Now he understood the paradoxical ingredient in Avalon's expression when she first saw him. And her revelation flared him into an equally paradoxical mixture of wariness and high amusement. But the barest lift of one eyebrow was the only response that could be seen in his face.
Cookie's stare had come back to him, and stayed there. When she spoke to him again her voice had no more geniality than before, and yet there was still a different note in it.
"What's your name?"
"Simon Templar," he said, with no more pointedness than if he had said "John Smith."
The effect, however, was a little different.
The muscular captain took a step back from him, and said with unconscious solemnity: "Jesus!"
Dr. Ernst Zellermann stopped mopping his mouth with a reddening handkerchief, and kept still like a pointer.
Cookie kept still too, with her gross face frozen in the last expression it had worn, and her eyes so anchored that they looked almost rigid.
The Saint said peaceably: "It's nice to have met you all, but if somebody would give me my check I'd like to get some fresh air."
The melancholy waiter was at his side like a lugubrious genie, holding up the check by the time he had finished his sentence.