She kept her face perfectly blank.
“I can’t remember,” she said. “It doesn’t convey anything to me.”
“I can’t place it on the spur of the moment, but I’m certain it was something like that. But a Chicago gang leader in Baycombe! That sounds rather far-fetched.”
“I know it does,” she granted ruefully. “But so do some of the true things I’ve told you this afternoon.”
His hand just touched her arm. He smiled again—his frequent friendly smile that was so nearly irresistible even to her newborn suspicion of everything and everybody. But one thing checked her impulse to believe in him and look for enemies elsewhere. She was looking into his face, and she would have sworn that there lurked in his eyes a glimmer of suppressed amusement.
“Then shall we give it up?” he said. “We could argue for hours, and get no further. All you can do is to possess your soul in patience. Sooner or later events will prove whether your intuition is right or wrong, and then you will be able to make your decision with a clearer vision. Meanwhile, you can only act as your heart dictates. There’s a trite and priggish piece of sentimental moralising for you! But what else can an old fogey offer!”
“You’re too silly!” she laughed. “I’m awfully grateful.”
“Then, having temporarily settled the fate of the greatest romance in history, what about the tea you promised yourself?”
She thanked him, and he rose and went into the house to give the order and tidy himself up.
She was glad of the respite, for she was finding it a strain to obey the Saint’s injunction and maintain the pose of a kind of cross between a sleuth, a conspirator, and a fugitive with a price on her head. And Lapping, after so obligingly leading the conversation into the path she wanted it to follow, had given her no help at all. He was very winning and benevolent, and quite at his ease. All her baiting of the trap and stealthy stalking of her quarry had yielded not a trace of a guilty conscience. But there was still the disturbing matter of his amusement to account for. She had an uncomfortable and exasperating feeling that he was quietly making fun of her—that her crude and clumsy attempts to make him give himself away afforded him a secret malicious delight. He had given nothing away, and that fact only reinforced her growing belief that he had something to give if he chose to do so.