XII

The Art Photographer

"It becomes increasingly obvious," said the Saint, "that the time has arrived when we shall have to squash Mr. Gilbert Tanfold."

He did not utter this prophecy within the hearing of Mr. Tanfold, for that would have been a gesture of a kind in which Simon Templar indulged more rarely now than he had once been wont to do. If the time had arrived when the squashing of Mr. Tanfold became a public service which no altruistic freebooter could refuse to perform, the time had also passed when the squashing could be carried out with full theatrical honours, with a haloed drawing on a plain card left pinned to the resultant blob of grease to tell the world that Simon Templar had been there. There was too much interest in his activities at Scotland Yard for anything like that to be entered upon without an elaborate preparation of alibis, which was rather more trouble than he thought Mr. Tanfold was worth. But the ripeness for squashing, the zerquetschenreiftichkeit, if we may borrow a word which the English language so unhappily lacks, of Mr. Gilbert Tanfold, even if it could not be made a public ceremony, could not be overlooked altogether for any such trivial reason.

The advertisements of Mr. Tanfold appeared in the black pages of several appropriate journals, and were distinguished by their prodigality of exclamation marks and their unusual vagueness of content. The specimen which was answered by a certain Mr. Tombs was fairly typical.

PARISIAN ART PHOTOS!!!!!!!!

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G. TANFOLD & CO., Gaul St., Birmingham.

It was an advertisement which regularly brought in a remarkable amount of business, considering that it left so much to the imagination; but certain imaginations are like that.

The imagination of Mr. Gilbert Tanfold, however, soared far above the ordinary financial possibilities of this commonplace catering to pornography. If ever there was a man who did not believe in Art for Art's sake this man walked the earth with his ankles enveloped in the spats of Mr. Gilbert Tanfold. Where any other man trading in these artistic lines would have been content with the generous profit from the sale of his "exceptional rarities," Mr. Tanfold had made them merely stepping-stones to bigger things; which was one of the reasons for his tempting zerquetschenreiflichkeit aforesaid.

Every letter which came to his cheap two-roomed office in Birmingham was examined with an interest that would have astonished the unsuspecting writer. Those which, by inferior notepaper, cheaply printed letterheads, and/or clumsy handwriting, branded their authors as persons of no great substance, merely had their orders filled by return, as specified; and that, so far as Mr. Tanfold was concerned, was the end of them. But those letters which, by expensive paper, die-stamped letterheads, and/or an educated hand, hinted at a client who really had no business to be collecting rude pictures or "curiosities," came under the close scrutiny of Mr. Tanfold himself; and their orders were merely the beginning of many other things.

Mr. Tombs wrote on the notepaper of the Palace Royal Hotel, London, which was so expensive that only millionaires, film stars, and buccaneers could afford to live there; and it is a curious fact that Mr. Tanfold entirely forgot that third category of possible guests when he saw the letter. It must be admitted, in extenuation, that Simon Templar misled him. For as his profession (which all customers were asked to state with their order) he gave "Business man (Australian)."

Mr. Gilbert Tanfold, like others of his ilk, had a sound working knowledge of the peculiar psychology of wealthy Colonials at large in London — of that open-hearted, almost pathetically guileless eagerness to be good fellows which leads them to buy gold bricks in the Strand, or to hand thousands of pounds in small notes to two perfect strangers as evidence of their good faith — and he was so impressed with the potentialities of Mr. Tombs that he ordered the very choicest pictures in his stock to be included in the filling of the order, and made a personal trip to London the next day to find out more about his Heaven-sent bird from the bush.

The problem of making stealthy inquiries about a guest in a place like the Palace Royal Hotel might have troubled anyone less experienced in the art of investigating prospective victims; but to Mr. Tanfold it was little more than a matter of routine, a case of Method C4 (g ). He knew that lonely men in a big city will always talk to a barman, and simply followed the same procedure himself. To a man as practised as he was in the technique of drawing gossip out of unwitting informants, results came quickly. Yes, the barman at the Palace Royal knew Mr. Tombs.

"A tall dark gentleman with glasses — is that him?"

"That's him," agreed Mr. Tanfold glibly; and learned, as he had hoped, that Mr. Tombs was a regular and solitary patron of the bar.

