Simon moved his plate a little away from him with an unconscious gesture of finality, and reached for his Pall Malls. He extended the pack towards his guest, and said: "Let me try to help you. How far do you think Milton would go to create a new business life of his own?"
Uttershaw blinked before he bent to accept the Saint's proffered light. He straightened up and exhaled his first puff of smoke a little gustily.
"I hadn't even thought that far," he said, and suddenly he looked shocked and strained. "Do you really mean what I think you're getting at?"
"I was just asking."
"But that's unbelievable. No man could build up anything like this black market alone. He'd have to have at least some associates. And I mean plain criminal associates. A man like Ourley just wouldn't have any connections like that."
"Men like Ourley have had them before. It isn't such a hell of a long time ago that speakeasy proprietors and bootleggers were quite social characters. You get to know a lot of queer people. Big business sometimes deals with queer people, when there are labor troubles or the competition gets rough. The impresarios who put on stag shows at escapist clubs for downtrodden business men move in and out of a world of queer people. Any man can make any connections he wants, if he wants them seriously enough."
Uttershaw made a helpless sort of movement with his hands.
"It seems so fantastic — to think of Milton Ourley as a criminal master mind. Why, he's — he's—"
"He's what?" Simon prompted quietly.
"He's such a dull, irascible, unimaginative, uninventive sort of windbag!" Uttershaw protested. "All he thinks about is how much money he's got, or how much he might make if it wasn't for Roosevelt; and what Tiny is doing with her latest gigolo or how he could be kept late at the office and go out on the town with the boys."