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It was still early in the evening, but any respectable importing company would have closed its doors by now anyway-and those which specialized in not quite so respectable imports were not likely to make wassail for the stranger at their gates at any hour. Simon put the “S” volume of the directory back to bed and opened the one that contained “R.”
    There were half a column of “Rowans” inhabiting London, but of that illustrious clan only one, fortunately, possessed the first name of “Tam.” He also, fortunately, maintained a telephone, and he dwelt at Belsize Square.
    The existence of Mr. Rowan’s telephone was of use to Simon mainly as a guide to the address. He had had enough of the silent treatment at the Golden Crescent. He was not going to risk giving Rowan the same easy way out by making his approach over the phone. He would beard the star reporter in his own lair.
    The theatre crowds were in their playhouses by now, and the restaurant rush had not yet begun, so the streets in Simon’s vicinity were swarming with whole schools of unoccupied taxis. He commandeered one and was soon carried out of the whirlpool of the Piccadilly Circus-Leicester Square area into the more smoothly flowing streams farther north.
    The street where he eventually stopped might have been two hundred miles in space or fifty years back in time from the thronged centre of London he had left behind just a few minutes before. Around Belsize Square Simon’s departing taxi was the only moving vehicle. Not even one solitary human being strolled the lamplit sidewalks. The trees were big, and so were the quiet houses-three and four-storey buildings shoulder to shoulder, with hedged gardens in front. Each garden, it seemed, was the property of a cat, and each cat Simon passed (he had gotten out of the taxi some distance from his destination so as not to advertise his arrival) was constructed on the same ample scale as the trees and the houses. They were great fat lazy trusting beasts ready to roll over on the sidewalk for a stomach rub by any human who happened to wander past their respective territories.
    Simon obliged several friendly felines with a scratch and a pat, and thought that he rather admired Tam Rowan for choosing a neighbourhood so rich in animals, old trees, and nostalgia. It was not exactly the sort of section he would have expected an ambitious journalist to roost in- especially a journalist who got his name printed above lavish articles which were mentioned on the front page of his newspaper.
    Rowan’s address led the Saint up a short walk presided over by a ginger cat too sluggish even to watch him go by. Simon mounted the cement stairs at the end of the walk, which brought him to a heavy oak door, the only part of the three-storey house which was not painted white. To the right of the door was a battery of six bell-buttons variously stained with use according to the popularity of their owners. Identifying cards, ranging from the finest engraved script to ballpoint longhand on a piece of wrapping-paper, were inserted in the slots next to the push-buttons.
    The Saint passed over Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, grimaced at Laverne Larousse, Private Tutor, and was gratified to learn that his own Tarn Rowan lived in flat number 4.
    The oak door of the house was not locked, so Simon opened it and walked into the dark hall. There was a pleasant smell of chocolate cake baking, and the muted sound of a television set or radio. The only light in the entrance hall came from under the door of one of the flats. Simon found the electric switch just inside the main entrance, wondering if perhaps the landlord had removed the bulbs from the public corridors for reasons of economy. But an overhead light came on at a flick of his finger and he could see his way up the broad heavily bannistered stairway to the next floor.
    The sound of the loudspeaker which he had heard on the ground floor became louder as he climbed the neatly carpeted, slightly