"I get it," said the Saint quietly. "And in a day or two you'll have a Winlass shoe repair shop next door to you, working for nothing."
"They won't do work like I do," said Dave Roberts stolidly. "You can't do it, not with these machines. What did the Good Lord give us hands for, if it wasn't that they were the best tools in the world? . . . But I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Winlass tried it. But I wouldn't sell my house to him. I told this fellow he sent to see me: 'My compliments to Mr. Winlass,' I says, 'and I don't think much of his orders, nor the manner of anybody that carries 'em out. The way you talk to me,' I says, 'isn't the way to talk to any self-respecting man, an' I wouldn't sell you my house, not now after you've threatened me that way,' I says, 'not if you offered me seven thousands pounds.' An' I tells him to get out o' my shop an' take that message to Mr. Winlass."
"I see," said the Saint.
Dave Roberts finished off his sewing and put the shoe down in its place among the row of other finished jobs.
"I ain't afraid, sir," he said. "If it's the Lord's will that I go out of my house, I suppose He knows best. But I don't want Mr. Winlass to have it, an' the Lord helps them that helps themselves."
The Saint lighted a cigarette and stared out of the window.
"Uncle Dave," he said gently, "would you sell me your house ?"
He turned round suddenly, and looked at the old man. Dave Roberts's hands had fallen limply in his lap, and his eyes were blinking mistily.
"You, sir?" he said.
"Me," said the Saint. "I know you don't want to go, and I don't know whether it's the Lord's will or not, but I know that you're going to have to. And you know it too. Winlass will find a way to get you out. But I can get more out of him than you could. I know you don't want money, but I can offer you something even better. I know a village out of London where I can buy you a house almost exactly like this, and you can have your shop and do your work there without anybody troubling you again. I'll give you that in exchange, and however much money there is in this house as well."
It was one of those quixotic impulses that often moved him, and he uttered it on the spur of the moment with no concrete plan of campaign in his mind. He knew that Dave Roberts would have to go, and that Turk's Lane must disappear, making room for the hygienic edifice of mass-production cubicles which Mr. Vernon Winlass had planned: he knew that, whatever he himself might wish, that individual little backwater must take the way of all such pleasant places, to be superseded by the vast white cube of Crescent Court, the communal sty which the march of progress demands for its armies. But he also knew that Mr. Vernon Winlass was going to pay more than seven hundred pounds to dear the ground for it.
When he saw Patricia Holm and Peter Quentin later that night, they had no chance to mistake the light of unlawful resolution on his face.
"Brother Vernon hasn't bought the whole of Turk's Lane," he announced, "because I've got some of it."
"Whatever for?" asked Patricia.
"For an investment," answered the Saint virtuously. "Crescent Court will be built only by kind permission of Mr. Simon Templar, and my permission is going to cost money."
Peter Quentin helped himself to another bottle of beer.
"We believe you," he said dryly. "What's the swindle?"
"You have a mind like Claud Eustace Teal," said the Saint offensively. "There is no swindle. I am a respectable real estate speculator, and if you had any money I'd sue you for slander. But I don't mind telling you that I am rather interested to know what hobby Vernon Winlass has in his spare moments. Go out and do some sleuthing for me in the morning, Peter, and I'll let you know some more."
In assuming that even such a hard-headed business man as Mr. Vernon Winlass must have some simple indulgence, Simon Templar was not taking a long chance. Throughout the ages, iron-gutted captains of industry have diverted themselves with rare porcelain, pewter, tram tickets, Venetian glass, first editions, second mortgages, second establishments, dahlias, stuffed owls, and such-like curios. Mr. Wallington Titus Oates, of precious memory, went into slavering raptures at the sight of pieces of perforated paper bearing the portraits of repulsive monarchs and the magic words "Postage Two Pence." Mr. Vernon Winlass, who entrenched himself during business hours behind a storm battalion of secretaries, under-secretaries, assistant secretaries, messengers, clerks, managers, and office-boys, put aside all his business and opened wide his defences at the merest whisper of old prints.
