“Which reminds me somehow,” she said, “did you reserve that Pullman?”
“We aren’t going to need it. You don’t think for a moment that Luella and Co are going to stop traveling now, do you? We are probably the only people in Los Angeles who know where there’s an apartment vacant tonight — and I’ve still got Luella’s keys from their car,” said the Saint.
Emily
Simon Templar propped one well-shod foot on the tarnished brass rail of the Bonanza City Hotel bar, and idly speculated on the assortment of footgear which had probably graced this brazen cylinder in its time — prospectors’ alkali-caked boots, miners’ hobnails, scouts’ buckskins, cowhands’ high heels... and now his own dully gleaming cordovan, resting there for a long cool one to break the baking monotony of the miles of steaming asphalt which had San Francisco as their goal.
But it was quite certain that none of the boots which in diverse decades had parked themselves on that time-mellowed prop had ever carried a more picturesque outlaw, even though there was no skull and crossbones on his softly battered hat, and no pearl-handled six-shooters clung to his thighs. For Simon Templar had made a new business out of buccaneering, and hardly one of the lawbreakers and law-enforcers who knew him better under his sobriquet of the Saint could have given a valid reason why the source of so much trouble should ever have acquired such a name. The Saint himself would have found that just as hard to answer: in his own estimation he was almost as good as his name, and he would have maintained at the stake that most of the things that happened to him were not of his inviting. The one remarkable thing was how regular they conspired to invite him.
Which was what started to happen again at that precise moment, although as it began he was still far from realizing where it might go.
He was examining the mirrored reflections of sundry characters draped along the mahogany rim (which still boasted the autograph of a Prince of Wales under a screwed-down glass plate) and wondering if any of them inhabited the paintless houses outside, when he felt a touch on his arm.
“Would it be worth a drink t’see the Marvel of the Age, stranger?”
An anticipatory hush seemed to settle gradually on the small dark room. Simon could see in the mirror that each of the characters who decorated the perimeter of the horseshoe stiffened a little as the reedy voice broke the quiet. Brown hands tensed a little around their glasses, and a covert wink was exchanged between the unmistakable cognoscenti.
The Saint turned to look down into a saddle-tanned seamed face studded with mild blue eyes and topped by this gray hair. The blue jeans were faded, so was the khaki shirt, and the red necktie ran through a carven bone clasp. The look in the blue eyes said that their owner expected an order to get the hell from underfoot — or at best the polite brush-off which was already on Simon Templar’s lips.
And then, almost as the words were forming, the mind’s eye of the Saint visualized a long succession of such brush-offs and he reflected on how small a price was the cost of a drink in return for gratitude in the mild eyes of a lonely old character.
“I don’t know the going rate on marvels in these degenerate times,” said the Saint gently, “but one drink sounds fair enough.”
“Double?” spoke the old-timer hopefully.
The bartender halted the bottle in mid-flight and again the Saint felt a tensing among the habitués along the brass rail.
“Double,” Simon agreed, and the bartender relaxed as if a great decision had been reached, and finished pouring the drink.
The little man lifted a battered canvas grip and placed it tenderly on the bar. He reached for the drink and lifted it toward his lips. Then he set the drink back on the bar and drew himself up to a dignified five feet five.
“Beggin’ your parding, mister — James Aloysius McDill, an’ your servant.”
“Simon Templar, and yours, sir,” the Saint said gravely.
He lifted his own drink and they clinked glasses in solemn ritual, after which James Aloysius McDill demonstrated just how quickly a double bourbon can slide down a human throat. Then he opened his shabby bag, and took out an oblong box of lovingly polished wood.
It was very much like a small table-model radio. A pair of broad-faced dials on its upper surface sported impressive indicator needles. There was a stirrup handle at either end of the box and a sort of sliding scale on top.
“Nice-lookin’ job, ain’t she?” the little man appealed to the Saint.
“Mighty pretty,” responded the Saint, gazing at it as intelligently as he would have surveyed a cyclotron.
The little man beamed. He spoke diffidently to the bartender.
“Got a silver dollar, Frank?”
The bartender obliged, with the air of one who has done this before, and the other customers duplicated his ennui. Once the Saint succumbed to the pitch for a double rye, the show was pretty well routined.
J. Aloysius McDill tossed the silver dollar across the room. It landed in the sawdust on the floor with a dull thump.
“Watch,” he said.
He turned a switch, made some adjustments, and grasped the handles on the varnished box, which thereupon emitted a low hymenopterous humming, and advanced upon the dollar like a hunter stalking skittish game. As he neared the coin, the humming began to keen up the scale. He stood still, and the sound held steady; again toward the dollar and the wail of the box slid up and up until, held directly above the coin, it gave forth the whine of a band saw eating into a pine knot.
The Saint walked over and inspected the setup. He picked up the dollar and tossed it back to the bartender.
“Let’s see what it does about this change in my pocket,” he said, slapping his trouser leg.
Mr McDill moved the device over the indicated area, but the humming remained at a low murmur. He ceased his efforts and grinned.
“You ain’t got any change in your pocket, mister.”
Grinning in turn, the Saint pulled out the pocket. It was empty.
“Can’t fool the Doodlebug,” said McDill complacently. “See” — he held the box for the Saint to look at — “it works the same way for any other kind o’ metal.”
The Saint duly noted the markings etched along the sliding scale on top. He moved the indicator to “Gold,” and the Doodlebug, which had been humming like a happy bee, suddenly whined like an angry mosquito. The Saint jerked back his left wrist with the gold watch on it, and the machine dropped again to a gentle hum. McDill set it on the bar, and it fell completely silent.
“Ain’t she a beauty?” the little man demanded.
“Lovely,” Simon agreed. “Just what you need any time you drop a silver dollar.”
“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’.”
“Aw, yes,” Simon said. “Have you tested her in the field yet, Mr McDill?”
A rattle of laughter cackled across the barroom. It was as though a whiplash 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.