"In these days of strenuous competition," said the Saint, "it's an extraordinarily comforting thing to know you're at the top of your profession — unchallenged, undismayed, and wholly beautiful."
His audience listened to him with a very fair simulation of reverence — Patricia Holm because she had heard similar modest statements so often before that she was beginning to believe them, Peter Quentin because he was the very latest recruit to the cause of Saintly lawlessness and the game was still new and exciting.
They had met together at the Mayfair for a cocktail; and the fact that Simon Templar's remark was not strictly true did nothing to spoil the prospect of an innocent evening's amusement.
For the Saint certainly had a rival; and of recent days a combination of that rival's boundless energy and Simon Templar's cautious self-effacement had placed another name in the position in the headlines which had once been regularly booked for the Saint. Newspapers screamed his exploits from their bills; music-hall comedians gagged about him; detectives tore their hair and endured the scathing criticisms of the Press and their superiors with as much fortitude as they could call on; and owners of valuable jewellery hurriedly deposited their valuables in safes and found a new interest in patent burglar alarms.
For jewels were the specialty of the man who was known as "The Fox" — there was very little else known about him. He burst upon the public in a racket of sensational banner lines when he held up Lady Palfrey's charity ball at Grosvener House single-handed, and got clear away with nearly thirty thousand pounds' worth of display pieces. The clamour aroused by that exploit had scarcely passed its peak when he raided Sir Barnabay Gerrald's house in Berkeley Square and took a four-thousand-pound pearl necklace from a wall safe in the library while the Gerralds were entertaining a distinguished company to dinner in the next room. He opened and ransacked a Bond Street jeweller's strong-room the very next night at a cost to the insurance underwriters of over twenty thousand pounds. Within a week he was the topic of every conversation: Disarmament Conferences were relegated to obscure corners of the news sheets, and even Wimbledon took second place.
All three coups showed traces of careful preliminary spade-work. It was obvious that the Fox had mapped out every move in advance, and that the headlines were merely proclaiming the results of a scheme of operations that had been maturing perhaps for years. It was equally obvious to surmise that the crimes which had already been committed were not the beginning and the end of the campaign. News editors (who rarely possess valuable jewels) seized on the Fox as a Heavensent gift in a flat season; and the Fox worked for them with a sense of news value that was something like the answer to their blasphemous prayers. He entered Mrs. Wilbur G. Tully's suite at the Dorchester and removed her jewel-case with everything that it contained while she was in the bathroom and her maid had been decoyed away on a false errand. Mrs. Tully sobbingly told the reporters that there was only one thing which never could be replaced — a diamond-and-amethyst pendant valued at a mere two hundred pounds, a legacy from her mother, for which she was prepared to offer a reward of twice its value. It was returned to her through the post the next morning, with a typewritten expression of the Fox's sincere apologies. The news editors bought cigars and wallowed in their Hour. They hadn't anything as good as that since the Saint appeared to go out of business, and they made the most of it.
It was even suggested that the Fox might be the once notorious Saint in a new guise; and Simon Templar received a visit from Chief Inspector Teal.
"For once I'm not guilty, Claud," said the Saint, with considerable sadness; and the detective knew him well enough to believe him.
Simon had his private opinions about the Fox. The incident of Mrs. Tully's ancestral pendant did not appeal to him; he bore no actual ill-will towards Mrs. Tully, but the very prompt return of the article struck him as being a very ostentatious gesture to the gallery of a kind in which he had never indulged. Perhaps he was prejudiced. There is very little room for friendly rivalry in the paths of crime; and the Saint had his own human egotisms.
The fame of the Fox was brought home to him that evening through another line.
"There's a man who's asking for trouble," said Peter Quentin.
He pointed to a copy of the Evening News as it lay open on the table between the glasses. Simon leaned sideways and scanned it lazily.
THE MAN WHO IS NOT AFRAID OF BURGLARS
Three times attacked — three times the winner
NO QUARTER!
BARON VON DORTVENN is one visitor to London who is not likely to spend any sleepless nights on account of the wave of crime with which the police are trying in vain to cope. He has come to England to look after the bracelet of Charlemagne, which he is lending to the International Jewellery Exhibition which opens on Monday. The famous bracelet is a massive circle of gold four inches wide and thickly encrusted with rubies. It weighs eight pounds, and is virtually priceless. At present it is locked in the drawer of an ordinary desk at the house in Campden Hill which the Baron has rented for a short season. He takes it with him wherever he goes. It has been in the care of his family for five centuries, and the Baron regards it as a mascot. Baron von Dortvenn scorns the precautions which would be taken by most people who found themselves in charge of such a priceless heirloom. "Every criminal is a coward," the Baron told an Evening News representative yesterday. "I have been attacked three times in the course of my travels with the bracelet —"
"Sounds like a job for our friend the Fox," remarked Peter Quentin carelessly; and was amazed at the look Simon Templar gave him. It leapt from the Saint's eyes like blued steel.
