Mr Newdick, a man of the world, was wise to the fact that rate collectors and servers of summonses rarely arrived at their grim work in five-thousand-pound Hirondels, and it was with an easy conscience, if not yet admixed with undue optimism, that he went to open the door.
“Hullo, old bean,” said the Saint.
“Er…hullo,” said Mr Newdick.
“I blew in to see if you could tell me anything about your jolly old company,” said the Saint.
“Er…yes,” said Mr Newdick. “Er…why don’t you come inside?”
His hesitation was not due to any bashfulness or even to offended dignity. Mr Newdick did not mind being called an old bean. He had no instinctive desire to snub wealthy-looking young men with five-thousand-pound Hirondels who added jollity to his old company. The fact was that he was just beginning to recognise the manna for what it was, and his soul was suffering from the same emotions as those which had afflicted the Israelites in their time when they contemplated the miracle.
The Saint came in. Mr Newdick’s “office” was a small, roughly-fashioned cubicle about the size of a telephone booth, containing a small table littered with papers and overlaid with a thin film of dust—it scarcely seemed in keeping with the neatly engraved brass plate on the door which proclaimed it to be the registered offices of the Newdick Helicopter Company, Limited, but his visitor did not seem distressed by it.
“What did you want to know?” asked Mr Newdick.
Simon observed him to be a middle-aged man of only vaguely military appearance, with sharp eyes that looked at him unwaveringly. That characteristic alone might have deceived most men, but Simon Templar had moved in disreputable circles long enough to know that the ability to look another man squarely in the eye is one of the most fallacious indices of honesty.
“Well,” said the Saint amiably, tendering a platinum cigarette-case, “the fact is that I’m interested in helicopters. I happen to have noticed your little place several times recently when I’ve been passing, and I got the idea that it was quite a small show, and I wondered if there might by any chance be room for another partner in it.”
“You mean,” repeated Mr Newdick, checking back on the incredible evidence of his ears, “that you wanted to take an interest in the firm?”
Simon nodded.
“That was the jolly old idea,” he said. “In fact, if the other partners felt like selling out, I might take over the whole blinkin’ show. I’ve got a good deal of time on my hands, and I like pottering about with aeroplanes and what not. A chap’s got to do something to keep out of mischief, what? Besides, it doesn’t look as if you were doing a lot of business here, and I might be able to wake the jolly old place up a bit. Sort of aerial roadhouse, if you know what I mean. Dinners—drinks—dancing—pretty girls…What?”
“I didn’t say anything,” said Mr Newdick.
“All right. What about it, old bean?”
Mr Newdick scratched his chin. The notion of manna had passed into his cosmogony. It fell from Heaven. It was real. Miracles happened. The world was a brighter, rosier place.
“One of your remarks, of course,” he said, “is somewhat uninformed. As a matter of fact, we are doing quite a lot of business. We have orders, negotiations, tenders, contracts…” The elegant movement of one hand, temporarily released from massaging his chin, indicated a whole field of industry of which the uninitiated were in ignorance. “However,” he said, “if your proposition were attractive enough, it would be worth hearing.”
Simon nodded.
“Well, old bean, who do I put it to?”
“You may put it to me, if you like,” said Mr Newdick. “I am Oscar Newdick.”
“I see. But what about the other partners, Oscar, old sprout?”
Mr Newdick waved his hand.
“They are largely figureheads,” he explained. “A few friends with very small interests—just enough to meet the technical requirements of a limited company. The concern really belongs to me.”
Simon beamed.
“Splendid!” he said. “Jolly good! Well, well, well, dear old Newdick, what d’you think it’s worth?”
“There is a nominal share value of twenty-five thousand pounds,” said Mr Newdick seriously. “But, of course, they are worth far more than that. Far more…I very much doubt,” he said, “whether fifty thousand would be an adequate price. My patents alone are worth more than fifty thousand pounds. Sixty thousand pounds would scarcely tempt me. Seventy thousand would be a poor price. Eighty thousand—”
“Is quite a lot of money,” said the Saint, interrupting Mr Newdick’s private auction.
Mr Newdick nodded.
“But you haven’t seen the place yet—or the machines we turn out. You ought to have a look round, even if we can’t do business.”
Mr Newdick suffered a twinge of horror at the thought even while he uttered it.
He led the Saint out of his “office” to the junk shed. No one who had witnessed his sad survey of that collection of lumber a few minutes before would have believed that it was the same man who now gazed on it with such enthusiasm and affection.
