“If ya ’adn’t bin ’ome punctual,” said Orace, “I’d a bin out looking for yer corpse. It ain’t fair ter give a man such a lotta worry. Yer so careless I wonder the Tiger ’asn’t putcha out ’arf a dozen times.”
“I’ve met the most wonderful girl in the world,” said Simon impenitently. “By all the laws of adventure, I’m bound to have to save her life two or three times during the next ten days. I shall kiss her very passionately in the last chapter. We shall be married——”
Orace snorted.
“Lunch ’narf a minnit,” he said, and disappeared.
The Saint washed his hands and ran a comb through his hair in the half-minute’s grace allowed him; and the Saint was thoughtful. He had his full measure of human vanity, and it tickled his sense of humour to enter the lists with the air of a Mystery Man straight out of a detective story, but he had a solid reason for giving his caprice its head. It struck him that the Tiger knew all about him and his quest, and that therefore no useful purpose would be served by trying to pretend innocence; whereas a shameless bravado might well bother the other side considerably. They would be racking their brains to find some reason for his brazen front, and crediting him with the most complicated subtleties: when all the time there was nothing behind it but the fact that one pose was as good as another, and the opportunity to play the swashbuckler was too good to be missed.
The Saint was whistling blithely when Orace brought lunch. He knew that the Tiger was in Baycombe. He had come half-way across the world to rob the Tiger of a million dollars, and the duel promised to be exhilarating as anything in the Saint’s hell-for-leather past.
Chapter II.
The Naturalist
Algernon de Breton Lomas-Coper was one of the genial Algys made famous by Mr. P. G. Wodehouse, and accordingly he often ejaculated “What? What?” to show that he could hardly believe his own brilliance; but now he ejaculated “What? What?” to show that he could hardly believe his own ears.
“It’s perfectly true,” said Patricia. “And he’s coming to lunch.”
“Wow!” gasped Algy feebly, and relapsed into open-mouthed amazement.