“Well, what—”
“I was expecting some sort of call like that,” said the Saint. “I knew somebody was going to knock off this exhibition—after the bet I’d made with Vascoe, the chance of getting away with it and having me take the rap was too good to miss. I meant it to look good—that’s why I made the bet. But of course, our friend had to be sure I wouldn’t have an alibi, and he was pretty cunning about it. He guessed that you’d be having me shadowed, but he knew that a message like he sent me would make me shake my shadow. And then I’d have a fine time trying to prove that I spent an hour or so standing outside the Zoo at that hour of the night. Only I’m pretty cunning myself, when I think about it, so I didn’t go. I came here instead.”
Teal’s mouth opened again.
“You—”
“What are we wasting time for?” snorted Vascoe. “He admits he was here—”
“I was here,” said the Saint coolly. “You know how the back of the house goes practically down to the river, and you have a little private garden there and a landing stage? I knew that if anything was happening, it’d happen on that side—it’d be too risky to do anything on the street frontage, where anybody might come and see it. Well, things were happening. There was a man out there, but I beat him over the head and tied him up before he could make a noise. Then I waited around, and somebody opened the window from inside and threw out a parcel. So I picked it up and took it home. Here it is.”
He took it out of his hip pocket—it was a very large parcel.
Vascoe let out a hoarse yell, jumped at it, and wrenched it out of his hands. He ripped it open with clawing fingers.
“My miniatures!” he sobbed. “My medallions—my cameos! My—”
“Here, wait a minute!”
Teal thrust himself forward again, taking possession of the package.
“It’s a fine story,” he said raspily. “But this is one time you’re not going to get away with it. Yes, I get the idea. You pull the job so you can win your bet, and then you bring the stuff back with that fairy tale and think everything’s going to be all right. Well, you’re not going to get away with it! What happened to the fellow you say you knocked out and tied up, and who else saw him, and who else saw all these things happen?”
The Saint smiled.
“I left him locked up in the garage,” he said. “He’s probably still there. As for who else saw him, Martin Ingerbeck was with me.”
“Who?”
“Ingerbeck himself. The detective bloke. You see, I happened to help him with a job once, so I didn’t see why I shouldn’t help him with another. So as soon as I guessed what was going to happen I called him up, and he met me at once and came along with me. He even recognised the bloke who opened the window, too.”
“And who was that?” Teal demanded derisively, but somehow his derision sounded hollow.
The Saint bowed.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “it was the Comte de Beaucroix.”
The Count stared at him pallidly.
“I think you must be mad,” he said.
“It’s preposterous!” spluttered Vascoe. “I happen to have made every enquiry about the Comte de Beaucroix. There isn’t the slightest doubt that he’s—”
“Of course he is,” said the Saint calmly. “But he wasn’t always. They do it the same way in France as we do in England—a fellow can go around with one name for most of his life, and then he inherits a title and changes his name without any legal formalities. It’s funny that you should have been asking me about him, Claud. His name used to be Charles Umbert. As soon as Meryl mentioned the Comte de Beaucroix, I remembered what it was that I’d read about him in the papers. I’d noticed that he came into the title when his uncle died. That’s why I thought something like this might happen, and that’s why I made that bet with Vascoe.”
The night guard fizzed suddenly out of retirement.
“That’s right!” he exploded suddenly. “I’ll bet it was him. I wondered why I went off to sleep like that. Well, about two o’clock he came downstairs—said he was looking for something to read because he couldn’t get to sleep—and got me to have a drink with him. It was just after he went upstairs that I fell off. That drink must’ve been doped!”
De Beaucroix looked from side to side, and his face twitched. He made a sudden grab at his pocket, but Teal was too quick for him.
Simon Templar hitched himself off the armchair as the brief scuffle subsided.