"It's just an old thing we came across when we were clearing out our old house," explained the man who had successfully penetrated these fortified frontiers—his card introduced him as Captain Tombs, which was an alias out of which Simon Templar derived endless amusement "I took it along to Busby's to find out if it was worth anything, and they seemed to get quite excited about it. They told me I'd better show it to you."
Mr. Winlass nodded.
"I buy a good many prints from Busby's," he said smugly. "If anything good comes their way, they always want me to see it."
He took the picture out of its brown paper wrapping and looked at it closely under the light. The glass was cracked and dirty, and the frame was falling apart and tied up with wire; but the result of his inspection gave him a sudden shock. The print was a discovery—if he knew anything at all about these things, it was worth at least five hundred pounds. Mr. Winlass frowned at it disparagingly.
"A fairly good specimen of a rather common plate," he said carelessly. "I should think it would fetch about ten pounds."
Captain Tombs looked surprised.
"Is that all?" he grumbled. "The fellow at Busby's told me I ought to get anything from three hundred up for it."
"Ah-hum," said Mr. Winlass dubiously. He peered at the print again, and raised his eyes from it in an elaborate rendering of delight. "By Jove," he exclaimed, "I believe you're right. Tricky things, these prints. If you hadn't told me that, I might have missed it altogether. But it looks as if—if it is a genuine. . . . Well!" said Mr. Winlass expansively, "I almost think I'll take a chance on it. How about two hundred and fifty?"
"But the fellow at Busby's——"
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Winlass testily. "But these are not good times for selling this sort of thing. People haven't got the money to spend. Besides, if you wanted to get a price like that, you'd have to get the picture cleaned up—get experts to certify it—all kinds of things like that. And they all cost money. And when you'd done them all, it mightn't prove to be worth anything. I'm offering to take a gamble on it and save you a lot of trouble and expense."
Captain Tombs hesitated; and Mr. Winlass pulled out a cheque-book and unscrewed his fountain-pen.
"Come, now," he urged genially. "I believe in Getting Things Done. Make up your mind, my dear chap. Suppose we split it at two-seventy-five—or two hundred and eighty——"
"Make it two hundred and eighty-five," said Captain Tombs reluctantly, "and I suppose I'd better let it go."
Mr. Winlass signed the cheque with the nearest approach to glee that he would ever be able to achieve while parting with money in any quantity; and he knew that he was getting the print for half its value. When Captain Tombs had gone, he set it up against the inkwell and fairly gloated over it. A moment later he picked up a heavy paperknife and attacked it with every evidence of ferocity.
But the scowl of pained indignation which darkened his brow was directed solely against the cracked glass and the dilapidated frame. The picture was his new-born babe, his latest ewe lamb; and it was almost inevitable that he should rise against the vandal disfigurement of its shabby trappings as a fond mother would rise in wrath against the throwing of mud pies at her beloved offspring. With the horrible cradle that had sheltered it stripped away and cast into the wastebasket, he set up the print again and gloated over it from every angle. After a long time he turned it over to stow it safely in an envelope—and it was when he did this that he noticed the writing on the back.
The reactions of an equally inevita
ble curiosity made him carry the picture over to the window to read the almost indecipherable scrawl. The ink was rusty with age, the spidery hand angular and old-fashioned, but after some study he was able to make out the words.
To my wife, On this day 16 Aprille did I lodge in ye houfe of one Thomaf Robertf a cobler and did hyde under hyf herthe in Turkes Lane ye feventy thoufande golde piecef wich I stole of Hyf Grace ye Duke. Finde them if thif letre come to thee and Godes blefsynge, John.
None of the members of Mr. Winlass's staff, some of whom had been with him through ten years of his hard-headed and dignified career, could remember any previous occasion when he had erupted from his office with so much violence. The big limousine which wafted him to Turk's Lane could not travel fast enough for him: he shuffled from one side of the seat to the other, craning forward to look for impossible gaps in the traffic, and emitting short nasal wuffs of almost canine impatience.