"Think so?" drawled the Saint.
He skimmed the rest of the half-column, which was mainly concerned with the Baron's boasts of what he would do to anyone who attempted to steal his heirloom. Half-way down there was an inset photograph of a typical Junker with a double chin, close-cropped hair, monocle, and waxed moustaches.
"A nasty-looking piece of work," said the Saint thoughtfully.
Patricia Holm finished her Dry Sack rather quickly. She knew all the signs — and only that afternoon the Saint had hinted that he might behave himself for a week.
"I'm starving," she said.
They went into the restaurant, and the subject might have been forgotten during the Saint's profound study of the menu and wine list, for Simon had a very delicate discrimination in the luxuries of life. Let us say that the subject might have been forgotten — the opportunity to forget it simply did not arise.
"To get the best out of caviare, you should eat it like they used to in Rumania — in half-pound portions, with a soup-ladle," said the Saint, when the cloud of bustling waiters had dispersed.
And then he relaxed in his chair. Relaxed completely, and lighted a cigarette with infinite deliberation.
"Don't look round," he said. "The gent has got to pass our table. Just put it on record that I said I'd be damned."
The other two gazed at him vaguely and waited. A superb chef de restaurant came past, ushering a mixed pair of guests to a table on the other side of the room. One of them was a blonde girl, smartly dressed and rather good-looking in a statuesque way. The other was unmistakably the Baron von Dortvenn.
Simon could hardly keep his eyes off them. He barely trifled with his food, sipped his wine with no more interest than if it had been water, and lighted one cigarette from another with monotonous regularity. When the orchestra changed over to a dance rhythm, he pleaded that he was suffering from corns and left it to Peter Quentin to take Patricia on the floor.
The Baron was apparently not so afflicted.
He danced several times with his companion, and danced very badly. It was after a particularly elephantine waltz that Simon saw the girl, quite openly, dab her eyes with her handkerchief as she left the floor.
He leaned back even more lazily, with his eyes half closed and a cigarette merely smouldering in the corner of his mouth, and continued to watch. The couple were admirably placed for his observations — the girl facing him, and he saw the Baron in profile. And it became very plain to him that a jolly soirée was definitely not being had by all.
The girl and the Baron were arguing — not loudly, but very vehemently — and the Baron was getting red in the face. He was clearly working himself into a vicious rage, and wrath did not make him look any more savoury. The girl was trying to be dignified, but she was breaking down. Suddenly, with a flash of spirit, she said something that obviously struck home. The Baron's eyes contracted, and his big hands fastened on the girl's wrists. Simon could see the knuckles whitening under the skin in the savage brutality of the grip, and the girl winced. The Baron released her with a callous fling of her arm that spilled a fork off the table; and without another word the girl gathered up her wrap and walked away.
She came towards the Saint on her way to the door. He saw that her eyes were faintly rimmed with red, but he liked the steady set of her mouth. Her steps were a little uncertain; as she reached his table she swayed and brushed against it, slopping over a few drops from a newly-filled wine-glass.
"I'm awfully sorry," she said in a low voice.
The Saint snapped a match between his fingers, and held her eyes.
"I saw what happened — let me get you a taxi."
He stood up and came around the table while she started to protest. He led her up the stairs and through the lobby into the street.
"Really — it's awfully nice of you to bother-"
"To tell you the truth," murmured the Saint, "I have met people with a better taste in barons."
The commissionaire hailed a taxi at the Saint's nod, and the girl gave an address in St. John's Wood. Simon allowed her to thank him again, and coolly followed her in before the commissionaire closed the door. The taxi pulled out from the kerb before she could speak.
"Don't worry," said the Saint. "I was just feeling like a breath of fresh air, and my intentions are fairly honourable. I should probably have been obliged to smite your Baron on the nose if you hadn't left him when you did. Here — have a cigarette. It'll make you feel better."
The girl took a smoke from his case. They were held up a few yards farther on, in Piccadilly; and suddenly the door of the taxi was flung open and a breathless man in a double-breasted dinner-jacket appeared in the aperture.
"Pardon, madame — I did not sink I should catch you. It is yours, isn't it?"
He held up a small drop ear-ring; and as he turned his head Simon recognized him as a solitary diner from a table adjoining his own.
"Oh!" The girl sat up, biting her lip. "Thank you — thank you so much —"
"Il n'y a pas de quoi, madame" said the man happily. "I see it fall and I run after you, but always you're too quick. Now it's all right. I am content. Madame, you permit me to say you are a brave woman? I also saw everysing. Zat Baron —"
All at once the girl hid her face in her hands.