It did not take him much longer to discover that Mr. Tombs's father was an exceedingly rich and exceedingly pious citizen of Melbourne, a loud noise in the Chamber of Commerce, an only slightly smaller noise in the local government, and an indefatigable guardian of public morality. He also gathered that Mr. Tombs, besides carrying on his father's business, was expected to carry on his moralising activities also, and that this latter inheritance was much less acceptable to Mr. Tombs Jr. than it should have been to a thoroughly well-brought-up young man. The soul of Sebastian Tombs II, it appeared, yearned for naughtier things: the panting of the psalmist's hart after the water-brooks, seemingly, was positively as no pant at all compared with the panting of the heart of, Tombs fils after those spicy improprieties on which it was the devoted hobby of Tombs père to bring down all the weight of public indignation. The barman knew this because the younger Tombs had sought his advice on the subject of wild-oat sowing in London, and had confessed himself sadly disappointed with the limited range of fields available to the casual sower. He was, in fact, living only for the day when the business which had brought him to England would be over, and he would be free to continue his search for sin in Paris.

Mr. Tanfold did not rub his hands gloatingly; but he ordered another drink, and when it had been served he laid a ten-pound note on the bar.

"You needn't bother about the change," he said, "if you'd like to do me a small favour."

The barman looked at the note, and picked it up. The only other customers at the bar at that moment were two men at the other end of the room, who were out of earshot.

"What can I do, sir?" he asked.

Mr. Tanfold put a card on top of the note — it bore the name of a firm of private inquiry agents who existed only in his imagination.

"I've been engaged to make some inquiries about this fellow," he said. "Will you point him out to me when he comes in? I'd like you to introduce us. Tell him I'm another lonely Australian, and ask if he'd like to meet me — that's all I want."

The barman hesitated for a second, and then folded the note and put it in his pocket with a cynical nod. Mr. Tombs meant nothing to him, and ten pounds was ten pounds.

"That ought to be easy enough, sir," he said. "He usually gets here about this time. What name do I say?"

It was, as a matter of fact, almost ridiculously simple — so simple that it never occurred to Mr. Tanfold to wonder why. To him, it was only an ordinary tribute to the perfection of his routine — it is an illuminating sidelight on the vanity of "clever" criminals that none of Simon Templar's multitudinous victims had ever paused to wonder whether perhaps someone else might not be able to duplicate their brilliantly applied psychology, and do it just a little better than they did.

Mr. Tombs came in at half-past six. After he had had a drink and glanced at an evening paper, the barman whispered to him. He looked at Mr. Tanfold. He left his stool and walked over. Mr. Tanfold beamed. The barman performed the requisite ceremony. "What'll you have?" said Mr. Tombs. "This is with me," said Mr. Tanfold.

It was as easy as that.

"Cheerio," said Mr. Tombs.

"Here's luck," said Mr. Tanfold.

"Lousy weather," said Mr. Tombs, finishing his drink at the second gulp.

"Well," said Mr. Tanfold, "London isn't much of a place to be in at any time."

The blue eyes of Mr. Tombs, behind their horn-rimmed spectacles, focused on him with a sudden dawn of interest. Actually, Simon was assuring himself that any man bom of woman could really look as unsavoury as Mr. Tanfold and still remain immune to beetle-paste. In this he had some justification, for Mr. Gilbert Tanfold was a small and somewhat fleshy man with a loose lower lip and a tendency to pimples, and his natty clothes and the mauve shirts which he affected did not improve his appearance, though no doubt he believed they did. But the only expression which Mr. Tanfold discerned was that which might have stirred the features of a "weeping Israelite by the waters of Babylon who perceived a fellow exile drawing nigh" to hang his harp on an adjacent tree.

"You've found that too, have you?" said Mr. Tombs, with the morbid satisfaction of a hospital patient discovering an equally serious case in the next bed.

"I've found it for the last six months," said Mr. Tanfold firmly. "And I'm still finding it. No fun to be had anywhere. Everything's too damn respectable. I hope I'm not shocking you—"

"Not a bit," said Mr. Tombs. "Let's have another drink."

"This is with me," said Mr. Tanfold.

The drinks were set up, raised, and swallowed.

