'Mr. Templar,' he said heavily, 'this is a serious matter. A very serious matter. A matter, I might say, of the utmost gravity. You have in your possession a volume which contains certain--ah-- statements and--ah--suggestions concerning me-- statements and suggestions which, I need scarcely add, are wholly without foundation------'
'As, for instance,' said the Saint gently, 'the statement or suggestion that when you were Undersecretary of State for War you placed an order for thirty thousand Lewis guns with a firm whose tender was sixty per cent, higher than any other, and enlarged your own bank balance immediately afterwards.'
'Gross and damnable falsehoods,' persisted Lord Iveldown more loudly.
'As, for instance,' said the Saint, even more gently, 'the gross and damnable falsehood that you accepted on behalf of the government a consignment of one million gas masks which technical experts had already condemned in the strongest language as worse than useless------'
'Foul and calumnious imputations,' boomed Lord Iveldown in a trembling voice, 'which can easily be refuted, but which if published would nevertheless to some degree smirch a name which hitherto has not been without honour in the annals of this nation. It was only for that reason, and not because I feared that my public and private life could not stand the light of any inquiry whatever that might be directed into it, that I consented to --ah--grant you this interview.'
Simon nodded.
'Since your synthetic detectives had failed to steal that book from me,' he murmured, 'it was-- ah--remarkably gracious of you.'
His sardonic blue eyes, levelled over the shaft of a cigarette that slanted from between his lips like the barrel of a gun, bored into Lord Iveldown with a light of cold appraisal which made the nobleman shift his feet awkwardly.
'It was an extraordinary situation,' repeated his lordship in a resonant voice, 'which necessitated extraordinary measures.' He cleared his throat, adjusted his pince-nez, and rocked on his heels again. 'Mr. Templar,' he said, 'let us not beat about the bush any longer. For purely personal reasons--merely, you understand, because I desire to keep my name free from common gossip--I desire to suppress these base insinuations which happen to have come into your possession; and for that reason I have accorded you this personal interview in order to ascertain what-- ah--value you would place on this volume.'
'That's rather nice of you,' said the Saint guardedly. 'If, for example,' said Lord Iveldown throatily,
'a settlement of, shall we say--ah--two thousand pounds------'
He broke off at that point because suddenly the Saint had begun to laugh. It was a very quiet, very self- contained laugh--a laugh that somehow made the blood in Lord Iveldown's hardened arteries run colder as he heard it. If there was any humour in the laugh, it did not reach the Saint's eyes.
'If you'd mentioned two hundred thousand,' said the Saint coolly, 'you would have been right on my figure.'
There was a long terrific silence in which the mere rustle of a coat sleeve would have sounded like the crash of doom. Many seconds went by before Lord Iveldown's dry cough broke the stillness like a rattle of musketry.
'How much did you say?' he articulated hoarsely.
'I said two hundred thousand pounds.'
Those arctic blue eyes had never shifted from Lord Iveldown's faintly empurpled face. Their glacial gaze seemed to go through him with the cold sting of a rapier blade--seemed to strip away all his bulwarks of pomposity like tissue, and hold the naked soul of the man quivering on the point like a grub on a pin.
'But that,' said Lord Iveldown tremblingly, '--that's impossible! That's blackmail!'
'I'm afraid it is,' said the Saint.
'You sit there, before witnesses------'
'Before all the witnesses you like to bring in. I don't want you to miss the idea, your Lordship.] Witnesses don't make any difference. In any ordinary case--yes. If I were only threatening to advertise your illicit love affairs, or anything like that, you could bring me to justice and your own name would quite rightly be suppressed. But in a case like this even the chief commissioner couldn't guarantee you immunity. This isn't just ordinary naughtiness. This is high treason.'
Simon tapped the ash from his cigarette and blew a smoke ring towards the ceiling; and once again his relentless eyes went back to Lord Ivel-down's face. Nassen and the other detective, staring at the Saint in sullen silence, felt as if an icy wind blew through the room and goosefleshed their skin in spite of the warmth of the evening. The bantering buffoon who had goaded them to the verge of apoplexy had vanished as though he had never existed, and another man spoke with the same voice.
'The book you're talking about,' said the Saint, in the same level dispassionate tones, 'is a legacy to me, as you know, from Rayt Marius. And you know what made him a millionaire. His money was made from war and the instruments of war. All those amazing millions--the millions out of which you and others like you were paid, Lord Iveldown--were the wages of death and destruction and wholesale murder. They were coined out of blood and dishonour and famine and the agony of peaceful nations. Men--and women and children, too--were killed and tortured and maimed to find that money--the money out of which you were paid, Lord Iveldown.'
Lord Iveldown licked his lips and Gpened his mouth to speak. But that clear ruthless voice went on, cleaving like a sword through his futile attempt at expostulation:
'Since I have that book, I had to find a use for it. And I think my idea is a good one. I am organizing the Simon Templar Foundation, which will be started with a capital of one million pounds-- of which your contribution will be a fifth. The foundation will be devoted to the care and comfort of men maimed and crippled in war, to helping the wives and children of men killed in war, and to the endowment of any cause which has a chance of doing something to promote peace in the future. You must agree that the retribution is just.'
Iveldown's bluff had gone. He seemed to have shrunk, and he was not teetering pompously on the hearth any more. His blotched face was working, and his small eyes had lost all their dominance-- I hey were the mean shifty eyes of a man who was horribly afraid.
'You're mad!' he said, and his voice cracked. 'I can't listen to anything like that. I won't listen to it! You'll change your tune before you leave here, by God! Nassen------'