“Well, that seems to be that,” he observed languidly. “You’ll have to wait for another chance, Claud. Go home and take some lessons in detecting, and you may do better next time.” He looked at Vascoe. “I’ll see my lawyers later and find out what sort of a suit we can cook up on account of all the rude things you’ve been saying, but meanwhile I’ll collect my cheque from Morgan Dean.” Then he turned to Meryl. “I’m going to lend Bill Fulton the profits to pay off his debts with,” he said. “I shall expect a small interest in his invention, and a large slice of wedding cake.”
Before she could say anything he was gone. Thanks didn’t interest him: he wanted breakfast.
THE STAR PRODUCERS
Mr Homer Quarterstone was not, to be candid, a name to conjure within the world of the Theatre. It must be admitted that his experience behind the footlights was not entirely confined to that immortal line: “Dinner is served.” As a matter of fact, he had once said, “The Baron is here.” and “Will there be anything further, Madam?” in the same act, and in another never-to-be-forgotten drama which had run for eighteen performances in the West End, he had taken part in the following classic dialogue:
Nick: Were you here?
Jenkins (Mr Homer Quarterstone): No, sir.
Nick: Did you hear anything?
Jenkins: No, sir.
Nick: A hell of a lot of use you are.
Jenkins: Yes, sir.
(Exit, carrying tray.)
In the executive line, Mr Quarterstone’s career had been marked by the same magnanimous emphasis on service rather than personal glory. He had not actually produced any spectacles of resounding success but he had contributed his modest quota to their triumph by helping to carry chairs and tables on to the stage and arrange them according to the orders of the scenic director. And although he had not actually given his personal guidance to any of the financial manoeuvres associated with theatrical production, he had sat in the box office at more than one one-night stand, graciously controlling the passage over the counter of those fundamental monetary items without which the labours of more egotistical financiers would have been fruitless.
Nevertheless, while it is true that the name of Quarterstone had never appeared in any headlines, and that his funeral cortége would never have attracted any distinguished pall-bearers, he had undoubtedly found the Theatre more profitable than many other men to whom it had given fame.
He was a man of florid complexion and majestic bearing, with a ripe convexity under his waistcoat and a forehead that arched glisteningly back to the scruff of his neck, and he had a taste for black Homburgs and astrakhan-collared overcoats which gave an impression of great artistic prosperity. This prosperity was by no means illusory, for Mr Homer Quarterstone, in his business capacity, was now the principal, president, director, owner, and twenty-five per cent of the staff of the Supremax Academy of Dramatic Art, which according to its frequent advertisements had been the training ground, the histrionic hothouse, so to speak, of many stars whose names were now household words from the igloos of Greenland to the tents of the wandering Bedouin. And the fact that Mr Quarterstone had not become the principal, president, director, owner, etc., of the Supremax Academy until several years after the graduation of those illustrious personages, when in a period of unaccustomed affluence and unusually successful borrowing he had purchased the name and goodwill of an idealistic but moribund concern, neither deprived him of the legal right to make that claim in his advertising nor hampered the free flow of his imagination when he w
as expounding his own experience and abilities to prospective clients.
Simon Templar, who sooner or later made the acquaintance of practically everyone who was collecting too much money with too little reason, heard of him first from Rosalind Hale, who had been one of those clients, and she brought him her story for the same reason that many other people who had been foolish would often come to Simon Templar with their troubles, as if the words “The Saint” had some literally supernatural significance, instead of being merely the nickname with which he had once incongruously been christened.
“I thought it was the only sensible thing to do—to get some proper training—and his advertisements looked genuine. You wouldn’t think those film stars would let him use their names for a fraud, would you?…I suppose I was a fool, but I’d played in some amateur things, and people who weren’t trying to flatter me said I was good, and I really believed I’d got it in me, sort of instinctively. And some of the people who believe they’ve got it in them must be right, and they must do something about it, or else there wouldn’t be any actors and actresses at all, would there? And really I’m—I—well, I don’t make you shudder when you look at me, do I?”
