He shook hands again, violently, with Patricia and the Saint, caught up his Panama, and vomited out of the room again like a human whirligig.
In the vestibule a podgy and pompous little man with bushy moustachios was waiting for him. He seized James G. Amberson by the arm.
“Did you get it, Jim?”
“You bet I did!” Amberson exhibited his purchase. His excessively American speech had disappeared. “And now d’you mind telling me why we’ve bought it? I’m just packing up for our getaway when you rush me round here to spend fifteen thousand dollars—”
“I’ll tell you how it was, Jim,” said the other rapidly. “I’m sitting on top of a bus, and there’s a man and girl in front of me. The first thing I heard was ‘Twenty thousand pounds’ worth of black pearls in a brass Buddha.’ I just had to listen. This chap seemed to be a solicitor’s clerk, and he was telling his girl about an old miser who shoved these pearls into a brass Buddha after his wife died, and nobody found the letter where he said what he’d done till long after he was buried. ‘And we’ve got to try and trace the thing,’ says this young chap. ‘It was sold to a junk dealer with a lot of other stuff, and heaven knows where it may be now.’ ‘How d’you know you’ve got it when you find it?’ says the girl. ‘Easy,’ says this chap. ‘It’s got a mark on it like this.’ He drew it on his paper, and I nearly broke my neck getting a look. Come on, now—let’s get home and open it.”
“I hope Ambrose and James G. are having lots of fun looking for your black pearls, Peter,” drawled the Saint piously, as he stood at the counter of Thomas Cook and watched American bills translating themselves into English bank-notes with a fluency that was all the heart could desire.
THE PERFECT CRIME
“The defendants,” said Mr Justice Goldie, with evident distaste, “have been unable to prove that the agreement between the plaintiff and the late Alfred Green constituted a money-lending transaction within the limits of the Act, and I am therefore obliged to give judgement for the plaintiff. I will consider the question of costs tomorrow.”
The Saint tapped Peter Quentin on the shoulder as the court rose, and they slipped out ahead of the scanty assembly of spectators, bored reporters, dawdling solicitors, and traditionally learned counsel. Simon Templar had sat in that stuffy little room for two hours, bruising his marrow-bones on an astonishingly hard wooden bench and yearning for a cigarette, but there were times when he could endure many discomforts in a good cause.
Outside, he caught Peter’s arm again.
“Mind if I take another look at our plaintiff?” he said. “Just over here—stand in front of me. I want to see what a snurge like that really looks like.”
They stood in a gloomy corner near the door of the court, and Simon sheltered behind Peter Quentin’s hefty frame and watched James Deever come out with his solicitor.
It is possible that Mr Deever’s mother loved him. Perhaps, holding him on her knee, she saw in his childish face the fulfilment of all those precious hopes and shy incommunicable dreams which (if we can believe the Little Mothers’ Weekly, are the joy and comfort of the prospective parent. History does not tell us that. But we do know that since her death, thirty years ago, no other bosom had ever opened to him with anything like that sublime mingling of pride and affection.
He was a long, cadaverous man with a face like a vulture and shaggy white eyebrows over closely-set greenish eyes. His thin nose swooped low down over a thin gash of a mouth, and his chin was pointed and protruding. In no respect whatsoever was it the kind of countenance to which young children take an instinctive shine. Grown men and women, who knew him, liked him even less.
His home and business address were in Manchester, but the City Corporation had never been heard to boast about it. Simon Templar watched him walk slowly past, discussing some point in the case he had just won with the air of a parson conferring with a church-warden after matins, and the reeking hypocrisy of the performance filled him with an almost irresistible desire to catch Mr Deever’s frock-coated stern with the toe of his shoe and start him on one sudden magnificent flight to the foot of the stairs. The Manchester City Corporation, Simon considered, could probably have kept their ends up without Mr Deever’s name on the roll of ratepayers. But the Saint restrained himself, and went on peaceably with Peter Quentin five minutes afterwards.
“Let us drink beer,” said the Saint.
