"When did you do this?" asked Monty.
"We fixed up the last details of the deal today," said the Saint. "Oscar is due here at any minute to sign the papers."
Monty swallowed beer feverishly.
"I suppose you wouldn't care to buy my shares as well?" he suggested.
"Sure, I'll buy them," said the Saint affably. "Name your price. Oscar's contribution gives me a controlling interest, but I can always handle a bit more. As ordered by Patricia, I'm going into business. The machine is to be rechristened the Templar helicopter. I shall go down to history as the man who put England in the air. Bevies of English beauty, wearing their Templar longerons—stays, braces, and everything complete——"
The ringing of his door-bell interrupted the word-picture and took him from the room before any of the questions that were howling through their bewildered minds could be asked.
Mr. Newdick was on the mat, beaming like a delighted fox. Simon took his hat and umbrella, took Mr. Newdick by the arm, and led him through into the living-room.
"Boys and girls," he said cheerfully, "this is our fairy godmother, Mr. Oscar Newdick. This is Miss Holm, Oscar, old toadstool; and I think you know Mr. Hayward——"
The inventor's arm had stiffened under his hand, and his smile had vanished. His face was turning pale and nasty.
"What's the game?" he demanded hoarsely. "No game at all, dear old garlic-blossom," said the Saint innocently. "Just a coincidence. Mr. Hayward is going to sell me his shares too. Now, all the papers are here, and if you'll just sign on the dotted line ——"
"I refuse!" babbled Newdick wildly. "It's a trap!"
Simon stepped back and regarded him blandly. "A trap, Oscar? What on earth are you talking about? You've got a jolly good helicopter, and you've nothing to be ashamed of. Come, now, be brave. Harden the Newdick heart. There may be a wrench at parting with your brainchild, but you can cry afterwards. Just a signature or two on the dotted line, and it's all over. And there's a cheque for forty thousand pounds waiting for you. . . ."
He thrust a fountain-pen into the inventor's hand; and, half-hypnotised, Mr. Newdick signed. The Saint blotted the signatures carefully and put the agreements away in a drawer, which he locked. Then he handed Mr. Newdick a cheque. The inventor grasped it weakly and stared at the writing and figures on it as if he expected them to fade away under his eyes. He had the quite natural conviction that his brain had given way.
"Th-thank you very much," he said shakily, and was conscious of little more than an overpowering desire to remove himself from those parts—to camp out on the doorstep of a bank and wait there with his head in his hands until morning, when he could pass the cheque over the counter and see crisp banknotes clicking back to him in return to prove that his sanity was not entirely gone. "Weil, I must be going," he gulped out; but the Saint stopped him.
"Not a bit of it, Oscar," he murmured. "You don't intrude. In fact, you ought to be the guest of honour. Your class as an inventor really is A 1. When I showed the Cierva people what you'd done, they nearly collapsed."
Mr. Newdick blinked at him in a painful daze. "What do you mean?" he stammered.
"Why, the way you managed to build an autogiro that would go straight up and down. None of the ordinary ones will, of course—the torque of the vanes would make it spin round like a top if it didn't have a certain amount of forward movement to hold it straight. I can only think that when you got hold of some Cierva parts and drawings and built it up yourself, you found out that it didn't go straight up and down as you'd expected and thought you must have done something wrong. So you set about trying to put it right—and somehow or other you brought it off. It's a pity you were in such a hurry to tell Mr. Hayward that everything in your invention had been patented before, Oscar, because if you'd made a few more inquiries you'd have found that it hadn't." Simon Templar grinned, and patted the stunned man kindly on the shoulder. "But everything happens for the best, dear old bird; and when I tell you that the Cierva people have already made me an offer of a hundred thousand quid for the invention you've just sold me, I'm sure you'll stay and join us in a celebratory bottle of beer."
Mr. Oscar Newdick swayed slightly, and glugged a strangling obstruction out of his throat.
