The house he lived in (it may perhaps be dignified with the title of “house,” since a gang of workmen from Ilfracombe had worked without rest for thirty-six hours to make it habitable) had been built during the war as a coast defence station, at a time when the War Office were vaguely alarmed by rumours of a projected invasion at some unlikely point. Possibly because they thought Baycombe was the last point any enemy strategist would expect them to expect an invasion at, the War Office had erected a kind of Pill Box on the tor above the village. The work had been efficiently carried out, and a small garrison had been installed; but apparently the War Office had been cleverer than the German tacticians, for no attempt was made to land an army at Baycombe. In 1918 the garrison and the guns had been removed, and the miniature concrete fortress had been abandoned to the games of the local children until Simon Templar, by some means known only to himself, had discovered that the Pill Box and the quarter of a square mile of land in which it stood were still the property of the War Office, and in some secret way had managed to persuade the said War Office to sell him the freehold for twenty-five pounds. In this curious home the Saint had installed himself, together with a retainer who went by the name of Orace. And the Saint had been so overcome with the dullness of Baycombe that within three days he was the victim of routine. At 9 a.m. on this third day (the Saint had a rooted objection to early rising) the man who went by the name of Orace entered his master’s bedroom bearing a cup of tea and mug of hot water. “Nice morning, sir,” said Orace, and retired. Orace had remarked on the niceness of the morning for the last eight years, and he had never allowed the weather to change his pleasant custom.