The Saint and the Happy Highwayman (13 page)

But in Simon Templar’s impulsive life there was a factor of Destiny that was always taking such decisions out of his hands. Anyone with a less sublime faith in his guiding star might have called it Coincidence, but to the Saint that word was merely a chicken-hearted half-truth. Certain things were ordained; and when the signs pointed there was no turning back.

Two days after Fernack’s warning, he was speeding back to the city after an afternoon’s swimming and basking in the sun at the Westchester Country Club when he saw a small coupe of rather ancient vintage standing by the roadside. The hood of the coupe was open, and a young man was very busy with the engine; he seemed to be considerably flustered, and from the quantity of oil on his face and forearms the success of his efforts seemed to bear no relation to the amount of energy he had put into them. Near the car stood a remarkably pretty girl, and she was what really caught the Saint’s eye. She seemed distressed and frightened, twisting her hands nervously together and looking as if she was on the verge of tears.

Simon had flashed past before he realized that he knew her—he had met her at a dance some weeks before. His distaste for Mr Elliot Vascoe did not apply to Vascoe’s slim auburn-haired daughter, whom Simon would have been prepared to put forward in any company as a triumphant refutation of the theories of heredity. He jammed on his brakes and backed up to the breakdown.

“Hullo, Meryl,” he said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“If you can make this Chinese washing machine go,” said the young man, raising his smeared face from the bowels of the engine, “you are not only a better man than I am, but I expect you can invent linotypes in your sleep.”

“This is Mr Fulton—Mr Templar.” The girl made the introduction with breathless haste. “We’ve been here for three quarters of an hour …”

The Saint started to get out.

“I never was much of a mechanic,” he murmured. “But if I can unscrew anything or screw anything up …”

“That wouldn’t be any good—Bill knows everything about cars, and he’s already taken it to pieces twice.” The girl’s voice was shaky with dawning hope. “But if you could take me home yourself … I’ve simply got to be back before seven! Do you think you could do it?”

Her tone was so frantic that she made it sound like a matter of life and death.

Simon glanced at his watch and at the mileometer on the dashboard. It would be about fifteen miles to Knickerbocker Place, and it was less than twenty minutes to seven.

“I can try,” he said, and turned to Fulton. “What about you—will you come on this death-defying ride?”

Fulton shook his head. He was a few years older than the girl, and Simon liked the clean-cut good looks of him.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “You try to get Meryl back. I’m going to make this prehistoric wreck move under its own steam if I stay here all night.”

Meryl Vascoe was already in the Saint’s car, and Simon returned to the wheel with a grin and a shrug. For a little while he was completely occupied with finding out just how high an unlawful speed he could make through the traffic on the Parkway. When the Saint set out to do some fast travelling it was a hair-raising performance, but Meryl Vascoe’s hair was fortunately raiseproof. She spent some minutes repairing various imperceptible details of her almost flawless face, and then she touched his knee anxiously.

“When we get there, just put me down at the corner of Sutton Place,” she said. “I’ll run the rest of the way. You see, if Father saw you drive up to the door he’d be sure to ask questions.”

” ‘What are you doing with that scoundrel?’ ” Simon said melodramatically. ” ‘Don’t you know that he can’t be trusted with a decent woman?’ “

She laughed.

“That isn’t what I’m worried about,” she said. “Though I don’t suppose he’d be very enthusiastic about our being together—I haven’t forgotten what a scene we had about that dance where you picked me up and took me off to Harlem for the rest of the night. But the point is that I don’t want him to know that I’ve been out driving at all.”

“Why not?” asked the Saint reasonably. “The sun is shining. New York is beginning to develop its summer smell. What could you do that would be better and healthier than taking a day in the country?”

She looked at him guardedly, hesitating.

“Well—then I ought to have gone out in my own car, with one of the chauffeurs. But he’d be furious if he knew I’d been out with Bill Fulton, so when I went out this afternoon I told him I was going shopping with an old school friend.”

Simon groaned.

“That old school friend—she does work long hours,” he protested. “I should have thought you could have invented something better than that. However, I take it that Papa doesn’t like Bill Fulton, and you do, so you meet him on the quiet. That’s sensible enough. But what’s your father got against him? He looked good enough to me. Does he wash, or something?”

