"Happy" Fred Jorman was a man with a grievance. He came to his partner with a tale of woe.
"It was an ordinary bit of business, Meyer. I met him in the Alexandra — he seemed interested in horses, and he looked so lovely and innocent. When I told him about the special job I'd got for Newmarket that afternoon, and it came to suggesting he might like to put a bit on himself, I'd hardly got the words out of my mouth before he was pushing a tenner across the table. Well, after I'd been to the phone I told him he'd got a three-to-one winner, and he was so pleased he almost wept on my shoulder. And I paid him out in cash. That was thirty pounds — thirty real pounds he had off me — but I wasn't worrying. I could see I was going to clean him out. He was looking at the money I'd given him as if he was watching all his dreams come true. And that was when I bought him another drink and started telling him about the real big job of the day. 'It's honestly not right for me to be letting you in at all,' I said, 'but it gives me a lot of pleasure to see a young sport like you winning some money,' I said. 'This horse I'm talking about now,' I said, 'could go twice round the course while all the other crocks were just beginning to realize that the race had started; but I'll eat my hat if it starts at a fraction less than five to one,' I said."
"Well?"
"Well, the mug looked over his roll and said he'd only got about a hundred pounds, including what he'd won already, and that didn't seem enough to put on a five-to-one certainty. 'But if you'll excuse me a minute while I go to my bank, which is just around the corner,' he said, 'I'll give you five hundred pounds to put on for me.' And off he went to get the money —"
"And never come back," said the smaller speaking part, with the air of a Senior Wrangler solving the first problem in a child's book of arithmetic.
"That's just it, Meyer," said Happy Fred aggrievedly. "He never came back. He stole thirty pounds off me, that's what it amounts to — he ran away with the ground-bait I'd given him, and wasted the whole of my afternoon, not to mention all the brain work I'd put into spinning him the yarn —"
"Brain work!" said Meyer.
Simon Templar would have given much to overhear that conversation. It was his one regret that he never had the additional pleasure of knowing exactly what his pigeons said when they woke up and found themselves bald.
Otherwise, he had very few complaints to make about the way his years of energetic life had treated him. "Do others as they would do you," was his motto; and for several years past he had carried out the injunction with a simple and unswerving wholeheartedness, to his own continual entertainment and profit. "There are," said the Saint, "less interesting ways of spending wet week-ends…"
Certainly it was a wet week-end when he met Ruth Eden, though he happened to be driving home along that lonely stretch of the Windsor road after a strictly lawful occasion.
To her, at first, he was only the providential man in the glistening leather coat who came striding across from the big open Hirondel that had skidded to a standstill a few yards away. She had seen his lights whizzing up behind them, and had managed to put her foot through the window as he went past — Mr. Julian Lamantia was too strong for her, and she was thoroughly frightened. The man in the leather coat twitched open the nearest door of the limousine and propped himself gracefully against it, with the broken glass crunching under his feet. His voice drawled pleasantly through the hissing rain.
"Evening, madam. This is Knight Errants Unlimited. Anything we can do?"
"If you're going towards London," said the girl quickly, "could you give me a lift?"
The man laughed. It was a short soft lilt of a laugh that somehow made the godsend of his arrival seem almost too good to be true.
An arm sheathed in wet sheepskin shot into the limousine — and Mr. Lamantia shot out. The feat of muscular prestidigitation was performed so swiftly and slickly that she took a second or two to absorb the fact that it had indubitably eventuated and travelled on into the past tense. By which time Mr. Lamantia was picking himself up out of the mud, with the rain spotting the dry portions of his very natty check suit and his vocabulary functioning on full throttle.
He stated, amongst other matters, that he would teach the intruder to mind his own unmentionable business; and the intruder smiled almost lazily.
"We don't like you," said the intruder.
He ducked comfortably under the wild swing that Mr. Lamantia launched at him, collared the raving man below the hips, and hoisted him, kicking and struggling, onto one shoulder. In this manner they disappeared from view. Presently there was a loud splash from the river bank a few yards away, and the stranger returned alone.
"Can your friend swim?" he inquired interestedly.
The girl stepped out into the road, feeling rather at a loss for any suitable remark. Somewhere in the damp darkness Mr. Lamantia was demonstrating a fluency of discourse which proved that he was contriving to keep at least his mouth above water; and the conversational powers of her rescuer showed themselves to be, in their own way, equally superior to any awe of circumstances.
As he led her across to his own car he talked with a charming lack of embarrassment.
