13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

The Saint lighted a cigarette and stared out of the window.

'Uncle Dave,' he said gently, 'would you sell me your house ?'

He turned round suddenly, and looked at the old man. Dave Roberts's hands had fallen limply in his lap, and his eyes were blinking mistily.

'You, sir?' he said.

'Me,' said the Saint. 'I know you don't want to go, and I don't know whether it's the Lord's will or not, but I know that you're going to have to. And you know it too. Winlass will find a way to get you out. But I can get more out of him than you could. I know you don't want money, but I can offer you something even better. I know a village out of Lon­don where I can buy you a house almost exactly like this, and you can have your shop and do your work there without any­body troubling you again. I'll give you that in exchange, and however much money there is in this house as well.'

It was one of those quixotic impulses that often moved him, and he uttered it on the spur of the moment with no concrete plan of campaign in his mind. He knew that Dave Roberts would have to go, and that Turk's Lane must dis­appear, making room for the hygienic edifice of mass-produc­tion cubicles which Mr. Vernon Winlass had planned: he knew that, whatever he himself might wish, that individual little backwater must take the way of all such pleasant places, to be superseded by the vast white cube of Crescent Court, the communal sty which the march of progress demands for its armies. But he also knew that Mr. Vernon Winlass was going to pay more than seven hundred pounds to dear the ground for it.

When he saw Patricia Holm and Peter Quentin later that night, they had no chance to mistake the light of unlawful resolution on his face.

'Brother Vernon hasn't bought the whole of Turk's Lane,' he announced, 'because I've got some of it.'

'Whatever for?' asked Patricia.

'For an investment,' answered the Saint virtuously. 'Cres­cent Court will be built only by kind permission of Mr. Simon Templar, and my permission is going to cost money.'

Peter Quentin helped himself to another bottle of beer.

'We believe you,' he said dryly. 'What's the swindle?'

'You have a mind like Claud Eustace Teal,' said the Saint offensively. 'There is no swindle. I am a respectable real estate speculator, and if you had any money I'd sue you for slander. But I don't mind telling you that I am rather interested to know what hobby Vernon Winlass has in his spare moments. Go out and do some sleuthing for me in the morning, Peter, and I'll let you know some more.'

In assuming that even such a hard-headed business man as Mr. Vernon Winlass must have some simple indulgence, Simon Templar was not taking a long chance. Throughout the ages, iron-gutted captains of industry have diverted them­selves with rare porcelain, pewter, tram tickets, Venetian glass, first editions, second mortgages, second establishments, dahlias, stuffed owls, and such-like curios. Mr. Wallington Titus Oates, of precious memory, went into slavering rap­tures at the sight of pieces of perforated paper bearing the portraits of repulsive monarchs and the magic words 'Postage Two Pence.' Mr. Vernon Winlass, who entrenched himself during business hours behind a storm battalion of secretaries, under-secretaries, assistant secretaries, messengers, clerks, man­agers, and office-boys, put aside all his business and opened wide his defences at the merest whisper of old prints.

'It's just an old thing we came across when we were clearing out our old house,' explained the man who had successfully penetrated these fortified frontiers—his card in­troduced him as Captain Tombs, which was an alias out of which Simon Templar derived endless amusement 'I took it along to Busby's to find out if it was worth anything, and they seemed to get quite excited about it. They told me I'd better show it to you.'

Mr. Winlass nodded.

'I buy a good many prints from Busby's,' he said smugly. 'If anything good comes their way, they always want me to see it.'