"I—I don't think I'll stay," he said. "I'm not feeling very well."
"A dose of salts in the morning will do you all the good in the world," said the Saint chattily, and ushered him sympathetically to the door.
IV
The Prince of Cherkessia
Of the grey hairs which bloomed in the thinning thatch of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, there were at least a couple of score which he could attribute directly to an equal number of encounters with the Saint. Mr. Teal did not actually go so far as to call them by name and celebrate their birthdays, for he was not by nature a whimsical man; but he had no doubts about their origin.
The affair of the Prince of Cherkessia gave him the forty-first—or it may have been the forty-second.
His Highness arrived in London without any preliminary publicity; but he permitted a number of reporters to interview him at his hotel after his arrival, and the copy which he provided had a sensation value which no self-respecting news editor could ignore.
It started before the assembled pressmen had drunk more than half the champagne which was provided for them in the Prince's suite, which still stands as a record for any reception of that type; and it was started by a cub reporter, no more ignorant than the rest, but more honest about it, who had not been out on that kind of assignment long enough to learn that the serious business of looking for a story is not supposed to mar the general conviviality while there is anything left to drink.
"Where," asked this revolutionary spirit brazenly, with his mouth full of foie gras, "is Cherkessia?"
The Prince raised his Mephistophelian eyebrows.
"You," he replied, with faint contempt, "would probably know it better as Circassia."
At the sound of his answer a silence spread over the room. The name rang bells, even in journalistic heads. The cub gulped down the rest of his sandwich without tasting it; and one reporter was so far moved as to put down a glass which was only half empty.
"It is a small country between the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea," said the Prince. "Once it was larger; but it has been eaten away by many invaders. The Turks and the Russians have robbed us piecemeal of most of our lands— although it was the Tatars themselves who gave my country its name, from their word Cherktkess, which means 'robbers.' That ancient insult was long since turned to glory by my ancestor Schamyl, whose name I bear; and in the paltry lands which are still left to me the proud traditions of our race are carried on to this day."
The head of the reporter who had put down his glass was buzzing with vague memories.
"Do you still have beautiful Circassians?" he asked hungrily.
"Of course," said the Prince. "For a thousand years our women have been famed for their beauty. Even today, we export many hundreds annually to the most distinguished harems in Turkey—a royal tax on these transactions," added the Prince, with engaging simplicity, "has been of great assistance to our national budget."
The reporter swallowed, and retrieved his glass hurriedly; and the cub who had started it all asked, with bulging eyes: "What other traditions do you have, Your Highness?"
"Among other things," said the Prince, "we are probably the only people today among whom the droit de seigneur survives. That is to say that every woman in my country belongs to me, if and when I choose to take her, for as long as I choose keep her in my palace."
"And do you still exercise that right?" asked another journalist, with estatic visions of headlines floating through his mind.
The Prince smiled, as he might have smiled at at naivety of a child.
"If the girl is sufficiently attractive—of course. It is a divine right bestowed upon my family by Mohammed himself. In my country it is considered an honour to be
chosen, and the marriageable value of any girl on whom I bestow my right is greatly increased by it."
From that moment the reception was a historic success; and the news that one reason for the Prince's visit was to approve the final details of a new £100,000 crown which was being prepared for him by a West End firm of jewellers was almost an anticlimax.
Chief Inspector Teal read the full interview in his morning paper the following day; and he was so impressed with its potentialities that he made a personal call on the Prince that afternoon.
"Is this really the interview you gave, Your Highness?" he asked, when he had introduced himself, "or are you going to repudiate it?"
Prince Schamyl took the paper and read it through. He was a tall well-built man with a pointed black beard and twirled black moustaches like a seventeenth-century Spanish grandee; and when he had finished reading he handed the paper back with a slight bow, and fingered his moustaches in some perplexity.
"Why should I repudiate it?" he inquired. "It is exactly what I said."
