Trust the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 11

  The activation in fact consisted only of the delivery of a truck-load of cacao to an old but well-built barn which had been the only edifice on the plant site when he acquired it, which he had thriftily decided to preserve and use for miscellaneous storage. Though the new buildings were barely starting to rise from their footings, his shrewdness was already being vindicated: he had had the chance to pick up this consignment of essential raw material at a giveaway price, but would have had to turn it down if he had been limited to the storage facilities of the outgrown original Sanitade Factory which he was preparing to replace.

  “You see, my dear Selina,” he observed to his daughter, who was with him, “Fortune does not only aid the wicked. Good luck is usually the reward of good judgment.”

  “And you deserve all that you get, Papa,” she said.

  She was one of those unlucky young females who seem to have been created solely to boost the morale of their nearest competitors. Beside her, no other creature in a skirt could have felt hopeless. It might be kinder not to detail her specifications, but simply to say that for every apparently ultimate disaster in feminine architecture there must be something worse, and she was it.

  Mr Thoat signed the driver’s receipt and himself closed and locked the barn doors. He was just completing this when County Constable George Yelland rode by on his bicycle, and stopped.

  “Good morning, sir—and Miss Selina,” said the young man, saluting smartly. “I see that you’re moving in already, in quite a big way.”

  “Good morning, officer,” said Mr Thoat agreeably. “But what gave you the idea—”

  “A large lorry has just stopped here, sir,” said the constable airily. “The tracks are quite plain, where it pulled in, and considerably lighter where it pulled out. Therefore, it discharged quite a load. It rained this morning from 5:10 a.m. until 7:35. The tracks were made since the rain, and since I find you here locking the door I conclude that the delivery has just taken place.”

  “Excellent,” said Mr Thoat. “I only wish that some of those vulgar popular writers who seem to take such a delight in deriding the British police could be forced to observe you on your rounds. I shall write another letter to the Chief Constable about you—you are the young officer who took such good care of my daughter recently, aren’t you?”

  He had not noticed that his offspring had returned the constable’s greeting with the swooning adoration of a dyspeptic sheep.

  “Yes, Mr Thoat, I had that privilege…But what I’m concerned about now is whether it’s wise for you to leave anything valuable in this barn. I’ve noticed the contractor doesn’t keep a night watchman here.”

  “I declined to underwrite that expense,” Mr Thoat said primly. “It’s up to him to see that there aren’t so many materials left lying around that it’s worth some professional loafer’s wages just to protect them from petty pilfering.”

  “Yes, sir, but building jobs do catch the eye of a certain type of petty thief, and then a building like this barn becomes a sort of attraction, out here in the middle of nowhere, so to speak, where nobody would be likely to hear anyone breaking in.”

  “Then I shall rely on you to keep an especially sharp watch on it, Constable—”

  “Yelland, sir.”

  “Ah, yes. I must remember that name, so that your services will be properly credited by the Authorities if my property is protected—or vice versa. I’m sure we are leaving everything in good hands—are we not, Selina?”

  “Yes, indeed, Papa,” said Selina, with more than dutiful ardour.

  Mr Thoat consulted his watch.

  “I must be going, or I shall be late for my appointment in town. That wretched plumber should have been here an hour ago. Now he’ll just have to come back another time.”

  “I could wait for him, Papa, and go back on the bus. I can tell him what you decided about the wash-rooms.”

  “An excellent idea. And be sure he understands that I refuse to pay extra for such frivolities as coloured tiles.”

  Mr Thoat drove himself back to London—he had a nine-year-old car which he never propelled beyond twenty miles an hour, thereby having caused several accidents to happen to other drivers who had been goaded to recklessness by the sheer exasperation of dragging behind him. But he had allowed plenty of time for his customary average, and arrived at the modest South Kensington tea-shoppe where he had made his luncheon rendezvous a few minutes before his guest, who had dallied until the last moment at the nearest tavern, taking prophylaxis against the aridity of the impending meal…

  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Thoat.”

