“Good God!” he squeaked. “It’s the man I was telling you about—”
“The bloke I was telling you about!” ejaculated Happy Fred savagely. “The skunk who took thirty pounds of my money in the Alexandra, and then—”
The two men’s heads revolved until they looked into each other’s eyes and gazed into the souls beyond. And the Saint hitched himself off the door and came towards them.
“A very neat piece of work, if I may say so, Fred,” he remarked. “Not so original as it might have been, perhaps, but new enough. It’s very kind of you to have worked so hard for me.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Mr Tillson weakly.
Simon took the packet out of his hands.
“Relieve you of this encumbrance, brother. It’s a very pretty bracelet, but I don’t think you could wear it. People might think it was rather odd.”
“I’ll have the police on to you for this, you—”
Simon raised his eyebrows.
“The police? To tell them that I’ve stolen your bracelet? But I understood your bracelet was in the post, on its way to your little girl in Paris? Can I be mistaken, Alfred?”
Mr Tillson swallowed painfully, and then Happy Fred jumped up.
“Damn the police!” he snarled. “I’ll settle with this bluffer. He wouldn’t dare to shoot—”
“Oh, but you’re quite wrong about that,” said the Saint gently. “I shouldn’t have any objection to shooting you if you asked for it. It’s quite a long time since I last shot anyone, and I often feel afraid that if I abstain for too long I may get squeamish. Don’t tempt me, Fred, because I’m feeling nervous enough already.”
But the Saint’s blue eyes were as steady as the gun in his hand, and it was Happy Fred’s gaze that wavered.
“I shall have to tie you up while I make my getaway,” said the Saint amiably, “so would you both mind turning round? You’ll be able to undo yourselves quite quickly after I’ve gone.”
“You wouldn’t be a party to a low insurance swindle, would you?” protested Happy Fred aggrievedly, as the Saint looped coils of rope deftly round his wrists.
“I wouldn’t be a party to any kind of swindle,” said the Saint virtuously. “I’m an honest hold-up man, and your insurance policies have nothing to do with me.”
He completed the roping of the two men, roughly gagged them with their own handkerchiefs, and retreated leisurely to the door. Neither of them made any attempt to wave him goodbye, which Simon felt was rather rude.
THE FIVE-THOUSAND-POUND KISS
It has been said that Simon Templar was a philanderer, but the criticism was not entirely just. A pretty face, or the turn of a slim ankle, appealed to him no more—and not a bit less—than they do to the next man. Perhaps he was more honest about it.
It is true that sometimes, in a particularly buccaneering mood, as he swung down a broad highway leading to infinite adventure, he would sing one of his own inimitable songs against the pompous dreariness of civilization as he saw it, with a chorus:
But if red blood runs thin with years,
By God! If I must die,
I’ll kiss red lips and drink red wine
And let the rest go by,
My son,
And let the rest go by!
But there was a gesture in that, to be taken with or without salt as the audience pleased, and a fat lot the Saint cared. He was moderate in nothing that he said or did. That insurgent vitality which made him an outlaw first and last and in everything rebelled perhaps too fiercely against all moderation; and if at the same time it made him, to those who knew him best, the one glamorous and romantic figure of his day, that was the judgement which he himself would have asked for.
These chronicles are concerned mainly with episodes in which he provided himself with the bare necessities of life by cunning and strategy rather than daring, but even in those times there were occasions when his career hung on the thread of a lightning decision. That happened in the affair of Mrs Dempster-Craven’s much-advertised pink diamond, and if the Saint philandered then, he would have told you that he had no regrets.
“The idea that such a woman should have a jewel like that keeps me awake at nights,” he complained. “I’ve seen her twice, and she is a Hag.”
This was at dinner one night. Peter Quentin was there, and so was Patricia Holm, who, when all was said and done, was the lady who held the Saint’s reckless heart and knew best how to understand all his misdeeds. The subject of the “Star of Mandalay” had cropped up casually in the course of conversation, and it was worth mentioning that neither of Simon Templar’s guests bothered to raise any philosophical argument against his somewhat heterodox doctrine about the rights of Hags. But it was left for Peter Quentin to put his foot in it.