Teal chewed for a moment on the spearmint which even in the presence of royalty he could not deny himself; and then he said: "In that case, Your Highness, would you be good enough to let us give you police protection?"
The Prince frowned puzzledly.
"But are not all people in this country protected by the police?"
"Naturally," said Teal. "But this is rather a special case. Have you ever heard of the Saint?"
Prince Schamyl shrugged.
"I have heard of several."
"I don't mean that kind of saint," the detective told him grimly. "The Saint is the name of a notorious criminal we have here, and something tells me that as soon as he sees this interview he'll be making plans to steal this crown you're buying. If I know anything about him, the story that you make some of your money out of selling girls to harems, and that you exercise this droit de seigneur, whatever that is, would be the very thing to put him on your tracks."
"But, please," said the Prince in ingenuous bewilderment, "what is wrong with our customs? My people have been happy with them for hundreds of years."
"The Saint wouldn't approve of them," said Teal with conviction, and realised the hopelessness of entering upon a discussion of morals with such a person. "Anyhow, sir, I'd be very much obliged if you would let us give you a special guard until you take your crown out of the country."
The Prince shook his head, as if the incomprehensible customs of England baffled him to speechlessness.
"In my country there are no notorious criminals," he said, "because as soon as a criminal is known he is beheaded. However, I shall be glad to help you in any way I can. The crown is to be delivered here tomorrow, and you may place as many guards in my suite as you think necessary."
The news that four special detectives had been detailed to guard the Prince of Cherkessia's crown was published in an evening paper which Simon Templar was reading at a small and exclusive dinner at which the morning paper's interview was also discussed.
"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist it," said Patricia Holm fatalistically, "directly I saw the headlines. You're that sort of idiot."
Simon looked at her mockingly.
"Idiot?" he queried. "My dear Pat, have you ever known me to be anything but sober and judicious?"
"Often," said his lady candidly. "I've also known you to walk into exactly the same trap. I'll bet you anything you like that Teal made up the whole story just to get a rise out of you, and the Prince 'll turn out to be another detective with a false beard."
"You'd lose your money," said the Saint calmly. "Teal is as worried about it as you are, and if you like to drop in at Vazey's on Bond Street or make discreet inquiries at the Southshire Insurance Company, you'll find that that crown genuinely is costing a hundred thousand quid and is insured for the same amount. It's rather pleasant to think that Southshire will have to stand the racket, because their ninety per cent underwriter is a very scaly reptile named Percy Quiltan, whose morals are even more repulsive than Prince Schamyl's. And the Prince's are bad enough. . . . No, Pat, you can't convince me that that tin hat isn't legitimate boodle; and I'm going to have it."
A certain Peter Quentin, who was also present, sighed, and turned the sigh into a resigned grin.
"But how d'you propose to do it?" he asked.
The Saint's blue eyes turned on him with an impish twinkle.
"I seem to remember that you retired from this business some months ago, Peter," he murmured. "A really respectable citizen wouldn't be asking that question with so much interest. However, since your beautiful wife is away—if you'd like to lend a hand, you could help me a lot."
"But what's the plan?" insisted Patricia.
Simon Templar smiled.
"We are going to dematerialise ourselves," he said blandly. "Covetous but invisible, we shall lift the crown of Cherkessia from under Claud Eustace's very nose, and put it on a shelf in the fourth dimension."
She was no wiser when the party broke up some hours later. Simon informed her that he and Peter Quentin would be moving into Prince Schamyl's hotel to take up residence there for a couple of days; but she knew that they would not be there under their own names, and the rest of his plan remained wrapped in the maddening mystery with which the Saint's sense of the theatrical too often required him to tantalise his confederates.
Chief Inspector Teal would have been glad to know even as little as Patricia; but the evidence which came before him was far less satisfactory. It consisted of a plain postcard, addressed to Prince Schamyl, on which had been drawn a skeleton figure crowned with a rakishly tilted halo. A small arrow pointed to the halo, and at the other end of the arrow was written in neat copperplate the single word: "Thursday."