"I don't know how to thank you," she said chokingly. "You're all so sweet… Oh, my God! If only I could kill him! He deserves to be killed. He deserves to lose his beastly bracelet. I'd steal it myself —"
"Ah, but then you would be in prison, madame —"
"Oh, it'd be easy enough. It's on the ground floor… — you'd only have to break open the desk. He doesn't believe in burglar-alarms. He's so sure of himself. But I'd show him. I'd make him pay!"
She turned away to the corner and sobbed hysterically.
Simon glanced at the little Frenchman.
"Elle se trouvera mieux chez elle," he said; and the other nodded sympathetically and closed the door.
The taxi drew away in a wedge of traffic and turned up Regent Street. Simon sat back in his corner and let the girl have her cry. It was the best possible thing for her; and he could have said nothing helpful.
They had a practically clear run through to St. John's Wood; and the girl recovered a little as they neared their destination. She wiped her eyes and took out a microscopic powder puff, with the unalterable vanity of women.
"You must think I'm a fool," she said, as the taxi slowed up. "Perhaps I am. But no one else can understand."
"I don't mind," said the Saint.
The cab stopped, and he leaned across her to open the door. Her face was within two inches of his, and the Saint required all adventures to be complete. In his philosophy, knight-errantry had its own time-honoured rewards.
His lips touched hers unexpectedly; and then in a flash, with a soft laugh, he was out of the taxi. She walked past him and went up the steps of the house without looking back.
Simon rode back jubilantly to the Mayfair, and found his lady and Peter Quentin patiently ordering more coffee. The Baron had already left.
"I saw you leaving with the blonde Venus," said Peter enviously. "How on earth did you work it?"
"Is this a new romance?" smiled Patricia.
"You want to be careful of these Barons," said Peter. "Next thing you know, you'll have a couple of his pals clicking their heels at you and inviting you to meet him in Hyde Park at dawn."
The Saint calmly annexed Peter Quentin's liqueur and tilted his chair backwards. Over the rim of his glass he exchanged bows with the chivalrous Frenchman at the adjoining table, who was paying his bill and preparing to leave; and then he surveyed the other two with a lazily reckless glint in his eye that could have only one meaning.
"Let's, go home," he said.
They sauntered down Piccadilly to the block where the Saint's flat was situated; and there the Saint doffed his hat with a flourish, and kissed Patricia's hand.
"Lady, be good. Peter and I have a date to watch the moon rising over the Warrington waterworks."
In the same silence two immaculately-dressed young men sauntered on to the garage where the Saint kept his car. Nothing was said until one of them was at the wheel, with the other beside him, and the great silver Hirondel was humming smoothly past Hyde Park Corner. Then the fair-haired one spoke.
"Campden Hill, I suppose?"
"You said it," murmured the Saint. "Baron von Dortvenn has asked for it once too often."
He drove past the house for which Baron von Dortvenn had exchanged the schloss that was doubtless his more natural background. It was a gaunt Victorian edifice, standing apart from the adjacent houses in what for London was an unusually large garden, surrounded by a six-foot brick wall topped by iron spikes. As far as the Saint could see, it was in darkness; but he was not really concerned to know whether the Baron had come home or whether he had passed on to seek a more amenable candidate for his favours in one of the few night clubs that the police had not yet closed down. Simon Templar was out for justice, and he could not find his opportunity too soon.
Twenty yards beyond the house he disengaged the gear lever and swung himself out while the car was coasting to a standstill. It was then only half past eleven, but the road was temporarily deserted.
"Turn the bus round, Peter, and pretend to be tinkering with the engine. Hop back into it at the first sounds of any excitement, and be on your toes for a quick getaway. I know it's bad technique to plunge into a burglary without getting the lie of the land first, but I shall sleep like a child tonight if I have the bracelet of Charlemagne under my mattress."
"You aren't going in alone," said Peter Quentin firmly.
He had the door on his side of the car open; but the Saint caught his shoulder.
"I am, old lad. I'm not making a fully-fledged felon of you sooner than I can help — and if we were both inside there'd be no one to cover the retreat if the Baron's as hot as he tells the world."
His tone forbade argument. There was a quietly metallic timbre in it that would have told any listener that this was the Saint's own private picnic. And the Saint smiled. He punched Peter Quentin gently in the biceps, and was gone.
The big iron gates that gave entrance to the garden were locked — he discovered that at the first touch. He went on a few yards and hooked his fingers over the top of the wall. One quick springy heave, and he was on top of the wall, clambering gingerly over the spikes. As he did so he glanced towards the house, and saw a wisp of black shadow detach itself from the neighbourhood of a ground-floor window and flint soundlessly across a strip of lawn into the cover of a clump of laurels.
