About a month later Mr Quigg read in the paper that his wife had been granted an interlocutory decree, and that in consideration of her ordeal the judge had awarded her the community property, their savings account, their Government bonds, the car which she had already taken, and Mr Quigg’s patents together with contracts appertaining and royalties accruing thereto, plus fifty per cent of the proceeds of any invention which he might have started to work on at any time prior to the divorce.
“In other words,” said the little man, “I was left with the lease on an old house, a lot of shabby old furniture, my old fishing kit and some tools, and my pension from the college.”
“They can’t do that to you,” Simon protested.
“Oh, but they can. I went to another lawyer, when it was too late, and even he told me they could. And they had. They even get half of anything I may ever do from here on. What chance would I have of proving that anything I might invent tomorrow didn’t have its roots in something I worked at during the first fifty years of my life?”
“All the same, chum, this could be worth millions. And even half a million—”
Mr Quigg shook his head.
“I’m a funny guy. I don’t get mad very easily, but when I get mad I can stay mad for a long time. I know now that I was taken for a sucker. And I’m just sore enough that I’ll never write it off to experience and let bygones be bygones. That woman and her shyster lawyer took me for everything I had when she left me, and I can’t do a thing about it. But I can see to it that she doesn’t get half a million more. I’d rather scratch along on a pittance for the rest of my life than give her another nickel. Were you wondering about the eleven hundred dollars in my wallet?”
“Well—”
“They’re what’s left of fifteen hundred I sold another little invention for. If I’d handled it properly, it’d probably have paid me five thousand a year for life. But then there’d’ve been contracts, and checks, and records, and I couldn’t’ve kept from giving her half of it. I preferred to give the idea away, let someone else take the credit for inventing it, and settle for fifteen hundred dollars cash under the table. Do you blame me?”
“If that’s the way you feel about it, it’s your privilege,” said the Saint. “But it seems a shame about the Preservator.”
Mr Quigg poured himself another glass of wine. They had finished eating by then, and he had become progressively less inhibited with each sip that washed down the meal.
“It is. You don’t know the offers I’ve turned down. Why, only the other day…But it’s out of the question. That’s one invention she always knew I was working on. I could never get away with it. Unless—so we’re back where we started—unless I had a completely honest friend.”
“What could he do?”
“I’d sell him all rights to the Preservator,” said Mr Quigg. “It’d have to be a bona fide deal, for something that might look like a genuine price. Say ten thousand dollars. All right, she’d get her half of that. But this friend would make a fortune. And I’d have to trust him to slip a fair share of it back to me, without any contract or lien or anything, in cash handouts when I asked for it, so’s there’d be no record and she couldn’t get her claws on it.”
“I see,” said the Saint. “You’d be absolutely at his mercy.”
“And how many people could you be sure wouldn’t fall for a temptation like that? Unless it was someone like yourself. Now you know what I was getting at. I can’t presume on our few hours’ acquaintance, I know. I’m pipe-dreaming. But if only you were interested, what a difference it would make to my life!”
Simon reached for what was left of the Château Fuissé with a smile that did not have to worry about how thinly it veiled its excitement.
“Don’t throw that pipe away yet, Ollie,” he said. “I’m going to think it over.”
It was another hour before he could plausibly take his leave, on the valid excuse that he had been up since before dawn and wanted to be out on the river at dawn again the next morning, but the truth was that he was desperately afraid of casting some inadvertent damper on Mr Quigg’s pathetically incoherent optimism, and after a while his facial muscles began to ache.
The fishing was still slow at the start of the next day, but he took two nice eating-size trout before the sun was high enough to strike the water and he decided that he might as well knock off for breakfast. As he was walking back along the higher ground towards his cabin, Mr Irving Jardane came blundering up the bank, looking more than ever like a piscatorial pack mule, and trudged beside him.
“I see you’re still doing okay,” observed the transport tycoon aggrievedly. “And I’m still skunked. I don’t get it. What the hell do these trout want, anyway?”
“What are you offering them?” Simon asked.
“Nothing but the best. I had a chap who makes ’em design ’em specially for me.” Mr Jardane tore off his trick hat and stared at its multi-colored adornments with baffled indignation. “Did you ever see anything prettier? What do you catch ’em on?”
Simon reversed his rod and exhibited the drab and tattered fly on the end of his leader, hooked into a keeper ring near the butt.
“This.”
“That?” The other peered at the relic with barely concealed disgust. “What d’you call that?”
“A Gray Hackle—much the worse for wear.”
“You mean they bite on that? If I were a fish—”
“But you aren’t,” Simon pointed out gently. “Those hat trimmings of yours look beautiful to you, but to the trout around here they just don’t suggest anything edible. This tattered piece of fuzz makes its mouth water—if a fish’s mouth can do that. You have to see it through the eyes of a trout.”
“Dad blast it,” growled Mr Jardane, “you must be another fish psychologist. Like a fellow I got talking to on the pier the other day.”
