Saint Errant (19 page)

J. Aloysius McDill tossed the silver dollar across the room. It landed in the sawdust on the floor with a dull thump.

“Watch,” he said.

He turned a switch, made some adjustments, and grasped the handles on the varnished box, which thereupon emitted a low hymenopterous humming, and advanced upon the dollar like a hunter stalking skittish game. As he neared the coin, the humming began to keen up the scale. He stood still, and the sound held steady; again toward the dollar and the wail of the box slid up and up until, held directly above the coin, it gave forth the whine of a band saw eating into a pine knot.

The Saint walked over and inspected the setup. He picked up the dollar and tossed it back to the bartender.

“Let’s see what it does about this change in my pocket,” he said, slapping his trouser leg.

Mr McDill moved the device over the indicated area, but the humming remained at a low murmur. He ceased his efforts and grinned.

“You ain’t got any change in your pocket, mister.”

Grinning in turn, the Saint pulled out the pocket. It was empty.

“Can’t fool the Doodlebug,” said McDill complacently. “See”-he held the box for the Saint to look at-“it works the same way for any other kind o’ metal.”

The Saint duly noted the markings etched along the sliding scale on top. He moved the indicator to “Gold,” and the Doodlebug, which had been humming like a happy bee, suddenly whined like an angry mosquito. The Saint jerked back his left wrist with the gold watch on it, and the machine dropped again to a gentle hum. McDill set it on the bar, and it fell completely silent.

“Ain’t she a beauty?” the little man demanded.

“Lovely,” Simon agreed. “Just what you need any time you drop a silver dollar.”

“She’s good for more than that,” said McDill. “She’ll find the stuff they make dollars out of. That’s why she’s so beautiful. Takes the guesswork out of prospectin’.”

“Aw, yes,” Simon said. “Have you tested her in the field yet, Mr McDill?”

A rattle of laughter cackled across the barroom. It was as though a whiplash had been laid across the face of the little man; he flinched.

“Ask him,” drawled one of the audience, “why his dingus ain’t located no claims yet, if it’s so good.”

McDill faced the speaker, his chin high.

“Jest ain’t happened to look in the right places, that’s all,” he said stoutly, but there was a quaver in his voice. He turned to Simon. “You’ve seen her, mister. You’ve seen what she can do. All I need’s a grubstake and a little equipment. If you was, maybe, interested in minin’, we c’d be pardners.”

The Saint saw the general merriment waxing along the bar again, and had one of his ready quixotic impulses.

“Well, Mr McDill,” he said in a loud clear voice, “minings’ a little out of my own line, but I have a friend I might be able to interest. I’m certainly impressed by your demonstration. Here’s my San Francisco address.” He scribbled on a card and handed it to James Aloysius McDill; then he dug into an other pocket. “And here’s fifty dollars for a week’s option on your gadget.”

He was aware of glasses being set down all along the bar, of incredulous eyes appraising his well-cut gabardines and evaluating; but it was mostly McDill’s reaction that he cared about.

The blue eyes in the seamed old face flamed with happiness. They could not resist a single triumphant glance at the hangers-on; then the little man’s hand stuck straight out.

“Put ‘er there, Mr Templar,” he said, with a ring in his voice. “I’ll be right here, any time your pardner wants me. Bonanza City Hotel.”

Simon shook the thin callused hand, and beckoned the bar tender. No longer bored, a sycophant stepped up with alacrity.

“Yes, sir!”

“The same, for Mr McDill and myself,” ordered the Saint. “Double,” he added.

He drove away from the Bonanza City Hotel through the light bright California sunshine bearing within him a warmth entirely unconnected with alcoholic potations, and pondering on the varied expressions of man’s unending search for riches. Perhaps that was what had moved him to dawdle on back roads and in odd comers of the old gold-rush country for a full three days on his way to San Francisco. When the mood was on him, the Saint enjoyed the exploration of seemingly use less, if fascinating, trivia-in this instance, the dreaming gold camps and ghost towns of the forty-niners.

It was a penchant which sometimes paid surprising dividends, so that the Saint had come to have an almost superstitious faith in his infallible destiny; but in this case the connection came even faster and more unexpectedly than usual.

He had been installed in rooms in the Fairmont, high on Nob Hill, for the duration of a sleep and a breakfast, when his telephone asserted itself, for the first time since his arrival.

“I’ve called every day since I got your card,” said Larry Phelan, “and I was pretty sure you’d show up within the year. What trouble did you come here to stir up?”