"I'm not respectable," said Mr. Tanfold candidly. "I like a bit of fun. You know what I mean." Mr. Tanfold winked — a contortion of his face which left no indecency unsuggested. "Like you can get in Paris, if you know where to look for it."

"I know," said Mr. Tombs hungrily. "Have you been there?"

"Have I been there!" said Mr. Tanfold.

Considering the point later, the Saint was inclined to doubt whether Mr. Tanfold had been there, for the stories he was able to tell of his adventures in the Gay City were far more lurid than anything else of its kind which the Saint had ever heard — and Simon Templar reckoned that he knew Paris from the Champs- Elysees to the fortifs. Nevertheless, they served to pass the time very congenially until half-past seven, when Mr. Tanfold suggested that they might have dinner together and afterwards pool their resources in the quest for "a bit of fun."

"I've been here a bit longer than you," said Mr. Tanfold generously, "so perhaps I've found a few places you haven't come across."

It was a very good dinner washed down with liberal quantities of liquid, for Mr. Tanfold was rather proud of the hardness of his head. As the wine flowed, his guest's tongue loosened — but there, again, it had never occurred to Mr. Tanfold that a tongue might be loosened simply because its owner was anxious that no effort should be spared to give its host all the information which he wanted to hear.

"If my father knew I'd been to Paris, I'm perfectly certain he'd disinherit me," Mr. Tombs revealed. "But he won't know. He thinks I'm sailing from Tilbury; but I'm going to have a week in Paris and catch the boat at Marseilles. He thinks Paris is a sort of waiting-room for hell. But he's like that about any place where you can have a good time. And five years ago he disowned a younger brother of mine just because he'd been seen at a night club with a girl who was considered a bit fast. Wouldn't listen to any excuses — just threw him out of the house and out of the business, and hasn't even mentioned his name since. That's the sort of puritan he is."

Mr. Tanfold made sympathetic noises with his tongue, while the area of flesh under the front of his mauve shirt which might by some stretch of imagination have been described as his bosom warmed with the glowing ecstasy of a dog sighting a new and hitherto undreamed-of lamp-post.

"When are you making this trip to Paris, old man?" he asked enviously.

"At the end of next week, I hope," said the unregenerate scion of the house of Tombs. "It all depends on how soon I can get my business finished. I've got to go to Birmingham on Friday to see some manufacturers, worse luck — and that'll probably be even deadlier than London."

Mr. Tanfold's head hooked forward on his neck, and his eyes expanded.

"Birmingham?" he ejaculated. "Well, I'm damned! What a coincidence!"

"What's a coincidence?"

"Why, your going to Birmingham. And you think it's a deadly place! Haven't you ever heard of Gilbert Tanfold?"

Mr. Tombs nodded.

"Sells pictures, doesn't he? Yes, I've had some of 'em. I didn't think they were so hot."

Mr. Tanfold was so happy that this aspersion on his Art glanced off him like a pea off a tortoise.

"You can't have had any of his good ones," he said. "He keeps those for people he knows personally. I met him last week, and he showed me pictures… " Mr. Tanfold went into details which eclipsed even his adventures in Paris. "The coincidence is," he wound up, "that I've got an invitation to go to Birmingham on Friday myself and visit his studio."

Mr. Tombs swallowed so that his Adam's apple jiggered up and down.

"Gosh," he said jealously, "that ought to be interesting. I wish I had your luck."

Tanfold's face lengthened commiseratingly, as if the thought that his new-found friend would be unable to share his good fortune had taken away all his enthusiasm for the project. And then, as if the solution had only just struck him, he brightened again.

"But why shouldn't you?" he demanded. "I said we'd pool our resources, and I ought to be able to arrange it. Now, suppose we go to Birmingham together — that is, if you don't think I'm thrusting myself on you too much—"

And that part also was absurdly easy; so that Mr. Gilbert Tanfold returned to his more modest hotel much later that night with his heart singing the happy song of a vulture diving on a particularly fruity morsel of carrion. He had not even had to devise any pretext to induce the simple Tombs to travel to Birmingham — Mr. Tombs had already planned the trip in his itinerary with a thoughtfulness which almost suggested that he had foreseen Mr. Tanfold's need. And yet, once again, this obvious explanation never occurred seriously to Gilbert Tanfold. He preferred to believe in miracles wrought for his benefit by a kindly Providence, which was a disastrous error for him to make.

