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conservative proportions of Hamilton have to offer. Simon escorted Lona to its entrance.
    “You’ll be as safe here as you could be anywhere; and with all this merchandise to look at, unless you’re a female impersonator you won’t even miss me. Just stay away from the doors, and I’ll find you in about half an hour,” he said, and left her.
    Mr. Thearnley was a large man put together of ellipsoid shapes, with a florid complexion, very bright baggy eyes, sparse sandy hair, and a mustache of such luxuriant dimensions that it would have provided a more than adequate graft to replace what was lacking from the top of his head. The upper part of him was very correctly dressed in a black alpaca coat, white shirt with starched collar, and dark pin-striped tie; but when he rose from behind his desk to shake hands he revealed that, in conformity with local custom, his lower section was clad only in knee-length shorts and long socks. The effect was inevitably reminiscent of the time-honored farce routine in which the comedian bursts into public view fully dressed except for having forgotten to put on his trousers; but Mr. Thearnley was just as unaware of anything hilarious about it.
    “Well, Mr. Templar,” he said affably, “what can I do for you?”
    “Answer some silly questions,” said the Saint, and sat down. “I’m sure you haven’t a lot of time to waste, so I’ll fire them as fast as I can, and I hope you won’t think I’m too blunt … One: do you know another attorney in this town by the name of–-?”
    He gave the name of the attorney to whom the solicitors for Mr. Ivalot’s concubine had referred their case, which he had found out from Lona Dayne on the way over from Darrell’s Island.
    “Only for about thirty years,” Mr. Thearnley said with a smile.
    “Would you vouch for him without any qualification?”
    “Now I’m beginning to think you were serious about asking silly questions.”
    “I’ll be more specific. If he were asked to serve papers on somebody in Bermuda who accidentally happened to be a friend of his, would anything induce him. to report that he couldn’t find any trace of this defendant?”
    Mr. Thearnley’s eyes had visibly congealed.
    “If the person concerned were a friend of his, he would simply decline the case and give his reason. He would not tell a lie. He is the most ethical man I have the good fortune to know.”
    “I’m sorry,” said the Saint. “I don’t know him, and I had to ask that to confirm that a certain person is definitely untrace-able here by any ordinary means … Let me try something less delicate: How would anyone here go about getting a passport?”
    “A British subject?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “He fills out an application, and submits it with a couple of photographs–-“
    “And a birth certificate?”
    “No, that isn’t required. But the form has to be attested by someone who’s known him for a certain number of years. Not just anyone; it has to be someone with a recognized professional standing. A bank manager, a doctor, or a minister, are the usual ones. Or a lawyer.”
    Simon lighted a cigarette. It was an effort to subdue a flood tide of excitement that rose higher as one point after another of the framework that he had put together in his mind was tested and the whole structure still remained solid.
    “The last one may be the hardest,” he said. “There’s a Canadian by the name of Stanley Parker, who owns a house on a small island, way out towards the other end of Southampton. Do you happen to know anyone who knows him?”
    “This is quite a small place,” Thearnley said. “As a matter of fact, I know a little about him myself.”
    “How old would you say he was?”
    “That’s hard to guess. He’s certainly quite senile.”
    The Saint raised his eyebrows.
    “As bad as that?”
    “Well, he gives that impression. It may be partly because he’s had a stroke and can’t even speak. As it happens, the agent who made the