The Saint dropped inside the garden on his toes, and stood there swiftly knotting a handkerchief over the lower part of his face. The set of his lips was a trifle grim. Someone else was also on the job that night — he had only just arrived in time.
He slipped along the side of a hedge towards the spot where the black shadow had disappeared; but he had underrated the first intruder's power of silent movement. There was a sudden scuff of shoes on the turf behind him, and the Saint swerved and ducked like lightning. Something whizzed past his head and struck his shoulder a numbing blow: he shot out an arm and grabbed hold of a coat, jerking his assailant towards him. His left hand felt for the man's throat.
It was all over very quickly, without any noise. Simon lowered the unconscious man to the ground, and flashed the dimmed beam of a tiny pocket torch on his face. A black mask covered it — Simon whipped it off and saw the sallow face of the Frenchman who had followed him with the unfortunate girl's earring.
The Saint snapped off his flashlight and straightened up with his mouth pursed in a noiseless whistle that widened into a smile. Verily, he was having a night out…
He glided across the lawn to the nearest window, feeling around for the catch with a thin knife-blade. In three seconds it gave way, and he slid up the sash and climbed nimbly over the sill. His feet actually landed on the baronial desk. The top drawer was locked: he squeezed a fine steel claw in above the lock and levered adroitly. The drawer burst open with a crash, and the beam of his torch probed its interior. Almost the first thing he saw was a heavy circlet of dull yellow, which caught the light from a hundred crimson facets studded over its surface. Simon picked it up and shoved it into his pocket. Its great weight dragged his coat all over on one side.
And at that moment all the lights in the room went on.
The Saint whirled around.
He looked into the single black eye of an automatic held in the hand of Baron von Dortvenn himself. On either side of the Baron was a heavily-built, hard-faced man.
"So you're the Fox?" said the Baron genially.
Simon thanked heaven for the handkerchief that covered his face. The two hard-faced men were advancing towards him, and one of them jingled a pair of handcuffs.
"On the contrary," said the Saint, "I'm the Bishop of Bootle and Upper Tooting."
He held out his wrists resignedly. For a moment the man with the handcuffs was between him and the Baron's automatic, and the Saint took his chance. His left whizzed round in a terrific hook that smacked cleanly to its mark on the side of the man's jaw, and Simon leapt on to the desk. He went through the window in a flying dive, somersaulted over his hands, and was on his feet again in an instant.
He sprinted across the lawn and went over the wall like a cat. A whistle screamed into the night behind him, and he saw Peter Quentin tumble into the car as he dropped down to the pavement. Simon jumped for the Hirondel as it streaked past, and fell over the side into the seat beside the driver.
"Give her the gun," he ordered briefly, "and dodge as you've never dodged before. I think they'll be after us."
"What happened?" asked Peter Quentin; and the Saint unfastened the handkerchief from his face and grinned.
"It looks like they were waiting for someone," he said.
It took twenty minutes of brilliant driving to satisfy the Saint that they were safe from any possible pursuit. On the way Simon took the heavy jewelled armlet from his pocket and gazed at it lovingly under one of the dashboard lamps.
"That's one thing the Fox didn't put over," he said cryptically.
He was breakfasting off bacon and eggs the next morning at eleven o'clock when Peter Quentin walked in. Peter carried a morning paper, which he tossed into the Saint's lap.
"There's something for your 'Oh, yeah?' album," he said grimly.
Simon poured out a cup of coffee.
"What is it — some more intelligent utterances by Cabinet Ministers?"
"You'd better read it," said Peter. "It looks as if several people made mistakes last night."
Simon Templar picked up the paper and started at the double-column splash.
"THE FOX" CAPTURED
C.I.D. WAKES UP
BRILLIANT COUP IN KENSINGTON
ONE OF THE CLEVEREST STRATAGEMS in the history of criminal detection achieved its object at eleven-thirty last night with the arrest of Jean-Baptiste Arvaille, alleged to be the famous jewel thief known as "The Fox." Arvaille will be charged at the police court this morning with a series of audacious robberies totalling over £70,000. It will be told how Inspector Henderson, of Scotland Yard, assisted by a woman member of the Special Branch, posed as "Baron von Dortvenn" and baited the trap with a mythical "bracelet of Charlemagne" which he was stated to have brought to England for the International Jewellery Exhibition. The plot owed much of its success to the cooperation of the Press, which gave the fullest possible publicity to the "Baron's" arrival. It was stated in this newspaper yesterday that the "bracelet of Charlemagne" was a circle of gold thickly encrusted with rubies. In actual fact it is made of lead, thinly plated with gold, and the stones in it are worthless imitations. Workmen sworn to secrecy created it specially for Inspector Henderson's use.
Simon Templar read through the whole detailed story. After which he was speechless for some time..
And then he smiled.
"Oh, well," he said, "it isn't everyone who can say he's kissed a woman policeman."