They entered a convenient tavern, lighting cigarettes as they went, and found a secluded corner in the saloon bar. The court had sat on late, and the hour had struck at which it is lawful for Englishmen to consume the refreshment which can only be bought at any time of the day in nasty uncivilized foreign countries.
And for a few minutes there was silence…
“It’s wonderful what you can do with the full sanction of the Law,” Peter Quentin said presently, in a rather sourly reflective tone, and the Saint smiled at him wryly. He knew that Peter was not thinking about the more obvious inanities of the Defence of the Realm Act.
“I rather wanted to get a good close-up of James, and watch him in action,” he said. “I guess all the stories are true.”
There were several stories about James Deever, but none of them ever found their way into print—for libel actions mean heavy damages, and Mr Deever sailed very comfortably within the Law. His business was plainly and publicly that of a moneylender and as a moneylender he was duly and legally registered according to the Act which has done so much to bring the profession of usury within certain humane restrictions. And as a plain and registered moneylender Mr Deever retained his offices in Manchester, superintending every detail of his business in person, trusting nobody, sending out beautifully-worded circulars in which he proclaimed his readiness to lend anybody any sum from ten pounds to fifty thousand pounds on note of hand alone, and growing many times richer than the Saint thought anyone but himself had any right to be. Nevertheless, Mr Deever’s business would probably have escaped the Saint’s attentions if those few facts had covered the whole general principle of it.
They didn’t. Mr Deever, who, in spite of the tenor of his artistically-printed circulars, was not in the money-lending business on account of any urge to go down to mythology as the little fairy godmother of Manchester, had devised half a dozen ingenious and strictly legal methods of evading the limitations placed on him by the Act. The prospective borrower who came to him, full of faith and hope, for the loan of ten to fifty thousand pounds was frequently obliged—not, one must admit, on his note of hand alone, but eventually on the basis of some very sound security. And if the loan were promptly repaid, there the matter ended—at the statutory rate of interest for such transactions. It was only when the borrower found himself in further difficulties that Mr Deever’s ingenious schemes came into operation. It was then that the victim found himself straying little by little into a maze of complicated mortgages, discounted cheques, “nominal” promissory notes, mysterious “conversions,” and technically-worded transfers—straying into that labyrinth so gradually at first that it all seemed quite harmless, slipping deeper into it over an easy path of documents and signatures, floundering about in it at last, and losing his bearings more and more hopelessly in his struggles to climb back—finally awakening to the haggard realization that by some incomprehensible jugglery of papers and figures he owed Mr Deever five or six times as much money as Mr Deever had given him in cash, and having it proved to him over his own signature that there was no question of the statutory rate of interest having been exceeded at any time.
Exactly thus had it been proved to the widow of a certain victim in the case that they had listened to that afternoon, and there were other similar cases that had come to the Saint’s receptive knowledge.
“There were days,” remarked the Saint, rather wistfully, “when some lads of the village and I would have carved Brother Deever into small pieces and baited lobster-pots with him from the North Foreland to the Lizard.”
“And what now?” queried Peter
Quentin.
“Now,” said the Saint, regretfully, we can only call on him for a large involuntary contribution to our Pension Fund for Deserving Outlaws.”
Peter lowered the first quarter of his second pint.
“It’ll have to be something pretty smart to catch that bird,” he said. “If you asked me, I should say you couldn’t take any story to him that wouldn’t have to pass under a microscope.”
“For which reason,” murmured Simon Templar, with the utmost gravity, “I shall go to him with a story that is absolutely true. I shall approach him with a hook and line that the cleverest detective on earth couldn’t criticize. You’re right, Peter—there probably isn’t a swindle in the encyclopedia that would get a yard past Brother James. It’s a good thing we aren’t criminals, Pete—we might get our fingers burned. No, laddie. Full of righteousness and the stuff that passes for beer in this country, we shall draw nigh to Brother James with our haloes fairly glistening. It was just for a man like him that I was saving up my Perfect Crime.”
