'Are you interested in bootlegging?' asked the Saint; and the young man stared at him grimly.
'Listen, I don't know if you're trying to be funny, but I'm not. I'm probably going to be arrested this afternoon. In the last month I've lost about five thousand pounds in Croon's schemes-and the money wasn't mine to lose. You can think what you like. I went up there to bash his face in before they get me, and I'm going back now for the same reason. But I saw you come out, and you didn't look like a crook. I thought I'd give you a word of warning. You can take it or leave it. Goodbye.'
He turned off abruptly into the building, but Simon reached out and caught him by the elbow.
'Why not come and have some lunch first?' he suggested. 'And let Croon have his. It'll be so much more fun punching him in the stomach when it's full of food.'
He waved away the young man's objections and excuses without listening to them, hailed a taxi, and bundled him in. It was the kind of opportunity that the Saint lived for, and he would have had his way if he was compelled to kidnap his guest for the occasion. They lunched at a quiet restaurant in Soho; and in the persuasive warmth of half a litre of Antinori Chianti and the Saint's irresistible personality the young man told him what he knew of Mr. Melford Croon.
'I suppose I was a complete idiot--that's all. I met Croon through a man I used to see in the place where I always had lunch. It didn't occur to me that it was all a put-up job, and I thought Croon was all right. I was fed to the teeth with sitting about in an office copying figures from one book to another, and Croon's stunts looked like a way out. I put three thousand quid into his Consolidated Albion Film Company: it was only on paper, and the way Croon talked about it made me think I'd never really be called on for the money. They were going to rent the World Features studio at Teddington-the place is still on the market. When Consolidated Albion went smash I had to find the money, and the only way I could get it was to borrow it out of the firm. Croon put the idea into my head, but - Oh, hell! It's easy enough to see how things have happened after the damage is done.'
He had borrowed another two thousand pounds-without the cashier's knowledge-in the hope oL retrieving the first loss. It had gone into a cargo of liquor destined for the thirsty States. Six weeks later Mr. Croon broke the news to him that the coastal patrols had captured the ship.
'And that's what'll happen to any other fool who puts money into Croon's bootlegging,' said the young man bitterly. 'He'll be told that the ship's sunk, or captured, or caught fire, or grown wings and flown away. He'll never see his money back. My God-to think of that slimy swab trying to be a bootlegger! Why, he told me once that the very sight of a ship made him feel sick, and he wouldn't cross the Channel for a thousand pounds.'
'What are you going to do about it?' asked the Saint, and the young man shrugged.
'Go back and try to make him wish he'd never been born- as I told you. They're having an audit today at the office, and they can't help finding out what I've done. I stayed away-said I was ill. That's all there is to do.'
Simon took out his chequebook and wrote a cheque for five thousand pounds.
'Whom shall I make it payable to?' he inquired, and his guest's eyes widened.
'My name's Peter Quentin. But I don't want any of your damned --'
'My dear chap, I shouldn't dream of offering you charity.' Simon blotted the pink slip and scaled it across the table. 'This little chat has been worth every penny of it. Besides, you don't want to go to penal servitude at your age. It isn't healthy. Now be a good fellow and dash back to your office-square things up as well as you can --'
The young man was staring at the name which was scribbled in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper.
'Is that name Simon Templar?'
The Saint nodded.
'You see, I shall get it all back,' he said.
He went home with two definite conclusions as a result of his day's work and expenses: first, that Mr. Melford Croon was in every way as undesirable a citizen as he had thought, and second, that Mr. Melford Croon's contribution to the funds of righteousness was long overdue. Mr. Croon's account was, in fact, exactly five thousand pounds overdrawn; and that state of affairs could not be allowed to continue.
Nevertheless, it took the Saint twenty-four hours of intensive thought to devise a poetic retribution; and when the solution came to him it was so simple that he had to laugh.
Mr. Croon went down to his house on the river for the week-end. He invariably spent his week-ends there in the summer, driving out of London on the Friday afternoon and refreshing himself from his labours with three happy days of rural peace. Mr. Croon had an unexpected appetite for simple beauty and the works of nature: he was rarely so contented as when he was lying out in a deck-chair and spotless white flannels, directing his gardener's efforts at the flower-beds, or sipping an iced whisky-and-soda on his balcony while he watched supple young athletes propelling punts up and down the stream.
This week-end was intended to be no exception to his usual custom. He arrived at Marlow in time for dinner, and prepared for an early night in anticipation of the tireless revels of a mixed company of his friends who were due to join him the next day. It was scarcely eleven o'clock when he dismissed his servant and mixed himself a final drink before going to bed.
He heard the front door-bell ring, and rose from his armchair grudgingly. He had no idea who could be calling on him at that hour; and when he had opened the door and found that there was no one visible outside he was even more annoyed.
He returned to the sitting-room, and gulped down the remainder of his nightcap without noticing the bitter tang that had not been there when he poured it out. The taste came into his mouth after the liquid had been swallowed, and he grimaced. He started to walk towards the door, and the room spun around. He felt himself falling helplessly before he could cry out.
When he woke up, his first impression was that he had been buried alive. He was lying on a hard narrow surface, with one shoulder squeezed up against a wall on his left, and the ceiling seemed to be only a few inches above his head. Then his sight cleared a little, and he made out that he was in a bunk in a tiny unventilated compartment lighted by a single circular window. He struggled up on one elbow, and groaned. His head was one reeling whirligig of aches, and he felt horribly sick.
Painfully he forced his mind back to his last period of consciousness. He remembered pouring out that last whisky-and-soda-the ring at the front door-the bitter taste in the glass. . . . Then nothing but an infinity of empty
