11 The Brighter Buccaneer Page 13

  "I believe this is the very thing I've been looking for," he said; and Major Bellingford Smart lathered his hands with invisible soap.

  "I'm sure Mrs. Bourne would be very comfortable here," he said greasily. "I do everything I can to make my tenants feel thoroughly at home. I'm on the premises myself all day, and if she wanted any help I'd always be delighted to give it. The rent is as moderate as I can make it-only three hundred and fifty per annum."

  Simon nodded.

  "That seems quite reasonable," he said. "I'll tell my mother about it and see what she says."

  "I'll show her round myself at any time she likes to call," said Bellingford Smart cordially. "I don't want to hurry you in any way," he added, as they were going down in the lift, "but for your own sake I ought to mention that I've already shown another lady the flat today, and I'm expecting to hear her deci­sion in a day or two."

  At any other time that hoary old bait would have evoked nothing more than one of the Saint's most silent raspberries; but that morning he felt very polite. His face assumed the correct expression of thinly veiled alarm which attacks the veteran house-hunter's features when he visualizes his prize being snatched away from under his nose.

  "I'll let you know definitely some time this evening," he said.

  The Saint's patience and caution could be infinite when he felt that way; but there were other times when he felt that to pass over the iron whilst it was hot was a crime that would lie heavily on his conscience, and this was one of them. His sense of the poetry of buccaneering demanded that the retribution which he had devised for Major Bellingford Smart should strike swiftly; and he spent that afternoon on a tour of various shipping offices with no other idea in his mind. The Countess of Albury's diamonds crawled in second by several lengths. It meant taking risks of which in a less indignant mood he would never have been guilty; for Simon Templar had made it a rule in life never to attack without knowing every inch of the ground and the precise density of every tuft of grass behind which he might want to take cover; but the strafing of Major Bellingford Smart was a duty that could not be delayed for that.

  Nevertheless, he did take certain elementary precautions, as a result of which three well-dressed and subtly dependable-looking men gathered in the apartment of one of their number and slaked their thirsts with beer which the Saint had pro­vided. This was at six o'clock.

  The apartment was rented by Peter Quentin; and the other two were Roger Conway and Monty Hayward, who had been summoned by urgent telephone calls by a man whom they had not seen for many months.

  "It seems years since I called out the Old Guard, souls," said the Saint, glancing at Roger and Monty. "But this is one eve­ning when your little Simon has need of you."

  "What's it all about?" asked Monty expectantly; and Simon drained his glass and told them as briefly as he could about the leprousness of Major Bellingford Smart.

  "But," said the Saint, "I am about to afflict him with much sorrow; and that's where you stiffs come in. We are going to settle down to a bridge party. Peter, your janitor saw me come in, and at about a quarter to ten we shall send for him and bribe him to go out and buy us some more ice-which will give him another chance to observe that I'm still here. But as soon as he's brought the ice, which I'm afraid I shall have to leave you toughs to use, I shall hop nimbly out of the window on to the roofs below, descend smartly to the area at the back, pro­ceed thence to the street, and go about my business, returning in about an hour by the same route. As soon as I'm in, we shall ring for the janitor again and demand further supplies of Scotch. He will reply that it's past closing time, and there will be some argument in which I shall play a prominent part- thereby establishing the fact that we have been together the whole jolly evening. And so we shall. We shall have been play­ing bridge steadily all the while, and there will be four markers all filled up with the identical scores to prove it-in addition to your solemn oaths. Do you get me?"

  "What is this?" asked Roger Conway. "An alibi?"

  "No more and no less, old dear," answered the Saint seraph­ically. "I spent this afternoon wading through passenger lists, and discovered that there actually is a Captain Bourne sailing on the Otranto from Tilbury at seven o'clock tonight, which saved me the trouble and expense of booking a passage in that name myself. So when Major Bellingford Smart tries to put over his story it will indubitably receive the polite ha-ha. You soaks are just here in case the episode comes to the ears of Claud Eustace Teal and he tries to work me into it."

