresh grip, and heaved the bag on to the bed. Even for a load of books, it was astonishingly heavy for its size.
It was closed with a three-letter combination lock that surrendered its feeble little secret to the Saint's sensitive fingers in a few seconds; and he raised the lid and gazed down at two glass jars, about the size of quart milk bottles, solidly embedded in a nest of crumpled newspapers. Each of them was filled to the toj with a greenish powder.
The girl was leaning over to look with him.
"I don't know whether you know it, darling," said the Saint; gently, "but you have been taking care of about two hundred' thousand dollars' worth of iridium."
7
If she had had any reactions left he might have suspected her again. It would have been too much like an effort to show the right response — however right it was. But now she seemed to have been stunned into a purely mechanical acceptance.
"This is what you were looking for," she said.
It was a simple statement, almost naive in its tonelessness.