11 The Brighter Buccaneer

'Well,' he said, 'have you mugs finished pretending to be numbers one and two of the Upper Ten?'

'He's jealous,' said Patricia, on Peter Quentin's arm. 'His own tails have been in pawn so long that the moths have done them in.'

A misguided friend had presented the Saint with tickets for the Opera. Simon Templar, in one of his fits of perversity, had stated in no uncertain terms that it was too hot to put on a starched shirt and listen to perspiring tenors dying in C flat for four hours, and Peter Quentin had volunteered to be Patricia's escort.

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'We thought of some bacon and eggs,' Peter said, 'and we wondered if you'd like to treat us.'

'I thought you might treat me,' murmured the Saint. 'As an inducement for me to be seen out with a girl whose clothes have all slipped down below her waist, and a pie-faced tough disguised as a waiter, it's the least you can offer.'

Back in the taxi, they asked him how he had spent the eve­ning.

'I've been drinking with one of the most septic specimens in London,' said the Saint thoughtfully. 'And if I can't make him wish he hadn't told me so much about himself I won't have another bath for six years.'

The problem of securing an adequate contribution towards his old-age pension from Sir Ambrose Grange occupied the Saint's mind considerably for the next twenty-four hours. Sir Ambrose had gratuitously introduced himself as such a perfect example of the type of man whom the Saint prayed to meet that Simon felt that his reputation was at stake. Unless some­thing suitably unpleasant happened to Sir Ambrose in a very short space of time, the Saint would sink down to somewhere near zero in his own estimation of himself-a possibility that was altogether too dreadful to contemplate.

He devoted most of the Sabbath to revolving various schemes in his mind, all of which were far less holy than the day; but he had not finally decided on any of them when the solution literally fell into his arms by a coincidence that seemed too good to be true.

This happened on the Monday afternoon.

He sallied out of his flat into Piccadilly in the hope of finding a paper with the winner of the Eclipse Stakes, and as he stepped on to the pavement a middle-aged man in horn­rimmed spectacles and a Panama who was hurrying past sud­denly staggered in his direction and would have fallen if the Saint had not caught him. Several passers-by turned and watched curiously; and Simon Templar, whose ideas of grandstanding heroism were not of that type, was tempted to deposit the middle-aged gent tenderly on the pavement and let him do his dying gladiator act alone. The man in the Panama was no human hairpin, and his legs seemed to have turned to rubber.

Then Simon saw that the man's eyes were open. He grinned at the Saint crookedly.

'Sorry, friend,' he said, in the broadest Yankee. 'I'll be okay in a minute. Been trying to do too much after my operation, I guess-the doc told me I'd crack up if I didn't take it easy . . . Gosh, look at the rubbernecks waitin' to see me die! Say, do you live in there? Is there a foyer I can sit down in? I don't wanna be stared at like I was the Nelson Monument.'

Simon helped the man inside and sat him on a settee beside the lift. The American tipped off his Panama and wiped his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief.

'Just four days outa the hospital and tearin' about like a fool for two of 'em. And missed my lunch today. That's what's done it. Say, is there a public telephone here? I promised to meet my wife an hour ago, and she must think I had myself a street accident.'

'I'm afraid there isn't,' said the Saint. 'This is just a block of flats.'

'Well, I guess I'll just be bawled out. Gosh, but that poor kid'll be worried stiff!'

Simon looked up at the clock. He was in no great hurry.

'You can phone from my flat if you like,' he said. 'It's on the second floor.'

'Say, that's real kind of you!'

The Saint helped him into the lift, and they shot upwards. Settled in an armchair beside the telephone, the American made a reassuring call to the Savoy Hotel number. Simon thought it was excessively sloppy, but it was not his business.

'Well, that's that,' said his guest, and when the gush was over, 'I guess I owe you something for your kindness. Have a cigar?'

Simon accepted the weed. It was a large fat one, with a lovely picture on the band.

'Think of me cracking up like that in your arms!' prattled the American, whose vocal cords at least seemed unimpaired. 'Gosh, you musta thought I was something out of a flower-bed. I didn't know they could take that much outa you along with your appendix. And all this fuss to find a damn brass Buddha! Gosh, it makes you wonder what nut started this collecting game.'

The Saint, with a match half-way to his cigar, stared at him till the flame scorched his fingers.

'Brass Buddha?' he said faintly. 'Who wants a brass Bud­dha?'

'Louis Froussard wants one, if that means anything to you, friend. But here am I in your apartment, and you don't even know my name. Allow me.' The American dug out his wallet, extracted a card and handed it over. 'James G. Amberson, at your service. Any time you want one of Napoleon's skulls, or the original pyjamas the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solo­mon-I'm just the man to go and find 'em. Yes, sir. That's my job-huntin' for missing links for museums and millionaires who feel they gotta collect something so's they can give the reporters something to write about. That's me.'

'And you want a brass Buddha?' said the Saint, almost ca­ressingly.

James G. Amberson (according to his card, the G. stood for Gardiner, which the Saint thought was very modest-it might have been Gabriel) flapped a raw-boned hand deprecatingly.

'Aw, you ain't gonna offer me the thing your auntie brought home last time she went on a world cruise, are you? Everyone in London's got a brass Buddha, but none of 'em is the right one. This one's a special one-you wouldn't know it to look at it, but it is. Some Chink emperor back in about two million b.c. had three of 'em made for