The Saint was no stranger to the technique of the Colossal Lie. He had used it himself, on occasion. If you say you are the sheriff of some unheard-of county in Texas, almost any reasonably suspicious citizen will check up on you. But if you say you are a Governor of the Bank of England, and pick up a telephone and invite anyone to call London and verify it, the average sucker will figure that nobody would dare to tell such a preposterous tale if his bluff could be called so easily, and will not even bother to put it to the test.