The Saint and the Happy Highwayman (21 page)

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said into the microphone, “I must now make my apologies, and an explanation.”

The bodyguards straightened up, with their guns held ready. And yet something in his quiet voice, unarmed as he was, gripped them in spite of themselves, as it had gripped everyone else in the room. They looked questioningly towards the countess.

She gave them no response. She was rigid, watching the Saint with the first icy grasp of an impossible premonition closing in on her.

Somehow the Saint was going to get away with it. She knew it with a horrible certainty, even while she was wildly trying to guess what he would say. He could never have been so insane as to believe that he could pull a public holdup like that without being arrested an hour after he left the hotel, unless he had had some trick up his sleeve to immobilize the hue and cry. And she knew that she was now going to hear the trick she had not thought of.

“You have just been the victims of a holdup,” he was saying. “Probably to nearly all of you that was a novel experience. But it is something that might happen to any of you tonight, tomorrow, at any time—so long as there are men at large to whom that seems like the best way of making a living.

“You came here tonight to help the National League for the Care of Incurables. That is a good and humane work. But I have taken this opportunity—with the kind co-operation of Countess Jannowicz—to make you think of another equally good, perhaps even more constructive work: the Care of Curables.

“I am talking about a class of whom I may know more than most of you—a section of those unfortunates who are broadly and indiscriminatingly called criminals.

“Ladies and gentlemen, not every lawbreaker is a brutalized desperado, fit only for swift extermination. I know that there are men of that kind, and you all know that I have been more merciless with them than any officer of the law. But there are others.

“I mean the men who steal through ignorance, through poverty, through misplaced ambition, through despair, through lack of better opportunity. I mean also men who have been punished for their crimes and who are now at the crossroads. One road takes them deeper and deeper into crime, into becoming real brutalized desperadoes. The other road takes them back to honesty, to regaining their self-respect, to becoming good and valuable citizens. All they need is the second chance which society is often so unwilling to give them.

“To give these men their second chance, has been founded the Society for the Rehabilitation of Delinquents—rather an elaborate name for a simple and straightforward thing. I am proud to be the first president of that society.

“We believe that money spent on this object is far cheaper than the money spent on keeping prisoners in jail, and at the same time is less than the damage that these men would do to the community if they were left to go on with their crimes. We ask you to believe the same thing, and to be generous.

“Everything that has been taken from you tonight can be found tomorrow at the office of the Society, which is in the Missouri Trust Building on Fifth Avenue. If you wish to leave your property there, to be sold for the benefit of the Society, we shall be grateful. If it has too great a sentimental value to you, and you wish to buy it back, we shall be glad to exchange it for a check. And if you object to us very seriously, and simply want it back, we shall of course have to give it back. But we hope that none of you will demand that.

“That is why we ventured to take the loot away tonight. Between now and tomorrow morning, we want you to have time to think. Think of how different this holdup would have been if it had been real. Think of your feelings when you saw your jewelry vanishing out of that door. Think of how little difference it would really make to your lives”—he looked straight at the countess—“if you were wearing imitation stones, while the money that has been locked up idly in the real ones was set free to do good and useful work. Think, ladies and gentlemen, and forgive us the melodramatic way in which we have tried to bring home our point.”

He stepped back, and there was a moment of complete silence.

The chairman had at last found his glasses. He saw the speaker retiring with a bow from the microphone. Apparently the speech was over. It seemed to be the chairman’s place to give the conventional lead. He raised his hands and clapped loudly.

It is things like that that turn tides and start revolutions. In another second the whole hall was clattering with hysterical applause.

“My dear, how do you think of these things?”

“The most divinely thrilling–-“

“I was really petrified …”

The Countess Jannowicz wriggled dazedly free from the shrill jabber of compliments, managed somehow to snatch the Saint out of a circle of clamorous women of which Lady Instock was the most gushing leader. In a comparatively quiet corner of the room she faced him.

“You’re a good organizer, Mr Templar. The head-waiter tells me that Mr Ullbaum telephoned this afternoon and told the staff how they were to behave during the holdup.”

