“Now do you understand?”
The Saint understood that Alisdare’s story, riddled with enough holes to sink the Polaris several times over, was a hastily constructed ruse devised to lure him to Neah Bay. The reason eluded him, but Simon had no intention of allowing the ten thousand dollar cashier’s check previously discovered in Alisdare’s wallet to go uncashed.
Alisdare reached in his pocket, pulled out the billfold with which Simon was already familiar, and placed the check on the table.
“Proof of my sincerity, Mr Templar”. Alisdare rapped the check with his knuckles. “Ten thousand dollars. Yes, a cashier’s check payable to you from SeaQue Salvage is right here, right now, only awaiting your agreement to accompany me to Neah Bay first thing in the morning. The same press people you impressed earlier will be notified immediately. No doubt reporters will be hounding us when we arrive, which is exactly the idea. Well?”
Simon Templar stroked his chin, appearing to battle the allure of ten thousand dollars. The Saint silently complimented himself on having the good sense to return the wallet, and picked up the check as if seeing it for the first time. It was the one authentic item in Alisdare’s presentation, and it also smelled of seafood.
The Saint’s intensive deliberations were cut short by the arrival of a polite and efficient waiter.
“Excuse me, Mr Templar, you have a call on the courtesy phone.”
Simon sighed, begged Alisdare’s indulgence, and pocketed the cashier’s check before excusing himself. The pre-arranged interruption arrived precisely on schedule.
4
Simon threaded his way through the swelling evening crowd to the white courtesy telephone where, on the other end of the line, waited Barney Malone.
“Simon Templar speaking”.
“No kidding. Am I rescuing you from that woman? I thought she was an old friend of yours.”
“Different situation entirely”. Simon glanced back towards the expectantly waiting Alisdare. “I think I’m having an adventure.”
“I think I’m having dyspepsia,” countered Malone, “the lobster dish was awfully rich and seafood has a way of putting its claws into me.”
“Where did it come from?” asked the Saint.
“They usually inhabit the ocean.”
“The catering service, Barney. Was it the hotel’s?”
“Don’t know. I’m the producer, not the public relations director. Ask whatshername the publicist Now, please excuse me but there is a Republic Pictures Film Festival on channel 13. They are about to show 1949’s ‘Post Office Investigator’; a full length feature film with a total running time of fifty-nine minutes, counting the credits.”
The Saint allowed himself to laugh out loud, something he had wanted to do several times during his conversation with Mr Alisdare.
“One more thing, Simon. You have a couple of ‘fans’ waiting outside your door.”
“Thugs or thrushes?”
“Thrushes? You’re getting old, Templar. Neither. They look to be post-pubescent collegiate types intent on an autograph.”
“Swell. Thanks for the warning. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Simon...”, Barney allowed a semi-serious note to play along the rough scales of his voice. “If you are having an adventure, please stay out of jail and out of the morgue. You have a personal appearance in Portland in 48 hours and you will be there even if I have to prop up your bullet riddled body.”
“No problem,” agreed the Saint, “you can always keep me fresh in one of those haloed ice-sculptures. I’ll call you from my room.”
“And interrupt ‘Post Office Investigator’?”
Simon, having already returned the phone to its cradle, did not hear Malone’s plaintive objection. The Saint’s mind was unconcerned with cinematic curiosities, circa 1949. Salvadore Alisdare’s Costello Treasure was curious enough.
Less than ten minutes later, Simon Templar stood in the cool night air outside the Westin Hotel watching the light rain slick the artificially illuminated streets. Having returned from the courtesy phone, Simon informed Alisdare that the call contained a terse reminder of a previous appointment. Simon expressed regret that their enjoyable time together had come to an abrupt conclusion, but assured the General Agent that the allure of the ellusive Costello Treasure was too much to resist. SeaQue, Templar insisted, could count on the Saint.
Salvadore Alisdare, turned up the collar of his ill-fitting coat against the night’s chill, shook Simon’s hand, and glanced uneasily towards the Gray Top cab easing Northbound down Sixth Avenue and turning into the Westin’s taxi zone.
“You have the cashier’s check I gave you, don’t you Mr Templar.”
“Oh yes”, Simon patted his heart, “I always keep track of significant amounts of money.”
“And you will meet me tomorrow morning, at ten o’clock, the Islands Airline counter, Sea-Tac airport?”
“I meant what I said,” confirmed Simon with a clear conscience, “recovering the Costello Treasure takes precedence over minor social obligations.”
“Very well,” the little man smiled and began moving towards the cab. “Have a good evening, Mr Templar.”
“Wait,” Simon smiled and held out a twenty dollar bill.
“Let me take care of the cab.”
“No, no,” Alisdare refused and instinctively felt for his wallet. He felt nothing. He felt harder. It wasn’t there.
The Saint, by supreme will, kept the corners of his mouth from drifting upwards. Simon had been anticipating this moment since the two men exited Nikko’s where, in the crush and hub-bub of the crowd, a second liberation of Alisdare’s billfold proved irresistible.
“Problem?”
“Uh...” Dismay was quickly giving way to disorientation and undignified panic. Mr Alisdare was, in the vernacular, coming undone.
“My wallet. I can’t find it,” babbled the little man, spinning about as if performing an ancient agitated circumambulatory ritual.
“Calm down, my friend,” spoke Simon in the most soothing of tones, “you must have dropped it in the restaurant. You get in the cab and I’ll run in for a quick look.”
Before Alisdare could squeak out another word, Templar disappeared back through the doors of the Westin. Once inside, the Saint silently and insincerely scolded himself for this episode of mischief, and made the missing wallet scenario even more believable by removing all negotiable currency.
Simon Templar emerged from the hotel a few minutes later with a look of comforting triumph gracing his tanned features and a miraculously recovered billfold held aloft as would be the spoils of war. “You are a very lucky man,” insisted the Saint, “it was just turned in to the front desk. At least you weren’t the victim of a professional pick-pocket — your credit cards are intact — but whatever money you had is no longer yours.”
Alisdare snatched the billfold from Simon’s hand with more anger than appreciation, examined it briefly, and thrust it into his coat. Had he been in a cartoon instead of a cab, steam would have issued forth from his collar. As his wallet turned up missing while in the presence of the Robin Hood of Modern Crime, Salvadore Alisdare now harbored the most accurate and unerring of suspicions.
Simon again proffered a twenty dollar bill.
To document the array of emotions playing across the visage of Salvadore Alisdare would require an elaborate system replete with cross-referencing index. Pleased to have enlisted the famous Simon Templar in the quest for the fabricated Costello Treasure, furious with the disappearance of his wallet, and peeved at the possibility that Templar was toying with him, Salvadore Alisdare gave Simon Templar a look which revealed far more than did the contents of his billfold. The glare from Alisdare’s eyes dripped with implications and intentions so venomous and vile that Simon was, for a second’s fraction, frozen where he stood. It was as if the Saint had witnessed the transformation of a benign and buck-toothed bunny into a fanged and coiled cobra.