11 The Brighter Buccaneer

question­ing. 'I thought you were lunching with that American.'

Simon dropped two lumps of sugar into his cup and stirred it lugubriously.

'Pat,' he said, 'you may put this down in your notes for our textbook on Crime-the perfect confidence trick, Version Two. Let me tell you about it.'

She lighted a cigarette slowly, staring at him.

'The Mug,' said the Saint deliberately, 'meets an Unpleas­ant Man. The Unpleasant Man purposely makes himself out to be so sharp that no normally healthy Mug could resist the temptation to do him down if the opportunity arose; and he may credit himself with a title just to remove all suspicion. The Unpleasant Man has something to sell-it might be a brass Buddha, valued at fifteen shillings, for which he's got to realize some fantastic sum like two thousand quid under the terms of an eccentric will. The Mug admits that the problem is difficult, and passes out into the night.'

Simon annexed Patricia's cigarette, and inhaled from it.

'Shortly afterwards,' he said, 'the Mug meets the Nice American who is looking for a very special brass Buddha val­ued at fifteen thousand bucks. The nice American gives away certain information which allows the Mug to perceive, beyond all possible doubt, that this rare and special Buddha is the very one for which the Unpleasant Man was trying to get what he thought was the fantastic price of two thousand quid. The Mug, therefore, with the whole works taken right down into his stomach-hook, line and sinker-dashes around to the Un­pleasant Man and gives him his two thousand quid. And he endorses a receipt saying he knows it's only worth fifteen bob, so that the Unpleasant Man can prove himself innocent of deception. Then the Mug goes to meet the Nice American and collect his profit . . . And, Pat, I regret to say that he pays for his own lunch.'

The Saint gazed sadly at the folded bill which a waiter had just placed on the table.

Patricia was wide-eyed.

'Simon! Did you --'

'I did. I paid two thousand quid of our hard-won boodle to the perambulating sausage --'

He broke off, with his own jaw sinking.

James G. Amberson was flying across the room, with his Panama hat waving in his hand and his spectacles gleaming. He flung himself into a chair at the Saint's table.

'Say, did you think I was dead? My watch musta stopped while I was huntin' through junk stores in Limehouse-I saw the clock outa the taxi window as 1 was comin' back, and al­most had a heart attack. Gosh, I'm sorry!'

'That's all right,' murmured the Saint. 'Pat, you haven't met Mr. Amberson. This is our Nice American. James G.-Miss Patricia Holm.'

'Say, I'm real pleased to meet you, Miss Holm. Guess Mr. Templar told you how I fainted in his arms yesterday.' Am­berson reached over and wrung the girl's hand heartily. 'Well, Mr. Templar, if you've had lunch you can have a liqueur,' He waved to a waiter. 'And, say, did you find me that Buddha?'

Simon bent down and hauled a small parcel out from under the table.

'This is it.'

Amberson gaped at the package for a second; and then he grabbed it and tore it open. He gaped again at the contents- then at the Saint.

'Well, I'm a son of a-Excuse me, Miss Holm, but --'

'Is that right?' asked the Saint.

'I'll say it is!' Amberson was fondling the image as if it were his own long-lost child. 'What did I promise you? Fifteen thousand berries?'

He pulled out his wallet and spilled American bills on to the table.

'Fifteen grand it is, Mr. Templar. And I guess I'm grateful. Mind if I leave you now? I gotta get on the transatlantic phone to Lou Froussard and tell him, and then I gotta rush this little precious into a safe deposit. Say, let me ring you up and invite you to a real dinner next week.'

He shook hands again, violently, with Patricia and the Saint, caught up his Panama, and vomited out of the room again like a human whirligig.

In the vestibule a podgy and pompous little man with bushy moustachios was waiting for him. He seized James G. Amberson by the arm. 'Did you get it, Jim?'

'You bet I did!' Amberson exhibited his purchase. His excessively American speech had disappeared. 'And now d'you mind telling me why we've bought it! I'm just packing up for our getaway when you rush me over here to spend fifteen thousand dollars --'

'I'll tell you how it was, Jim,' said the other rapidly. 'I'm sitting on top of a bus, and there's a man and a girl in front of me. The first thing I heard was 'Twenty thousand pounds' worth of black pearls in a brass Buddha.' I just had to listen. This chap seemed to be a solicitor's clerk, and he was telling his girl about an old miser who shoved these pearls into a brass Buddha after his wife had died, and nobody found the letter where he said what he'd done till long after he was buried. 'And we've got to try and trace the thing,' says this young chap. 'It was sold to a junk dealer with a lot of other stuff, and heaven knows where it may be now.' 'How d'you know you've got it when you find it?' says the girl. 'Easy,' says this chap. 'It's got a mark on it like this.' He drew it on his paper, and I nearly broke my neck getting a look. Come on, now-let's get it home and open it.'

'I hope Ambrose and James G. are having lots of fun looking for your black pearls, Peter,' drawled the Saint piously, as he stood at the counter of Thomas Cook and watched American bills translating themselves into English bank notes with a fluency that was all the heart could desire.

The Perfect Crime

'THE defendants,' said Mr. Justice Goldie, with evident dis­taste, 'have been unable to prove that the agreement between the plantiff and the late Alfred Green constituted a money-lending transaction within the limits of the Act; and I am therefore obliged to give judgment for the plantiff. I will con­sider the question of costs