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inquired the price of a handsome bottle of bath salts.
    “What,
this ?” said the Saint, taking the flagon down and wrapping it
up. “As a special bargain this morning, sweet heart, we’re letting
it go for sixpence.”
    It went
for sixpence, quickly. The Saint handed over her change without
encouraging further orders—as a matter of fact, he was rather
anxious to get rid of the damsel, in spite of her charm and obvious
inclination to be friendly, for a man with a thin weasel face under a dirty
tweed cap already overdue for the dustbin had come in, and was earnestly inspecting a showcase full of
safety razors and other articles which are less
widely advertised. Quite obviously the man was not anxious to draw
attention to himself while there was another customer
in the shop; and while there was at least one perfectly commonplace
explanation for that kind of bashful- ness
the Saint felt a spectral tingle of expectation slide over his scalp as the girl went out and Weasel Face
angled over to the counter.
    “I
haven’t seen you before,” he stated.
    His manner
was flatly casual, but his small beady eyes flitted over Simon’s
face like flies hovering.
    “Then
you should be enjoying the view,” said the Saint affably. “What
can I sell you today, comrade? Hot water bottles? Shaving
cream? Toothpaste? We have a special bargain line of castor oil—— ”
    “Where’s
Ossy?”
    “Dear
old Ossy is lying down for a while—I think he’s got a headache, or
something. But don’t let that stop you. Have you tried some of our Passion Flower
lipstick, guaranteed to seduce at the first application ?”
    The man’s
eyes circled around again. He pushed out a crumpled envelope.
    “Give
Ossy my prescription, and don’t talk so much.”
    “Just
a minute,” said the Saint.
    He took the
envelope back towards the staircase and slit it open. One glance even in the
dim light that penetrated there was enough to show him that whatever
else the thin sheet
of paper it contained might mean, it was not a prescrip tion that any ordinary pharmacist could have filled.
    He stuffed
the sheet into his pocket and came back.
    “Will you call again at
six o’clock ?” he said, and his flip pancy
was no longer obtrusive. “I’ll have it ready for you than.”
    “Awright.”
    The beady
eyes sidled over him once more, a trifle puzzedly , and the man went
out.
    Simon took
the paper back into the dispensing room and spread it out under a
good light. It was a scale plan of a building, with every detail plainly
marked even to the posi tions of the larger pieces of furniture, and
provided in addition with a closely-written fringe of marginal notes which to
the Saint’s professional scrutiny provided every item of information
that a careful burglar could have asked for; and the first
fascinating but still incomplete comprehen sion of Mr Osbett’s
extraordinary business began to reveal itself to him as he
studied it.
    IX
     
    T HE SIMPLE beauty of
the system made his pulses skip. Plans like that could be passed over in the
guise of prescriptions; boodle, cash payments for services rendered, or almost
anything else, could be handed over the counter enclosed in tubes of
cold cream or packets of Miracle Tea; and it could all be done openly and with impunity even
while other genuine customers were in the
shop waiting to be served. Even if
the man who did it were suspected and under surveillance, the same
transactions could take place countless times
under the very eyes of a watcher, and be dismissed as an entirely unimportant
feature of the suspect’s daily activi ties.
Short of deliberate betrayal, it left no loophole through which Osbett himself could be involved at all—and
even that risk, with a little
ingenuity, could probably be manipu lated
so as to leave someone like the shifty-eyed young assistant to hold the baby. It was foolproof and
puncture- proof—except against such an
unforeseen train of accidents as had delivered one fatal package