He was cheerfully appreciative.

“I must remember to thank him.”

“Mr Ullbaum did no such thing.”

He smiled.

“Then he must have been impersonated. But the damage seems to be done.”

“You know that for all your talking you’ve still committed a crime?”

“I think you’d be rather a lonely prosecutor.”

Rage had made her a little incoherent.

“I shall not come to your office. You’ve made a fool of yourself. My necklace is in the bank–-“

“Countess,” said the Saint patiently, “I’d guessed that much. That’s why I want you to be sure and bring me the real one. Lady Instock is going to leave her earrings and send a check as well, and all the rest of your friends seem to be sold on the idea. You’re supposed to be the number one patron. What would they think of you if after all the advertising you let yourself out with a fifty-dollar string of cut glass?”

“I can disclaim–-“

“I know you can. But your name will still be mud. Whereas at the moment you’re tops. Why not make the best of it and charge it to publicity?”

She knew she was beaten—that he had simply turned a trick with the cards that for days past she had been busily forcing into his hand. But she still fought with the bitterness of futility.

‘I’ll have the police investigate this phony charity–-“

“They’ll find that it’s quite legally constituted, and so long as the funds last they’ll be administered with perfect good faith.”

“And who’ll get the benefit of them besides yourself?”

Simon smiled once again.

“Our first and most urgent case will be a fellow named Marty O’Connor. He helped me with the collection tonight. You ought to remember him—he was your chauffeur for three weeks. Anyone like yourself, Countess,” said the Saint rather cruelly, “ought to know that charity begins at home.”

VIII THE MUGS’ GAME

The stout jovial gentleman in the shapeless suit pulled a card out of his wallet and pushed it across the table. The printing on it said “Mr J. J. Naskill.”

The Saint looked at it and offered his cigarette case.

“I’m afraid I don’t carry any cards,” he said. “But my name is Simon Templar.”

Mr Naskill beamed, held out a large moist hand to be shaken, took a cigarette, mopped his glistening forehead and beamed again.

“Well, it’s a pleasure to talk to you, Mr Templar,” he said heartily. “I get bored with my own company on these long journeys and it hurts my eyes to read on a train. Hate travelling, anyway. It’s a good thing my business keeps me in one place most of the time. What’s your job, by the way ?”

Simon took a pull at his cigarette while he gave a moment’s consideration to his answer. It was one of the few questions that ever embarrassed him. It wasn’t that he had any real objection to telling the truth, but that the truth tended to disturb the tranquil flow of ordinary casual conversation. Without causing a certain amount of commotion, he couldn’t say to a perfect stranger, “I’m a sort of benevolent brigand. I raise hell for crooks and racketeers of all kinds, and make life miserable for policemen, and rescue damsels in distress and all that sort of thing.” The Saint had often thought of it as a deplorable commentary on the stodgy un-adventurousness of the average mortal’s mind; but he knew that it was beyond his power to alter.

He said apologetically: “I’m just one of those lazy people. I believe they call it ‘independent means.’ “

This was true enough for an idle moment. The Saint could have exhibited a bank account that would have’ dazzled many men who called themselves wealthy, but it was on the subject of how that wealth had been accumulated that several persons who lived by what they had previously called their wits were inclined to wax profane.

Mr Naskill sighed.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “Why work if you don’,t have to? Wish I was in your shoes myself. Wasn’t born lucky, that’s all. Still, I’ve got a good business now, so I shouldn’t complain. Expect you recognize the name.”

“Naskill?” The Saint frowned slightly. When he repeated it, it did have a faintly familiar ring, “It sounds as if I ought to know it–-“

The other nodded.

“Some people call it No-skill,” he said. “They’re about right, too. That’s what it is. Magic for amateurs. Look.”

He flicked a card out of his pocket on to the table between them. It was the ace of diamonds. He turned it over and immediately faced it again. It was the nine of clubs. He turned it over again and it was the queen of hearts. He left it lying face down on the cloth and Simon picked it up curiously and examined it. It was the three of spades, but there was nothing else remarkable about it.

