And without further ado he started on the long history. He told her about Fernando, dying out in the jungle with a Tiger Cub’s kris in him, and he told her Fernando’s story. He told her about the Tiger, who was for years Chicago’s most brilliant and terrible gang leader. He told her about some of the Tiger’s exploits, and finally came to the account of the breaking of the Confederate Bank. Some of the details Fernando had told him; the rest he had gathered together by patient investigation; the accumulation worked up into a plot hair-raising enough to provide the basis of the wildest film serial that was ever made. “The Tiger’s very nearly a genius,” he said. “The way he got away with that mint of money and carted it all the miles to here is just a sample of his brain.” Then he told her about the more recent events—the little he had learned while he had been in Baycombe. How he had been suspected from the day of his arrival, and how he had done his best to encourage that suspicion, in the hope that the other side would give themselves away by trying to dispose of him. Gradually the lie of the land took shape in her mind, while the Saint talked on, putting in a touch of character here and there, recalling points that he had omitted and referring to details that he had not yet given. The story was not told smoothly—it rattled out, paused, and rattled on again, decorated with the Saint’s typical racy idiom and humorous egotism. Nevertheless, it held her, and it was a convincing story, for the Saint had a gift for graphic description. She saw the scenes at which she had been present in a new light. He ended up with a flippant account of the sport _chez_ Bittle after he had helped her get away.