The rest of his preparations proceeded with the same smoothness of routine. They went to Birmingham together on the Friday, and kept the steward busy on the Pullman throughout the journey. In Birmingham they had lunch together, diluted with more liquor. By the time they were ready for their visit to the studios of G. Tanfold & Co., Mr, Tanfold estimated that his companion was in an ideal condition to enjoy his experience. On arrival they were informed, most unveraciously, that urgent business had called Mr. Tanfold himself to London, but he had arranged that they should have the free run of the premises. The entertainment offered, it is sufficient to record, was one in which Mr. Tanfold believed he had surpassed himself as an impresario of impropriety.

Mr. Tombs, with remarkable fortune, was able to conclude his business on the Saturday morning, and returned to London on the Sunday. He announced his intention of leaving for Paris on the Tuesday, and they parted with mutual expressions of goodwill. Mr. Tanfold said that he himself would return to London on Monday, and they arranged to lunch together on that day and go on to paint the town red.

When Mr. Tanfold arrived at the Palace Royal Hotel a little before one o'clock on Monday, however, he did not have the air of a man who was getting set to experiment in what could be done with a pot of red paint and the metropolitan skyline. Laying his hat and stick on the table and pulling off his lavender-tinted gloves in Mr. Tombs's suite, he was laconically unresponsive to the younger Tombs's effusive cries of welcome.

"Look here, Tombs," he said bluntly, when he had straightened his heliotrope tie, "there's something you'd better know."

"Tell me all, dear old wombat," said Mr. Tombs, who appeared to have acquired some of the frothier mannerisms of the City during his visit. "What have you done?"

"I haven't introduced myself properly," said his guest brazenly. "I am Gilbert Tanfold."

For a moment the antipodean Tomblet seemed taken aback; and then he grinned good-humouredly.

"Well, you certainly spruced me, Gilbert," he said. "What a joke! So it was really your own studio we went to!"

Mr. Tombs grinned again. He made remarks about Mr. Tanfold's unparalleled sense of humour in terms which were clearly designed to be flattering, but which were too biological in trend to be acceptable in mixed company. Mr. Tanfold, however, was not there to be flattered. He cut his host short with a flick of one well-manicured hand.

"Let's talk business," he said shortly. "I've got a photograph that was taken of you while you were at the studio."

Mr. Tombs's expression wavered uncertainly; and it may be mentioned that that waver was not the least difficult of the facial exercises which the Saint had had to go through during his acquaintance with Mr. Tanfold. For the expression which was at that moment spreading itself across Simon Templar's inside was a wholly different affair, which would have made the traditional Cheshire cat look like a mask of melancholy: even then, he had not outgrown the urchin glee of watching the feet of the ungodly planting themselves firmly on the banana-skin of doom.

Nevertheless, outwardly he wavered.

"Photograph?" he repeated.

Mr. Tanfold drew out his wallet, extracted a photograph therefrom, and handed it over. The Saint stared at it, and beheld his own unmistakable likeness, except for the hornrimmed spectacles which were not a normal part of his attire, wrapped in a most undignified grapple with a damsel whose clothing set up its own standard of the irreducible minimum of diaphanous underwear.

"Good Lord!" he gasped. "When was this taken?"

"You ought to remember," said Mr. Tanfold, polishing his finger-nails on his coat lapel.

"But — but —" The first dim inkling of the perils of the picture which he held seemed to dawn on Mr. Tombs, and he choked. "But this was an accident! You remember, Tanfold. They wanted her to sit on top of a step-ladder — they asked me to help her up — and I only caught her when she slipped—"

"I know," said Mr. Tanfold. "But nobody else does. You're the mug, Tombs. That photograph wouldn't look so good in a Melbourne paper, would it? With a caption saying: 'Son of prominent Melbourne business man "holding the baby" at artists' revel in Paris' — or something like that."

Mr. Tombs swallowed.

"But I can explain it all," he protested. "It was—"

"Your father wouldn't listen to any explanations when your younger brother made a mistake, would he?" said Tanfold. "Besides, what were you doing in that studio at all? Take a look at where you are, Tombs, and get down to business. I'm here to sell you the negative of that picture — at a price."