Dave Roberts was not in the little shop when Mr. Winlass walked in. A freckle-faced pug-nosed young man wearing the same apron came forward.
"I want to see Mr. Roberts," said Winlass, trembling with excitement, which he was trying not to show.
The freckle-faced youth shook his head.
"You can't see Mr. Roberts," he said. "He ain't here."
"Where can I find him?" barked Winlass.
"You can't find him," said the youth phlegmatically. "He don't want to be found. Want your shoes mended, sir?"
"No. I do not want my shoes mended!" roared Winlass, dancing in his impatience. "I want to see Mr. Roberts. Why can't I find him? Why don't he want to be found? Who the hell are you, anyhow?"
"I do be Mr. Roberts's second cousin, sir," said Peter Quentin, whose idea of dialects was hazy but convincing. "I do have bought Mr. Roberts's shop, and I'm here now, and Mr. Roberts ain't coming back, sir, that's who I be."
Mr. Winlass wrenched his features into a jovial beam.
"Oh, you're Mr. Roberts's cousin, are you?" he said, with gigantic affability. "How splendid! And you've bought his beautiful shop. Well, well. Have a cigar, my dear sir, have a cigar."
The young man took the weed, bit off the wrong end, and stuck it into his mouth with the band on—a series of motions which caused Mr. Winlass to shudder to his core. But no one could have deduced that shudder from the smile with which he struck and tendered a match.
"Thank 'ee, sir," said Peter Quentin, "Now, sir, can I mend thy shoes?"
He admitted afterwards to the Saint that the strain of maintaining what he fondly believed to be a suitable patois was making him a trifle light-headed; but Mr. Vernon Winlass was far too preoccupied to notice his abberations.
"No, my dear sir," said Mr. Winlass, "my shoes don't want mending. But I should like to buy your lovely house."
The young man shook his head.
"I ain't a-wanting to sell 'er, sir."
"Not for a thousand pounds?" said Mr. Winlass calculatingly.
"Not for a thousand pounds, sir."
"Not even," said Mr. Winlass pleadingly, "for two thousand?"
"No, sir."
"Not even," suggested Mr. Winlass, with an effort which caused him acute pain, "if I offered you three thousand?"
The young man's head continued to shake.
"I do only just have bought 'er, sir. I must do my work somewhere. I wouldn't want to sell my house, not if you offered me four thousand for 'er, that I wouldn't."
"Five thousand," wailed Mr. Winlass, in dogged anguish.
The bidding rose to seven thousand five hundred before Peter Quentin relieved Mr. Winlass of further torture and himself of further lingual acrobatics. The cheque was made out and signed on the spot, and in return Peter attached his signature to a more complicated document which Mr. Win-lass had ready to produce from his breast pocket; for Mr. Vernon Winlass believed in Getting Things Done.
"That's splendid," he boomed, when the formalities had been completed. "Now then, my dear sir, how soon can you move out?"
"In ten minutes," said Peter Quentin promptly, and he was as good as his word.
He met the Saint in a neighbouring hostelry and exhibited his trophy. Simon Templar took one look at it, and lifted his tankard.
"So perish all the ungodly," he murmured. "Let us get round to the bank before they close.
It was three days later when he drove down to Hampshire with Patricia Holm to supervise the installation of Uncle Dave Roberts in the cottage which had been prepared for him. It stood in the street of a village that had only one street, a street that was almost an exact replica of Turk's Lane set down in a valley between rolling hills. It had the same oak-beamed cottages, the same wrought-iron lamps over the lintels to light the doors by night, the same rows of tiny shops clustering face to face with their wares spread out in unglazed windows; and the thundering main road traffic went past five miles away and never knew that there was a village there.
"I think you'll be happy here, Uncle Dave," he said; and he did not need an answer in words to complete his reward.
It was a jubilant return journey for him; and they were in Guildford before he recollected that he had backed a very fast outsider at Newmarket. When he bought a paper he saw that that also had come home, and they had to stop at the Lion for celebrations.