Peter read behind the wistfulness of the Saint’s words, and said, “Don’t be an idiot, Simon. You don’t need the money, and you couldn’t pinch the Star of Mandalay. The woman’s got a private detective following her around wherever she goes—”
“Couldn’t I pinch it, Peter?” said the Saint, very softly.
Patricia saw the light in his eyes, and clutched Peter’s wrist.
“You ass!” she gasped. “Now you’ve done it. He’d be fool enough to try—”
“Why ‘try’?” asked the Saint, looking round mildly. “That sounds very much like an aspersion on my genius, which I shall naturally have to—”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” protested the girl frantically. “I mean that after all, when we don’t need the money—You said you were thinking of running over to Paris for a week—”
“We can go via Amsterdam, and sell the Star of Mandalay en route,” said the Saint calmly. “You lie in your teeth, my sweetheart. You meant that the Star of Mandalay was too much of a problem for me and I’d only get in a mess if I tried for it. Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking of having a dart at it for some time.”
Peter Quentin drank deeply of the Chambertin to steady his nerves.
“You haven’t been thinking anything of the sort,” he said. “I’ll withdraw everything I said. You were just taking on a dare.”
Simon ordered himself a second slice of melon, and leaned back with his most seraphic and exasperating smile.
“Have I,” he inquired blandly, “ever told you my celebrated story about a bob-tailed ptarmigan named Alphonse, who lived in sin with a couple of duck-billed platypi in the tundras of Siberia? Alphonse, who suffered from asthma and was a believer in Christian Science…”
He completed his narrative at great length, refusing to be interrupted, and they knew that the die was cast. When once Simon Templar had made up his mind it was impossible to argue with him. If he didn’t proceed blandly to talk you down with one of his most fatuous and irrelevant anecdotes, he would listen politely to everything you had to say, agree with you thoroughly, and carry on exactly as he had announced his intentions from the beginning; which wasn’t helpful. And he had made up his mind, on one of his mad impulses, that the Star of Mandalay was due for a change of ownership. It was not a very large stone, but it was reputed to be flawless, and it was valued at ten thousand pounds. Simon reckoned that it would be worth five thousand pounds to him in Van Roeper’s little shop in Amsterdam, and five thousand pounds was a sum of money that he could find a home for at any time.
But he said nothing about that to Mrs Dempster-Craven when he saw her for the third time and spoke to her for the first. He was extremely polite and apologetic. He had good reason to be, for the rakish Hirondel which he was driving had collided with Mrs Dempster-Craven’s Rolls-Royce in Hyde Park, and the glossy symmetry of the Rolls-Royce’s rear elevation had been considerably impaired.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “Your chauffeur pulled up rather suddenly, and my hand-brake cable broke when I tried to stop.”
His hand-brake cable had certainly divided itself in the middle, and the frayed ends had been produced for the chauffeur’s inspection, but
no one was to know that Simon had filed it through before he started out.
“That is not my fault,” said Mrs Dempster-Craven coldly. She was going to pay a call on the wife of a minor baronet, and she was pardonably annoyed at the damage to her impressive car. “Bagshaw, will you please find me a taxi?”
“The car’ll take you there all right, ma’am,” said the chauffeur incautiously.
Mrs Dempster-Craven froze him through her lorgnettes.
“How,” she required to know, “can I possibly call on Lady Wiltham in a car that looks as if I had picked it up at a second-hand sale? Kindly call me a taxi immediately, and don’t argue.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the abashed chauffeur, and departed on his errand.
“I really don’t know how to apologize,” said the Saint humbly.
“Then don’t try,” said Mrs Dempster-Craven discouragingly.