The Saint's mouth opened.

"But that — that's blackmail!" he gasped.

"It doesn't bother me what you call it," Tanfold said smugly. "There's the position, and I want five thousand pounds to let you out of it."

Simon's eyes narrowed.

"Well, perhaps this'll bother you," he said; and a fist like a chunk of stone shot over and sent Tanfold sprawling into the opposite corner of the room. Mr. Tombs unbuttoned his coat. "Get up and come back for some more, you lousy crook," he invited.

Tanfold wiped his smashed lips with his handkerchief, and spat out a tooth. His small eyes went black and evil, but he did not get up.

"Just for that, it'll cost you ten thousand," he said viciously. "That stuff won't help you, you damn fool. Whatever you do, you won't get the plate back that way."

"It gives me a lot of fun, anyway," said the Saint coldly. "And I only wish your miserable body could stand up to more of it."

He picked Mr. Tanfold up by the front of his mauve shirt with one hand, and slammed him back into the corner again with the other; and then he dropped into a chair by the table, pushed Mr. Tanfold's hat and stick on to the floor, and took out a cheque-book and a fountain-pen. He made out the cheque with some care, and dropped that also on the floor.

"There's your money," he said, and watched the trembling Mr. Tanfold pick it up. "Now you can get out."

Mr. Tanfold had more things to say, but caught a glimpse of the unholy light in Mr. Tombs's mild blue eye, and changed his mind in the nick of time. He gathered up his hat and stick and got out.

In one of the washrooms of the hotel he repaired some of the damage that had been done to his natty appearance, and reflected malevolently that Mr. Tombs was somewhat optimistic if he thought he was going to secure his negative for a paltry ten thousand pounds after what had happened. In a day or two he would make a further demand — but this time he would take the precaution of doing it by telephone. With a photograph like that in his possession, Mr. Tanfold could see nothing to stop him bleeding his victim to the verge of suicide; and he was venomously prepared to do it.

He looked at the cheque again. It was made payable to Bearer, and was drawn on a bank in Berkeley Street. Ten minutes later he was passing it through the grille.

"Do you mind waiting a few moments, sir?" said the cashier. "I don't know whether we have enough currency to meet this without sending out."

Mr. Tanfold took a chair and waited, continuing his spiteful thoughts. He waited five minutes. He waited ten minutes. Then he went to the counter again.

"We're a bit short on cash, sir," explained the cashier, "and it turns out that the bank we usually borrow from is a bit short too. We've sent a man to another branch, and he ought to be back any minute now."

A few moments later the clerk beckoned him.

"Would you step into the manager's office, sir?" he asked. "We don't like passing such a large sum as ten thousand pounds over the counter. I'll give it to you in there, if you don't mind."

Still unsuspecting, Mr. Tanfold stepped in the direction indicated. And the first person he saw in the office was the younger Tombs.

Mr. Tanfold stopped dead, and his heart missed several beats. A wild instinct urged him to turn and flee, but the strength seemed to have ebbed out of his legs. It would have availed him nothing, anyway; for the courteous clerk had slipped from behind the counter and followed him — and he was a healthy young heavyweight who looked as if he would have been more at home on a football field than behind the grille of a cashier's desk.

"Come in, Tanfold," said the manager sternly.

Mr. Tanfold forced himself to come in. Even then he did not see what could possibly have gone wrong — certainly he was unable to envisage any complication in which the photograph he held would not be a deciding factor.

"Are you the gentleman who just presented this cheque?" asked the manager, holding it up.

Tanfold moistened his lips.

"That's right," he said boldly.

"You were asked to wait," said the manager, "because Mr. Tombs rang us up a short while ago and said that this cheque had been stolen from his book; and he asked us to detain anyone who presented it until he got here."

"That's an absurd mistake," Tanfold retorted loudly. "The cheque's made out to me — Mr. Tombs wrote it out himself only a few minutes ago."

The manager put his finger-tips together.

"I am familiar with Mr. Tombs's handwriting," he said dryly, "and this isn't a bit like it. It looks like a very amateurish forgery to me."

Mr. Tanfold's eyes goggled, and his stomach flopped down past the waistband of his trousers and left a sick void in its place. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. Whatever else he might have feared, he had never thought of anything like that; and for some seconds the sheer shock held him speechless.