“This,” said Mr Newdick, “is our workshop. Here you can see the parts of our machines in course of construction and assembly. Those lengths of wood are our special longerons. Over there are stays and braces…”
“By Jove!” said the Saint in awe. “I’d no idea helicopters went in for all those things. They must be quite dressed up when you’ve finished with them, what? By the way, talking of longerons, a girlfriend of mine has the neatest pattern of step-ins…”
Mr Newdick listened patiently.
Presently they passed on to the other shed. Mr Newdick opened the doors as reverently as if he had been unveiling a memorial.
“And this,” he said, “is the Newdick helicopter.”
Simon glanced over it vacuously, and looked about him.
“Where are all your workmen today?” he asked.
“They are on holiday,” said Mr Newdick, making a mental note to engage some picturesque mechanics the next day. “An old custom of the firm. I always give them a full day’s holiday on the anniversary of my dear mother’s death.” He wiped away a tear and changed the subject. “How would you like to take a flight?”
“Jolly good idea,” agreed the Saint.
The helicopter was wheeled out, and while it was warming up, Simon revealed that he was also a flier and possessed a licence for helicopters. Mr Newdick complimented him gravely. They made a ten-minute flight, and when they had landed again the Saint remained in his seat.
“D’you mind if I try her out myself?” he said. “I won’t ask you to take the flight with me.”
The machine was not fitted with dual control, but it was well insured. Mr Newdick only hesitated a moment. He was very anxious to please.
“Certainly,” he said. “Give her a thorough test yourself, and you’ll see that she’s a good bus.”
Simon took the ship off and climbed towards the north. When Mr Newdick’s tiny aerodrome was out of sight he put the helicopter through every test he could think of, and the results amazed him even while they only confirmed the remarkable impression he had gained while Mr Newdick was flying it.
When he saw the London Air Park below him he shut off the engine and came down in a perfect vertical descent which set him down outside the Cierva hangars. Simon climbed out and buttonholed one of the company’s test pilots.
“Would you like to come on a short hop with me?” he asked. “I want to show you something.”
As they walked back towards the Newdick helicopter, the pilot studied it with a puzzled frown.
“Is that one of our machines?” he said.
“More or less,” Simon told him.
“It looks as if it had been put together wrong,” said the pilot worriedly. “Have you been having trouble with it?”
The Saint shook his head.
“I think you’ll find,” he answered, “that it’s been put together rig
ht.”
He demonstrated what he meant, and when they returned, the test pilot took the machine up again himself and tried it a second time. Other test pilots tried it. Engineers scratched their heads over it and tried it. Telephone calls were made to London. A whole two hours passed before Simon Templar dropped the machine beside Mr Newdick’s sheds and relieved the inventor of the agonies of anxiety which had been racking him.
“I was afraid you’d killed yourself,” said Mr Newdick with emotion: and, indeed, the thought that his miraculous benefactor might have passed away before being separated from his money had brought Mr Newdick out in several cold sweats.
The Saint grinned.
“I just buzzed over to Reading to look up a friend,” he said untruthfully. “I like your helicopter. Let us go inside and talk business.”
When he returned to Patricia, much later that day, he was jubilant but mysterious. He spent most of the next day with Mr Newdick, and half of the Saturday which came after, but he refused to tell her what he was doing. It was not until that evening, when he was pouring beer once more for Monty Hayward, that he mentioned Mr Newdick again, and then his announcement took her breath away.
“I’ve bought that helicopter company,” he said casually.
“You’ve what?” spluttered Monty.
“I’ve bought that helicopter company and everything it owns,” said the Saint, “for forty thousand pounds.”
They gaped at him for a while in silence, while he calmly continued with the essential task of opening bottles.
“The man’s mad,” said Patricia finally. “I always thought so.”
“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 re-christened 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 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-hypnotized, 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. “Well, 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 autogyro 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.
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. 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. 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 countr
y 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 Tartars themselves who gave my country its name, from their word Chertkess, 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 Arabia—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 to keep her in my palace.”
“And do you still exercise that right?” asked another journalist, with ecstatic visions of headlines floating through his mind.
The Prince smiled, as he might have smiled at the 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 one-hundred-thousand-pound crown which was being prepared for him by a West End firm of jewellers was almost an anti-climax.
The Saint Intervenes (The Saint Series) Page 6