Gently the Saint embarked upon the second verse of his song. And through his manifest cheerfulness he felt a faint electric tingle of expectation. ...
For he knew that it was true. He, of all men living, should have known that the age of strange adventures was not past. There were adventures all around, then, as there had been since the beginning of the world; it was a matter for the adventurer to go out and challenge them. And adventure had never yet failed Simon Templar— perhaps because he had never doubted it. It might have been luck, or it might have been his own uncanny genius; but at least he knew, whatever it was he had to thank, that whenever and wherever anything was happening, he was there. He had been born to it, the spoiled child of a wild tempestuous destiny—born for nothing else, it seemed, but to find all the fun in the world.
And he was on the old trail again.
But this time it was no fluke. His worst enemy couldn't have said that Simon Templar hadn't worked for all the trouble he was going to find that night. For weeks past he had been hunting two men across Europe—a slim and very elegant man, and a huge and very ugly man—and one of them at least he had sworn to kill. Neither of them went by the name of Heinrich Dussel, even in his spare time; but Heinrich Dussel had conferred with them the night before in the slim and very elegant man's suite at the Ritz, and accordingly the Saint had become interested in Heinrich Dussel. And then, less than two hours before the Saint's brief conversation with the Law, had commenced the Incident of the Invalid who was not ill.