“None at all,” said the Saint virtuously. “I am on a vacation, and I have taken a vow to right no wrong, rescue no young ladies in distress, and acquire no money by fair means or foul, until further notice.”

“That’s fine,” said Phelan. “There’s nothing in your vow about rescuing old ladies in distress, is there?”

“Not so fast,” said the Saint. “Whose old lady is in distress?”

“My old lady, if you must know.”

“Your mother?”

“None other.”

“This,” said the Saint, “is beginning to sound like a Gilbert and Sullivan duet. You can buy me lunch and tell me all about it.’

Larry Phelan was a little shorter than the Coit Tower and much more interesting to know. He had the face of a college sophomore and the mind of the top-drawer mining engineer that he was.

“My mother,” he explained gloomily, over écrevisses au vin blanc, “is in the situation of any elderly lady with an excess of both time and money. Especially money.”

“A rather pleasant situation,” commented the Saint, chewing. “Is there such a thing as too much money?”

“Some people seem to think so,” said Phelan. “Did you ever hear of a guy called Melville Rochborne?”

Simon shook his head.

“It sounds like the sort of phony name that I wouldn’t buy any gold mines from.”

“He sold Mother a gold mine,” Phelan said.

“Any gold in it?”

“I defy anyone to find any gold in this particular mine,” said Phelan sadly. “It’s the old Lucky Nugget. Opened up with a big whoop-de-do in 1906, beautiful vein of quartz, eighteen dollars to the ton; closed in 1907-no more quartz. No one’s made a nickel on it since-even the tailings are worked out. The stock, which is what Mother bought, wouldn’t even serve for wrapping fish.”

“There are laws,” suggested the Saint, “which take care of folks who misrepresent stocks and bonds to other people.”

“That’s the trouble,” said Phelan. “This Rochborne is an extremely smart operator. There’s nothing on record-including Mother’s own testimony-to prove he ever claimed there was any gold in the mine.”

“Didn’t she ask you about it?”

“What would you think? After all,” said Phelan bitterly, “I have only two degrees in engineering and one in mining. Why should anyone, even my own dear mother, consult me on such a topic? Obviously, a crystal ball and a turban put my credentials in the shade. I’ll admit,” he added, in less vehement tones, “I’ve been up to my ears in some very hush-hush stuff lately-uranium sources, if you must know. Top secret.”

“Keep your uranium,” said the Saint. “I don’t like the things they do with it. What is this stuff about crystal balls?”

“My blessed mother,” Phelan said reverently, “has developed an interest in the Occult. In this specific case, a soothsayer from the Mystic East.”

“Tea leaves, eh?” said the Saint. “Lucky numbers and cards and so forth?”

“And signs of the zodiac,” supplemented Phelan. “A swami, no less. The Swami Yogadevi.”

“Sounds like a new cocktail. Where does he come in?”

“The swami,” said Phelan sourly, “is the guy who advised Mom to buy the wretched stock. She’s sort of gotten into a habit of consulting him, I’m afraid. I suppose he makes a couple of passes at his crystal and evokes a genie, or some thing. Seems to lay Mother and several dozen other respectable old-ladies-about-town in the aisles, anyway.”

Simon cleaned up his plate and lighted a cigarette.

“One gathers, Larry, that Mama has been homswoggled by a couple of pretty smooth operators. I almost think it’s a new combination.”

“Combination?”

“Of course. It must be. Don’t you see how it works? Your swami spots the suckers who have plenty of moola, and gets their confidence with his mumbo-jumbo. Which isn’t illegal if he doesn’t claim to predict futures. Your Mr Rochborne peddles stocks and makes no claim for them. You can’t prosecute a man for that. Separately, they mightn’t get too far. Working together, they’re terrific… . How much,” asked the Saint gently, “did your mother pay for the Lucky Nugget mine?”

“Forty-five thousand smackers,” Phelan admitted glumly.

The Saint whistled. He proceeded to order coffee and then sank into a lethargy which might or might not have denoted deep thought.

“What are you looking stupid about?” inquired Larry Phelan after five minutes.

“About the vacation I was going to have until you tripped into my life,” said Simon wryly. “However,” he added thought fully, “if Comrade Rochborne has forty-five Gs of Mama’s, he might have several of someone else’s Gs, too. Do you know anything else about him?”

“He has an address-an insurance office-where he picks up his mail. The people there know nothing about him. On a hunch I checked the city business-license records. It seems he was licensed as an assayer from 1936 to 1939. That fits into your picture.”