“A little wispy guy with a theory about salmon eggs?”
“That’s him. Name of Quigg. A genius, too. But crazy. Got an invention that couldn’t help making millions, but he won’t do a thing about it.”
“He showed you his Preservator?”
“You too? Sure he did. We got talking about my business, and some of my problems, and it came up. I tell you, it’s sensational. Revolutionary. If anyone else was working on anything like it, I’d know. I have to keep up with these things in my business. Hell, I offered him three thousand dollars just for the right to test it myself for three months, with an option to take it over on a royalty basis with a twenty-thousand-a-year minimum guarantee, and he turned me down flat.”
“I got the impression that I could make a deal with him,” Simon said.
By then they had walked as far as the Saint’s cabin, but this could not have been responsible for bringing Mr Jardane to such an abrupt halt. He scrutinized the Saint with a cold deliberation that was supremely unconcerned with its rudeness.
“If you can, you’re a lot better talker than I am,” he said. “But if you do, I’ll make you the same offer.”
“What would you do with the Preservator?”
“Make it, man! Make it and sell it. I manufacture my own truck refrigeration equipment already. I’m set up. I’ll change over to this. And after I’ve outfitted my own fleet, I’ll expand. I’ve got all the contacts. Let me worry about the merchandising. You just send in your auditor every year to make sure I haven’t short-changed you.”
“I’ll see if I can talk to Quigg again after breakfast,” said the Saint.
He found Mr Quigg contentedly reading a science-fiction magazine, but cordially willing to be interrupted, and came to his point without much ado.
“Certainly I meant it,” Mr Quigg said. “Why should I have changed my opinion of you overnight? But I’m a little overwhelmed. It’s so much more than I ever really dared to hope for. You are serious?”
“I’ll give you exactly what you asked for,” said the Saint most seriously. “Would you care to put it in writing?”
�
��By all means.”
The little man bumbled around the cottage, found some paper in a drawer, and sat down and wrote thoughtfully but decisively. Then he handed the sheet to Simon.
“Will that do?”
I hereby offer to sell to Mr Sebastian Tombs, for the sum of $10,000, all rights in my food-preserving process called the Preservator.
(signed)
Oliphant Quigg
“It should take care of everything for now,” said the Saint.
“Mr Jardane might want something much more elaborate,” said the little man calmly. “But whatever you need to satisfy anyone’s lawyers, I’ll sign it.”
Simon’s eyebrows went up.
“How did you know I’d talked to Jardane?”
“Oh, so you have? I was guessing. But I’m not surprised. And believe me, I don’t mind a bit. You ought to be able to make a good deal with him. And I’d rather make you a present of half the profits than pay them to that greedy woman and her conniving lawyer. Besides, you’ll be doing something to earn your share. I think Mr Jardane is a pretty hardboiled business man, which is why I couldn’t be at all ready to trust him with the same proposition that I made to you. But you strike me as being well able to take care of yourself. Good luck to you!”
Simon went back to Mr Jardane’s cottage and displayed the paper. The haulage hot-shot glared at it for long enough to have read it four times and then transferred his incredulous scowl directly to the Saint.
“D’you mind if I ask Quigg if he really signed this?” he demanded. “Because I’m going to, whatever you say.”
“Go ahead,” said the Saint generously.
Mr Jardane went out like a fire-eating lion and came back in less than ten minutes like a somewhat dyspeptic lamb.
“Okay,” he grumbled, handing back the document. “You must be a terrific operator. Wish I had you working for me. But I know when I’m licked. All right. So you’ve got this Preservator sewed up. My offer still goes. Yes or no?”
“Mr Quigg put his offer in writing,” said the Saint mildly, laying down the magazine with which he had been passing the time. “Would you do the same?”
“Certainly. I was leaving this afternoon, anyhow. I’ll see my attorney first thing tomorrow and put him to work drawing up a contract.”
Simon looked disappointed.
“Fine. But I was thinking of calling a friend of mine at Westinghouse this evening—”
“But before I go,” Mr Jardane continued firmly, “I’ll rough out a preliminary agreement myself that we can sign.”
“If you insist,” said the Saint, looking more unsubtle every minute. “But then some money would have to change hands, to make it legal, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ll give you my check for three thousand dollars at the same time.”
Simon stood up.
“To return the compliment you paid me when you verified that Ollie had actually signed this offer, would you mind if I said I’d be much more impressed with cash? After all, I don’t really know anything about you except what you’ve told me. But there should be someone in Grant’s Pass that your trucks do business with, or you could go to a bank and have them call your bank back home for authority to cash you a check.”
Mr Jardane glowered at him for a second or two, a picture of grudging admiration.
“I bet you were a tough and nasty investigator,” he said. “But I can take it. Business is business, God bless it. I’ll get you your cash. Don’t go away—and don’t call Westinghouse, or anyone else.”
