Alias The Saint
LESLIE CHARTERIS
THE NATIONAL DEBT
On a certain day in November three men sat over the remains of dinner in the Italian Roof Garden of the Elysion Restaurant.
Outside, a thin drizzle of sleet and rain was falling. It lay like glistening oil on the streets, and made the hurrying throngs of pedestrians turn up the collars of their coats against the cold, and huddle numbed hands deep into their pockets. But in the Roof Garden all was warmth and light and colour. In the high dim glass roof overhead, softly tinted lights gleamed like bright artificial stars; and an artificial moon shone in the centre of the dome. Vine-decked loggias surrounded the room, and the whole of one wall was covered with a beautifully executed fresco of a Mediterranean panorama, bathed in sunshine. The Elysion had a reputation for luxury, and its Italian Roof Garden was the most elaborately comfortable of all its restaurants.
The three men sat at dinner in an alcove. The curtains of the window beside them were drawn, and they could look onto Piccadilly Circus, a striking contrast to the sybaritic warmth of the room in which they were, with gaily coloured electric sky-signs flashing and scintillating through the wet.
The meal was over; and in front of each man were a cup of a coffee and a glass of the 1875 brandy of which the Elysion is justly proud, served in the huge-bowled bottle-necked glasses which such a brandy merits. They smoked long, thin, expensive cigars.
The man at the head of the table spoke.
"By this time," he said, "you are justly curious to discover how many of my promises I have fulfilled. It gives me great satisfaction to be able to tell you that I have fulfilled them all. Every inquiry has been made, and every necessary item of information is docketed here." He tapped his forehead with a thin forefinger, "My plans are complete; and now that you have tasted the brandy, which I trust you find to your liking, and your cigars are going satisfactorily, I should like your attention while I outline the details of my project."
He was tall and spare, with a slight stoop--you would have taken him at first glance for a retired diplomat, or a university professor, with his thin, finely cut face and mane of gray hair. He looked to be about fifty-five years of age, but the very pale blue eyes under the shaggy white eyebrows were the eyes of a much younger man.
"I'm waiting to hear the story, Professor," said the man on his left.
He was squat, bull-necked, and blue of chin; and his ready-made evening clothes seemed to cause him considerable discomfort.
The third man signified his readiness to listen by a silent expressive gesture with the hand that held his cigar. This third man was small and perky, his hair muddily gray and in the state tactfully described by barbers as "A little thin on top."
A long, scraggy neck protruded from a dress collar three sizes too large.
"It is quite simple," said the man who had been addressed as "Professor"; and leaned forward.
The other two instinctively drew closer.
He spoke for three quarters of an hour, and the other two listened in an intent silence which was broken only by an occasional staccato query, a request for a repetition, or a demand for more lucid explanation of a point which arose in the recital. The Professor dealt smoothly with each question, speaking in a low, well-modulated voice; and at the end of the forty-five minutes, he knew that the alert brains of the other two had grasped the essential points of his plan and adjudged it for what it was--the scheme of a genius.
"That is the method I propose to adopt," he concluded simply. "If either of you has any criticism to make, you may speak quite freely"
And he leaned back with a slight smile, as though he were convinced that-there could not possibly be any valid criticism.
"There's one thing you haven't told us," said the man on his right. "That is--where are we going to get hold of the stuff?"
"It cannot be bought," answered the Professor. "Therefore we shall make it."
The man appeared to continue in doubt.
"That's easy to say," he remarked, "Now consider it practically. Neither Crantor nor I know anything about chemistry. And you're clever in many ways, I know, but I don't believe even you can do that."
"That is quite true," said the Professor. "can't."
"A chemist must be bought," said Crantor.
The Professor shook his head.
"No chemist will be bought," he said. "We cannot afford to buy anybody. Bought men are dangerous. The man who can be bought by one party can be bought by another if the price is big enough, and I never take risks of that sort. We will compel a chemist to do what we require, and it will be so arranged that we shall be insured against betrayal. I have already selected the agent. Her name is Betty Tregarth. She is very young, but she has taken a degree with honours, and she is a fully qualified analytical chemist. At present she is on the staff of Coulter's, the artificial silk people. I have made all the necessary inquiries, and I know that. she, has all the qualifications for the task."
The man with the long neck turned, and took his cigar out of his mouth.
"Do you mind telling us how you are going to make her do it. Professor?" he asked.
"Not at all, my dear Marring," answered the Professor, and proceeded to do so.
This plan also they were unable to criticize, but Gregory Marring remained dissentient on one point.
"It oughtn't to have been a woman," he declared with conviction. "You never know where you are with women."
The Professor smiled.
"That remark only demonstrates the crudity of your intelligence," he said. "My contention is that with a woman one can always be fairly certain where one is, but men are liable to be obstinate and difficult."
The point was not argued further.
"I may take it, then," suggested the Professor, "that we are prepared to start at once,"
"There's nothing to stop us," said Marring.
"Thasso," said Crantor.
The Professor turned and gazed thoughtfully out of the window. It looked very cold and bleak outside, but what he saw seemed to please him, for he smiled.
Three nights later, at about nine o'clock, Betty Tregarth was roused from the book she was reading by the ringing of the telephone.
"Is that Miss Betty Tregarth?"
"Yes. Who is that?"
"I am speaking for your brother, Miss Tregarth. My name is Raxel--Professor Bernhard Raxel. Your brother was knocked down by a taxi outside my house a little while ago, and he was carried in here to await the arrival of an ambulance. The doctors, however, have decided against moving him."
The girl's heart stopped beating for a moment.
"Is he--is he in danger?"
"I am afraid your brother is very seriously injured, Miss Tregarth, but he is quite conscious. Will you please come at once?"
"Yes, yes!" She was frantic now. "What address?"
Number seven, Cornwallis Read. It is onlya few hundred yards from your front door.'
"I know. I'll be round in five minutes. Goodbye."
She hung up the receiver and dashed for a' hat and coat.
Only an hour ago her brother had left the flat which they shared, having declared his intention of visiting a West End cinema. He would have passed down Cornwallis Road on his way to the tube station. She dared not think how bad his injuries might be. She knew the significance of these quietly ominous summonses, for her father had been fatally injured in a street accident only three years before.
In a few minutes she was ringing the bell of Number seven, Cornwallis Road, and almost immediately the door was opened by a butler.
"Miss Tregarth?" he guessed at once, for there was no mistaking her distress. "Professor Raxel told me to expect you."
"Where's my brother?"
The man threw open a door.