“You don’t have to insult my father when I’m listening,” she said stiffly; and then, in another moment, the emotions inside” her overcame her loyalty. “I suppose it’s because Bill isn’t rich and hasn’t got a title or anything … And then there’s Lord Eastridge–-“

Simon swerved the car dizzily under the arm of a policeman who was trying to hold them up.

“Who?” he demanded.

“The Earl of Eastridge—he’s staying with us just now. He had to go and see some lawyers this afternoon but he’ll be back for dinner; and if I’m not home and dressed when they ring the gong, Father ‘11 have a fit.”

“Poor little rich girl,” said the Saint sympathetically. “So you have to dash home to play hostess to another of your father’s expensive phonies.”

“Oh no; this one’s perfectly genuine. He’s quite nice, really, only he’s so wet. But Father’s been caught too often before. He got hold of this earl’s passport and took it down to the British Consulate, and they said it was quite all right.”

“The idea being,” Simon commented shrewdly, “that Papa doesn’t want any comebacks after he’s made you the Countess of Eastridge.”

She didn’t answer at once, and Simon himself was busy with the task of passing a truck on the wrong side, whizzing over a crossing while the lights changed from amber to red and making a skidding turn under the nose of a taxi at the next red light. But there was some queer gift of humanity about him that had always had an uncanny knack of unlocking other people’s conventional reserves; and besides, they had once danced together and talked much delightful nonsense while all the conventional inhabitants of Manhattan slept.

She found herself saying: “You see, all Bill’s got is his radio business, and he’s invented a new tube that’s going to make him a fortune; but I got Father to lend him the twenty thousand dollars Bill needed to develop it. Father gave him the money but he made Bill sign a sort of mortgage that gave Father the right to take his invention away from him if the money wasn’t paid back. Now Father says that if Bill tries to marry me he’ll foreclose, and Bill wouldn’t have anything left. I know how Bill’s getting on, and I know if he only has a few months more he’ll be able to pay Father back ten times over.”

“Can’t you wait those few months?” asked the Saint. “If Bill’s on to something as good as that–-“

She shook her head.

“But Father says that if I don’t marry Lord Eastridge as soon as he asks me to—and I know he’s going to—he’ll foreclose on Bill anyway, and Bill won’t get a penny for all his work.” Her voice broke, and when Simon glanced at her quickly he saw the shine of tears in her eyes. “Bill doesn’t know—if you tell him, I’ll kill you! But he can’t understand what’s the matter with me. And I—I–-” Her lovely face tightened with a strange bitterness. “I always thought these things only happened in pictures,” she said huskily. “How can any man be like that?”

“You wouldn’t know, darling,” said the Saint gently.

That was all he said at the time, but at the same moment he resolved that he would invest five of his dollars in an admission to Mr Elliot Vascoe’s exhibition. Certain things were indubitably Ordained… .

He arrived just after the official opening, on the first day. The rooms in which the exhibition was being held were crowded with aspiring and perspiring socialites, lured there either in the hope of collecting one of Mr Vascoe’s bacchanalian invitations to dinner, or because they hoped to be recognized by other socialites, or because they hoped to be mistaken for connoisseurs of Art, or just because they hadn’t the courage to let anyone think that they couldn’t spend five dollars on charity just as easily as anyone else. Simon Templar shouldered his way through them until he sighted Vas-coe. He had done some thinking since he drove Meryl home, and it had only confirmed him in his conviction that Nemesis was due to overtake Mr Vascoe at last. At the same time, Simon saw no reason why he shouldn’t deal himself in on the party.

With Vascoe and Meryl was a tall and immaculately dressed young man with a pink face whose amiable stupidity was accentuated by a chin that began too late and a forehead that stopped too soon. Simon had no difficulty in identifying him as the Earl of Eastridge, and that was how Meryl introduced him before Vascoe turned round and recognized his unwelcome visitor.

“How did you get in here?” he brayed.

“Through the front door,” said the Saint genially. “I put down my five bucks and they told me to walk right in. It’s a public exhibition, I believe. Did you come in on a free pass?”

Vascoe recovered himself with difficulty but his large face remained an ugly purple.

