'Oh, I know! But that's all very fine. Any sensible girl is going to care about money sooner or later. She's got every right to. And if she's nice enough to think money doesn't matter- well, a chap can't take advantage of that. . . . You know, that's where Miles has been so white. That money he paid over to me as my brother's share in the mine-he's really done his best to help me to make it grow. 'If it's a matter of L s. d.,' he said, I'd like you to start all square.' '
'Did he?' said the Saint.
Perry nodded.
'I believe he worked like a Trojan. Pestered all his friends to try and find me a cast-iron investment paying about two hundred percent. And he found one, too-at least, we thought so. Funnily enough, it was another gold mine-only this time it was in South Africa--'
'Hell!' said the Saint.
'What d'you mean?'
'Hell,' said the Saint. 'When was this-last week?'
The youngster looked at him puzzledly.
'Oh, no. That was over a year ago. . . . But the shares didn't jump as they were supposed to. They've just gone slowly down. Not very much, but they've gone down. I held on, though. Miles was absolutely certain his information couldn't be wrong. And now he's just heard that it was wrong -there was a letter waiting for me--'
'He's offered to buy the shares off you, and make up your loss.'
Perry stared.
'How did you know?'
'I know everything,' said the Saint.
He sprang to his feet suddenly. There was an ecstatic expression on his face that made Perry wonder if perhaps the beer . . .
Perry rose slowly; and the Saint's hand fell on his shoulder.
'Moyna's coming to-night, isn't she?'
'I told you--'
'I'll tell you more. You're going to propose, my lad.'
'What?'
'Propose,' drawled the Saint. 'If you've never done it before, I'll give you a rapid lesson now. You take her little hand in yours, and you say, huskily, you say: 'Moyna, d'you think we could do it?' 'Do what?' she says. 'Get fixed,' says you. 'Fixed?' she says. 'How?' 'Keep the party clean,' says you. 'Moyna,' you say, crrrushing her to your booosom-that's a shade north of your cummerbund-'Moyna, I laaaaaaave you!' . . . That will be two guineas. You can post me a check in the morning-as the actress used to say. She was a perfect lady. . . . So long!'
And the Saint snatched up his hat. He was halfway to the door when Perry caught him.
'What's the idea, Templar?'
Simon turned, smiling.
'Well, you don't want me on the scene while you shoot your speech, do you?'
'You don't have to go yet.'
'Oh, yes, I do.'
'Where?'
'I'm going to find Miles!'
'But you've never met him.'
'I haven't. But I'm going to!'
Perry blocked the doorway.
'Look here, Templar,' he said, 'you can't get away with this. There's a lot of things I want to know first. Hang it-if I didn't know you pretty well, I'd say you'd gone clean off your rocker.'
'Would you?' said the Saint gently.
He had been looking at Perry all the time, and he had been smiling all the time, but all at once the younger man saw something leap into the Saint's gaze that had not been there before-something like a flash of naked steel.
'Then,' said the Saint very gently, 'what would you say if I told you I was going to kill Miles Hallin?'
Perry fell back a pace.
'You're crazy!' he whispered.
'Sure,' said the Saint. 'But not so crazy as Miles Hallin must have been when he killed a friend of mine the other day.'
'Miles killed a friend of yours? What in God's name d'you mean?'
'Oh, for the love of Pete!'
With a shrug, the Saint turned back into the room. He sat on the edge of a table; but his poise was as restless as his perch. The last thing that anyone could have imagined was that he meant to stay sitting there.
'Listen, and I'll tell you a joke,' he said. 'I'm full of jokes these days. . . . Once upon a time there was a man who could not die. Joke.'
'I wish to heaven you'd say what you mean!'
'If I did, you wouldn't believe me.'
'Not if it was about Miles.'
'Quite! And it is about Miles. So we'd have a first-class row -and what good would that do? As it is, we're getting damned near it. So why not let it go?'
'You've made suggestions--'
'Of course I have,' agreed the Saint wearily. 'And now I'm going to make some more. Lose your temper if you must, Nigel, old dear; but promise me two things first: promise you'll hang on to those shares, and propose to Moyna to-night.She'll accept-I guarantee it. With lots of love and kisses, yours faithfully.'
The youngster's jaw tightened.
'I think you're raving,' he said. 'But we're going to have this out. What have you got to say about Miles?'
The Saint's sigh was as full of patience and long-suffering as the Saint could make it. He really was trying to be patient; but he knew that he hadn't a hope of convincing Nigel Perry. And to the Saint it was all so plain. He wasn't a bit surprised at the sudden blossoming of the story: it had happened in the way these things always happened, in the way he subconsciously expected them to happen. He had taken the blossoming in his stride; it was all infinitely past and over to him-so infinitely past and over that he had ceased to think about coincidences. And he sighed.
'I've got nothing to say about Miles.'
'You were saying--'
'Forget it, old dear. Now, will you do what I asked you to do about Moyna?'
'That's my business. Why should you want to dictate to me about it?'
'And as for those shares,' continued the Saint calmly, 'will you--'
'For the last time,' said Perry grimly, 'will you explain yourself?'
Simon looked at him over a cigarette and a lighted match, and then through a trailing streamer of smoke; and Simon shrugged.
'Right!' he said. 'I will. But don't forget that we agreed it was a waste of time. You won't believe me. You're the sort that wouldn't. I respect you for it, but it makes you a damned fool all the same.'
'Go ahead.'
'Do you remember that fellow who was killed at Brooklands yesterday, driving with Miles Hallin?'
'I've read about it.'
'He was a friend of mine. Over a year ago he told Miles Hallin about some dud shares. You bought them. Under a week ago he met Hallin again and told him the shares weren't so dud. Now Hallin's going to take the shares back off you. He killed poor old Teddy because Teddy knew the story-and Teddy was great on telling his stories. If Hallin had known that the man he saw with Teddy knew you, I should probably have had my funeral first. Miles is such a damned good chap. 'If it's a matter of L s. d.,' he'd have said, 'I'd like you to start all square.''
'By God, Templar--'
'Hush! . . . Deducing back from that joke to the joke about another gold mine--'
