11 The Brighter Buccaneer

'I didn't do it,' said the detective shortly. 'But we've got the man who did-if you want to charge him. I thought you'd have known Kate Allfield, Saint.'

Simon looked at him.

'What-not 'the Mug'? I have heard of her, but this is the first time we've met. And she nearly made me smoke a sleepy cigarette!' He grimaced. 'What was the idea?'

'That's what we're waiting for you to tell us,' said Teal grimly. 'We drove in just as they knocked you out. We know what they were after all right-the Deacon's gang beat them to the necklace, but that wouldn't make the Green Cross bunch give up. What I want to know is when you started working with the Deacon.'

'This is right over my head,' said the Saint, just as bluntly. 'Who is this Deacon, and who the hell are the Green Cross bunch?'

Teal faced him calmly.

'The Green Cross bunch are the ones that slugged you. The Deacon is the head of the gang that got away with the Palfrey jewels yesterday. He came to see you twice yesterday afternoon -we got the wire that he was planning a big job and we were keeping him under observation, but the jewels weren't missed till this morning. Now I'll hear what you've got to say; but before you begin I'd better warn you --'

'Wait a minute.' Simon took out his cigarette-case and helped himself to a smoke. 'With an unfortunate reputation like mine, I expect it'll take me some time to drive it into your head that I don't know a thing about the Deacon. He came to me yesterday and said he was a solicitor-he wanted me to look after a valuable sealed packet that he was sending over to Paris, and I took on the job. That's all. He wouldn't even tell me what was in it.'

'Oh, yes?' The detective was dangerously polite. 'Then I suppose it'd give you the surprise of your life if I told you that that package you were carrying contained a diamond necklace valued at about eight thousand pounds.'

'It would,' said the Saint.

Teal turned.

There was a plain-clothes man standing guard by the door, and on the table in the middle of the room was a litter of brown paper and tissue in the midst of which gleamed a small heap of coruscating stones and shining metal. Teal put a hand to the heap of jewels and lifted it up into a streamer of iridescent fire.

'This is it,' he said.

'May I have a look at it?' said the Saint.

He took the necklace from Teal's hand and studied it closely under the light. Then he handed it back with a brief grin.

'If you could get eighty pounds for it, you'd be lucky,' he said. 'It's a very good imitation, but I'm afraid the stones are only jargoons.'

The detective's eyes went wide. Then he snatched the neck­lace and examined it himself.

He turned around again slowly.

'I'll begin to believe you were telling the truth for once, Templar,' he said, and his manner had changed so much that the effect would have been comical without the back-handed apology. 'What do you make of it?'

'I think we've both been had,' said the Saint. 'After what you've told me, I should think the Deacon knew you were watching him, and knew he'd have to get the jewels out of the country in a hurry. He could probably fence most of them quickly, but no one would touch that necklace-it's too well known. He had the rather artistic idea of trying to get me to do the job --'

'Then why should he give you a fake?'

Simon shrugged.

'Maybe that Deacon is smoother than any of us thought. My God, Teal-think of it! Suppose even all this was just a blind-for you to know he'd been to see me-for you to get after me as soon as the jewels were missed-hear I'd left for Paris-chase me to Croydon-and all the time the real necklace is slipping out by another route --'

'God damn!' said Chief Inspector Teal, and launched him­self at the telephone with surprising speed for such a portly and lethargic man.

The plain-clothes man at the door stood aside almost re­spectfully for the Saint to pass.

Simon fitted his hat on rakishly and sauntered out with his old elegance. Out in the waiting room an attendant was shouting, 'All Ostend and Brussels passengers, please!'-and outside on the tarmac a roaring aeroplane was warming up its engines. Simon Templar suddenly changed his mind about his destination.

'I will give you thirty thousand guilders for the necklace,' said Van Roeper, the little trader of Amsterdam to whom the Saint went with his booty.

'I'll take fifty thousand,' said the Saint; and he got it.

He fulfilled another of the qualifications of a successful buc­caneer, for he never forgot a face. He had had a vague idea from the first that he had seen the Deacon somewhere before, but it had not been until that morning, when he woke up, that he had been able to place the amiable solicitor who had been so anxious to enlist his dubious services; and he felt that fortune was very kind to him.

Old Charlie Milton, who had been dragged away from his breakfast to sell him the facsimile for eighty pounds, felt much the same.

The Unblemished Bootlegger

MR. MELFORD CROON considered himself a very prosperous man. The brass plate outside his unassuming suite of offices in Gray's Inn Road described him somewhat vaguely as a 'Financial Consultant'; and while it is true that the gilt-edged moguls of the city had never been known to seek his advice, there is no doubt that he flourished exceedingly.