  “Not at all, Mr Tombs, I was early,” Mr Thoat said generously.

  He took out his wallet, extracted from it a neatly written check, and passed it across the table.

  Simon Templar took it, verified the amounts, and put it away in his own billfold with equal gravity. He was wearing an old-fashioned double-breasted suit and tie of almost canonical drabness, and only the most assiduous students of his techniques of disguise would have recognized him. With a heavy powdering of white in the hair, the roughed-up eyebrows, and the untidy false moustache, behind an eye-shield of tinted glasses, and bowed in a concave-chested slouch, there was little to recall the dynamic exuberance that he wore like a halo when he chose to live up to more appropriate names than Tombs.

  “The delivery was all right then, was it, Mr Thoat?”

  “Oh, yes, Mr Tombs. Perfectly correct. I hope you aren’t offended by my reserving payment until it was completed, but after all, in making such a purchase from a total stranger, at so much below the current market price—”

  “Don’t think any more about it, Mr Thoat. I understand. Of course I’m losing money. But I’m helping a good cause. And I can take the loss off my income tax. That makes it about the same as a donation, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, certainly, but—”

  “But I can’t go on selling to you at a loss, Mr Thoat. I’m supposed to make my living in the commodity market. The Government would begin to get suspicious. I have been looking for another approach.”

  “Do you gennelmun wanta order?” inquired an impatient waitress, leaning over with a threatening notebook.

  The menu offered the grisly alternatives of boiled sausages, fricassée of veal, or a Health Salad compounded of raw vegetables, fruits, and nuts. It was obvious which of these delicacies Mr Thoat would order. Simon settled for the boiled sausages, steeling himself against Mr Thoat’s slightly pained expression with a placating bottle of Sanitade, and hoped that he would be able to get it down without a visible shudder.

  “I’m not a capitalist, Mr Thoat—the income tax system has seen to that,” he resumed. “But I do receive the income from a trust fund set up by my late father, which I don’t really need. Since he accumulated this money by putting aside and investing each year the amount which he estimated he would have spent on drink if he had been a drinker, I think he would approve of my passing it on to help you in your wonderful work.”

  “It would certainly be well employed,” said Mr Thoat, a trifle shakily. “And I’m flattered that you should have chosen me, out of all the possible—”

  “That was not flattery, or a random selection, Mr Thoat. Frankly, I have investigated several deserving organizations of the same type as yours. What impressed me, as a business man, about the Angels of Abstinence, is that they are run on a practical businesslike basis which actively aids and in no way compromises their idealistic objectives. I understand that you alone are responsible for this. That makes you the man for me. To get the most out of the income I am talking about calls for a business man as well as a crusader. It amounts to about sixteen thousand pounds a year.”

  Mr Thoat somehow managed not to choke on the first mouthful of shredded fodder which had just been set before him.

  “I think I shall be able to justify your confidence, Mr Tombs.”

  “There are, of course, a few conditions.”

  “Of what kind
?”

  “Purely technical, in your case, but I feel I must pass them on to you, since they’re the same as the ones which the trust imposes on me. What they amount to is that your life must be absolutely blameless, even above suspicion. That you must never be convicted of an offense against public decorum, of riotous behavior, scandalous conduct, criminal associations, drunkenness or even having taken a drink—all that sort of thing. It’s all in the deed which I’ve told my lawyer to draw up.”

  “I hardly think that will be any problem,” said Mr Thoat, with a certain indulgent smugness.

  “I’m sure it won’t—but in the fantastic event that any such thing should occur, all payments would automatically stop, or never start. We have to take that precaution, the lawyers tell me. Then you will have to give a few simple undertakings on how the money will not be spent—such as advertising in periodicals which also accept liquor advertising, you know the sort of thing…”

  They talked of this and kindred matters for the rest of the meal—if that word can be applied to the ingestion of such provender as they had been served.