  Roger Conway shrugged rather ruefully..

  "You're on, of course," he said. "But I wish there was more action in it."

  Simon looked at him with a smile; for those two had shared many adventures in the old days, as also more recently had Monty Hayward; and he knew that both men sometimes looked back a trifle wistfully on those days out of the respect­able surroundings that had subsequently engulfed them.

  "Perhaps we may work together again before we die, Roger," he said.

  Monty Hayward had another suggestion.

  "What are you going to do to Bellingford Smart? Couldn't we all go after him and tar and feather him, or something?"

  "I don't think so," said the Saint carefully. "You see, that would be against the Law, and these days I'm developing quite an agile technique for clobbering the ungodly by strictly legal means."

  His method in this case was not so unimpeachably legal as it might have been; but the Saint had a superb breadth of vision that was superior to such trivial details. At half past six the most unpopular landlord in London received a telephone call.

  "Is that Mr. Shark?" asked the Saint innocently.

  "This is Major Bellingford Smart speaking," admitted the landlord, shaking the receiver at his end, which did not seem to be working very well. In any case, he was rather particular about being given his full appellation. "Who is that?"

  "This is Captain Bourne. You remember I saw your flat this morning? . . . Well, I've had urgent orders to get back as quickly as possible, and I've had to change my plans. I'm catching the Otranto at midnight."

  "Are you really?" said Major Bellingford Smart.

  "I've told my mother all about the flat, and she seems to think it would suit her down to the ground. She's decided to take it on my recommendation; so if it's still available --"

  "Oh, yes, the flat is still available," said Major Bellingford Smart eagerly. "If Mrs. Bourne could call any time tomorrow --"

  "I rather wanted to see her settled before I left," said the Saint. "Naturally my time's rather limited, having to pack up in a rush like this, and I'm afraid I've several engagements to get through. I don't know if you could possibly call here about half past ten-you could bring the lease with you, so that I could go through it-and my mother would sign it tonight."

  Major Bellingford Smart had arranged to go to a theatre that evening; but the theatre would still be there the next day. And suitable tenants were becoming considerably harder to find than they had been.

  "Certainly I'll come over at half past ten, if that'll help you at all, Captain Bourne. What is the address?"

  "Number eight-o-one, Belgrade Square," said the Saint, and rang off happily.

  Major Bellingford Smart was punctual if he was nothing else. It was exactly half past ten when he arrived in Belgrade Square, and Simon Templar himself opened the door to him as he came up the steps.

  "I'm afraid we're having a bit of trouble with the lights," remarked the Saint genially. "The hall light's just fizzled out. Can you see your way into the sitting-room?"

  He had an electric torch in his hand, and with it he lighted Major Bellingford Smart into the nearest room. Bellingford Smart heard him clicking the switch up and down, and cursing under his breath.

  "Now this one's gone on strike, Major. I'm awfully sorry. Will you take the torch and make yourself at home while I go and look at the fuses? There's a decanter over in the corner- help yourself."

  He bumped into Bellingford Smart in the darkness, re
covered his balance, apologised, and thrust his flashlight into the Major's hand. The door closed behind him.

  Major Bellingford Smart turned the beam of the torch around the room in search of a chair-and, possibly, the de­canter referred to. In another second he was not thinking of either, for in one corner the circle of light splashed over a safe whose door hung drunkenly open, half separated from its hinges: lowering the beam a trifle, he saw an array of gleam­ing tools spread out on the floor beside it.

  He gasped, and instinctively moved over to investigate. Out­side in the hall he heard the crash of a brass tray clattering on the floor, and straightened up with a start. Then heavy feet came pounding along the passage, the door burst open, and the lights were switched on. The hall lights outside were also on-nothing seemed to be the matter with them. For a few moments they dazzled him; and then, when he had blinked the glare out of his eyes, he saw that the doorway was filled by a black-trousered butler, with his coat off, and a footman with his tunic half buttoned. They looked at him, then at the open safe, and then back at him again; and there was no friendliness in their eyes.

