Simon Templar, who sooner or later made the acquaintance of practically everyone who was collecting too much money with too little reason, heard of him first from Rosalind Hale, who had been one of those clients; and she brought him her story for the same reason that many other people who had been foolish would often come to Simon Templar with their troubles, as if the words "The Saint" had some literally supernatural significance, instead of being merely the nickname with which he had once incongruously been christened.
"I thought it was only the sensible thing to do — to get some proper training — and his advertisements looked genuine. You wouldn't think those film stars would let him use their names for a fraud, would you?
…I suppose I was a fool, but I'd played in some amateur things, and people who weren't trying to flatter me said I was good, and I really believed I'd got it in me, sort of instinctively. And some of the people who believe they've got it in them must be right, and they must do something about it, or else there wouldn't be any actors and actresses at all, would there?… And really I'm — I — well, I don't make you shudder when you look at me, do I?"
This at least was beyond argument, unless the looker was a crusted misogynist, which the Saint very firmly was not. She had an almost childishly heart-shaped face, with small features that were just far enough from perfection to be exciting, and her figure had just enough curves in just the right places.
The Saint smiled at her without any cynicism.
"And when you came into this money…"
"Well, it looked just like the chance I'd been dreaming about. But I still wanted to be intelligent about it and not go dashing off to Hollywood to turn into a waitress, or spend my time sitting in producers' waiting rooms hoping they'd notice me and just looking dumb when they asked if I had any experience, or anything like that. That's why I went to Quarterstone. And he said I'd got everything, and I only wanted a little schooling. I paid him five hundred dollars for a course of lessons, and then another five hundred for an advanced course, and then another five hundred for a movie course and by that time he'd been talking to me so that he'd found out all about that legacy, and that was when his friend came in and they got me to give them four thousand dollars to put that play on."
"In which you were to play the lead."
"Yes, and—"
"The play never did go on."
She nodded, and the moistness of her eyes made them shine like jewels. She might not have been outstandingly intelligent, she might or might not have had any dramatic talent, but her own drama was real. She was crushed, frightened, dazed, wounded in the deep and desperate way that a child is hurt when it has innocently done something disastrous, as if she was still too stunned to realize what she had done.
Some men might have laughed, but the Saint didn't laugh. He said in his quiet friendly way: "I suppose you checked up on your legal position?"
"Yes. I went to see a lawyer. He said there wasn't anything I could do. They'd been too clever. I couldn't prove that I'd been swindled. There really was a play and it could have been put on, only the expenses ran away with all the money before that, and I hadn't got any more, and apparently that often happens, and you couldn't prove it was a fraud. I just hadn't read the contracts and things properly when I signed them, and Urlaub — that's Quarterstone's friend — was entitled to spend all that money, and even if he was careless and stupid you couldn't prove it was criminal… I suppose it was my own fault and I've no right to cry about it, but it was everything I had, and I'd given up my job as well, and — well, things have been pretty tough. You know."
He nodded, straightening a cigarette with his strong brown fingers.
All at once the consciousness of what she was doing now seemed to sweep over her, leaving her tongue-tied. She had to make an effort to get out the last words that everything else had inevitably been leading up to.
"I know I'm crazy and I've no right, but could you — could you think of anything to do about it?"
He went on looking at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then, incredulously, she suddenly realized that he was smiling, and that his smile was still without satire.
"I could try," he said.
He stood up, long immaculately tailored legs gathering themselves with the lazy grace of a tiger, and all at once she found something in his blue eyes that made all the legends about him impossible to question. It was as if he had lifted all the weight off her shoulders without another word when he stood up.
"One of the first things I should prescribe is a man-sized lunch," he said. "A diet of doughnuts and coffee never produced any great ideas."
When he left her it was still without any more promises, and yet with a queer sense of certainty that was more comforting than any number of promises.
The Saint himself was not quite so certain; but he was interested, which perhaps meant more. He had that impetuously human outlook which judged an adventure on its artistic quality rather than on the quantity of boodle which it might contribute to his unlawful income. He liked Rosalind Hale, and he disliked men such as Mr. Homer Quarterstone and Comrade Urlaub sounded as if they would be; more than that, perhaps, he disliked rackets that preyed on people to whom a loss of four thousand dollars was utter tragedy. He set out that same afternoon to interview Mr. Quarter-stone.
The Supremax Academy occupied the top floor and one room on the street level of a sedate old-fashioned building in the West Forties; but the entrance was so cunningly arranged and the other intervening tenants so modestly unheralded that any impressionable visitor who presented himself first at the ground-floor room labelled "Inquiries," and who was thence whisked expertly into the elevator and upwards to the rooms above, might easily have been persuaded that the whole building was taken up with various departments of the Academy, a hive buzzing with ambitious Thespian bees. The brassy but once luscious blonde who presided in the Inquiry Office lent tone to this idea by saying that Mr. Quarterstone was busy, very busy, and that it was customary to make appointments with him some days in advance; when she finally organized the interview it was with the regal generosity of a slightly flirtatious goddess performing a casual miracle for an especially favoured and deserving suitor — a beautifully polished routine that was calculated to impress prospective clients from the start with a gratifying sense of their own importance.
Simon Templar was always glad of a chance to enjoy his own importance, but on this occasion he regretfully had to admit that so much flattery was undeserved, for instead of his own name he had cautiously given the less notorious name of Tombs. This funereal anonymity, however, cast no shadow over the warmth of Mr. Quarterstone's welcome.
"My dear Mr. Tombs! Come in. Sit down. Have a cigarette."
Mr. Quarterstone grasped him with large warm hands, wrapped him up, transported him tenderly and installed him in an armchair like a collector enshrining a priceless piece of fragile glass. He fluttered anxiously round him, pressing a cigarette into the Saint's mouth and lighting it before he retired reluctantly to his own chair on the other side of the desk.
"And now, my dear Mr. Tombs," said Mr. Quarter-stone at last, clasping his hands across his stomach, "how can I help you?"
Simon looked at his hands, his feet, the carpet, the wall and then at Mr. Quarterstone.
"Well," he said bashfully, "I wanted to inquire about some dramatic lessons."
"Some — ah — oh yes. You mean a little advanced coaching. A little polishing of technique?"
"Oh no," said the Saint hastily. "I mean, you know your business, of course, but I'm only a beginner."
Mr. Quarterstone sat up a little straighter and gazed at him.