"There are good moments in this life of sin, Pat," he remarked, as he started up the car again; and then he saw the expression on her face, and stared at her in concern. "What's the matter, old darling—has that last Martini gone to your head?"
Patricia swallowed. She had been glancing through the other pages of the Evening News while he tinkered with the ignition; and now she folded the sheet down and handed it to him.
"Didn't you promise Uncle Dave whatever money there was in his house as well as that cottage?" she asked.
Simon took the paper and read the item she was pointing to.
TREASURE TROVE
IN LONDON
EXCAVATION
——————————
Windfall for Winlass
——————————
The London clay, which has given up many strange secrets in its time, yesterday surrendered a treasure which has been in its keeping for 300 years.
Ten thousand pounds is the estimated value of a hoard of gold coins and antique jewellery discovered by workmen engaged in de molishing an old house in Turk's Lane, Brompton, which is being razed to make way for a modern apartment building.
The owner of the property, Mr. Vernon Winlass——
The Saint had no need to read any more; and as a matter of fact he did not want to. For several seconds he was as far beyond the power of speech as if he had been born dumb.
And then, very slowly, the old Saintly smile came back to his lips.
"Oh, well, I expect our bank account will stand it," he said cheerfully, and turned the car back again towards Hampshire.
VI
The Sleepless Knight
If a great many newspaper cuttings and references to newspapers find their way into these chronicles, it is simply because most of the interesting things that happen find their way into newspapers, and it is in these ephemeral sheets that the earnest seeker after unrighteousness will find many clues to his quest.
Simon Templar read newspapers only because he found collected in them the triumphs and anxieties and sins and misfortunes and ugly tyrannies which were going on around him, as well as the results of races in which chosen horses carried samples of his large supply of shirts; not because he cared anything about the posturing of Transatlantic fliers or the flatulence of international conferences. And it was solely through reading a newspaper that he became aware of the existence of Sir Melvin Flager.
It was an unpleasant case; and the news item may as well be quoted in full.
JUDGE CENSURES TRANSPORT
COMPANY
Driver's four hours' sleep a week
—————————
"MODERN SLAVERY"
—
Mr. Justice Goldie.
—————————
SCATHING criticisms of the treatment of drivers by a road transport company were made by Mr. Justice Goldie during the trial of Albert Johnson, a lorry driver, at Guildford Assizes yesterday.
Johnson was charged with manslaughter following the death of a cyclist whom he knocked down and fatally injured near Albury on March 28th.
Johnson did not deny that he was driving to the danger of the public, but pleaded that his condition was due to circumstances beyond his control.
Police witnesses gave evidence that the lorry driven by Johnson was proceeding in an erratic manner down a fairly wide road at about 30 miles an hour. There was a cyclist in front of it, travelling in the same direction, and a private car coming towards it.
Swerving to make way for the private car, in what the witness described as "an unnecessarily exaggerated manner," the lorry struck the cyclist and caused fatal injuries.
The police surgeon who subsequently examined Johnson described him as being "apparently intoxicated, although there were no signs of alcohol on his breath."
"I was not drunk," said Johnson, giving evidence on his own behalf. "I was simply tired out. We are sent out on long journeys and forced to complete them at an average of over 30 miles an hour, including stops for food and rest.
"Most of our work is done at night, but we are frequently compelled to make long day journeys as well.
"During the week when the accident occurred, I had only had four hours' sleep.
"It is no good protesting, because the company can always find plenty of unemployed drivers to take our places."
Other employees of the Flager Road Transport Company, which employs Johnson, corroborated his statement.
"This is nothing more or less than modern slavery," said Mr. Justice Goldie, directing the jury to return a verdict of Not Guilty.
"It is not Johnson, but Sir Melvin Flager, the managing director of the company, who ought to be in the dock.
"You have only to put yourselves in the position of having gone for a week on four hours' sleep, with the added strain of driving a heavy truck throughout that time, to be satisfied that no culpable recklessness of Johnson's was responsible for this tragedy.
13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle) Page 8