  "Ho," said the butler at length, appearing to swell visibly. "So that's hit. Caught in the very hact, eh?"

  "What the devil do you mean?" spluttered Major Bellingford Smart. "I came here at Captain Bourne's invitation to see Mrs. Bourne --"

  "Not 'alf you didn't," said the butler austerely. "There ain't no Mrs. Bourne 'ere, and never 'as been. This is the Countess of Halbury's 'ouse, an you don't 'ave to tell me what you are." He turned to the footman. "James, you go hout and fetch a copper, quick. I can look hafter this bloke. Just let 'im try something!"

  He commenced to roll up his right sleeve, with an anticipa­tory glint in his eye. He was a very large butler, ever so much larger than Major Bellingford Smart, and he looked as if he would like nothing better than a show of violence. Even the best butlers must yearn sometimes for the simple human pleas­ure of pushing their fists into a face that offends them.

  "You'll be sorry for this," fumed Major Bellingford Smart impotently. "If this is the Countess of Halbury's house there must be some mistake --"

  "Ho, yes," said the butler pleasantly. "There his a mistake, and you made it."

  There followed a brief interval of inhospitable silence, until the footman returned with a constable in tow.

  "There 'e is," announced the footman; but the butler quelled him with a glance.

  "Hofficer," he said majestically, "we 'ave just caught this person red-'anded in the hact of burgling the 'ouse. 'Er lady­ship is at present hout dining with Lady Hexmouth. 'Earing the sound of footsteps, we thought 'er ladyship 'ad returned, halthough James remarked that it was not 'er ladyship's cus­tom to let 'erself hin. Then we 'eard a crash as if the card tray in the 'all 'ad been hupset, and we noticed that the lights were hout, so we came along to see what it was."

  "I can explain everything, officer," interrupted Major Bel­lingford Smart. "I was asked to come here to get a Mrs. Bourne's signature to the lease of a flat --"

  "You was, was you?" said the constable, who had ambitions of making his mark in the C.I.D. at some future date. "Well, show me the lease."

  Major Bellingford Smart felt in his pocket, and a sudden wild look came into his eyes. The lease which he had brought with him was gone; but there was something else there-some­thing hard and knobbly.

  The constable did not miss the change of expression. He came closer to Major Bellingford Smart.

  "Come on, now," he ordered roughly. "Out with it-what­ever it is. And no monkey business."

  Slowly, stupidly, Major Bellingford Smart drew out the hard knobbly object. It was a very small automatic, and looped loosely round it was a diamond and sapphire pendant-one of the least valuable items in the Countess of Albury's vanished collection. He was still staring at it when the constable grabbed it quickly out of his hand.

  "Carrying firearms, eh? And that talk about 'aving a lease in your pocket-just to get a chance to pull it out and shoot me! You've got it coming to you, all right."

  He glanced round the room with a professional air, and saw the open window.

  "Came in through there," he remarked, with some satisfac­tion at the admiring silence of his audience of butler and footman. "There'd be a lot of dust outside on that sill, wouldn't there? And look at 'is trousers."

  The audience bent its awed eyes on Major Bellingford Smart's nether garments, and the Major also looked down. Clearly marked on each knee was a circular patch of sooty grime which had certainly not been there before the Saint cannoned into him in that very helpful darkness.

  On the far side of the square, Simon Templar heard the constable's whistle shrilling into the night, and drifted on towards the refreshment that waited for him.

  The New Swindle

  MR. ALFRED TILLSON ("Broads" Tillson to the trade) was only one of many men who cherished the hope that one day they might be privileged to meet the Saint again. Usually those ambitions included a dark night, a canal, and a length of lead pipe, with various trimmings and decorations according to the whim of the man concerned. But no bliss so unalloyed as that had ever come the way of any of those men; for canals and lengths of lead pipe did not enter into Simon Templar's own plans for his brilliant future, and on dark nights he walked warily as a matter of habit.

