Many others like him, steering narrowly clear of the law, have found no lack of victims, and Campard had perhaps found more suckers than most.
But even the most triumphant career meets a check some times, and Campard had made a slip which had brought him into the full publicity of a High Court action. He had wriggled out, by the skin of his teeth and some expensive perjury, but the resultant outcry had told him that it would be wise to lie low for a while. And lying low did not suit Campard's book. He lived extravagantly, and for all the wealth that he possessed on paper there were many liabilities. And then, when his back was actually to the wall, had come the miracle-in the shape of the chance to buy the Pasala concession, offered him by a man named Shannet, whom he had employed many years ago.
Pasala oil was good. In the few months that it had been worked, the quality and quantity of the output had been startling. Campard enlisted the help of a handful of his boon companions, and poured in all his resources. More plant was needed and more labour, more expert management. That was now to be supplied. The directors of Pasala Oil Products sat down to watch themselves become millionaires.
And then, in a clear sky, the cloud.
Hugo Campard, skimming through his newspaper on his way to the financial pages, had read of the early manifestations of the Saint, and had been mildly amused. In the days that followed he had read of other exploits of the Saint, and his amusement had changed gradually to grave anxiety. . . . And one day there had come to Hugo Campard, through the post, a card. . . .
Each morning thereafter the familiar envelope had been beside his plate at breakfast; each morning, when he reached the offices of Pasala Oil Products, he had found another reminder of the Saint on his desk. There had been no message. Just the picture. But the newspapers were full of stories, and Hugo Campard was afraid. . . .
Then, two days ago, the Saint had spoken.
Campard could not have told why he opened the envelopes in which the Saint sent his mementoes. Perhaps it was be cause, each time, Campard hoped he would be given some indication of what the Saint meant to do. After days of suspense, that had painted the black hollows of sleeplessness under his eyes and brought him to a state of nerves that was sheer physical agony, he was told.
On that day, underneath the crude outline, was pencilled a line of small writing: In a week's time you will be ruined.
He had already had police protection-after the Lemuel incident there had been no difficulty in obtaining that, as soon as he showed the police the first cards. All night there had been a constable outside his house in St. John's Wood. All day a constable stood in the corridor outside his office. A plain-clothes detective rode in his car with him everywhere be went. Short of some unforeseeable masterpiece of strategy, or a recourse to the machine-gun fighting of the Chicago gangsters, it was impossible that the Saint could reach him as he had reached Lemuel.
Now, at one stroke, the Saint brought all these preparations to naught, and broke invisibly through the cordon. Against such an attack the police could not help him.
'In a week's time you will be ruined.'
An easy boast to make. A tremendous task to carry out.
And yet, even while he had been racking his brains to find out how the Saint might carry out his threat, he had his answer.
For a long time he stared blindly at the cablegram, until every letter of the message was burned into his brain as with a hot iron. When he roused himself it was to clutch at a straw.
He telephoned to the telegraph company, and verified that the message had actually been received from Santa Miranda via Barbadoes and Pernarubuco. Even that left a loophole. He cabled to an agent in New York, directing him to obtain authentic information from Washington at any cost; and by the evening he received a reply confirming Shannet's statement. The U.S.S. Michigan was on its way to Santa Miranda in response to an appeal from the President.
There was no catch in it. Shannet's code message was not a bluff, not even from an agent of the Saint in Santa Miranda. It was a grimly sober utterance of fact.
But the gigantic thoroughness of it! The colossal impudence of the scheme! Campard felt as if all the strength and fight had ebbed out of him. Me was aghast at the revelation of the resources of the Saint. Against a man who apparently thought nothing of engineering a war to gain his ends, he felt as puny and helpless as a babe.
His hand went out again to the telephone, but he checked the impulse. It was no use telling the police that. They could do nothing-and, far too soon as it was, the news would be published in the press. And then, with the name of Campard behind them, P.O.P shares would tumble down the market to barely the value of their weight in waste paper.
Before he left the office that night he sent a return code in cable to Santa Miranda: Believe war organized by criminal known as Saint, who has threatened me. Obtain particulars of any strange Englishman in Pasala or Maduro. Give descriptions. Report developments.
What the Saint had started, Campard argued, the Saint could stop. Campard might have a chance yet, if he could bargain. ...
But the declaration of war was announced in the evening paper which he bought on his way home, and Hugo Campard knew then it was too late.
He had no sleep that night, and by nine o'clock next morning he was at the office, and speaking on the telephone to his broker.
'I want you to sell twenty thousand P.O.P.s for me,' he said. 'Take the best price you can get.'
'I wish I could hope to get a price at all,' came the sardonic answer. 'The market's full of rumours and everyone's scared to touch the things. You're too late with your selling- the bears were in before you.'
'What do you mean?' asked Campard in a strained voice.
'There was a good deal of quiet selling yesterday and the day before,' said the broker. 'Somebody must have had information. They're covering to-day, and they must have made thousands.'
During the morning other backers of the company came through on the telephone and were accusing or whining according to temperament, and Campard dealt with them all in the same formula.
'I can't help it,' he said. 'I'm hit twice as badly as any of you. It isn't my fault. The company was perfectly straight; you know that.'
The broker rang up after lunch to say that he had managed to get rid of six thousand shares at an average price of two shillings.
'Two shillings for two-pound shares?' Campard almost sobbed. 'You're mad!'
'See if you can do any better yourself, Mr. Campard,' replied the broker coldly. 'The market won't take any more at present, but I might be able to get rid of another couple of thousand before we close at about a bob each- to people who want to keep them as curios. A firm of wall-paper manufacturers might make an offer for the rest--'
Campard slammed down the receiver and buried his face in his hands.
He was in the same position three hours later when his secretary knocked on the door and entered with a buff envelope.
'Another cable, Mr. Campard.'
He extracted the flimsy and reached out a nerveless hand for the code book. He decoded: Maduro armies advancing into Pasala. Only chance now sell any price. Answer inquiry. Man arrived nearly four months ago-- With a sudden impatience, Campard tore the cablegram into a hundred pieces and dropped them into the waste-paper basket. There was no time now to get in touch with the Saint. The damage was done.
A few minutes later came the anticipated message from the firm that he had induced to back him over Pasala Oil Products. Rich as he had become, he would never have been able to acquire his large holding in the company without assistance. How, with his reputation, he had got any firm to back him was a mystery. But he had been able to do it on the system known as 'margins'-which, in this instance, meant roughly that he could be called upon immediately to produce fifty percent of the amount by which the shares had depreciated, in order to 'keep up his margin.'
The demand, courteously but peremptorily worded, was delivered by special messenger; and his only surprise was that it had not come sooner. He scribbled a check, which there was no money in the bank to meet, and sent it back by the same boy.
