“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?” Bloem did not answer, and the Saint prattled on: “Now, I must say you had me thinking very hard over that dud gold mine. Why should any sane man—you observe, Mynheer, that I credit you with being sane—why should any sane man want to get control of a gold mine that hasn’t turned up any gold for two years? That’s what I said to my broker, and he sent a cable out to the Transvaal especially to find out. Back comes the reply: We Don’t Know. The mine hasn’t been worked for ages, and only the greenhorn prospectors bother to look over the district—the old hands know that there isn’t enough pay dirt for a hundred square miles around the T. T. borings to stop a snail’s tooth. And yet our one and only Hans is raking in all the shares he can find, reminding ’Change of a stock they’d all forgotten existed, and every poor little rabbit of a mug investor is hunting up his scrip and wondering whether to unload while the unloading’s good or chance his arm for a fortune. All of which, to a nasty, suspicious mind like mine, is distinctly odd.” “I’m glad to see that the worry hasn’t prematurely aged you, Mr. Templar,” said Bloem.