"Over on our left we have the island of Runnymede, where King John signed the Magna Carta in the year 1215. It is by virtue of this Great Charter that Englishmen have always enjoyed complete freedom to do everything that they are not forbidden to do…"
The Hirondel was humming on towards London at a smooth seventy miles an hour before she was able to utter her thanks.
"I really was awfully relieved when you came along — though I'm afraid you've lost me my job."
"Like that, was it?"
"I'm afraid so. If you happen to know a nice man who wants an efficient secretary for purely secretarial purposes, I could owe you even more than I do now."
It was extraordinarily easy to talk to him — she was not quite sure why. In some subtle way he succeeded in weaving over her a fascination that was unique in her experience. Before they were in London she had outlined to him the whole story of her life. It was not until afterwards that she began to wonder how on earth she had ever been able to imagine that a perfect stranger could be interested in the recital of her inconsiderable affairs. For the tale she had to tell was very ordinary — a simple sequence of family misfortunes which had forced her into a profession amongst whose employers the Lamantias are not so rare that any museum has yet thought it worth while to include a stuffed specimen in the catalogue of its exhibits.
"And then, when my father died, my mother seemed to go a bit funny, poor darling! Anyone with a get-rich-quick scheme could take money off her. She ended up by meeting a man who was selling some wonderful shares that were going to multiply their value by ten in a few months. She gave him everything we had left; and a week or two later we found that the shares weren't worth the paper they were printed on."
"And so you joined the world's workers?"
She laughed softly.
"The trouble is to make anyone believe I really want to work. I'm rather pretty, you know, when you see me properly. I seem to put ideas into middle-aged heads."
She was led on to tell him so much about herself that they had reached her address in Bloomsbury before she had remembered that she had not even asked him his name.
"Templar — Simon Templar," he said gently.
She was in the act of fitting her key into the front door, and she was so startled that she turned around and stared at him, half doubtful whether she ought to laugh.
But the man in the leather coat was not laughing, though a little smile was flickering round his mouth. The light over the door picked out the clean-cut buccaneering lines of his face under the wide-brimmed filibuster's hat, and glinted back from the incredibly clear blue eyes in such a blaze of merry mockery as she had never seen before… It dawned upon her, against all her ideas of probability, that he wasn't pulling her leg…
"Do you mean that I've really met the Saint?" she asked dizzily.
"That's so. The address is in the telephone book. If there's anything else I can do, any time —"
"Angels and ministers of grace!" said the girl weakly, and left him standing there alone on the steps; and Simon Templar went laughing back to his car.
He came home feeling as pleased as if he had won three major wars single-handed, for the Saint made for himself an atmosphere in which no adventure could be commonplace. He pitched his hat into a corner, swung himself over the table, and kissed the hands of the tall slim girl who rose to meet him.
"Pat, I have rescued the most beautiful damsel, and I have thrown a man named Julian Lamantia into the Thames. Does life hold any more?"
"There's some mud on your face, and you're as wet as if you'd been in the river yourself," said his lady.
The Saint had the priceless gift of not asking too much of life. He cast his bread with joyous lavishness upon the waters, and tranquilly assumed that he would find it after many days — buttered and thickly spread with jam. In his philosophy that night's adventure was sufficient unto itself; and when, twenty-four hours later, his fertile brain was plunged deep into a new interest that had come to him, he would probably have forgotten Ruth Eden altogether, if she had not undoubtedly recognized his name. The Saint had his own vanity.
Consequently, when she called him one afternoon and announced that she was coming to see him, he was not utterly dumbfounded.
She arrived about six o'clock, and he met her on the doorstep with a cocktail shaker in his hand.
"I'm afraid I left you very abruptly the other night," she said. "You see, I'd read all about you in the newspapers, and it was rather overpowering to find that I'd been talking to the Saint for three-quarters of an hour without knowing it. In fact, I was very rude; and I think it's awfully sweet of you to have me."
He sat her down with a dry Martini and a cigarette, and once again she felt the strange sense of confidence that he inspired. It was easier to broach the object of her visit than she had expected.
"I was looking through some old papers yesterday, and I happened to come across those shares I was telling you about — the last lot my mother bought. I suppose it was ridiculous of me to think of coming to you, but it occurred to me that you'd be the very man who'd know what I ought to do about them — if there is anything that can be done. I've got quite a lot of nerve," she said, smiling.
