"Extraordinarily interesting," repeated the unknown, with his blue eyes gazing down in a rather dreamy way at the throng a hundred feet below. "From a purely artistic point of view, it's a pity we shan't be able to watch it."

Golter's right hand was sidling towards a bulging pocket. The stranger, with his automatic swinging in a lazy arc that centred over Golter's stomach, encouraged the movement.

"But leave the pins in, Beautiful," he murmured, "and pass 'em to me one by one. . . . That's a good boy!"

He took the bombs in his left hand as Golter passed them over, and handed them to someone whom Golter could not see—a second man who stood behind a chimney-stack.

A minute passed, in which Golter stood with his hands hanging loosely at his sides, waiting for a chance to make a grab at the gun which the stranger held with such an affectation of negligence. But the chance never came.

Instead, came a hand from behind the chimney-stack—a hand holding a bomb. The stranger took the bomb and handed it back to Golter.

"Put it in your pocket," he directed.

The second and third followed, and Golter, with his coat once again dragged out of shape by the weight, stood staring at the stranger, who, he thought, must be a detective, and who yet behaved in such an incomprehensible manner.

"What did you do that for?" he demanded suspiciously.

"My own reasons," answered the other calmly. "I am now leaving you. Do you mind?"

Suspicion—fear—perplexity—all these emotions chased and mingled with one another over Golter's unshaven face. Then inspiration dawned in his pale eyes.

"So you aren't a busy!"

The stranger smiled.

"Unfortunately for you—no. You may have heard of me. I am called the Saint. . . ."

His left hand flashed in and out of his coat pocket in a swift movement, and Golter, in the grip of a sudden paralysis of terror, stared as if hypnotised while the Saint chalked his grotesque trade-mark on the chimney-stack.