Mrs Yarmouth performed another mental computation which left her goggle-eyed.
“That’d give them five thousand dollars a week,” she said in an awed tone.
“For thirteen weeks, anyway,” corroborated Mr Eade matter-of-factly. “Longer, of course, if StarSuds renews the contract.” He smiled again, wanly. “You see how true the saying is that Money can always make money.”
Mrs Yarmouth went on thinking, visibly and intensely, but Mr Eade appeared to be temporarily mired in his own despondent reflections and did not interrupt her.
It was another refinement of his technique that he hardly ever propositioned any of his victims, having found that they were much more effectively and firmly hooked if he let them suggest participation themselves and believe that it was their very own idea. He was sure that Mrs Yarmouth would not disappoint him, and she didn’t.
“Do you suppose,” she said timidly, “that if I put up ten thousand dollars, it would help?”
Mr Eade was not crude enough to leap up and dance a jig, but after he had satisfied himself that ten thousand dollars was the most cash that she could raise quickly, by selling some Government bonds and emptying her savings account, he permitted himself to develop some controlled enthusiasm.
“I could always raise about five thousand dollars in loans from personal friends,” he mused. “I should be able to get twenty-five hundred on my Cadillac. And if I cashed in my insurance policy... You know, with your ten thousand I almost think we could swing it!”
“Would that entitle me to a quarter of the profits?” she asked.
“You could name your own terms.”
“You said you’d be glad to give up half the profits for twice that amount, but I don’t want to be greedy.”
“I can only think of you as a very generous lady,” Mr Eade said huskily.
“And what would you think about considering my nephew for the leading man?”
Mr Eade was not shocked — in fact, he had been expecting this even sooner.
“As a partner — and a very important partner — you’d certainly have a voice in the casting. Of course, we do have an option on quite a big name for the part, as you know, but I haven’t signed his contract yet, and if you insisted... I’m sure Howard Mayne could do the job — I made some inquiries about him after you mentioned his name. But he’ll be away on location for at least another week, you said. That makes it more difficult. But we could shoot around him... Yes, if you want that very badly, I won’t argue with you. It’s settled,” said Mr Eade, settling his argument with himself. He gave her his hand on it, gravely, and then permitted himself to revert with a frown of partial apology to more crassly financial problems. “But do you fully understand that what it said in that letter — ‘Time is of the essence’ — is literally true? This is Thursday. I must have this money in my bank before they close tomorrow, because most of our costs have to be put up in advance first thing on Monday morning, or else the studio and the guilds and unions won’t let us even start shooting.”
“I’ll send a wire to my bank in Middlebury this afternoon,” she said, “and tell them to wire me the money, and I ought to get it tomorrow morning.”
From then on everything was so automatic that it would be tedious to recount it in detail.
She was back before noon the next day with a cashier’s check and only realized when she laid it on Mr Eade’s desk that she had not consulted a lawyer and indeed did not know one in that city. Mr Eade thought she should not take just any lawyer but should wait until her nephew could recommend one. He produced an impressive document which actually was most conscientiously worded, for he had paid a genuine if somewhat shabby attorney fifty dollars to draw it up.
“This is the agreement that poor Mr Traustein was going to sign. I’ve simply had my secretary substitute your name for his and alter the amount of the investment and your percentage.” He pointed out the changes. “Suppose I sign it, but you don’t. Then I’m completely committed, but if you want any changes, after you’ve talked to an attorney next week, you can insist on having them made before you sign. In that way you’ll still be in the driver’s seat.”
Mrs Yarmouth found this thought very comforting over the weekend, until Monday brought her an alarmed telegram from Howard Mayne in answer to the long, excited letter she had written him. Then when she tried to call Mr Eade at the studio, she was told that he had given up his office on Saturday and they had no idea where he had moved.
“You see?” said the Saint. “If you hadn’t been in such a hurry to cash in on the poor man’s misfortune, on a scale of usury that would make Shylock look like a drunken sailor—”
“It was a very fair rate, in the circumstances,” she protested huffily. “He told me so himself.”
“He told you so. But didn’t anything tell you that with a contract with people as big as Herbert & Shapiro and StarSuds, he shouldn’t have to cut anybody in for twenty-five hundred a week in exchange for a month’s loan of ten grand?”
“Why didn’t you go to the police at once, Aunt Sophie?” Mayne put in.
“Because I’m not quite as stupid as you think. If I’d done that, it would’ve been sure to get in the papers, especially if Mr Eade were caught, and you don’t think I want everyone in Middlebury laughing at what a fool I’ve made of myself, do you?” she said paradoxically.
“That’s another thing that helps these bunco artists,” said the Saint. “Half the time the cops don’t even have a chance to do anything, because the sucker is too ashamed to let the whole story come out.”
“I wish you would stop calling me that,” said Mrs Yarmouth. “All I want to know, since Howard has persuaded me to take you into my confidence, is whether you think you can do anything about it.”
Simon rubbed his chin.
“The toughest thing about that is the needle-and-haystack part,” he murmured. “I have a couple of ideas where he might go from here, but I can only promise to keep my eyes peeled. It’s lucky that snapshot you took of him in Palm Springs turned out so well.”
Mr Eade’s movements were not completely unpredictable, for like many of his ilk he was somewhat a creature of habit. Each year, like many more respectable salesmen, he covered roughly the same circuit, which corresponded with the equally predictable migrations of human pigeons. In summer, during the tourist season, he worked the transatlantic liners and airplanes, with intermittent sojourns in London, Paris, and the Riviera. In the autumn he might shuttle between New York and Bermuda. At the turn of the year his base would be in Miami Beach, perhaps interrupted by excursions around the Caribbean, until about Easter he jumped to Southern California for the pickings of the desert season there. Then sometimes he would kill a little time in San Francisco, or cross over to Nevada, before the round started all over again.
At the Persepolis in Las Vegas, his wife reported spotting a top-grade mark. To the uninitiated, this might sound far more providential than finding a needle in a haystack, considering the ant-like swarms of variegated citizenry which seethe continuously through such casinos, but in fact, to the fully transistorized veteran of sucker prospecting, it is hardly even an effort to winnow through the densest strata of insolvent chaff and geiger in on any lode of naïve nuggets that may be present.
“He’s carrying a bale of bills that would choke a horse, but he never gambles more than a few bucks — that’s not what he’s here for,” she said. “He’s waiting for a divorce in about another week, and then he’s going to marry some Hollywood starlet. He’s a used-car dealer from Tucson, and he thinks he’s pretty sharp. I listened to him telling a bartender all about himself.”