Simon slipped the papers out of the envelope she handed him and glanced over them. There were ten of them, and each one purported to be a certificate attributing to the bearer two hundred £ shares in the British Honduras Mineral Development Trust.
"If they're only worth the paper they're printed on, even that ought to be something," said the Saint. "The engraving is really very artistic."
He gazed at the shares sadly. Then, with a shrug, he replaced them in the envelope and smiled. "May I keep them for a day or two?"
She nodded.
"I'd be frightfully grateful." She was watching him with a blend of amusement and curiosity; and then she laughed. "Excuse me staring at you like this, but I've never met a desperate criminal before. And you really are the Saint — you go about killing dope traffickers and swindlers and all that sort of thing?"
"And that sort of thing," admitted the Saint mildly.
"But how do you find them? I mean, if I had to go out and find a swindler, for instance —"
"You've met one already. Your late employer runs the J. L. Investment Bureau, doesn't he? I can't say I know much about his business, but I should be very surprised if any of his clients made their fortunes through acting on his advice."
She laughed.
"I can't think of any who have done so; but even when you've found your man —"
"Well, every case is taken on its merits; there's no formula. Now did you ever hear what happened to a bloke named Francis Lemuel —"
He amused her for an hour with the recital of some of his more entertaining misdeeds; and when she left she was still wondering why his sins seemed so different in his presence, and why it was so impossible to feel virtuously shocked by all that he admitted he had done.
During the next few days he gave a considerable amount of thought to the problem of the Eden family's unprofitable investments; and since he had never been afflicted with doubts of his own remarkable genius, he was not surprised when the course of his inquiries produced a possible market which had nothing at all to do with the Stock Exchange. Simon had never considered the Stock Exchange anyway.
He was paying particular attention to the correctly rakish angle of his hat preparatory to sallying forth on a certain morning when the front door bell rang and he went to open to the visitor. A tall saturnine man, with white moustache and bushy white eyebrows, stood on the mat, and it is an immutable fact of this chronicle that he was there by appointment.
"Can I see Captain Tombs? My name —"
"Is Wilmer-Steak?"
"Steck."
"Steck. Pleased to meet you. I'm Captain Tombs. Step in, comrade. How are you off for time?"
Mr. Wilmer-Steck suffered himself to be propelled into the sitting-room, where he consulted a massive gold watch.
"I think I shall have plenty of time to conclude our business, if you have enough time to do your share," he said.
"I mean, do you think you could manage to wait a few minutes? Make yourself at home till I come back?" With a bewildering dexterity the Saint shot cigarette-box, matches, pile of magazines, decanter, and siphon on to the table in front of the visitor. "Point is, I absolutely must dash out and see a friend of mine. I can promise not to be more than fifteen minutes. Could you possibly wait?"
Mr. Wilmer-Steck blinked.
"Why, certainly, if the matter is urgent, Captain — er —"
"Tombs. Help yourself to anything you want. Thanks so much. Pleased to see you. Bye-bye," said the Saint.
Mr. Wilmer-Steck felt himself wrung warmly by the hand, heard the sitting-room door bang, heard the front door bang, and saw the figure of his host striding past the open windows; and he was left pardonably breathless.
After a time, however, he recovered sufficiently to help himself to a whisky-and-soda, and a cigarette, and he was sipping and puffing appreciatively when the telephone began to ring.
He frowned at it vaguely for a few seconds; and then he realized that he must be alone in the house, for no one came to take the call. After some further hesitation, he picked up the receiver.
"Hullo," he said.
"Listen, Simon — I've got great news for you," said the wire. "Remember those shares of yours you were asking me to make inquiries about? Well, it's quite true they were worth nothing yesterday, but they'll be worth anything you like to ask for them tomorrow. Strictly confidential till they release the news, of course, but there isn't a doubt it's true. Your company has struck one of the biggest gushers on earth — it's spraying the landscape for miles around. The papers'll be full of it in twenty-four hours. You're going to pick up a fortune!"
"Oh!" said Mr. Wilmer-Steck."
"Sorry I can't stop to tell you more now, laddie," said the man on the wire. "I've got a couple of important clients waiting, and I must see them. Suppose we meet for a drink later. Berkeley at six, what?"
"Ah," said Mr. Wilmer-Steck.
"Right-ho, then, you lucky old devil. So-long!"
"So-long," said Mr. Wilmer-Steck.
He replaced the receiver carefully on its bracket, and it was not until several minutes afterwards that he noticed that his cigarette had gone out.
