Brighter Buccaneer (12 page)

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 Ł10 to Ł50,000 was frequently accommodated-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 checks, “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 realisation 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 highball.

“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 criticise. 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 good Scotch, 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 amiably 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) Bonds, value Ł25 each.

The financier crunched them between his fingers, squinted at the ornate characters suspiciously through a magnifiying 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 like to leave these bonds with me until, say, two o’clock this afternoon, I’m sure we can 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 grow it?”

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 extraordinary 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 that maan anywhere. I’d know ‘im in a daark room if I was blind-fooaled. 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 straight 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 ever 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.

“I see-Mr.-er-Smith.” The close-set eyes gloated. “So I’ve been considered worthy of the attention of the famous Saint. And a very pretty swindle, too. First you borrow money on some genuine bonds; then you come back and try to borrow more money on some more genuine bonds-but when I’m not looking you exchange them for forgeries. Very neat, Mr. Templar. It’s a pity that man outside recognized you. Mr. Goldberg, I think you might telephone for the police.”

“You’ll be sorry for this,” said the Saint more calmly, with his eyes on Deever’s revolver.

A police inspector arrived in a few minutes. He inspected the two envelopes, and nodded.

“That’s an old trick, Mr. Deever,” he said. “It’s lucky that you were warned. Come along, you-put your hands out.”

Simon looked down at the handcuffs.

“You don’t need those,” he said.

“I’ve heard about you,” said the inspector grimly, “and I think we do. Come on, now, and no nonsense.”

For the first time in his life Simon felt the cold embrace of steel on his wrists. A constable put his hat on for him, and he was marched out into the the street. A small crowd had collected outside, and already the rumour of his identity was passing from mouth to mouth.

The local inspector did not spare him. Simon Templar was a celebrity, a capture that every officer in England had once dreamed of making, even if of late it had been found impossible to link his name with any proven crimes; and once arrested he was an exhibit to be proud of. The police station was not far away, and the Saint was compelled to walk to it, with his manacled wrists chained to the burly constable on his left and the inspector striding on his right.

He was charged with attempting to obtain money under false pretences; and when it was all written down they asked him if he had anything to say.

“Only that my right sock is wearing a bit thin at the heel,” answered the Saint. “D’you think someone could beetle along to my hotel and dig out a new pair?”

He was locked in a cell to be brought before the magistrate on the following Monday. It was Simon Templar’s third experience of that, but he enjoyed it no more than the first time.

During Sunday he had one consoltation. He was able to divert himself with thoughts of what he could do with about ten thousand pounds.