He marked her puzzlement, turning to meet her eyes. Now Patricia Holm was very lovely; and the Saint loved her. At that moment, for some reason, her loveliness took him by the throat.
He slipped an arm around her shoulders, and drew her close to him.
"Saint," she said, "you're on the trail of more trouble. I know the signs."
"It's even more than that, dear," said the Saint softly. "Tonight I've seen a vision. And if it's a true vision it means that I'm going to fight something more horrible than I've ever fought before; and the name of it may very well be the same as the name of the devil himself."
2. How Simon Templar read newspapers, and understood what was not written
Here may conveniently be quoted an item from one of the stop press columns of the following morning.
"The Clarion is officially informed that at a late hour last night Mr. Lester Hume Smith, the Secretary for War, and Sir Roland Hale, Director of Chemical Research to the War Office, attended a demonstration of Professor K. B. Vargan's 'electroncloud.' The demonstration was held secretly, and no details will be disclosed. It is stated further that a special meeting of the Cabinet will be held this morning to receive Mr. Hume Smith's report, and, if necessary, to consider the Government's attitude towards the invention."
Simon Templar took the paragraph in his stride, for it was no more than a confirmation and amplification of what he already knew.
This was at ten o'clock—an extraordinary hour for the Saint to be up and dressed. But on this occasion he had risen early to break the habits of a lifetime and read every page of every newspaper that his man could buy.
He had suddenly become inordinately interested in politics; the news that an English tourist hailing from Manchester and rejoicing in the name of Pinheedle had been arrested for punching the nose of a policeman in Wiesbaden fascinated him; only such articles as "Why Grandmothers Leave Home" (by Ethelred Sapling, the brilliant author of Lovers in Leeds) continued to leave him entirely icebound.