Then, depositing it fastidiously in the fireplace and helping himself to a fresh one, he turned to the telephone again and dialled a number.
He had scarcely finished his conversation when the Saint erupted volcanically back into the house; and Mr. Wilmer-Steck was suffering from such profound emotion that he plunged into the subject of his visit without preamble.
"Our directors have gone carefully into the matter of those shares you mentioned, Captain Tombs, and I am happy to be able to tell you that we are prepared to buy them immediately, if we can come to an agreement. By the way, will you tell me again the exact extent of your holding?"
"A nominal value of two thousand pounds," said the Saint. "But as for their present value —"
"Two thousand pounds!" Mr. Wilmer-Steck rolled the words almost gluttonously round his tongue. "And I don't think you even told us the name of the company."
"The British Honduras Mineral Development Trust."
"Ah, yes! The British Honduras Mineral Development Trust!.. Naturally our position must seem somewhat eccentric to you, Captain Tombs," said Mr. Wilmer-Steck, who appeared to have only just become conscious of the fact, "but I can assure you —"
"Don't bother," said the Saint briefly.
He went to his desk and flicked open a drawer, from which he extracted the bundle of shares.
"I know your position as well as you know it yourself. It's one of the nuisances of running a bucket-shop that you have to have shares to work on. You couldn't have anything more worthless than this bunch, so I'm sure everyone will be perfectly happy. Except, perhaps, your clients — but we don't have to worry about them, do we?"
Mr. Wilmer-Steck endeavoured to look pained, but his heart was not in the job.
"Now, if you sold those shares for, let's say, three hundred pounds —"
"Or supposing I got five hundred for them —
"If you were offered four hundred pounds, for instance —"
"And finally accepted five hundred —"
"If, as we were saying, you accepted five hundred pounds," agreed Mr. Wilmer-Steck, conceding the point reluctantly, "I'm sure you would not feel you had been unfairly treated."
"I should try to conceal my grief," said the Saint.
He thought that his visitor appeared somewhat agitated, but he never considered the symptom seriously. There was a little further argument before Mr. Wilmer-Steck was persuaded to pay over the amount in cash. Simon counted out the fifty crisp new ten-pound notes which came to him across the table, and passed the share certificates over in exchange. Mr. Wilmer-Steck counted and examined them in the same way.
"I suppose you're quite satisfied?" said the Saint. "I've warned you that to the best of my knowledge and belief those shares aren't worth a fraction of the price you've paid for them —"
"I am perfectly satisfied," said Mr. Wilmer-Steck. He pulled out his large gold chronometer and glanced at the dial. "And now, if you will excuse me, my dear Captain Tombs, I find I am already late for an important engagement."
He made his exit with almost indecent haste.
In an office overlooking the Haymarket he found two men impatiently awaiting his return. He took off his hat, mopped his forehead, ran a hand over his waistcoat, and gasped.
"I've lost my watch," he said.
"Damn your watch," said Mr. Julian Lamantia callously. "Have you got those shares?"
"My pocket must have been picked," said the bereaved man plaintively. "Yes, I got the shares. Here they are. It was a wonderful watch, too. And don't you forget I'm on to half of everything we make."
Mr. Lamantia spread out the certificates in front of him, and the man in the brown bowler who was perched on a corner of the desk leaned over to look.
It was the latter who spoke first.
"Are these the shares you bought, Meyer?" he asked in a hushed whisper.
Wilmer-Steck nodded vigorously.
"They're going to make a fortune for us. Gushers blowing oil two hundred yards in the air — that's the news you'll see in the papers tomorrow. I've never worked so hard and fast in my life, getting Tombs to —"
"Who?" asked the brown bowler huskily.
"Captain Tombs — the mug I was working. But it's brain that does it, as I'm always saying… What's the matter with you, Fred — are you feeling ill?"
Mr. Julian Lamantia swivelled round in his chair.
"Do you know anything about these shares, Jorman?" he demanded.
The brown bowler swallowed.
"I ought to," he said. "I was doing a big trade in them three or four years ago. And that damned fool has paid five hundred pounds of our money for 'em — to the same man that swindled me of thirty pounds only last week! There never was a British Honduras Mineral Development Trust till I invented it and printed the shares myself. And that — that —"
Meyer leaned feebly on the desk.
"But listen, Fred," he pleaded. "Isn't there some mistake? You can't mean — After all the imagination and brain work I put into getting those shares —"
"Brain work!" snarled Happy Fred.