  “I hope we can meet and sign this deed the day after tomorrow,” Simon said finally.

  “The day after tomorrow?” Mr Thoat’s eyebrows went up remonstratively. “But that’s Sunday!”

  “I know. But I had enough trouble getting my lawyer to work tomorrow to get it done. And I hardly think that signing a couple of papers like these would be called working on the Lord’s Day. Unfortunately I have to be in New York on business the first thing Monday morning—I’m taking a plane at midnight Sunday. I’d like to have this done before I leave. Just in case of accidents, you know.”

  Mr Thoat nodded. The prospect of Mr Sebastian Tombs being jet-propelled to his eternal rest by some mechanical malfunction in mid-Atlantic, with this munificent endowment uncompleted, gave him a cold shiver.

  “I understand. But as I think I’ve mentioned, this Sunday is rather a busy day for me.”

  Simon knew that, too. There was about to break out in London another of those international conventions with which every major city must periodically be afflicted; only this was not the type which has consolations for saloon-keepers, night club impresarios, and ladies of flexible morality, like the average run of these jamborees, being billed as a World Temperance Congress of groups whose avowed objective was the ruin of all such iniquitous entrepreneurs. It was to be launched that Sunday by a grand parade of delegates from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, intended to dramatize the fact of their presence in town and to draw expectant attention to the week of speech-making and resolution-adopting which was to follow, during which some of the world’s most talented firebrands would denounce assorted forms of fun with all the hyperbolic savagery and violence to be expected of proper advocates of temperance.

  “The parade is supposed to start at two-thirty, isn’t it?” said the Saint. “I know that nothing would stop you leading the Angels of Abstinence yourself, but surely you could get away for lunch? My apartment is just off Park Lane, only two minutes from the park. If you could be there at one, I’ll have a nice salad waiting, and promise to get you back with ten minutes to spare.”

  Mr Thoat pursed his lips.

  “Yes, I suppose I could manage that. It seems to be the only way.”

  “Splendid! I’ll have the papers and everything ready. Now I must run—I have another appointment which just won’t wait.”

  This was literally true, the appointment being dictated by the still unrevised licensing laws of England, which in a few minutes would ruthlessly compel the pub around the corner to close for the afternoon, thus making it impossible to satisfactorily wash away the taste of the boiled sausages and Sanitade which Simon Templar had been unable to finish. But he left Mr Thoat in an obliviously happy daze through which even the fact that the bill for their deplorable repast still remained to be paid did not penetrate until too late.

  Mr Thoat had already relegated the transaction through which the beneficent Sebastian Tombs had introduced himself to the category of past business, but it was not so easily filed away by County Constable George Yelland, who had lingered on at the barn after Mr Thoat took his sedate departure.

  “What exactly are you keeping here?” asked the earnest young officer.

  “Cocoa beans,” said Selina Thoat airily.

  “Oh. I suppose they’re not really too valuable to leave here.”

  “Not unless somebody stole all of them. That would come to quite a lot. Papa got these at a bargain. Are you married?”

  Constable Yelland managed not to jump.

  “No, miss.”

  “There’s a dance in Hertford tomorrow night. I wish I could go.”

  “I hadn’t heard about it.”

  “I wish you could take me.”

  “I don’t think your father would approve of that, miss.”

  “Papa will be busy in London, with a welcoming dinner for some of our people. But he could do a lot for you—putting in a word about you in the right places—if I asked him to.”

  “Thank you, miss. But I’m afraid I’m on duty Saturday night. It’s always a busy time.”

  “I could help you, too. Like I did that night at the Golden Stag.”

  Constable Yelland tried to ignore a sensation of extraordinary discomfort.

  “I hope you didn’t do anything beyond your duty to tell the truth, miss. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of miles to cover on this round…”

  She watched him thoughtfully as he mounted his bicycle and pedalled away.

