11 The Brighter Buccaneer

Peter Quentin stretched out his legs with a wry grimace.

'I don't know that it isn't worth it. Here am I, an A1 prop­osition to any insurance company, simply wasting everything I've got with no prospect of ever doing anything else. You saved me from getting pushed in the clink, but of course there was no hope of my keeping any job. They were very nice and friendly when I confessed and paid in your cheque, but they gave me the air all the same. You can't help seeing their point of view. Once I'd done a thing like that I was a risk to the company, and next time they mightn't have been so lucky. The result is that I'm one of the great unemployed, and no dole either. If I ever manage to get another job, I shall have to consider myself well off if I'm allowed to sit at an office desk for two hundred and seventy days out of the year, while I get fat and pasty and dream about the pension that'll be no use to me when I'm sixty.'

'Instead of which you want to go on a bread-and-water diet for a ten-years' sentence,' said the Saint. 'I'm a bad example to you, Peter. You ought to meet a girl who'll put all that out of your head.'

He really meant what he said. If he refused even to consider his own advice, it was because the perilous charms of the life that he had long ago chosen for his own had woven a spell about him that nothing could break. They were his meat and drink, the wine that made unromantic days worth living, his salute to buccaneers who had had better worlds to conquer. He knew no other life.

Max Kemmler was less poetic about it. He was in the game for what he could get, and he wanted to get it quickly. Teal's visit to him that morning had brought home to him another danger that that accidentally eavesdropping plain-clothes man in the restaurant had thrown across his path. Whatever else the police knew or did not know, they now had the soundest possible reason to believe that Max Kemmler's holiday in Eng­land had turned towards profitable business; for nothing else could provide a satisfactory reason for the Saint's interest. His croupier had warned him of that, and Max was taking the warning to heart. The pickings had been good while they lasted, but the time had come for him to be moving.

There was big play at the club that night. Max Kemmler inspired it, putting forth all the bonhomie that he could call upon to encourage his patrons to lose their shirts and like it. He ordered in half a dozen cases of Bollinger, and invited the guests to help themselves. He had never worked so hard in his life before, but he saw the results of it when the club closed down at four in the morning and the weary staff counted over the takings. The boule table had had a skinner, and money had changed hands so fast in the chemin-de-fer parties that the management's ten per cent commission had broken all pre­vious records. Max Kemmler found himself with a comfort­ingly large wad of crumpled notes to put away. He slapped his croupiers boisterously on the back and opened the last bot­tle of champagne for them.

'Same time again tomorrow, boys,' he said when he took his leave. 'If there's any more jack to come out of this racket, we'll have it.'

As a matter of fact, he had no intention of reappearing on the morrow, or on any subsequent day. The croupiers were due to collect their week's salary the following evening, but that consideration did not influence him. His holiday venture had been even more remunerative than he had hoped, and he was going while the going was good.

Back at the Savoy he added the wad of notes from his pocket to an even larger wad which came from a sealed envelope which he kept in the hotel safe, and slept with his booty under his pillow.

During his stay in London he had made the acquaintance of a passport specialist. His passage was booked back to Montreal on the Empress of Britain, which sailed the next afternoon, and a brand-new Canadian passport established his identity as Max Harford, grain-dealer, of Calgary.

He was finishing a sketchy breakfast in his dressing-gown the next morning, when his chief croupier called. Kemmler had a mind to send back a message that he was out, but thought better of it. The croupier would never have come to his hotel unless there was something urgent to tell him, and Max re­called what he had been told about the Saint with a twinge of vague uneasiness.

'What's the trouble, major?' he asked curtly, when the man was shown in.

The other glanced around at the display of strapped and bulging luggage.

'Are you going away, Mr. Kemmler?'

'Just changing my address, that's all,' said Kemmler bluffly.'This place is a little too near the high spots-there's always half a dozen gumshoes snooping around looking for con-men and I don't like it. It ain't healthy. I'm moving over to a quiet little joint in Bloomsbury, where I don't have to see so many policemen.'

'I think you're wise.' The croupier sat on the bed and brushed his hat nervously. 'Mr. Kemmler-I thought I ought to come and see you at once. Something has happened.'

Kemmler looked at his watch.

'Something's always happening in this busy world,' he said with a hearty obtuseness which did not quite carry conviction. 'Let's hear about it.'

'Well, Mr. Kemmler-I don't quite know how to tell you. It was after we closed down this morning-I was on my way home -'

He broke off with a start as the telephone bell jangled insist­ently through the room. Kemmler grinned at him emptily, and picked up the receiver.

'Is that you, Kemmler?' said the somnolent voice, in which a thin thread of excitement was perceptible. 'Listen-I'm going to give you a shock, but whatever I say you must not give the slightest indication of what I'm talking about. Don't jump, and don't say anything except 'Yes' or 'No.' '

'Yeah?'

'This is Chief Inspector Teal speaking. Have you got a man with you now?'

'Uh-huh.'

'I thought so. That's Simon Templar-the Saint. I just saw him go into the hotel. Never mind if you think you know him. That's his favourite trick. We heard he was planning to hold you up, and we want to get him red-handed. Now what about that idea I mentioned yesterday?'

Kemmler looked round inconspicuously. It was difficult to keep the incredulity out of his eyes. The appearance of his most trusted croupier failed to correspond with the description he had heard of the Saint in any respect except that of height and build. Then he saw that the Anglo-Indian complexion could be a simple concoction of grease-paint, the hardness of the features and the moustache and eyebrows an elementary problem in make- up.