"If the Saint says he's coming on Thursday, he's coming on Thursday," Teal stated definitely, in a private conference to which he was summoned when the card arrived.
Prince Schamyl elevated his shoulders and spread out his hands.
"I do not attempt to understand your customs, Inspector. In my country, if we require evidence, we beat the criminal with rods until he provides it."
"You can't do that in this country," said Teal, as if he wished you could. "That postcard wouldn't be worth tuppence in a court of law—not with the sort of lawyers the Saint could afford to engage. We couldn't prove that he sent it. We know it's his trade-mark, but the very fact that everybody in England knows the same thing would be the weakest point in our case. The prosecutor could never make the jury believe that a crook as clever as the Saint is supposed to be would sent out a warning that could be traced back to him so easily. The Saint knows it, and he's been trading on it for years—it's the strongest card in his hand. If we arrested him on evidence like that, he'd only have to swear that the card was a fake—that some other crook had sent it out as a blind—and he could make a fool of anyone who tried to prove it wasn't. Our only chance is to catch him more or less red-handed. One of these days he'll go too far, and I'm only hoping it'll be on Thursday."
Teal thumbed the pages of a cheap pocket diary, although he had no need to remind himself of dates.
"This is Wednesday," he said. "You can say that Thursday begins any time after midnight. I'll be here at twelve o'clock myself, and I'll stay here till midnight tomorrow."
Mr. Teal was worried more than he would have cared to admit. The idea that even such a satanic ingenuity as he knew the Saint to possess could contrive a way of stealing anything from under the eyes of a police guard who had been forewarned that he was coming for it was obviously fantastic. It belonged to sensational fiction, to the improbable world of Arsène Lupin. Arsène Lupin would have disguised himself as Chief Inspector Teal or the Chief Commissioner, and walked out with the crown under his arm; but Teal knew that such miracles of impersonation only happened in the romances of unscrupulous and reader-cheating authors. Yet he knew the Saint too well, he had crossed swords too often with that amazing brigand of the twentieth century, to derive a
ny solid consolation from that thought.
When he came back to the hotel that night, he checked over his defences as seriously as if he had been guarding the emperor of a great European power from threatened assassination. There were men posted at the entrances of the hotel, and one at a strategic point in the lobby which covered the stairs and elevators. A Flying Squad car stood outside. Every member of the hotel staff who would be serving the Prince during the next twenty-four hours had been investigated. A burly detective paced the corridor outside the Prince's suite, and two more equally efficient men were posted inside. Teal added himself to the last number. The £100,000 crown of Cherkessia reposed in a velvet-lined box on a table in the sitting-room of the suite—Teal had unsuccessfully attempted more than once to induce Prince Schamyl to authorise its removal to a safe-deposit or even to Scotland Yard itself.
"Where is the necessity?" inquired the Prince blankly. "You have your detectives everywhere. Are you afraid that they will be unable to cope with this absurd criminal?"
Teal had no answer. He was afraid—there was a gloomy premonition creeping around his brain that the Saint could not have helped foreseeing all his precautions, and therefore must have discovered a loophole long in advance. That was the reason why he had studiously withheld even a rumour of the Saint's threat from the Press, for he had his own stolid vanity. But he could not tell the Prince that. He glowered morosely at the private detective who had been added to the contingent by the Southshire Insurance Company, a brawny broken-nosed individual with a moustache like the handlebars of a bicycle, who was pruning his nails with a penknife in the corner. He began to ask himself whether those battered and belligerently whiskered features could by any feat of make-up have been imposed with putty and spirit gum on the face of the Saint or any of his known associates; and then the detective looked up and encountered his devouring stare with symptoms of such pardonable alarm that Teal hastily averted his eyes.
"Surely," said the Prince, who still appeared to be striving to get his bearings, "if you are really anticipating an attack from this criminal, and he is so well known to you, his movements are being watched?"
13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle) Page 6