"And you want a brass Buddha?" said the Saint, almost caressingly.
James G. Amberson (according to his card, the G. stood for Gardiner, which the Saint thought was very modest — it might have been Gabriel) flapped a raw-boned hand deprecatingly.
"Aw, you ain't gonna offer me the thing your auntie brought home last time she went on a world cruise, are you? Everyone in London's got a brass Buddha, but none of 'em is the right one. This one's a special one — you wouldn't know it to look at it, but it is. Some Chink emperor back in about two million b.c. had three of 'em made for his three daughters, who were no better than they shoulda been, accordin' to history — you don't wanna know all that hooey, do you? I guess I'm a bit fuddled over it myself. But anyhow, Lou Froussard has got two of 'em, and he wants the third. I gotta find it. Sounds like I'd taken on a long job, don't it?"
Simon drew on his cigar a little less impetuously.
"How will you know this particular one when you find it?" he asked.
"Say, that's easy. It's got a little Chinese dedication carved in the base and filled with red paint. I don't know any language except plain English, but this daughter's name comes in the dedication and I got a Chink to show me what it looked like — Gosh, is that cigar sour or something?"
"No — it's a swell cigar. Would you mind showing me what this name looks like?"
The other's eyes opened rather blankly, but he took out a pencil and sketched a character on the back of the envelope.
"There she is, friend. Say, you're looking at me like I was a mummy come to life. What's the matter?"
The Saint filled his lungs. For him, the day had suddenly bloomed out into a rich surpassing beauty that only those who have shared his delight in damaging the careers of pompous old sinners with bushy grey face-hair can understand. The radiance of his own inspiration dazzled him.
"Nothing's the matter," he said seraphically. "Nothing on earth could be the matter on a day like this. How many millions will your Mr. Froussard give for that Buddha?"
"Well, millions is a large word," said Amberson, cautiously, looking at the Saint in not unreasonable perplexity. "But I guess I could pay fifteen thousand bucks for it."
"You find the bucks, and I'll find your Buddha," said the Saint.
Amberson grinned, and stood up.
"I don't know whether you've got an ace in the hole or whether you're just pulling my leg," he remarked; "but if you can find that Buddha the fifteen grand are waitin' for you. Say, I'm real grateful to you for helpin' me out like this. Come to the Savoy and have lunch tomorrow — and you can bring the Buddha with you, if you've found it."
"Thanks," said the Saint. "I'll do both."
He showed Amberson to the door, and came straight back to grab the telephone. Sir Ambrose Grange was out, he was informed, but he was expected back about six. Simon bought his evening paper, found that the favourite had won — he never backed favourites — and was at the telephone again, when the hour struck.
"I'm taking you at your word and coming over to see you, Sir Ambrose."
"Delighted, my dear sir," said the knight, somewhat plaintively. "But if you'd told me I could have got hold of some girls —"
"Never mind the girls," said Simon.
He arrived at the lodgings in Seymour Street where Sir Ambrose maintained his modest bachelor pied-a-terre half an hour later, and plunged into his business without preliminaries.
"I've come to buy your Buddha," he said. "Two thousand was what your uncle wanted, wasn't it?"
Sir Ambrose goggled at him for some seconds; and then he laughed feebly.
"Ho, ho, ho! I bought that one, didn't I, by gad! Getting a bit slow on the uptake, what? Never mind, sir — have a drink."
"I'm not being comic," said the Saint. "I want your Buddha and I'll give you two thousand for it. I backed sixteen losers last week, and if I don't get a good mascot I shall be in the bankruptcy court."
After several minutes he was able to convince Sir Ambrose that his lunacy, if inexplicable, was backed up by a ready chequebook. He wrote the figures with a flourish, and Sir Ambrose found himself fumbling for a piece of paper and a stamp to make out the receipt.
Simon read the document through — it was typical.
Received from Mr. Simon Templar, by cheque, the sum of Two Thousand Pounds, being payment for a Brass Buddha which he knows is only worth fifteen shillings.
"Just to prove I knew what I was doing? I expected that."
Sir Ambrose looked at him suspiciously.
"I wish I knew what you wanted that thing for," he said. "Even my uncle only wanted us to get a thousand for it, but I thought I'd double it for luck. Two thousand couldn't be much more impossible than one." He heaved with chin-quivering mirth. "Well, my dear sir, if you can make a profit on two thousand, I shan't complain. Ho, ho, ho, ho! Have a drink."
"Sometimes," said the Saint quite affably, "I wonder why there's no law classifying men like you as vermin, and authorizing you to be sprayed with DDT on sight."
He routed out Peter Quentin before going home that night, and uttered the same philosophy to him — even more affably. The brass Buddha sat on a table beside his bed when he turned in, and he blew it a kiss before he switched out the light and sank into the dreamless sleep of a contented corsair.
He paraded at the Savoy at twelve-thirty the next day.
At two o'clock Patricia Holm found him in the grill room.
Simon beckoned the waiter who had just poured out his coffee, and asked for another cup.
"Well," he said, "where's Peter?"
"His girl friend stopped in a shop window to look at some stockings, so I came on." Her eyebrows were faintly questioning. "I thought you were lunching with that American."
Simon dropped two lumps of sugar into his cup and stirred it lugubriously.
"Pat," he said, "you may put this down in your notes for our textbook on Crime — the perfect confidence trick, Version Two. Let me tell you about it."
She lighted a cigarette slowly, staring at him.
"The Mug," said the Saint deliberately, "meets an Unpleasant Man. The Unpleasant Man purposely makes himself out to be so sharp that no normally healthy Mug could resist the temptation to do him down if the opportunity arose; and he may credit himself with a title just to remove all suspicion. The Unpleasant Man has something to sell — it might be a brass Buddha, valued at fifteen shillings, for which he's got to realize some fantastic sum like two thousand quid under the terms of an eccentric will. The Mug admits that the problem is difficult, and passes out into the night."
Simon annexed Patricia's cigarette, and inhaled from it.
"Shortly afterwards," he said, "the Mug meets the Nice American who is looking for a very special brass Buddha valued at fifteen thousand bucks. The nice American gives away certain information which allows the Mug to perceive, beyond all possible doubt, that this rare and special Buddha is the very one for which the Unpleasant Man was trying to get what he thought was the fantastic price of two thousand quid. The Mug, therefore, with the whole works taken right down into his stomach — hook, line and sinker — dashes around to the Unpleasant Man and gives him his two thousand quid. And he endorses a receipt saying he knows it's only worth fifteen bob, so that the Unpleasant Man can prove himself innocent of deception. Then the Mug goes to meet the Nice American and collect his profit… And, Pat, I regret to say that he pays for his own lunch."