“Come to have a look round, have you?” he asked offensively. “Well, you can look as much as you like. I flatter myself this place is burglarproof.”

Meryl turned white, and the earl tittered. Other guests who were within earshot hovered expectantly— some of them, one might almost have thought, hopefully. But if they were waiting for a prompt and swift outbreak of violence, or even a sharp and candid repartee, they were doomed to disappointment. The Saint smiled with unruffled good humour.

“Burglarproof, is it?” he said tolerantly. “You really think it’s burglarproof. Well, well, well!” He patted Mr Vascoe’s bald head affectionately. “Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Fatty. I’ll bet you twenty thousand dollars it’s burgled within a week.”

For a moment Vascoe seemed to be in a tangle with his own vocal cords. He could only stand and gasp like a fish.

“You—you have the effrontery to come here and tell me you’re going to burgle my house?” he spluttered. “You—you ruffian! I’ll have you handed over to the police! I never heard of such—such—such–-“

“I haven’t committed any crime yet, that I know of,” said the Saint patiently. “I’m simply offering you a sporting bet. Of course, if you’re frightened of los-ing …”

“Such God-damned insolence 1” howled Vascoe furiously. “I’ve got detectives here–-“

He looked wildly around for them.

“Or if twenty thousand dollars is too much for you,” Simon continued imperturbably.

“I’ll take your twenty thousand dollars,” Vascoe retorted viciously. “If you’ve got that much money. I’d be glad to break you as well as see you sent to jail. And if anything happens after this, the police will know who to look for!”

“That will be quite a change for them,” said the Saint. “And now, in the circumstances, I think we ought to have a stakeholder.”

He scanned the circle of faces that had gathered round them and singled out a dark cadaverous-looking man who was absorbing the scene from the background with an air of disillusioned melancholy.

“I see Morgan Dean of the Daily Mail over there,” he said. “Suppose we each give him our checks for twenty thousand dollars. He can pay them into his own bank, and write a check for forty thousand when the bet’s settled. Then there won’t be any difficulty about the winner collecting. What about it, Dean?”

The columnist rubbed his chin.

“Sure,” he drawled lugubriously. “My bank ‘11 probably die of shock, but I’ll chance it.”

“Then we’re all set,” said the Saint, taking out his checkbook. “Unless Mr Vascoe wants to back out …”

Mr Vascoe stared venomously from face to face. It was dawning on him that he was in a corner. If he had seen the faintest encouragement anywhere to laugh off the situation, he would have grabbed at the opportunity with both hands; but he looked for the encouragement in vain. He hadn’t a single real friend in the room, and he was realist enough to know it. Already he could see heads being put together, could hear whispers… . He knew just what would be said if he backed down … and Morgan Dean would put the story on the front page… .

Vascoe drew himself up and a malignant glitter came into his small eyes.

“It suits me,” he said swaggeringly. “Mr Dean will have my check this afternoon.”

He stalked away, still fuming, and Morgan Dean’s long sad face came closer to the Saint.

“Son,” he said, “I like a good story as much as anyone. And I like you. And nobody ‘d cheer louder than me if Vascoe took a brodie. But don’t you think you’ve bitten off more than you can chew? I know how much Vascoe loves you, and I’d say he’d almost be glad to spend twenty grand to see you in jail. Besides, it wouldn’t do you any good. You couldn’t sell stuff like this.”

“You could sell it without the slightest trouble,” Simon contradicted him. “There are any number of collectors who aren’t particular how they make their collections and who don’t care if they can’t show them to the public. And I’ve never been in jail, anyway—one ought to try everything once.”

He spent the next hour going slowly round the exhibition, making careful written notes about the exhibits in his catalogue, while Vascoe watched him with his rage rising to the brink of apoplexy. He also examined all the windows and showcases, taking measurements and drawing diagrams with a darkly conspiratorial air, and only appearing to notice the existence of the two obvious detectives who followed him everywhere when he politely asked them not to breathe so heavily down his neck.

Fernack saw the headlines and nearly blew all the windows out of Centre Street. He burst into the Saint’s apartment like a whirling dervish.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he bugled brassily, thrusting a crumpled copy of the Daily Mail under the Saint’s nose. “Come on—what is it?”