Shortly afterwards, through a window of his own cottage, Simon saw the Cadillac drive away. After it had gone, he made unhurried but efficient preparations for his own departure. He packed all his personal things and a box of such supplies that were not immediately expendable. He moved his car around to the back of the cabin, and loaded his suitcase and the box into the trunk through the back door, where his activity was cut off from chance observation from almost any angle, including that of Mr Quigg’s cottage at the other end of the scattered colony. When he had finished, there was nothing he would have to take out of the cabin except the fishing tackle that was still picturesquely littered around the living room. It saddened him somewhat to have to cut his stay so abruptly short. But business was business, as Mr Jardane had observed, and even a Saint couldn’t be sanctimonious enough to snub it when it jumped into his lap; there were immediate compensations, and there would be other rivers to fish.
Presently he fried the last of his bacon and cooked his remaining trout in the fat, with a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of chopped almonds which he had left out. He was finishing a glass of Dry Sack and getting ready to feast when Mr Jardane drove by again and almost at once was knocking on the door.
“You’re just in time,” Simon said hospitably. “Would you care to join me in some truite amandine? Save me from being a glutton.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got to be on my way if I want to get home tonight. I had a sandwich in town while I was waiting for a public stenographer to type this up. I dictated it to her while I was waiting for this bank to get in touch with my bank.” Mr Jardane flourished a thin sheaf of papers. “Read it, sign it, and I’ll give you your money.”
Simon turned the oven on at its lowest and put his lunch away to keep warm while he read one of the copies of his prospective partner’s composition. He had to admit that there was nothing slipshod about Irving Jardane. This was no second-class operator who would risk botching a good thing by skimping on some detail, no matter how tiresome the chore might be. The “preliminary agreement” that he had drafted was well thought out, comprehensive, and painstakingly phrased in the language of a man who had made some study of contracts: it had a competent and authentic ring that would have impressed even a genuine business man. At the same time, perhaps even more skillfully, it avoided any legalistic hedging which might have seemed to conceal pitfalls and thus could have led to prolonged argument.
“It seems very straightforward,” said the Saint, and quickly signed all four copies.
Mr Jardane countersigned one of them, gave it back, and put the other three in his pocket. Then he produced a roll of currency and counted off thirty hundred-dollar bills.
“That ought to make it legal enough for you,” he remarked, perhaps a trifle sarcastically. “Now, you’ve got my address in your copy of our agreement. Let me hear from you as soon as you’ve got Quigg’s signature on a proper sales contract. An outright sale like that is simple enough that any local lawyer could write it. Get it done before he changes his mind or some men in white coats pick him up. And send me a notarized copy of his receipt for the money you pay him—before I go any further. I want to be sure you’ve made it legal with him.”
“I’ll get rolling right after lunch, Irving old chum,” Simon promised him.
He ate his meal with leisured enjoyment, and during the course of it he watched Mr Jardane stuff the Cadillac with his impedimenta from the next cottage and drive away. The Cadillac, he thought, had been a nice touch too—there was no other car that conveyed such an air of solid affluence to the sucker type who forgot that all the best U-Drive outfits had them for rent by the day for that very reason.
He washed up tidily and then openly carried his fishing tackle out to his own less ostentatious wagon. He was still wearing the morning’s shabby but comfortable fishing togs, and to anyone who might have been keeping watch on him—such as Mr Quigg—he would only have looked as if he were preparing to wet a line farther up or down the river that evening, not to remove himself indefinitely from those parts. But beyond any dispute, he reasoned as he let off the handbrake and toed the accelerator, he was getting rolling. It had always given him a perversely puerile delight to look certain overconfident individuals squarely in the eye and tell them a literal truth which they were incapable of appreciating. He was pleased to think that he had been especially scrupulous throughout this episode.
A more conventional courtesy, however, obliged him to stop at th
e camp office on his way out.
“I’m on my way, Ben,” he told the proprietor. “I know I’m paid up through next weekend, but forget it, with my compliments. Maybe I’ll take it out on you next time I stop here.”
“There may not be another time,” said the other glumly. “If that new highway goes through as it’s supposed to, we mightn’t be here next year. It’s only a question of time, anyway. What’s the matter? Is anything wrong?”
“Everything is gorgeously perfect,” said the Saint. “I’ve had a wonderful old-fashioned workout, and there’s nothing I like better. Aside from letting you know you’ve got an unexpected vacancy, I wanted to thank you for keeping quiet about my real name. I hope you didn’t have to tell too many lies about Sebastian Tombs. That really is a ridiculous name.”
“Mr Quigg did ask me a few questions, but I told him I didn’t know any answers. You must have made a big hit with him.”
“He may be disillusioned next time you talk to him. And if he is, please let him in on my secret. The same goes for a white-haired slob with a hired Cadillac, using the name of Irving Jardane and claiming to be the head man of Transamerican Transport. If I may drop a friendly flea in your ear, I’d suggest that you didn’t cash any of his checks, if he ever comes here again—which may be unlikely.”
Thanks to the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 15