  George Yelland, however, as an aspirant to the higher honors of the CID, was not the kind of policeman to remove a thought from his mind, once it had entered it, as efficiently as he had been taught to remove his person from unprofessional situations. The responsibility of Mr Thoat’s barn stayed with him, accentuated by a vaguely unsatisfied query about its contents, which caused him to keep it under even closer surveillance than was called for by simple self-interest.

  He made a particular point of passing by several times the next day, since the workmen were observing the union Sabbath, and it was in the afternoon that he discovered a car parked off the road where the builder’s trucks had furrowed an entrance, and a man studying the barn with a kind of interest that could be definitely described as calculating.

  This was no insignificant tribute to the histrionic ability of Monty Hayward, who on the Saint’s instructions had been trying to maintain that effect for more than an hour before the constable arrived.

  “May I ask what you’re doing here?” Yelland said, as the book prescribed.

  “Casing the joint,” Monty said easily.

  “May I have your name, sir?”

  The “sir” was another sort of tribute, not so much to Monty’s air of confidence as to his distinctly unburglar-like appearance. Monty produced a card which gave his address with the Consolidated Press but made no mention of his status as a director—apart from a genuine natural modesty which he did his best to conceal, it still amused him at times to play at being an ordinary reporter again, a game which those unostentatious cards made perpetually possible.

  “Now that I’ve identified myself,” Monty said amiably, “what’s your name?”

  “Yelland, sir.”

  “Yelland? Where have I heard that name recently?…Oh, yes. You’re the Robert who raided the pub down the road, and caught ’em selling a drink after hours to the young daughter of the chap who’s building this factory.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a raid, sir. Mr Thoat asked me to keep an eye on his daughter, and it’s my duty to look out for violations of the law.”

  “Of course. But didn’t you think there was something a bit fishy about that conviction?”

  Constable Yelland had another of those remotely unsettling qualms which had afflicted him since the previous morning.

  “That isn’t for me to say, sir. I only gave evidence as to what I saw and heard with my own eyes and ears. It’s the magistrate w
ho makes the conviction.”

  “Oh, come off it, Robert!”

  “The name is George, sir.”

  “All right, Robert George. You’ve got opinions of your own, haven’t you?

  “It’s against regulations for me to discuss the decision of a court in which I have been a witness, sir,” said the constable, taking refuge in asperity from his own uncertainty. “And anyhow, what are you so interested about?”

  Monty Hayward grinned, and brought out a pipe and tobacco-pouch which he began to work together with a disarming assurance which he had practised in some considerably more risky situations than this one.

  “Suppose I was doing an article on Mr Thoat,” he said. “I’d be interested in a lot of things. Not just that business about his daughter, though that might come into it. But about what’s going on here, too. For instance, do you know what he’s got in this barn?”

  “Yes. Cocoa.”

  “Ah.”

  “What do you mean, Ah?”

  “I only mean that items like that are what sometimes make headlines.”

  “I don’t see what’s a headline in that.”

  “Do you know where he got this cocoa?”

  “No, sir. Only that it was a bargain.”

  “He told you that, did he?”

  “His daughter did.”

  “That was careless of her.”

  “Look here, sir,” Yelland said, with increasing impatience, “if you know something that I ought to know, it’s your duty to tell me, not tease me with it.”

  “I don’t definitely know anything,” Monty replied. “Not yet. Suspicions aren’t evidence, as you know. But I am investigating what sounded like a rather hot tip—”

  “Where did it come from?”

  Monty gave a reproachful look.

  “Now, officer, you know very well that no reporter would give away the source of some kinds of information, and even a judge couldn’t force him to. I can only tell you that it came from an acquaintance of mine who isn’t always on good terms with the police, but who usually knows what he’s talking about. I’ve got a few more inquiries to make here and there, and if they confirm each other there may be an interesting arrest. Would you like to make an interesting arrest?”