“I’ll keep thinking about it,” said the Saint.

He did exactly that, although for two days there was nothing to show for his thinking. But to the Saint a hiatus like that meant nothing. He knew better than anyone that those coups of his which seemed most spontaneous and effortless were usually the ones into which the hardest work had gone; that the machinery of his best buccaneering raids was labored and polished as devotedly as any master playwright’s plot structure. Even then there had to be an initial spark of inspiration to start the wheels turning; and in this instance the requisite spark eluded him tantalizingly for a full forty-eight hours.

When it came, it was nothing that he had even vaguely expected. It took the form of a chunky oblong package, crudely wrapped, which a bellboy delivered to his room. Simon scanned the label and found a postmark, and had a rather saddening premonition.

There was a note enclosed, printed in sprawling capitals on a sheet of blue-lined note paper.

DERE MR. TEMPLAR,
OLE JIMMY MC DILL HAD ONE TO MENY DOUBLE WISKEYS AN CASH IN HIS CHIPS LAS NITE HIS LAST REKEST WAS SEND YOU THS HERE DINGUS ACCOUNT OF YOU ARE A REEL GOOD FELLER AN HE LIKE YOU A LOT SAME IS INCLOSE. YRS TRULY
THE BOYS BONANZA CITY
The Saint lifted the glass in his right hand.

“Jimmy McDill,” he said softly, “may there be double bourbons and unlimited credit wherever you are.”

He was happily playing with the contraption when Larry Phelan arrived to pick him up for dinner that night, and the engineer gazed at him in somewhat condescending puzzlement.

“What the hell are you doing with a Doodlebug, Saint?” he demanded; and Simon was hardly less surprised.

“How the hell did you know what it was?”

“The lunatic fringes of the business were stiff with these things during the depression. I’ve seen ‘em in all sizes and shapes. Trouble is, none of ‘em are worth anything.”

“What do you mean, not worth anything?” Simon objected. “I’ll bet I can pick up a silver dollar at ten feet with this gadget.”

“I’ll bet you can too,” Phelan said. “I’ve seen it done, and by queerer-looking numbers than this one. I’ve seen ‘em with loop aerials, knee action, and floating power.”

Simon produced a silver cartwheel and threw it on the car pet. Grasping the stirrup handles, he lifted the box, and the same humming sound he had heard in the Bonanza City bar filled the room.

“Listen to the hum,” he said.

“They all hum,” said Larry Phelan.

Simon made sure the scale pointer indicated “Silver,” and advanced upon the dollar. Just as it had done for James Aloysius McDill, the humming keened up the scale until, as the Saint stood over the dollar, a malignant whining came from between his hands. He turned to Phelan triumphantly.

“This one works,” he said.

“Sure,” rejoined Phelan. “Now let’s see how well it works.”

He picked up a San Francisco telephone directory and the classified directory and piled them on top of the dollar, and the humming stopped abruptly.

“They’re all the same,” Phelan said sympathetically. “It seems to be possible to bounce some kind of oscillation off different metals, and make it selective according to their atomic structure, but the beam hardly has any penetration. Your lode would have to be practically on the surface, where you could see it anyhow, before a thing like this would detect it at all. I hope you didn’t pay much for it.

“Only fifty bucks and a couple of drinks, and it was worth that,” said the Saint; and the thought deepened in his blue eyes. “In fact, I think this is just what we needed to square accounts with Brother Rochborne and your swami.”

The Swami Yogadevi had never seen a Doodlebug, but he had his own effective methods of ascertaining the presence of precious metals. His techniques depended for their success upon certain paraphernalia unknown to electronics, such as a large spherical chunk of genuine optical glass; celestial charts populated by crabs, bulls, goats, virgins, and other mythological creatures; and many yards of expensive drapery embroidered with esoteric symbols, the whole enshrined in a gloomy and expensive apartment on Russian Hill.

There was nothing about the place to suggest that the Swami Yogadevi had once been Reuben Innowitz, known to the carnival circuit as Ali Pasha, the Mighty Mentalist. Mr Innowitz’s wants had been simple in those days, expressed mainly in terms of tall bottles and tall blondes, and they were much the same now, under his plush exterior. There were times, the Swami Yogadevi told himself, when he wished he hadn’t met Melville Rochborne, profitable though the partnership had turned out to be. For instance, there was this Professor Tattersall business.