Saint Intervenes (17 page)

There was
no mistaking his earnestness; and the Saint regarded him with affectionate
gloom. His vision of the future
filled him with overwhelming pessimism. He
had seen the
fate
of other young men—healthy, upright, sober young men of impeccable
character—who had had books published. He had seen them tread the downhill path
of pink shirts, velvet
coats, long hair,
quill pens, cocktail parties, and beards, un
til finally they sank into the awful limbos of Bloomsbury and
were
no longer visible to the naked eye. The prospect of such
a doom for anyone like Peter Quentin, who had been
with
him in so many bigger and better
crimes, cast a shadow of
great melancholy across his spirits.

“Didn’t Kathleen try to
stop you?” he asked.

“Of
course not,” said Peter proudly. “She helped me. I
owe——
”

“—it
all to her,” said the Saint cynically. “All right. I
know the
line. But if you ever come out with ‘My Work’
within my hearing, I shall throw you under
a bus … You’d
better let me see this
letter. And order me some more beer
while
I’m reading it—I need strength.”

He took
the document with his fingertips, as if it were
unclean, and opened
it out on the bar. But after his first
glance at the
letter-head his twinkling blue eyes steadied
abruptly, and he read
the epistle through with more than
ordinary interest.

Dear Sir,

We have now gone into your novel THE GAY AD
VENTURER,
and our readers report that it is very enter
taining and ably
written, with the verve of Dumas, the
dramatic power of
Tolstoy, and the ingenuity of Conan
Doyle.

We shall therefore be delighted to set up same in best
small pica
type to form a volume of about 320 p.p., ma
chine on good antique
paper, bind in red cloth with title
in gold lettering,
and put up in specially designed artistic wrapper, at cost to yourself of only
£300 (Three Hundred
Pounds) and to publish same at our own expense
in the
United Kingdom at a net price of 5/- (Five Shillings);
and
believe it will form a most acceptable and popular
volume
which should command a wide sale.

We will further agree to send you on date of publica
tion
twelve presentation copies, and to send copies for re
view to
all principal magazines and newspapers, and
further to pay you a
royalty of 25% (twenty-five per cent)
on all copies sold of
this Work.

The work can be put in hand immediately on receipt of
your
acceptance of these terms.

Trusting
to hear from you at your earliest convenience,

We beg to remain, dear Sir,

Faithfully yours,

for HERBERT G. PARSTONE & Co.

Herbert G. Parstone,

Managing Director

Simon folded the letter and
handed it back with a sigh of
relief.

“Okay,
Peter,” he said cheerfully. “I bought that one.
What’s the
swindle, and can I come in on it?”

“I
don’t know of any swindle,” said Peter puzzledly.
“What do you
mean?”

The Saint
frowned.

“D’you
mean to tell me you sent your book to Parstone in
all
seriousness?”

“Of
course I did. I saw an advertisement of his in some literary paper, and I don’t
know much about publishers——
”

“You’ve
never heard of him before?”

“No.”

Simon picked
up his tankard and strengthened himself
with a deep draught.

“Herbert G.
Parstone,” he said, “is England’s premier ex
ponent of the publishing racket. Since you don’t seem to
know it, Peter, let me tell you that no reputable
publisher in
this or any other country publishes books at the author’s
ex
pense, except an occasional highly
technical work which goes
out for
posterity rather than profit. I gather that your book
is by no means technical. Therefore you don’t pay
the pub
lisher: he pays you—and if
he’s any use he stands you expensive lunches as well.”

“But
Parstone offers to pay——
”

“A
twenty-five per cent royalty. I know. Well, if you were
something
like a best seller you might get that; but on a
first novel no
publisher would give you more than ten, and
then he’d probably
lose money. After six months Parstone
would probably send you a statement
showing a sale of two
hundred copies, you’d get a cheque from him
for twelve
pounds
ten, and that’s the last trace you’d see of your three
hundred quid. He’s simply trading on the fact that one out
of every three people you meet thinks he could
write a book
if he tried, one out of
every three of ‘em try it, and one out
of
every three of those tries to get it published. The very
fact that a manuscript is sent to him tells him
that the author
is a potential
sucker, because anyone who’s going into the writing business seriously takes
the trouble to find out a bit
about
publishers before he starts slinging his stuff around. The rest of his game is
just playing on the vanity of mugs.
And the mugs—mugs like yourself,
Peter—old gents with
political theories,
hideous women with ghastly poems, school
girls with nauseating love stories—rush up to pour their
money into his lap for the joy of seeing their
repulsive tripe
in print. I’ve known
about Herbert for many years, old lad,
but
I never thought you’d be the sap to fall for him.”

“I
don’t believe you,” said Peter glumly.

An elderly
mouse-like man who was drinking at the bar
beside him coughed
apologetically and edged bashfully
nearer.

“Excuse
me, sir,” he said diffidently, “but your friend’s
telling the
truth.”

