Bloem smiled, a little wearily, and unbuttoned his coat. The Saint's lips tightened. Bloem certainly had a convincing air of having been violently handled, and that put the Tiger another point to the good. Simon saw the Tiger's score soaring skyward at an alarming rate, but the only effect of that was to key up his own nerves, while his easy and confident manner never faltered. There were still a few more minutes to play.

"It's rather hopeless, isn't it?" said Bloem.

He was appealing to the audience, and the constable grunted his agreement.

"What was this remark you didn't understand?" asked Carn. "When he — as you say — threatened you with the revolver."

"It was most mysterious," said Bloem. "He said:

'I'm looking for the tiger's den, and I think I'm getting warm.' I still can't make out what he meant."

Simon fished out his cigarette case and began to tap a cigarette thoughtfully on his thumbnail. Apparently bored with the whole proceeding, he nevertheless saw Carn's face become a mask. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Bloem, and the Boer's bland demeanour almost took his breath away. The colossal audacity of that last statement was the crowning stroke to a truly masterly bluff. The Saint wondered if Carn himself was suspect, but Bloem's gaze rested only on the Saint. No — the gang knew nothing about Carn's real profession. Bloem was simply taking a vindictive pleasure in kicking the man whom he thought he had got where he wanted him.

And it looked dangerously as if he had got the Saint tied hand and foot and gagged. Patricia could not help him, and Carn could not — even if he cared to. It was Bloem's word against Simon's, and there was no doubt which the Bench would prefer to accept. And Bloem knew that the Saint knew that any reference to the evening's entertainment at Bittle's would be futile. Bittle would lie like a Trojan, and the Tiger was sure to have provided him with a plausible explanation of the noise that had occurred earlier that night.

The Saint grasped the consummate efficiency of the Tiger's tactics. Simon was to be shopped, and the shopping had been slickly done. He would be lucky to get away with six months' hard — and taken in conjunction with the assault upon the police in the execution of its duty the whole charge sheet might well put the Saint behind bars for upward of a year. And in that time T. T. Deeps could be salted, and the Tiger Cubs could fade gracefully away. The Saint lounged even more languidly against the mantelpiece. This last deal had certainly given the Tiger one Hades of a hand.

Yet indisputably the Saint dominated the situation. They were all waiting for him. Bloem, watching him through narrowed lids, and still training the automatic upon him, was utterly confident of the strength of his combination. He was just waiting for the Saint to confess defeat. The constable, more wary after his taste of the Saint's anger, was hanging about in the background waiting for somebody else to start the next dance. Patricia was looking anxiously at the Saint, powerless to help him, and wondering if any daring sideslip was being planned behind that lazy exterior. The one certain thing was that she did not believe Bloem's story for an instant. At any other time she might have credited it, but seen in the light of previous events that evening it savoured of nothing but the complicated web of mystery which had caught her up in its meshes and which threatened her Saint with the most sinister things. And Carn had nothing to say. As far as Bloem's story was concerned it might or might not be true — his knowledge of the Saint inclined him to believe it. But in any case the Saint was working against him, even if he was also working against the Tiger. And to have disclosed himself as Central Detective Inspector Carn of Scotland Yard would have written Finis to every chance he had of succeeding on his mission.

"We're waiting," said Bloem at last.

"So I see," drawled Simon. "If you can wait a bit longer, there are just one or two more points to clear up. The first is that I'm sure you won't mind the Doctor just examining the bump I must have raised on your cranium when I knocked you out."

He was watching Bloem closely as he spoke, and his heart sank when he saw that the man was not at all put out. Carn walked up to Bloem with a query, and Bloem nodded.

"Just behind my left ear," he said.

"Sweetest lamb," said the Saint through his teeth, "I'll bet you just hated getting that bit of realism!"

Carn looked at the Saint and shrugged.

"Someone certainly hit him very hard," he said. "Saint, you've put your foot in it this time."

"So I don't think we'll prolong this unpleasant duty," said Bloem briskly. "Constable — you have the handcuffs? I'm covering him, and I shall shoot if he attacks you again."

And then the congregation was increased by one, for a man strutted out of the darkness and stood framed in the open window.

" 'Ere, wassal this?" demanded Grace truculently.

Chapter VIII

THE SAINT IS DENSE

Bloem wheeled with a smothered exclamation, for the interruption came from behind him. Then the Boer slowly lowered his automatic — because Grace was carrying the enormous revolver which was his pride and joy, and that fearsome weapon was waving in a gentle semicircle so that it covered everyone in the room in turn. Orace leaned on the windowsill, well pleased with the timeliness of his entrance and the sensation it had caused.

"Snoldup," declared Orace brightly. "Ni jus' come in the nicker time. Looks like a dangerous carrickter, too. Orfcer," said Orace, with a lordly sweep of his free hand, "you 'ave the bracelets. Do yer dooty!"

"My good fellow — "

Orace waggled the blunderbuss threateningly in Bloem's direction.

"Lay orf 'me good fellerin'' me!" commanded Orace ferociously. "Caught in the yack, that's wot you are, an' jer carn't wriggle out av it! Constible! Wot the thunderin' 'ell are yer wytin' for? Look slippy an' clap the joolry on 'im! An' jew jusurryup an' leggo that popgun, or I'll plugya!"

Bloem let the automatic fall, and the Saint picked it up, in case of accidents.

"I can explain," persisted Bloem.

"Corse yer can," agreed Orace, scornful. “Never knew a crook 'oo couldn't."

"Oh, but he can," said the Saint. "You can stop flourishing that cannon, Orace, and come right in. I was just wondering how to get hold of you."

Orace looked doubtful, but eventually he obeyed, clambering lamely over the sill and treating Bloem to a menacing glare as he did so.

"Yessir?"

"A simple case of mistaken identity," remarked the Saint to the assembled company, in the manner of counsel opening the defence. "But Mr. Bloem was so very obstinate.... Well, this is Orace, late of His Majesty's Royal Marines, and my servant for years. Orace will now testify that I reached home just after eleven, and didn't leave again until about twenty to twelve."

The Saint did not even look at Orace as he spoke, for he knew his man. Carn, however, did, and saw Orace register surprise.

"Tha's so," said Orace. " 'Oo said yer didn't?"

"You see," Simon explained, "Mr. Bloem there was held up by an armed man to-night, and he had the idea that it was me, so he's been trying to arrest me."

Orace nodded, tilting his head away from Bloem as if the man offended his nostrils.

"Ar," said Orace derisively. "The idea!"

The Saint turned to Bloem.

"Perhaps you will now apologize?" he suggested. "Come, Mr. Bloem, admit that you didn't get a good view of your assailant, and for reasons of your own you jumped to the conclusion that it was me. He might even have been masked.. .."

The two men's eyes met. There was no misconstruing the Saint's meaning. He was offering Bloem a graceful retreat. Bloem knew that he had weakened his case by confessing that no one but himself had seen the bandit, and his story would never hold water in the face of Simon's alibi. Orace was the one factor which the Tiger, by some incomprehensible oversight, had utterly overlooked. It might even be said that only Grace's arrival at that precise moment made him a factor to be considered: if any time had elapsed between the arrest and its coming to Grace's ears, Orace might by then have been trapped into admitting that he had not seen the Saint since dinner, and possibly the Tiger had banked on some such manoeuvre. But Orace had turned up just when he was wanted, which he had an uncanny gift for doing, and thereby he had upset the Tiger's applecart irretrievably.