13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

Mr. Immelbern did not come out of his trance until half­way through the bargaining that followed.

It was nearly two hours later when the two partners strug­gled somewhat short-windedly up the stairs to a dingy one-roomed office off the Strand. Its furniture consisted of a chair, a table with a telephone on it, and a tape machine in one corner. It had not been swept for weeks, but it served its pur­pose adequately.

The third and very junior member of the partnership sat on the chair with his feet on the table, smoking a limp cigarette and turning the pages of Paris Plaisirs. He looked up in some surprise not unmixed with alarm at the noisy entrance of his confederates—a pimply youth with a chin that barely con­trived to separate his mouth from his neck.

'I've made our fortunes!' yelled Mr. Immelbern, and, despite the youth's repulsive aspect, embraced him.

A slight frown momentarily marred the Colonel's glowing benevolence.

'What d'you mean—you've made our fortunes?' he demanded. 'If it hadn't been for me——'

'Well, what the hell does it matter?' said Mr. Immelbern. 'In a couple of months we'll all be millionaires.'

'How?' asked the pimply youth blankly.

Mr. Immelbern broke off in the middle of an improvised hornpipe.

'It's like this,' he explained exuberantly. 'We've got a sike —sidekick——'

'Psychic,' said the Colonel.

'A bloke who can tell the future. He puts his hands over his eyes and reads the winners off like you'd read them out of a paper. He did it four times this afternoon. We're going to take him in with us. We had a job to persuade him—he was going off to the South of France tonight—can you imagine it, a bloke with a gift like that going away while there's any racing here? We had to give him five hundred quid advance on the money we told him we were going to make for him to make him put it off. But it's worth it. We'll start tomorrow, and if this fellow Templar——'

'Ow, that's 'is nime, is it?' said the pimply youth brightly. 'I wondered wot was goin' on.'

There was a short puzzled silence.

'How do you mean—what was going on?' asked the Colonel at length.

'Well,' said the pimply youth, 'when Sid was ringing up all the afternoon, practic'ly every rice——'

'What d'you mean?' croaked Mr. Immelbern. 'I rang up every race?'

'Yus, an' I was giving' you the winners, an' you were syin' 'Two 'undred pounds on Baby Face for Mr. Templar'— Tour 'undred pounds on Cellophane for Mr. Templar'— gettin' bigger an' bigger all the time an' never givin' 'im a loser—well, I started to wonder wot was 'appening.'

The silence that followed was longer, much longer; and there were things seething in it for which the English lan­guage has no words.

It was the Colonel who broke it.

'It's impossible,' he said dizzily. 'I know the clock was slow, because I put it back myself, but I only put it back five minutes—and this fellow was telephoning ten minutes before the times of the races.'

'Then 'e must 'ave put it back some more while you wasn't watchin' 'im,' said the pimply youth stolidly.

The idea penetrated after several awful seconds.