The inevitable small crowd had collected, and a policeman was advancing ponderously towards it from the distance. Mrs Dempster-Craven liked to be stared at as she crossed the pavement to Drury Lane Theatre on a first night, but not when she was sitting in a battered car in Hyde Park. But the Saint was not so self-conscious.
“I’m afraid I can’t offer you a lift at the moment, but if my other car would be of any use to you for the reception tonight—”
“What reception?” asked Mrs Dempster-Craven haughtily, having overcome the temptation to retort that she had three other Rolls-Royces no less magnificent than the one she was sitting in.
“Prince Marco d’Ombria’s,” answered the Saint easily. “I heard you say that you were going to call on Lady Wiltham, and I had an idea that I’d heard Marco mention her name. I thought perhaps—”
“I am not going to the reception,” said Mrs Dempster-Craven, but it was noticeable that her tone was not quite so freezing. “I have a previous engagement to dine with Lord and Lady Bredon.”
Simon chalked up the point without batting an eyelid. He had not engineered that encounter without making inquiries about his victim, and it had not taken him long to learn that Mrs Dempster-Craven’s one ambition was to win for herself and her late husband’s millions an acknowledged position among the Very Best People. That carelessly-dropped reference to a Prince, even an Italian Prince, by his first name, had gone over like a truck-load of honey. And it was a notable fact that if Mrs Dempster-Craven had pursued her own inquiries into the reference, she would have found that the name of Simon Templar was not only recognized but hailed effusively, for there had once been a spot of bother involving a full million pounds belonging to the Bank of Italy which had made the Saint for ever persona grata at the Legation.”
The chauffeur returned with a taxi, and Mrs Dempster-Craven’s fifteen stone of flesh were assisted ceremoniously out of the Rolls. Having had a brief interval to consider pros and cons, she deigned to thank the Saint for his share in the operation with a smile that disclosed a superb set of expensive teeth.
“I hope your car isn’t seriously damaged,” she remarked graciously, and the Saint smiled in his most elegant matter.
“It doesn’t matter a bit. I was just buzzing down to Hurlingham for a spot of tennis, but I can easily take a taxi.” He took out his wallet and handed her a card. “As soon as you know what the damage’ll cost to put right, I do hope you’ll send me in the bill.”
“I shouldn’t dream of doing such a thing,” said Mrs Dempster-Craven. “The whole thing was undoubtedly Bagshaw’s fault.”
With which startling volte-face, and another display of her expensive denture, she ascended regally into the cab, and Simon Templar went triumphantly back to Patricia.
“It went off perfectly, Pat! You could see the whole line sizzling down her throat till she choked on the rod. The damage to the Hirondel will cost about fifteen quid to put right, but we’ll charge that up to expenses. And the rest of it’s only a matter of time.”
The time was even shorter than he expected, for Mrs Dempster-Craven was not prepared to wait any longer than was necessary to see her social ambitions fulfilled, and the highest peak she had attained at that date was a weekend at the house of a younger son of a second viscount.
Three days later Simon’s postbag included a scented mauve envelope, and he knew before he opened it that it was the one he had been waiting for.
118 Berkeley Square,
Mayfair W1
My dear Mr Templar,
I’m sure you must have thought me rather abrupt after our accident in Hyde Park on Tuesday, but these little upsets seem so much worse at the time than they really are. Do try and forgive my rudeness.
I am having a little party here on Tuesday next. Lord and Lady Palfrey are coming, and the Hon. Celia Mallard, and lots of other people whom I expect you’ll know. I’d take it as a great favour if you could manage to look in, any time after 9:00, just to let me know you weren’t offended.
I do hope you got to Hurlingham all right.
Yours sincerely,
Gertrude Dempster-Craven
“Who said my technique had ever failed me?” Simon demanded of Peter Quentin at lunch-time that day.
“I didn’t,” said Peter, “as I’ve told you all along. Thank God you won’t be going to prison on Thursday, anyway—if it’s only a little party she’s invited you to I don’t suppose you’ll even see the Star of Mandalay.”
Simon grinned.