This at least was beyond argument, unless the looker was a crusted misogynist, which the Saint very firmly was not. She had an almost childishly heart-shaped face, with small features that were just far enough from perfection to be exciting, and her figure had just enough curves in just the right places.
The Saint smiled at her without any cynicism.
“And when you came into this money…”
“Well, it looked just like the chance I’d been dreaming about. But I still wanted to be intelligent about it and not go dashing off to Hollywood to turn into a waitress, or spend my time sitting in producers’ waiting rooms hoping they’d notice me and just looking dumb when they asked if I had experience, or anything like that. That’s why I went to Quarterstone. And he said I’d got everything, and I only wanted a little schooling. I paid him five hundred dollars for a course of lessons, and then another five hundred for an advanced course, and then another five hundred for a movie course and by that time he’d been talking to me so that he’d found out all about that legacy, and that was when his friend came in and they got me to give them four thousand dollars to put that play on.”
“In which you were to play the lead.”
“Yes, and—”
“The play never did go on.”
She nodded, and the moistness of her eyes made them shine like jewels. She might not have been outstandingly intelligent, she might or might not have had any dramatic talent, but her own drama was real. She was crushed, frightened, dazed, wounded in the deep and desperate way that a child is hurt when it has innocently done something disastrous, as if she were still too stunned to realize what she had done.
Some men might have laughed, but the Saint didn’t laugh.
He said in his quiet friendly way, “I suppose you checked up on your legal position?”
“Yes. I went to see a solicitor. He said there wasn’t anything I could do. They’d been too clever. I couldn’t prove that I’d been swindled. There really was a play and it could have been put on, only the expenses ran away with all the money before that, and I hadn’t got any more, and apparently that often happens, and you couldn’t prove it was a fraud. I just hadn’t read the contracts and things properly when I signed them, and Urlaub—that’s Quarterstone’s friend—was entitled to spend all that money, and even if he was careless and stupid you couldn’t prove it was criminal…I suppose it was my own fault and I’ve no right to cry about it, but it was everything I had, and I’d given up my job as well, and—well, things have been pretty tough. You know.”
He nodded, straightening a cigarette with his strong brown fingers.
All at once the consciousness of what she was doing now seemed to sweep over her, leaving her tongue-tied. She had to make an effort to get out the last words that everything else had inevitably been leading up to.
“I know I’m crazy and I’ve no right, but could you…could you think of anything to do about it?”
He went on looking at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then, incredulously, she suddenly realized that he was smiling, and that his smile was still without satire.
“I could try,” he said.
He stood up, long immaculately tailored legs gathering themselves with the lazy grace of a tiger, and all at once she found something in his blue eyes that made all the legends about him impossible to question. It was as if he had lifted all the weight off her shoulders without another word when he stood up.
“One of the first things I should prescribe is a man-sized lunch,” he said. “A diet of sandwiches and milk never produced any great ideas.”
When he left her it was still without any more promises, and yet with a queer sense of certainty that was more comforting than any number of promises.
The Saint himself was not quite so certain, but he was interested, which perhaps meant more. He had that impetuously human outlook which judged an adventure on its artistic quality rather than on the quantity of boodle which it might contribute to his unlawful income. He liked Rosalind Hale, and he disliked such men as Mr Homer Quarterstone and Comrade Urlaub sounded as if they would be; more than that, perhaps, he disliked rackets that preyed on people to whom a loss of four thousand dollars was utter tragedy. He set out that same afternoon to interview Mr Quarterstone.
