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 Orace’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 Orace’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 manœuvre. 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. And Bloem knew it. He did not show it with a muscle of his face, but his eyes glowed venomously. And the Saint, smiling a little, gazed back with a little blue devil of unholy glee dancing about just behind his lazily lowered lids. For the Saint was thinking of the whack behind the ear which Bloem had suffered for the good of the cause, and that thought made his ribs ache with noiseless laughter. . . . “I am deeply humiliated,” said Bloem in a strangled voice. “As a matter of fact, the man was masked. I let him leave the room, and then followed. When I came out of the garden, I saw Mr. Templar walking away, and immediately concluded that it was he. The real man must have gone off in another direction. I apologise.” “I accept your apology, Mr. Bloem,” said the Saint stiffly. “Don’t let it occur again.” His dignity was terrific, and for that shrewd cut he was rewarded with a look from Bloem which ought by rights to have made him vanish in a puff of smoke, leaving a small greasy stain on the carpet, but the Saint’s armour was impregnable. “I’m very sorry, Doctor,” said Bloem unevenly. “Try to forgive me, Miss Holm. I’d better go.” The Saint stepped up with the automatic. “You might need this, with a hold-up man in the neighbourhood,” he murmured mockingly. “If you meet him again, I trust you will not spare the lead.” Bloem gazed back malignantly. “You need have no fear of that, Mr. Templar,” he replied. He was just going out when Mr. Hopkins awoke to the realisation that he had been cheated of the glory of arresting an armed desperado, and that this coolly smiling man who, was getting off scot-free had flung him across the room, bruised and shaken him severely, and nearly broken his arm. “’Ere,” said the constable, whose idiom was much the same as that of Orace, “wassal this? Whatever you say, that don’t dispose of the charge of assaultin’ the police.”