“Our one and only Tiger at last?”
Bloem nodded, and looked curiously at the Saint.
“You have given us more trouble than you know,” he said. “You have been extraordinarily lucky—but even the most astounding luck comes to an end.”
“Just what they told me at Monte,” agreed the Saint, “They say the Bank always wins in the long run.”
Watching closely, Simon could just note the least flicker of Bloem’s eyelids.
“Fernando, of course,” said Bloem, half to himself.
“Even so,” murmured the Saint. “I know everything but the answer to the two most important questions of all—Who is the Tiger? and Where has he cached the loot? And I’ve a feeling that it won’t be so long now before I get next to even those secrets.”
“You’re very confident,” said Bloem.
The man’s self-control was not far from perfection, but the Saint also played poker, and he had summed up Bloem to the last full stop in the course of that brief conversation. Bloem’s nerves were none too good—no man who was reasonably sure of himself would have been made to feel vaguely uneasy by such a slender bluff. That put the Saint one up on Bloem, but the Saint did not disclose his knowledge of the state of the score. His smile did not vary its quiet assurance one iota.
“I’m an odds-on chance,” said the Saint lightly. “Which reminds me—how are T. T. Deeps?”