If the Saint’s halo was not actually visibly luminous when he called at Mr Deever’s offices the next morning, he at least looked remarkably harmless. A white flower (“for purity,” said the Saint) started in his button-hole and flowed in all directions over his coat lapel, a monocle was screwed into his right eye, his hat sat precariously on the back of his head, and his face was relaxed into an expression of such amiable aristocratic idiocy that Mr Deever’s chief clerk—a man hardly less sour-visaged than Mr Deever himself—was even more obsequious than usual.
Simon said he wanted a hundred pounds, and would cheerfully give a jolly old note of hand for it if some Johnnie would explain to him what a jolly old note of hand was. The clerk explained, oleaginously, that a jolly old note of hand was a somewhat peculiar sort of thing that sounded nice in advertisements, but wasn’t really used with important clients. Had Mr…er…Smith?—had Mr Smith any other kind of security?
“I’ve got some jolly old premium bonds,” said the Saint, and the clerk nodded his head in a perfect sea of oil.
“If you can wait a moment, sir, perhaps Mr Deever will see you himself.”
The Saint had no doubt that Mr Deever would see him. He waited around patiently for a few minutes, and was ushered into Mr Deever’s private sanctum.
“You see, I lost a bally packet at Derby yesterday—every blinkin’ horse fell down dead when I backed it. I work a system, but of course you can’t back a winner every day. I know I’ll get it back, though—the chappie who sold me the system said it never let him down.”
Mr Deever’s eyes gleamed. If there was anything that satisfied every one of his requirements for a successful loan, it was an asinine young man with a monocle who believed in racing systems.
“I believe you mentioned some security, Mr…er…Smith. Naturally we should be happy to lend you a hundred pounds without any formalities, but—”
“Oh, I’ve got these jolly old bonds. I don’t want to sell ’em, because they’re having a draw this month. If you hold the lucky number you get a fat bonus. Sort of lottery business, but quite gilt-edged an’ all that sort of thing.”
He produced a large envelope, and passed it across Mr Deever’s desk. Deever extracted a bunch of expensively watermarked papers artistically engraved with green and gold lettering which proclaimed them to be Latvian 1929 Premium Loan (British Series) Bearer Bonds, value twenty-five pounds each.
The financier crunched them between his fingers, squinted at the ornate characters suspiciously through a magnifying glass, and looked again at the Saint.
“Of course, Mr Smith, we don’t keep large sums of money on the premises. But if you’d like to leave these bonds with me until, say, two o’clock this afternoon, I’m sure we shall be able to make a satisfactory arrangement.”
“Keep ’em by every manner of means, old bean,” said the Saint airily. “So long as I get the jolly old quidlets in time to take ’em down to the three-thirty today, you’re welcome.”
Conveniently enough, this happened to be the first day of the Manchester September meeting. Simon Templar paraded again at two o’clock, collected his hundred pounds, and rejoined Peter Quentin at their hotel.
“I have a hundred pounds of Brother James’s money,” he announced. “Let’s go and spread it around on the most frantic outsiders we can find.”
They went to the races, and it so happened that the Saint’s luck was in. He had doubled Mr Deever’s hundred pounds when the result of the last race went up on the board—but Mr Deever would not have been seriously troubled if he had lost the lot. Five hundred pounds’ worth of Latvian Bearer Bonds had been deposited as security for the advance, and in spite of the artistic engraving on them there was no doubt that they were genuine. The interval between Simon Templar’s visit to Mr Deever in the morning and the time when the money was actually paid over to him had been devoted to an expert scrutiny of the bonds, coupled with inquiries at Mr Deever’s brokers, which had definitely established their authenticity—and the Saint knew it.
“I wonder,” Simon Templar was saying as they drove back into the town, “if there’s any place here where you could buy a false beard. With all this money in our pockets, why should you wait for Nature to take her course?”
Nevertheless, it was not with the air of a man who has collected a hundred pounds over a couple of well-chosen winners that the Saint came to Mr Deever the next day. It was Saturday, but that meant nothing to Mr Deever. He was a man who kept only the barest minimum of holidays and much good business might be done with temporarily embarrassed members of the racing fraternity on the second day of the meeting.