“How
do you know?” asked Peter suspiciously. “I can usually guess when
he’s telling the truth—he makes a face
as if it hurt
him.”

“He
isn’t pulling your leg this time, sir,” said the man. “I
happen to
be a proof-reader at Parstone’s.”

The
surprising thing about coincidences is that they so
often happen. The
mouse-like man was one of those amazing
accidents on which
the fate of nations may hinge, but there
was no logical reason
why he should not have been drinking at that bar as probably as at any other
hostel in the district.
And yet there is no doubt that if Mr. Herbert
Parstone could
have foreseen the accident he would have bought that par
ticular
public-house for the simple pleasure of closing it
down lest any such
coincidence should happen; but unhappily
for him Mr. Herbert
Parstone was not a clairvoyant.

This
proof-reader—the term, by the way, refers to the
occupation and not necessarily to the
alcoholic content of the
man—had been with
Parstone for twelve years, and he was
ready
for a change.

“I
was with Parstone when he was just a small jobbing
printer,” he
said, “before he took up this publishing game.
That’s all he is now,
really—a printer. But he’s going to
have to get along without me. In the
last three years I’ve
taken one cut after another, till I don’t earn
enough money
to feed myself properly; and I can’t stand it any longer.
I’ve
got four more months on my contract, but after that I’m
going to
take another job.”

“Did
you read my book?” asked Peter.

The man
shook his head.

“Nobody
read your book, sir—if you’ll excuse my telling
you. It was just put
on a shelf for three weeks, and after
that Parstone sent you his usual
letter. That’s what happens
to everything that’s sent to him. If he gets
his money, the
book goes straight into the shop, and the proof-reader’s
the
first man who
has to wade through it. Parstone doesn’t care
whether
it’s written in Hindustani.”

“But
surely,” protested Peter half-heartedly, “he couldn’t
carry on a
racket like that in broad daylight and get away
with it?”

The reader looked at him with a
rather tired smile on his
mouse-like
features.

“It’s
perfectly legal, sir. Parstone publishes the book. He
prints copies and
sends them around. It isn’t his fault if the
reviewers won’t
review it and the booksellers won’t buy it.
He carries out his legal undertaking. But
it’s a dirty business.”

After a
considerably longer conversation, in the course of
which a good deal more
beer was consumed, Peter Quentin was convinced; and he was so crestfallen on
the way home
that
Simon took pity on him.

“Let
me read this opus,” he said, “if you’ve got a spare
copy. Maybe
it isn’t so lousy, and if there’s anything in it
we’ll send it along
to some other place.”

He had the
book next day; and after ploughing through
the first dozen pages
his worst fears were realised. Peter Quentin was not destined to take his place
in the genealogy
of literature with Dumas, Tolstoy, and Conan Doyle. The
art of
writing was not in him. His spelling had a grand
simplicity that would
have delighted the more progressive
orthographists, his grammatical
constructions followed in the
footsteps of Gertrude Stein, and his
punctuation marks
seemed to have more connection with intervals for thought
and opening beer-bottles than with the requirements of syntax.

Moreover, like most first
novels, it was embarrassingly per
sonal.

It was
this fact which made Simon follow it to the bitter
end, for the hero of
the story was one “Ivan Grail, the Robb
in
Hood of
modern crime,” who could without difficulty be
identified with the
Saint himself, his “beutifull wife,” and
“Frank Morris his
acomplis whos hard-biten featurs con
sealed a very clever brain and
witt.” Simon Templar swal
lowed all the flattering evidences of
hero-worship that
adorned the untidy pages, and actually blushed. But after
he
had reached the conclusion—inscribed “FINNIS” in tri
umphant
capitals—he did some heavy thinking.

Later on he
saw Peter again.

“What
was it that bit your features so hard?” he asked.
“Did you try to
kiss an alligator?”

Peter
turned pink.

“I
had to describe them somehow,” he said defensively.

“You’re
too modest,” said the Saint, after inspecting him
again. “They
were not merely bitten—they were thoroughly
chewed.”

“Well,
what about the book?” said Peter hopefully. “Was
it any
good?”

“It
was lousy,” Simon informed him, with the privileged
candour of
friendship. “It would have made Dumas turn in
his grave. All the
same, it may be more readable after I’ve
revised it for you.
And perhaps we will let Comrade Par-stone publish it after all.”

Peter
blinked.

“But
I thought——
”

“I
have an idea,” said the Saint. “Parstone has published
dud books
too long. It’s time he had a good one. Will you
get your manuscript back from him,
Peter—tell him you want to make a few corrections, and after that you’ll send
him his money and let him print it. For anyone who so successfully
conceals a very clever brain and wit,” he
added cruelly,
“there are much
more profitable ways of employing them than
writing books, as you ought to know.”

For two
weeks after that the Saint sat at his typewriter for
seven hours a day, hammering out page
after page of neat
manuscript at astonishing
speed. He did not merely revise
Peter Quentin’s story—he rewrote it from
cover to cover, and
the result would
certainly not have been recognised by its
original creator.