If you were in the trade, if you were "regular" and you could induce him to give you a demonstration of his magic, he would invite you to deal out four hands of bridge, write down a list of cards in every hand, shuffle the pack again as much as you cared to, and give it back to him; whereupon he would take one glance at your list, shuffle the pack once himself, and proceed to deal out the four hands again exactly as you had listed them. And if you were unlucky enough to be playing with him in the way of business you could order brand-new packs as often as you cared to pay for them, without inconveniencing him in the least. Mr. Alfred Tillson had never marked a card in his life; and he could play any card game that had ever been invented with equal success.
On the stage he might have made a very comfortable income for himself, but his tastes had never led him that way. Mr. Tillson was partial to travel and sea air; and for many years he had voyaged the Atlantic and Pacific ocean routes, paying himself very satisfactory dividends on every trip, and invariably leaving his victims with the consoling thought that they had at least evaded the wiles of sharpers and lost their money to an honest man.
He might have retired long ago, if he had not had a weakness for beguiling the times between voyages with dissipations of a highly unclerical kind; and as a matter of fact it was to this weakness of his that he owed his first meeting with the Saint.
He had made a very profitable killing on a certain trip which he took to Maderia; but coming back overland from Lisbon a sylph-like blonde detained him too long in Paris, and he woke up one morning to find that he was a full twenty pounds short of his fare to New York. He set out for London with this pressing need of capital absorbing his mind; and it was merely his bad luck that the elegant young man whom he discovered lounging idly over the rail when the cross-Channel boat left Boulogne should have been christened Simon Templar.
Simon was not looking for trouble on that trip, but he was never averse to having his expenses paid; and when Mr. Tillson hinted that it was distressingly difficult to find any congenial way of passing the time on cross-Channel journeys, he knew what to expect. They played casino, and Simon won fifteen pounds in the first half-hour.
"A bit slow, don't you think?" observed the benevolent Mr. Tillson, as he shuffled the cards at this point and called for another brace of whiskies. "Shall we double the stakes?"
This was what Simon had been waiting for — and that gift of waiting for the psychological moment was one which he always employed on such occasions. Fifteen pounds was a small fish in his net, but who was he to criticise what a beneficent Providence cast kindly into his lap?
"Certainly, brother," he murmured. "Treble 'em if you like. I'll be with you again in a sec — I've just got to see a man about a small borzoi."
He faded away towards a convenient place; and that was the last Mr. Tillson saw of him. It was one of Mr. Tillson's saddest experiences; and three years later it was still as fresh in his memory as it had been the day after it happened. "Happy" Fred Jorman, that most versatile of small-time confidence men, whose round face creased up into such innumerable wrinkles of joy when he smiled, heard that "Broads" Tillson was in London, called on him on that third anniversary, and had to listen to the tale. They had worked together on one coup several years ago, but since then their ways had lain apart.
"That reminds me of a beggar I met this spring," said Happy Fred, not to be outdone in anecdote — and the ecclesiastical-looking Mr. Tillson hoped that "beggar" was the word he used. "I met him in the Alexandra — he seemed interested in horses, and he looked so lovely and innocent. When I told him about the special job I'd got for Newmarket that afternoon —"
This was one of Happy Fred's favourite stories, and much telling of it had tended to standardize the wording.
There was a certain prelude of this kind of conversation and general reminiscence before Happy Fred broached the real reason for his call.
"Between ourselves, Broads, things aren't going too well in my business. There's too many stories in the newspapers these days to tell the suckers how it's done. Things have got so bad that one or two of the boys have had to go on the legit just to keep themselves alive."
"The circumstances are somewhat similar with me, Fred," confessed Mr. Tillson, regretfully. "The Atlantic liners are half empty, and those gentlemen who are travelling don't seem to have the same surplus of lucre for the purposes of — um — recreation as they used to."
Happy Fred nodded.
"Well, that's how it struck me, Broads," he said. "And what with one thing and another, I said to myself, 'Fred,' I said, 'the old tricks are played out, and you'd better admit it. Fred," I said, 'you've got to keep up with the times or go under. And what's wanted these days,' I said to myself, 'is a New Swindle.' "
Mr. Tillson raised his episcopal eyebrows.
"And have you succeeded in devising this — um — novel system of remunerative equivocation?"
"I have invented a new swindle, if that's what you mean," said Happy Fred. "At least, it's new enough for me. And the beauty of it is that you don't have to do anything criminal — anyway, not that anyone's ever going to know about. It's all quite straight and above-board, and whatever happens you can't get pinched for trying it, if you're clever enough about the way you work it."
"Have you made any practical experiments with this new method?" inquired Mr. Tillson.
"I haven't," said Happy Fred lugubriously. "And the trouble is that I can't. Here am I carrying this wonderful idea about with me, and I can't use it. That's why I've come to you. What I need, Broads, is a partner who won't double-cross me, who's clever with his hands and hasn't got any kind of police record. That's why I can't do it myself. The bloke who does this has got to be a respectable bloke that nobody can say anything against. And that's where you come in. I've been worrying about it for weeks, thinking of all the good money there is waiting for me to pick up, and wondering who I could find to come in with me that I could trust. And then just last night somebody told me that you were back; and I said to myself, 'Fred,' I said, 'Broads Tillson is the very man you want. He's the man who'll give you a square deal, and won't go and blow your idea about.' So I made up my mind to come and see you and see what you felt about it. I'm willing to give you my idea, Broads, and put up the capital — I've got a bit of money saved up — if you'll count me in fifty-fifty."
"What is this idea?" asked Mr. Tillson cautiously.
Happy Fred helped himself to another drink, swallowed half of it, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"It goes like this," he said, with the unconscious reverence of a poet introducing his latest brain-child to the world. "You go to one of the big jewellers, posing as a rich man who's got a little bit of stuff in Paris, see? That ought to be easy for you. You want to send this girl a lovely big diamond necklace or something out of his stock that you can get for about a thousand quid — that's as much as I can put up. This necklace has got to be sent by post, and so of course it's got to be insured. Now it's made into a parcel; and all this time you've got in your pocket another box about the same size, with pebbles in it to make it about the same weight. This is where the man who does it has got to be clever with his hands, like you are. As soon as the necklace has been packed in its box —"