Jacqueline opened her mouth again, but what she was going to say with it remained a permanently unsolved question, for at that moment the unnecessarily vigorous ringing of a bell stopped her short. The Saint cocked his ears speculatively at the sound and a rather pleased and seraphic smile worked itself into his face.
"I expect this is Harry coming back," he said. "He wasn't supposed to see me again until tomorrow but I suppose he couldn't wait. He's probably tried to ring me up at the address I had printed on my card and discovered that there ain't no such lawyers as I was supposed to represent. It will be rather interesting to hear what he has to say."
For once, however, Simon's guess was wrong. Instead of the indignant equine features of Harry Westler, he confronted the pink imploring features of the small and shapeless elderly gent with whom he had danced prettily around the gateposts the day before. The little man's face lighted up and he bounced over the doorstep and seized the Saint joyfully by both lapels of his coat.
"Mnynghlfwgl!" he crowed triumphantly. "Ahkgmp glglgl hndiuphwmp!"
Simon recoiled slightly.
"Yes. I know," he said soothingly. "But it's five o'clock on Fridays. Two dollars every other yard."
"Ogh hmbals!" said the little man.
He let go the Saint's coat, ducked under his arms and scuttled on into the living room.
"Oi!" said the Saint feebly.
"May I explain, sir?"
Another voice spoke from the doorway, and Simon perceived that the little man had not come alone. Someone else had taken his place on the threshold — a thin and mournful-looking individual whom the Saint somewhat pardonably took to be the little man's keeper.
"Are you looking after that?" he inquired resignedly. "And why don't you keep it on a lead?"
The mournful-looking individual shook his head.
"That is Mr. Horatio Ive, sir — he is a very rich man, but he suffers from an unfortunate impediment in his speech. Very few people can understand him. I go about with him as his interpreter, but I have been in bed for the last three days with a chill—"
A shrill war whoop from the other room interrupted the explanation.
"We'd better go and see how he's getting on," said the Saint.
"Mr. Ive is very impulsive, sir," went on the sad-looking interpreter. "He was most anxious to see somebody here, and even though I was unable to accompany him he has called here several times alone. I understand that he found it impossible to make himself understood. He practically dragged me out of bed to come with him now."
"What's he so excited about?" asked the Saint, as they walked towards the living room.
"He's interested in some letters, sir, belonging to the late Mrs. Laine. She happened to show them to him when they met once several years ago, and he wanted to buy them. She refused to sell them for sentimental reasons, but as soon as he read of her death he decided to approach her heirs."
"Are you talking about her love letters from a bird called Sidney Farlance?" Simon asked hollowly.
"Yes sir. The gentleman who worked in British Guiana. Mr. Ive is prepared to pay something like fifty thousand dollars — Is anything the matter, sir?"
Simon Templar swallowed.
"Oh, nothing," he said faintly. "Nothing at all."
They entered the living room to interrupt a scene of considerable excitement. Backing towards the wall, with a blank expression of alarm widening her eyes, Jacqueline Laine was staring dumbly at the small elderly gent, who was capering about in front of her like a frenzied redskin, spluttering yard after yard of his incomprehensible adenoidal honks interspersed with wild piercing squeaks apparently expressive of intolerable joy. In each hand he held an envelope aloft like a banner.
As his interpreter came in, he turned and rushed towards him, loosing off a fresh stream of noises like those of a hysterical duck.
"Mr. Ive is saying, sir," explained the interpreter, raising his voice harmoniously above the din, "that each of those envelopes bears a perfect example of the British Guiana one-cent magenta stamp of 1856, of which only one specimen was previously believed to exist. Mr. Ive is an ardent philatelist, sir, and these envelopes—"
Simon Templar blinked hazily at the small crudely printed stamp in the corner of the envelope which the little man was waving under his nose.
"You mean," he said cautiously, "that Mr. Ive is really only interested in the envelopes?"
"Yes sir."
"Not the letters themselves?"
"Not the letters."
"And he's been flapping around the house all this time trying to tell somebody about it?"
"Yes sir."
Simon Templar drew a deep breath. The foundations of the world were spinning giddily around his ears but his natural resilience was unconquerable. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow.
"In that case," he said contentedly, "I'm sure we can do business. What do you say, Jacqueline?"
Jacqueline clutched his arm and nodded breathlessly.
"Hlgagtsk sweghlemlgl," beamed Mr. Ive.
Part V
The benevolent burglary
"Louis Umbert?" Simon Templar repeated vaguely. "I don't know…. I think 1 read something about him in a newspaper some time ago, but I'm blowed if I can remember what it was. I can't keep track of every small-time crook in creation. What's he been doing?"
"I just thought you might know something about him," Chief Inspector Teal answered evasively.
He sat on the edge of a chair and turned his bowler hat in his pudgy hands, looking almost comically like an elephantine edition of an office-boy trying to put over a new excuse for taking an afternoon off. He glowered ferociously around the sunny room in which Simon was calmly continuing to eat breakfast, and racked his brain for inspiration to keep the interview going.
For the truth was that Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal had not called on the Saint for information about Mr. Louis Umbert. Or anybody else in the same category. He had a highly efficient Records Office at his disposal down at Scotland Yard, which was maintained for the sole purpose of answering questions like that. The name was simply an excuse that he had grabbed out of his head while he was on his way up in the lift. Because there was really only one lawbreaker about whom Teal needed to go to Simon Templar for information — and that was the Saint himself.
Not that even that was likely to be very profitable, either; but Teal couldn't help it. He made the pilgrimage in the same spirit as a man who had lived under the shadow of a volcano that had been quiescent for some time might climb up to peep into the crater, with the fond hope that it might be good enough to tell him when and how it next intended to erupt. He knew he was only making a fool of himself; but that was only part of the cross he had to bear. There were times when, however hard he tried to master them, the thoughts of all the lawless mischief which that tireless buccaneer might be cooking up in secret filled his mind with such horrific nightmares that he had to do something about them or explode. The trouble was that the only thing he could think of doing was to go and have another look at the Saint in person, as if he hoped that he would be lucky enough to arrive at the very moment when Simon had decided to write out his plans on a large board and wear them hung round his neck. The knowledge of his own futility raised Mr. Teal's blood pressure to the point that actively endangered his health; but he could no more have kept himself away from the Saint's apartment, when one of those fits of morbid uneasiness seized him, than he could have danced in a ballet.
He stuck a piece of chewing gum into his mouth and bit on it with massive violence, knowing perfectly well that the Saint knew exactly what was the matter with him, and that the Saint was probably trying politely not to laugh out loud. His smouldering eyes swivelled back to the Saint with belligerent defiance. If he caught so much as the shadow of a grin on that infernally handsome face…