  Mr. Alfred Tillson, however, enjoyed the distinction of being a man who did achieve his ambition and meet the Saint for a second time; although the re-encounter did not by any means take place as he would have planned it.

  He was a lean grey-haired man with a long horse-like face and the air of a retired churchwarden-an atmosphere which he had created for himself deliberately as an aid to business, and which he had practised for so long that in the end he could not have shaken it off if he had tried. It had become just as much a part of his natural make-up as the faintly ecclesiasti­cal style of dress which he affected; and over the years it had served him well. For Mr. "Broads" Tillson was acknowledged in the trade to be one of the greatest living card manipulators in the world. To see those long tapering fingers of his ruffling through a pack of cards and dealing out hands in which every pip had been considered and placed individually was an ed­ucation in itself. He could do anything with a pack of cards except make it talk. He could shuffle it once, apparently without looking at it, and in that shuffle sort it out suit by suit and card by card, stack up any sequence he wanted, and put it all together again, with one careless flick of his hands that was too quick for the eye to follow.

  If you were in the trade, if you were "regular" and you could induce him to give you a demonstration of his magic, he would invite you to deal out four hands of bridge, write down a list of cards in every hand, shuffle the pack again as much as you cared to, and give it back to him; whereupon he would take one glance at your list, shuffle the pack once himself, and proceed to deal out the four hands again exactly as you had listed them. And if you were unlucky enough to be playing with him in the way of business you could order brand-new packs as often as you cared to pay for them, without inconven­iencing him in the least. Mr. Alfred Tillson had never marked a card in his life; and he could play any card game that had ever been invented with equal success.

  On the stage he might have made a very comfortable income for himself, but his tastes had never led him that way. Mr. Tillson was partial to travel and sea air; and for many years he had voyaged the Atlantic and Pacific ocean routes, paying himself very satisfactory dividends on every trip, and invaria­bly leaving his victims with the consoling thought that they had at least evaded the wiles of sharpers and lost their money to an honest man.

  He might have retired long ago, if he had not had a weak­ness for beguiling the times between voyages with dissipations of a highly unclerical kind; and as a matter of fact it was to this weakness of his that he owed his first meeting with the Saint.

  He had made a very profitable killing on a certain trip which he took to Maderia; but coming back overland from Lisbon a sylp
h-like blonde detained him too long in Paris, and he woke up one morning to find that he was a full twenty pounds short of his fare to New York. He set out for London with this pressing need of capital absorbing his mind; and it was merely his bad luck that the elegant young man whom he discovered lounging idly over the rail when the cross-Channel boat left Boulogne should have been christened Simon Tem­plar.

  Simon was not looking for trouble on that trip, but he was never averse to having his expenses paid; and when Mr. Till­son hinted that it was distressingly difficult to find any congen­ial way of passing the time on cross-Channel journeys, he knew what to expect. They played casino, and Simon won fifteen pounds in the first half-hour.

  "A bit slow, don't you think?" observed the benevolent Mr. Tillson, as he shuffled the cards at this point and called for another brace of whiskies. "Shall we double the stakes?"

  This was what Simon had been waiting for-and that gift of waiting for the psychological moment was one which he always employed on such occasions. Fifteen pounds was a small fish in his net, but who was he to criticise what a beneficent Provi­dence cast kindly into his lap?

  "Certainly, brother," he murmured. "Treble 'em if you like. I'll be with you again in a sec-I've just got to see a man about a small borzoi."

  He faded away towards a convenient place; and that was the last Mr. Tillson saw of him. It was one of Mr. Tillson's saddest experiences; and three years later it was still as fresh in his memory as it had been the day after it happened. "Happy" Fred Jorman, that most versatile of small-time confidence men, whose round face creased up into such innumerable wrinkles of joy when he smiled, heard that "Broads" Tillson was in London, called on him on that third anniversary, and had to listen to the tale. They had worked together on one coup several years ago, but since then their ways had lain apart.