“She’s good for more than that,” said McDill. “She’ll find the stuff they make dollars out of. That’s why she’s so beautiful. Takes the guesswork out of prospectin’.”
“Ah, yes,” Simon said. “Have you tested her in the field yet, Mr. McDill?”
A rattle of laughter cackled across the bar-room. It was as though a whip-lush had been laid across the face of the little man; he flinched.
“Ask him,” drawled one of the audience, “why his dingus ain’t located no claims yet, if it’s so good.”
McDill faced the speaker, his chin high.
“Jest ain’t happened to look in the right places, that’s all,” he said stoutly, but there was a quaver in his voice. He turned to Simon. “You’ve seen her, mister. You’ve seen what she can do. All I need’s a grubstake and a little equipment. If you was, maybe, interested in minin’, we c’d be pardners.”
The Saint saw the general merriment waxing along the bar again, and had one of his ready quixotic impulses.
“Well, Mr. McDill,” he said in a loud clear voice, “mining’s a little out of my own line, but I have a friend I might be able to interest. I’m certainly impressed by your demonstration. Here’s my San Francisco address.” He scribbled on a card and handed it to James Aloysius McDill; then he dug into another pocket. “And here’s fifty dollars for a week’s option on your gadget.”
He was aware of glasses being set down all along the bar, of incredulous eyes appraising his well-cut gabardines and evaluating his unimpeachable aura of prosperity and well-being; but it was mostly McDill’s reaction that he cared about.
The blue eyes in the seamed old face flamed with happiness. They could not resist a single triumphant glance at the hangers on; then the little man’s hand stuck straight out.
“Put ’er there, Mr. Templar,” he said, with a ring in his voice. “I’ll be right here, any time your pardner wants me. Bonanza City Hotel.”
Simon shook the thin, calloused hand, and beckoned the bartender. No longer bored, he stepped up with alacrity.
“Yes, sir!”
“The same, for Mr. McDill and myself,” ordered The Saint. “Double,” he added.
He had been installed in rooms in the Fairmont, high on Nob Hill, for the duration of a sleep and a breakfast, when his telephone asserted itself, for the first time since his arrival.
“I’ve called every day since I got your card,” said Larry Phelan, “and I was pretty sure you’d show up within the year. What trouble did you come here to stir up?”
“None at all,” said The Saint virtuously. “I am on a vacation, and I have taken a vow to right no wrong, rescue no young ladies in distress, and acquire no money by fair means or foul, until further notice.”
“That’s fine,” said Phelan. “There’s nothing in your vow about rescuing old ladies in distress, is there?”
“Not so fast,” said The Saint. “Whose old lady is in distress?”
“My old lady, if you must know.”
“Your mother?”
“None other.”
“This,” said The Saint, “is beginning to sound like a Gilbert and Sullivan duet. You can buy me lunch and tell me all about it.”
Larry Phelan was tall and lean, and he had the face of a college sophomore and the mind of the top-drawer mining engineer that he was.
“My mother,” he explained gloomily, over ecrevisses au vin blanc, “is in the situation of any elderly lady with an excess of both time and money. Especially money.”
“A rather pleasant situation,” commented The Saint, chewing. “Is there such a thing as too much money?”
“Some people seem to think so,” said Phelan. “Did you ever hear of a guy called Melville Rochborne?”
Simon shook his head.
“It sounds like the sort of phony name that I wouldn’t buy any gold mines from.”
“He sold mother a gold mine,” Phelan said.
“Any gold in it?”
“I defy anyone to find any gold in this particular mine,” said Phelan sadly. “It’s the old Lucky Nugget. Opened up with a big whoop-de-do in 1906, beautiful vein of quartz, eighteen dollars to the ton; closed in 1907 — no more quartz. No one’s made a nickel on it since — even the tailings are worked out. The stock, which is what mother bought, wouldn’t even serve for wrapping fish.”
“There are laws,” suggested The Saint, “which take care of folks who misrepresent stocks and bonds to other people.”
“That’s the trouble,” said Phelan. “This Rochborne is an extremely smart operator. There’s nothing on record — including mother’s own testimony — to prove he ever claimed there was any gold in the mine.”
“Didn’t she ask you about it?”
“What would you think? After all,” said Phelan bitterly, “I have only two degrees in engineering and one in mining. Why should anyone, even my own dear mother, consult me on such a topic? Obviously, a crystal ball and a turban put my credentials in the shade. I’ll admit,” he added, in less vehement tones, “I’ve been up to my ears in some very hush-hush stuff lately — uranium sources, if you must know. Top secret.”
“Keep your uranium,” said The Saint. “I don’t like the things they do with it. What is this stuff about crystal balls?”
“My blessed mother,” Phelan said reverently, “has developed an interest in the occult. In this specific case, a soothsayer from the Mystic East.”
“Tea leaves, eh?” said The Saint. “Lucky numbers and cards and so forth?”
“And signs of the Zodiac,” supplemented Phelan. “A Swami, no less. The Swami Yogadevi.”
“Sounds like a new cocktail. Where does he come in?”
“The Swami,” said Phelan sourly, “is the guy who advised Mom to buy the wretched stock. She’s sort of got into a habit of consulting him, I’m afraid. I suppose he makes a couple of passes at his crystal and evokes a genie, or something.”
Simon cleaned up his plate and lighted a cigarette.
“One gathers, Larry, that Mama has been hornswoggled by a couple of pretty smooth operators. I almost think it’s a new combination.”
“Combination?”
“Of course. It must be. Don’t you see how it works? Your Swami spots the suckers who have plenty of moola, and gets their confidence with his mumbo-jumbo. Which isn’t illegal if he doesn’t claim to predict futures. Your Mr. Rochborne peddles stocks and makes no claim for them. You can’t prosecute a man for that. Separately, they mightn’t get too far. Working together, they’re terrific. How much,” asked The Saint gently, “did your mother pay for the Lucky Nugget mine?”
“Forty-five thousand smackers,” Phelan admitted glumly.
The Saint whistled. He proceeded to order coffee and then sank into a lethargy which might or might not have denoted deep thought.
“What are you looking stupid about?” inquired Larry Phelan.
“About the vacation I was going to have until you tripped into my life,” said Simon wryly. “However,” he added thoughtfully, “if Comrade Rochborne has forty-five G’s of Mamma’s, he might have someone else’s G’s too. I’ll keep thinking about it.”
He did exactly that, although for two days there was nothing to show for his thinking. But to The Saint a hiatus like that meant nothing. He knew better than anyone that those coups of his which seemed most spontaneous and effortless were usually the ones into which the hardest work had gone; that the machinery of his best buccaneering raids was labored and polished as devotedly as any master playwright’s plot structure. Even then, there had to be an initial spark of inspiration to start the wheels turning.
When it came, it was nothing that he had even vaguely expected. It took the form of a chunky oblong package, crudely wrapped, which a bellboy delivered to his room.