"Didn't you promise Uncle Dave whatever money there was in his house as well as that cottage?" she asked.
Simon took the paper and read the item she was pointing to.
TREASURE TROVE
IN LONDON
EXCAVATION
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Windfall for Winlass
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The London clay, which has given up many strange secrets in its time, yesterday surrendered a treasure which has been in its keeping for 300 years.
Ten thousand pounds is the estimated value of a hoard of gold coins and antique jewellery discovered by workmen engaged in demolishing an old house in Turk's Lane, Brompton, which is being razed to make way for a modern apartment building.
The owner of the property, Mr. Vernon Winlass——
The Saint had no need to read any more; and as a matter of fact he did not want to. For several seconds he was as far beyond the power of speech as if he had been born dumb.
And then, very slowly, the old Saintly smile came back to his lips.
"Oh, well, I expect our bank account will stand it," he said cheerfully, and turned the car back again towards Hampshire.
VI
The Sleepless Knight
If a great many newspaper cuttings and references to newspapers find their way into these chronicles, it is simply because most of the interesting things that happen find their way into newspapers, and it is in these ephemeral sheets that the earnest seeker after unrighteousness will find many clues to his quest.
Simon Templar read newspapers only because he found collected in them the triumphs and anxieties and sins and misfortunes and ugly tyrannies which were going on around him, as well as the results of races in which chosen horses carried samples of his large supply of shirts; not because he cared anything about the posturing of Transatlantic fliers or the flatulence of international conferences. And it was solely through reading a newspaper that he became aware of the existence of Sir Melvin Flager.
It was an unpleasant case; and the news item may as well be quoted in full.
JUDGE CENSURES TRANSPORT
COMPANY
Driver's four hours' sleep a week
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"MODERN SLAVERY"
—Mr. Justice Goldie.
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SCATHING criticisms of the treatment of drivers by a road transport company were made by Mr. Justice Goldie during the trial of Albert Johnson, a lorry driver, at Guildford Assizes yesterday.
Johnson was charged with manslaughter following the death of a cyclist whom he knocked down and fatally injured near Albury on March 28th.
Johnson did not deny that he was driving to the danger of the public, but pleaded that his condition was due to circumstances beyond his control.
Police witnesses gave evidence that the lorry driven by Johnson was proceeding in an erratic manner down a fairly wide road at about 30 miles an hour. There was a cyclist in front of it, travelling in the same direction, and a private car coming towards it.
Swerving to make way for the private car, in what the witness described as "an unnecessarily exaggerated manner," the lorry struck the cyclist and caused fatal injuries.
The police surgeon who subsequently examined Johnson described him as being "apparently intoxicated, although there were no signs of alcohol on his breath."
"I was not drunk," said Johnson, giving evidence on his own behalf. "I was simply tired out. We are sent out on long journeys and forced to complete them at an average of over 30 miles an hour, including stops for food and rest.
"Most of our work is done at night, but we are frequently compelled to make long day journeys as well.
"During the week when the accident occurred, I had only had four hours' sleep.
"It is no good protesting, because the company can always find plenty of unemployed drivers to take our places."
Other employees of the Flager Road Transport Company, which employs Johnson, corroborated his statement.
"This is nothing more or less than modern slavery," said Mr. Justice Goldie, directing the jury to return a verdict of Not Guilty.
"It is not Johnson, but Sir Melvin Flager, the managing director of the company, who ought to be in the dock.
"You have only to put yourselves in the position of having gone for a week on four hours' sleep, with the added strain of driving a heavy truck throughout that time, to be satisfied that no culpable recklessness of Johnson's was responsible for this tragedy.
"I would like to see it made a criminal offence for employers to impose such inhuman conditions on their employees."
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Sir Melvin Flager was not unnaturally displeased by this judicial comment; but he might have been infinitely more perturbed if he had known of the Saint's interest in the case.
Certain readers of these chronicles may have reached the impression that Simon Templar's motives were purely selfish and mercenary, but they would be doing him an injustice. Undoubtedly his exploits were frequently profitable; and the Saint himself would have been the first to admit that he was not a brigand for his health; but there were many times when only a very small percentage of his profits remained in his own pocket, and many occasions when he embarked on an episode of lawlessness with no thought of profit for himself at all.
The unpleasantness of Sir Melvin Flager gave him some hours of quite altruistic thought and effort.
"Actually," he said, "there's only one completely satisfactory way to deal with a tumour like that. And that is to sink him in a barrel of oil and light a fire underneath."
"The Law doesn't allow you to do that," said Peter Quentin pensively.
"Very unfortunately, it doesn't," Simon admitted, with genuine regret. "All the same, I used to do that sort of thing without the sanction of the Law, which is too busy catching publicans selling a glass of beer after hours to do anything about serious misdemeanours, anyway. . . . But I'm afraid you're right, Peter—I'm much too notorious a character these days, and Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal isn't the bosom pal he was. We shall have to gang warily; but nevertheless, we shall certainly have to gang."
Peter nodded approvingly. Strangely enough, he had once possessed a thoroughly respectable reverence for the Law; but several months of association with the Saint had worked irreparable damage on that bourgeois inhibition.
"You can count me in," he said; and the Saint dapped him on the back.
"I knew it without asking you, you old sinner," he said contentedly. "Keep this next week-end free for me, brother, if you really feel that way—and if you want to be specially helpful you can push out this afternoon with a false beard tied round your ears and try and rent a large garage from which yells of pain cannot be heard outside."
"Is that all?" Peter asked suspiciously. "What's your share going to be—backing losers at Hurst Park?"
The Saint shook his head.
"Winners," he said firmly. "I always back winners. But I'm going to busy myself. I want to get hold of a Gadget. I saw it at a motor show once, but it may take me a couple of days to find out where I can buy one."
As a matter of fact it took him thirty-six hours and entailed a good deal of travelling and expense. Peter Quentin found and rented the garage which the Saint had demanded a little more quickly; but the task was easier and he was used to Simon Templar's eccentric commissions.