In the silence, Simon Templar smiled — he had only recently decided that his alter ego had earned a bank account in its own name, and he did not know how he could have christened it better. He turned to the manager.

"Of course it's a forgery," he said. "But I don't want to be too hard on the man — that's why I asked you over the phone not to send for the police at once. I really believe there's some good in him. You can see from the clumsy way he tried to forge my signature that it's a first attempt."

"That's as you wish, of course, Mr. Tombs," said the manager doubtfully. "But—"

"Yes, yes," said the Saint, with a paralysing oleaginousness that would have served to lubricate the bearings of a highspeed engine, "but I've spent a lot of time trying to make this fellow go straight and you can't deny me a last attempt. Let me take him home and talk to him for a while. I'll be responsible for him; and you and the cashier can still be witnesses to what he did if I can't make him see the error of his ways."

Mr. Tanfold's bouncing larynx almost throttled him. Never in all his days had he so much as dreamed of being the victim of such a staggering unblushing impudence. In a kind of daze, he felt himself being gripped by the arm; and a brief panorama of London streets swam dizzily through his vision and dissolved deliriously into the facade of the Palace Royal Hotel. Even the power of speech did not return to him until he found himself once more in the painfully reminiscent surroundings of Mr. Tombs's suite.

"Well," he demanded hoarsely, "what's the game?"

"The game," answered Simon Templar genially, "is the royal and ancient sport of hoisting engineers with their own petards, dear old wallaby. Take a look at where you are, Gilbert. I'm here to let you out of the mess — at a price."

Mr. Tanfold's mouth opened.

"But that — that's blackmail!" he gasped.

"It doesn't bother me what you call it," Simon said calmly. "I want twenty-five thousand pounds to forget that you forged my signature. How about it?"

"You can't get it," Tanfold spat out. "If I published that photograph—''

"I should laugh myself sick," said the Saint. "I'm afraid there's something you'd better get wise to, brother. My father isn't a prominent Melbourne business man and social reformer at all, except for your benefit; and you can paste enlargements of that picture all over Melbourne Town Hall for all I care. Make some inquiries outside the bar downstairs, gorgeous, and get up to date. Come along, now — which is it to be? Twenty-five thousand smackers or the hoosegow? Take your choice."

Mr. Tanfold's face was turning green.

"I haven't got so much money in cash," he squawked.

"I'll give you a week to find it," said the Saint mercilessly, "and I don't really care much if you do go bankrupt in the process. I find you neither ornamental nor useful. But just in case you think forgery is the only charge you have to answer, you might like to listen to this."

He went through the communicating door to the bedroom and was back in a moment. Suddenly through the door, Mr. Tanfold heard the sounds of his own voice.

"Let's talk business… I've got a photograph that was taken of you while you were at the studio…"

With his face going paler and paler, Mr. Tanfold listened. He made no sound until the record was finished, and then he let out an abrupt squeal.

"But that isn't all of it!" he yelled. "It leaves off before the place where you gave me the cheque!"

"Of course it does," said the Saint shamelessly. "That would spike the forgery charge, wouldn't it? But as it stands, you've got two things to answer. First you tried to blackmail me; and then, when you found that wouldn't work, you forged my signature to a cheque for ten thousand quid. It was all very rash and naughty of you, Gilbert; and I'm sure the police would take a very serious view of the case — particularly after they'd investigated your business a bit more. Well, well, well, brother — we all make mistakes, and I'm afraid I shall have to send that dictaphone record along to Chief Inspector Teal, as well as charging you with forgery, if you haven't come through with the spondulix inside seven days."

Once again words rose to Mr. Tanfold's lips; and once again, glimpsing the unholy gleam in the Saint's eye and remembering his previous experience in that room, they stuck in his throat. And once again Simon went to the door and opened it.

"This is the way out," said the Saint.

Mr. Gilbert Tanfold moved hazily towards the portal. As hepassed through it, a pair of hands fell on his shoulders and steadied him with a light but masterful grip. Some premonition of his fate must have reached him, for his shrill cry disturbed the regal quietude of the Palace Royal Hotel even before the toe of a painfully powerful shoe impacted on his tender posterior and lifted him enthusiastically on his way.