“Little party be blowed,” he said. “Gertrude has never thrown a little party in her life. When she talks about a ‘little’ party she means there’ll only be two orchestras and not more than a hundred couples. And if she doesn’t put on the Star of Mandalay for Lady Palfrey’s benefit I am a bob-tailed ptarmigan and my name is Alphonse.”
Nevertheless, when he suggested that Peter Quentin should come with him there was not much argument.
“How can you get me in?” Peter demurred. “I wasn’t invited, and I don’t know any princes.”
“You’ve got an uncle who’s a lord or something, haven’t you?”
“I’ve got an uncle who’s the Bishop of Johannesburg, but what does Mrs Dempster-Craven care about South African bishops?”
“Call him Lord Johannesburg,” said the Saint. “She won’t look him up in Debrett’s while you’re there. I’ll say we were dining together and I couldn’t shake you off.”
At that point it all looked almost tediously straightforward, a commonplace exploit with nothing but the size of the prize to make it memorable. And when Simon arrived in Berkeley Square on the date of his invitation it seemed easier still, for Mrs Dempster-Craven, as he had expected, was proudly sporting the Star of Mandalay on her swelling bosom, set in the centre of a pattern of square-cut sapphires in a platinum pendant that looked more like an illuminated sky-sign than anything else. True, there was a large-footed man in badly fitting dress clothes who trailed her around like a devoted dachshund, but private detectives of any grade the Saint felt competent to deal with. Professionals likewise, given a fair warning—although he was anticipating no professional surveillance that night. But he had not been in the house twenty minutes before he found himself confronting a dark slender girl with merry brown eyes whose face appeared before him like the Nemesis of one of his most innocent flirtations—and even then he did not guess what Fate had in store for him.
At his side he heard the voice of Mrs Dempster-Craven cooing like a contralto dove: “This is Miss Rosamund Armitage—a cousin of the Duke of Trayall.” And then, as she saw their eyes fixed on each other, “But have you met before?”
“Yes—we have met,” said the Saint, recovering himself easily. “Wasn’t it that day when you were just off to Ostend?”
“I think so,” said the girl gravely.
A plaintive baronet in search of an introduction accosted Mrs Dempster-Craven from the other side and Simon took the girl in his arms as the second orchestra muted its saxophones for a waltz.
“This is a very happy reunion, Kate,” he murmured. “I must congratulate you.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“When we last met—in that famous little argument about the Kellman necklace—you weren’t so closely related to the Duke of Trayall.”
They made a circuit of the floor—she danced perfectly, as he would have expected—and then she said, bluntly, “What are you doing here, Saint?”
“Treading the light fantastic—drinking free champagne—and watching little monkeys scrambling up the social ladder,” he answered airily. “And you?”
“I’m here for exactly the same reason as you are—my Old Age Pension.”
“I can’t imagine you getting old, Kate.”
“Let’s sit out somewhere,” she said suddenly.
They left the ballroom and went in search of a secluded corner of the conservatory, where there were armchairs and sheltering palm trees providing discreet alcoves for romantic couples. Simon noticed that the girl was quite sure of her way around, and said so.
“Of course I’ve been here before,” she said. “I expect you have, too.”
“On the contrary—this is my first visit. I never take two bites at a cherry.”
“Not even a ten-thousand-pound one?”
“Not even that.”
She produced a packet of cigarettes from her bag and offered him one. Simon smiled, and shook his head.
“There are funny things about your cigarettes that don’t make me laugh out loud, Kate,” he said cheerfully. “Have one of mine instead.”
“Look here,” she said. “Let’s put our cards on the table. You’re after that pendant, and so am I. Everything on our side is planned out, and you’ve just told me this is your first visit. You can’t possibly get in front of us this time. You took the Kellman necklace away under our noses, but you couldn’t do it again. Why not retire gracefully?”
He gazed at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, and she touched his hand.
“Won’t you do that—and save trouble?”
The Brighter Buccaneer (The Saint Series) Page 16