“Certainly. I was leaving this afternoon, anyhow. I’ll see my attorney first thing tomorrow and put him to work drawing up a contract.”
Simon looked disappointed.
“Fine. But I was thinking of calling a friend of mine at Westinghouse this evening—”
“But before I go,” Mr Jardane continued firmly, “I’ll rough out a preliminary agreement myself that we can sign.”
“If you insist,” said the Saint, looking more unsubtle every minute. “But then some money would have to change hands, to make it legal, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ll give you my check for three thousand dollars at the same time.”
Simon stood up.
“To return the compliment you paid me when you verified that Ollie had actually signed this offer, would you mind if I said I’d be much more impressed with cash? After all, I don’t really know anything about you except what you’ve told me. But there should be someone in Grant’s Pass that your trucks do business with, or you could go to a bank and have them call your bank back home for authority to cash you a check.”
Mr Jardane glowered at him for a second or two, a picture of grudging admiration.
“I bet you were a tough and nasty investigator,” he said. “But I can take it. Business is business, God bless it. I’ll get you your cash. Don’t go away — and don’t call Westinghouse, or anyone else.”
Shortly afterwards, through a window of his own cottage, Simon saw the Cadillac drive away. After it had gone, he made unhurried but efficient preparations for his own departure. He packed all his personal things and a box of such supplies that were not immediately expendable. He moved his car around to the back of the cabin, and loaded his suitcase and the box into the trunk through the back door, where his activity was cut off from chance observation from almost any angle, including that of Mr Quigg’s cottage at the other end of the scattered colony. When he had finished, there was nothing he would have to take out of the cabin except the fishing tackle that was still picturesquely littered around the living room. It saddened him somewhat to have to cut his stay so abruptly short. But business was business, as Mr Jardane had observed, and even a Saint couldn’t be sanctimonious enough to snub it when it jumped into his lap; there were immediate compensations, and there would be other rivers to fish.
Presently he fried the last of his bacon and cooked his remaining trout in the fat, with a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of chopped almonds which he had left out. He was finishing a glass of Dry Sack and getting ready to feast when Mr Jardane drove by again and almost at once was knocking on the door.
“You’re just in time,” Simon said hospitably. “Would you care to join me in some truite amandine? Save me from being a glutton.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got to be on my way if I want to get home tonight. I had a sandwich in town while I was waiting for a public stenographer to type this up. I dictated it to her while I was waiting for this bank to get in touch with my bank.” Mr Jardane flourished a thin sheaf of papers. “Read it, sign it, and I’ll give you your money.”
Simon turned the oven on at its lowest and put his lunch away to keep warm while he read one of the copies of his prospective partner’s composition. He had to admit that there was nothing slipshod about Irving Jardane. This was no second-class operator who would risk botching a good thing by skimping on some detail, no matter how tiresome the chore might be. The “preliminary agreement” that he had drafted was well thought out, comprehensive, and painstakingly phrased in the language of a man who had made some study of contracts: it had a competent and authentic ring that would have impressed even a genuine business man. At the same time, perhaps even more skillfully, it avoided any legalistic hedging which might have seemed to conceal pitfalls and thus could have led to prolonged argument.
“It seems very straightforward,” said the Saint, and quickly signed all four copies.
Mr Jardane countersigned one of them, gave it back, and put the other three in his pocket. Then he produced a roll of currency and counted off thirty hundred-dollar bills.
“That ought to make it legal enough for you,” he remarked, perhaps a trifle sarcastically. “Now, you’ve got my address in your copy of our agreement. Let me hear from you as soon as you’ve got Quigg’s signature on a proper sales contract. An outright sale like that is simple enough that any local lawyer could write it. Get it done before he changes his mind or some men in white coats pick him up. And send me a notarized copy of his receipt for the money you pay him — before I go any further. I want to be sure you’ve made it legal with him.”
“I’ll get rolling right after lunch, Irving old chum,” Simon promised him.
He ate his meal with leisured enjoyment, and during the course of it he watched Mr Jardane stuff the Cadillac with his impedimenta from the next cottage and drive away. The Cadillac, he thought, had been a nice touch too — there was no other car that conveyed such an air of solid affluence to the sucker type who forgot that all the best U-Drive outfits had them for rent by the day for that very reason.
He washed up tidily and then openly carried his fishing tackle out to his own less ostentatious wagon. He was still wearing the morning’s shabby but comfortable fishing togs, and to anyone who might have been keeping watch on him — such as Mr Quigg — he would only have looked as if he were preparing to wet a line farther up or down the river that evening, not to remove himself indefinitely from those parts. But beyond any dispute, he reasoned as he let off the handbrake and toed the accelerator, he was getting rolling. It had always given him a perversely puerile delight to look certain overconfident individuals squarely in the eye and tell them a literal truth which they were incapable of appreciating. He was pleased to think that he had been especially scrupulous throughout this episode.
A more conventional courtesy, however, obliged him to stop at the camp office on his way out.
“I’m on my way, Ben,” he told the proprietor. “I know I’m paid up through next weekend, but forget it, with my compliments. Maybe I’ll take it out on you next time I stop here.”
“There may not be another time,” said the other glumly. “If that new highway goes through as it’s supposed to, we mightn’t be here next year. It’s only a question of time, anyway. What’s the matter? Is anything wrong?”
“Everything is gorgeously perfect,” said the Saint. “I’ve had a wonderful old-fashioned workout, and there’s nothing I like better. Aside from letting you know you’ve got an unexpected vacancy, I wanted to thank you for keeping quiet about my real name. I hope you didn’t have to tell too many lies about Sebastian Tombs. That really is a ridiculous name.”
“Mr Quigg did ask me a few questions, but I told him I didn’t know any answers. You must have made a big hit with him.”
“He may be disillusioned next time you talk to him. And if he is, please let him in on my secret. The same goes for a white-haired slob with a hired Cadillac, using the name of Irving Jardane and claiming to be the head man of Transamerican Transport. If I may drop a friendly flea in your ear, I’d suggest that you didn’t cash any of his checks, if he ever comes here again — which may be unlikely.”
The owner frowned sharply.
“You’re talking about Irv Jardane — the fellow in the next cottage to yours?”
“None other. A postgraduate psychologist, although maybe not quite so smooth as Brother Quigg.”
“I don’t quite get you, but I know he can be pretty gruff at times—”
“What else do you know about him — aside from what he wrote on the card when he registered?”
The proprietor blinked in a shocked but rather puzzled way.