The Supremax Academy occupied the top floor and one room on the street level of a sedate old-fashioned building in Soho, but the entrance was so cunningly arranged and the other intervening tenants so modestly unheralded that any impressionable visitor who presented himself first at the ground-floor room labelled “Inquiries” and who was thence whisked expertly into the elevator and upwards to the rooms above, might easily have been persuaded that the whole building was taken up with various departments of the Academy, a hive buzzing with ambitious Thespian bees. The brassy but once luscious blonde who presided in the Inquiry Office lent tone to this idea by saying that Mr Quarterstone was busy, very busy, and that it was customary to make appointments with him days in advance; when she finally organized the interview it was with the regal generosity of a slightly flirtatious goddess performing a casual miracle for an especially favoured and deserving suitor—a beautifully polished routine that was calculated to impress prospective clients from the start with a gratifying sense of their own importance.
Simon Templar was always glad of a chance to enjoy his own importance, but on this occasion he regretfully had to admit that so much flattery was undeserved, for instead of his own name he had cautiously given the less notorious name of Tombs. This funereal anonymity, however, cast no shadow over the warmth of Mr Quarterstone’s welcome.
“My dear Mr Tombs! Come in. Sit down. Have a cigarette.”
Mr Quarterstone grasped him with large warm hands, wrapped him up, transported him tenderly, and installed him in an armchair like a collector enshrining a priceless piece of fragile glass. He fluttered anxiously around him, pressing a cigarette into the Saint’s mouth and lighting it before he retired reluctantly to his own chair on the other side of the desk.
“And now, my dear Mr Tombs,” said Mr Quarterstone at last, clasping his hands across his stomach, “how can I help you?”
Simon looked at his hands, his feet, the carpet, the wall, and then at Mr Quarterstone.
“Well,” he said bashfully, “I wanted to inquire about some dramatic lessons.”
“Some…ah…oh, yes. You mean a little advanced coaching. A little polishing of technique?”
“Oh, no,” said the Saint hastily. “I mean, you know your business, of course, but I’m only a beginner.”
Mr Quarterstone sat up a little straighter and gazed at him.
“You’re only a beginner?” he repeated incredulously.
“Yes.”
“You mean to tell me you haven’t any stage experience?”
“No. Only a co
uple of amateur shows.”
“You’re not joking?”
“Of course not.”
“Well!”
Mr Quarterstone continued to stare at him as if he were something rare and strange. The Saint twisted his hat-brim uncomfortably. Mr Quarterstone sat back again, shaking his head.
“That’s the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of,” he declared.
“But why?” Simon asked, with not unreasonable surprise.
“My dear fellow, anyone would take you for a professional actor! I’ve been in the theatrical business all my life—I was in the West End for ten years, played before the Royal Family, produced hundreds of shows—and I’d have bet anyone I could pick out a professional actor every time. The way you walked in, the way you sat down, the way you use your hands, even the way you’re smoking that cigarette—it’s amazing! Are you sure you’re not having a little joke?”
“Absolutely.”
“May I ask what is your present job?”
“Until a couple of days ago,” said the Saint ingenuously, “I was working in a bank. But I’d always wanted to be an actor, so when my uncle died and left me four thousand pounds I thought it was a good time to start. I think I could play parts like William Powell,” he added, looking sophisticated.
Mr Quarterstone beamed like a cat full of cream.
“Why not?” he demanded oratorically. “Why ever not? With that natural gift of yours…” He shook his head again, clicking his tongue in eloquent expression of his undiminished awe and admiration. “It’s the most amazing thing! Of course, I sometimes see fellows who are nearly as good-looking as you are, but they haven’t got your manner. Why, if you took a few lessons—”
Simon registered the exact amount of glowing satisfaction which he was supposed to register.
“That’s what I came to you for, Mr Quarterstone. I’ve seen your advertisements—”
“Yes! yes!”
Mr Quarterstone got up and came around the desk again. He took the Saint’s face in his large warm hands and turned it this way and that, studying it from various angles with increasing astonishment. He made the Saint stand up and studied him from a distance, screwing up one eye and holding up a finger in front of the other to compare his proportions. He stalked up to him again, patted him here and there, and felt his muscles. He stepped back again and posed in an attitude of rapture.
The Happy Highwayman (The Saint Series) Page 12