It appeared very likely on this occasion.
“I don’t know how the horse managed to lose,” said the Saint mournfully.
“Dear me!” said Mr Deever unctuously. “Dear me! Did it lose?”
The Saint nodded.
“I don’t understand it at all. The chappie who sold me this system said it had never had more than three losers in succession. And the stakes go up so frightfully fast. You see, you have to put on more money each time, so that when you win you get back your losses as well. But it simply must win today—”
“How much do you need to put on today, Mr Smith?”
“About eight hundred pounds. But what with buzzing around an’ having a few drinks and what not, don’t you know—if you could make it an even thou—”
Mr Deever rubbed his hands over each other with a face of abysmal gloom.
“A thousand pounds is quite a lot of money, Mr…er…Smith, but of course if you can offer some security—purely as a business formality, you understand—”
“Oh, I’ve got lots of those jolly old Latvian Bonds,” said the Saint. “I think I bought about two hundred of ’em. Got to try and pick up a bonus somehow, what?”
Mr Deever nodded like a mandarin.
“Of course, Mr Smith. Of course. And it just happens that one of our advances was repaid today, so I may be able to find a thousand pounds for you in our safe.” He pressed a bell on his desk, and a clerk appeared. “Mr Goldberg, will you see if we can oblige this gentleman with a thousand pounds?”
The clerk disappeared again, and came back in a few moments with a sheaf of bank-notes. Simon Templar produced another large envelope, and Mr Deever drew from it an even thicker wad of bonds. He counted them over and examined them carefully one by one, then he took a printed form from a drawer, and unscrewed the cap of a Woolworth fountain-pen.
“Now if you will just complete our usual agreement, Mr Smith—”
Through the glass partition that divided Mr Deever’s sanctum from the outer office there suddenly arose the expostulations of an extraordinarily loud voice. Raised in a particularly raucous north-country accent, it made itself heard so clearly that there was no chance of missing anything it said.
“I tell you, I’d know thaat maan anywhere. I’d know ’im in a daark room if I was blind-fooalded. It was Simon Templar, I tell you. I saw
’im coom in, an’ I says to myself, ‘Thaat’s Saaint, thaat is.’ I ’aad wife an’ loogage with me, so I taakes ’em into ’otel an’ cooms straaight baack. I’m going to see thaat Saaint if I waait here two years—”
The buttery voice of Mr Goldberg could be heard protesting. Then the north-country voice drowned it again.
“Then if you won’t let me in, I’ll go straaight out an’ fetch policeman. Thaat’s what I’ll do.”
There was an eruption without, as of someone departing violently into the street, and the Saint looked at Mr Deever. Simon’s hand was outstretched to grasp the pile of bank-notes—then he saw Deever’s right hand come out of a drawer, and a nickel-plated revolver with it.
“Just a moment, Mr…er…Smith,” Deever said slowly. “I think you’re in too much of a hurry.”
He touched the bell on his desk again. Mr Goldberg reappeared, mopping his swarthy brow. There was a glitter in Deever’s greenish eyes which told Simon that the revolver was not there merely for the purposes of intimidation. The Saint sat quite still.
“Look in this gentleman’s pockets, Mr Goldberg. Perhaps he has some evidence of identity on him.”
The clerk came over and began a search. The monocle had vanished from the Saint’s right eye, and the expression on his face was anything but vacuous.
“You filthy miser!” he blazed. “I’ll see that you’re sorry for this. No one has insulted me like this for years—”
Coolly Deever leaned over the desk and smacked Simon over the mouth. The blow cut the Saint’s lip.
“A crook should be careful of his tongue,” Deever said.
“There’s a letter here, Mr Deever,” said the clerk, laying it on the blotter. “It’s addressed to Simon Templar. And I found this as well.”
“‘This’ was another large envelope, the exact replica of the one in which Simon had handed over his Latvian Bonds. Deever opened it, and found that it contained a similar set of bonds, and when he had counted them he found that they were equal in number to those which he had accepted for security.
The Brighter Buccaneer (The Saint Series) Page 10