“Used to be a conjuror myself,” Naskill explained. “Then I got rheumatism in my hands, and I was on the rocks. Didn’t know any other job, so I had to make a living teaching other people tricks. Most of ‘em haven’t the patience to practise sleight of hand, so I made it easy for ‘em. Got a fine trade now, and a two-hundred-page catalogue. I can make anybody into just as good a magician as the money they like to spend, and they needn’t practise for five minutes. Look.”

He took the card that the Saint was still holding, tore it into small pieces, folded his plump fingers on them for a moment and spread out his hands—empty. Then he broke open the cigarette he was smoking and inside it was a three of spades rolled into a tight cylinder, crumpled but intact.

“You can buy that one for a dollar and a half,” he said. “The first one I showed you is two dollars. It’s daylight robbery, really, but some people like to show off at parties, and they give me a living.”

Simon slid back his sleeve from his wrist watch and glanced out of the window at the speeding landscape. There was still about an hour to go before they would be in Miami, and he had nothing else to take up his time. Besides, Mr Naskill was something novel and interesting in his experience; and it was part of the Saint’s creed that a modern brigand could never know too much about the queerer things that went on in the world.

He caught the eye of a waiter at the other end of the dining car and beckoned him over.

“Could you stand a drink?” he suggested.

“Scotch for me,” said Mr Naskill gratefully. He wiped his face again while Simon duplicated the order. “But I’m still talking about myself. If I’m boring you–-“

“Not a bit of it.” The Saint was perfectly sincere. “I don’t often meet anyone with an unusual job like yours. Do you know any more tricks?”

Mr Naskill polished a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, fitted them on his nose and hitched himself forward.

“Look,” he said eagerly.

He was like a child with a new collection of toys. He dug into another of his sagging pockets, which Simon was now deciding were probably loaded with enough portable equipment to stage a complete show, and hauled out a pack of cards which he pushed over to the Saint.

“You take ‘em. Look ‘em over as much as you like. See if you can find anything wrong with ‘cm… . All right. Now shuffle ‘em. Shuffle ‘em all you want.” He waited. “Now spread ‘em out on the table. You’re doing this trick, not me. Take any card you like. Look at it— don’t let me see it. All right. Now, I haven’t touched the cards at all, have I, except to give ‘em to you ? You shuffled ‘em and you picked a card without me helping you. I couldn’t have forced it on you or anything. Eh? All right. Well, I could put any trimmings I wanted on this trick—any fancy stunts I could think up to make it look more mysterious. They’d all be easy because I know what card you’ve got all the time. You’ve got the six of diamonds.”

Simon turned the card over. It was the six of diamonds.

“How’s that?” Naskill demanded gleefully.

The Saint grinned. He drew a handful of cards towards him, face downwards as they lay, and pored over the backs for two or three minutes before he sat back again with a rueful shrug.

Mr Naskill chortled.

“There’s nothing wrong with your eyes,” he said. “You could go over ‘em with a microscope and not find anything. All the same, I’ll tell you what you’ve got. The king of spades, the two of spades, the ten of hearts–-“

“I’ll take your word for it,” said the Saint resignedly. “But how on earth do you do it?”

Naskill glowed delightedly.

“Look,” he said.

He took off his glasses and passed them over. Under the flat lenses Simon could see the notations clearly printed in the corners of each card—KS, 2S, 10H. They vanished as soon as he moved the glasses and it was impossible to find a trace of them with the naked eye.

“I’ve heard of that being done with coloured glasses,” said the Saint slowly, “but I noticed that yours weren’t coloured.”

Naskill shook his head.

“Coloured glasses are old stuff. Too crude. Used to be used a lot by sharpers but too many people got to hear about ‘em. You couldn’t get into a card game with coloured glasses these days. No good for conjuring, either. But this is good. Invented it myself. Special ink and special kind of glass. There is a tint in it, of course, but it’s too faint to notice.” He shoved the cards over the cloth. “Here. Keep the lot for a souvenir. You can have some fun with your friends. But don’t go asking ‘em in for a game of poker, mind.”