"I see Morgan Dean of the Daily Mail over there," he said. "Suppose we each give him our checks for twenty thousand dollars. He can pay them into his own bank, and write a check for forty thousand when the bet's settled. Then there won't be any difficulty about the winner collecting. What about it, Dean?"
The columnist rubbed his chin.
"Sure," he drawled lugubriously. "My bank '11 probably die of shock, but I'll chance it."
"Then we're all set," said the Saint, taking out his checkbook. "Unless Mr Vascoe wants to back out . . ."
Mr Vascoe stared venomously from face to face. It was dawning on him that he was in a corner. If he had seen the faintest encouragement anywhere to laugh off the situation, he would have grabbed at the opportunity with both hands; but he looked for the encouragement in vain. He hadn't a single real friend in the room, and he was realist enough to know it. Already he could see heads being put together, could hear whispers. . . . He knew just what would be said if he backed down . . . and Morgan Dean would put the story on the front page. . . .
Vascoe drew himself up and a malignant glitter came into his small eyes.
"It suits me," he said swaggeringly. "Mr Dean will have my check this afternoon."
He stalked away, still fuming, and Morgan Dean's long sad face came closer to the Saint.
"Son," he said, "I like a good story as much as anyone. And I like you. And nobody 'd cheer louder than me if Vascoe took a brodie. But don't you think you've bitten off more than you can chew? I know how much Vascoe loves you, and I'd say he'd almost be glad to spend twenty grand to see you in jail. Besides, it wouldn't do you any good. You couldn't sell stuff like this."
"You could sell it without the slightest trouble," Simon contradicted him. "There are any number of collectors who aren't particular how they make their collections and who don't care if they can't show them to the public. And I've never been in jail, anyway--one ought to try everything once."
He spent the next hour going slowly round the exhibition, making careful written notes about the exhibits in his catalogue, while Vascoe watched him with his rage rising to the brink of apoplexy. He also examined all the windows and showcases, taking measurements and drawing diagrams with a darkly conspiratorial air, and only appearing to notice the existence of the two obvious detectives who followed him everywhere when he politely asked them not to breathe so heavily down his neck.
Fernack saw the headlines and nearly blew all the windows out of Centre Street. He burst into the Saint's apartment like a whirling dervish.
"What's the meaning of this?" he bugled brassily, thrusting a crumpled copy of the Daily Mail under the Saint's nose. "Come on--what is it?"
Simon looked at the quivering sheet.
" 'Film Star Says She Prefers Love,' " he read off it innocently. "Well, I suppose it means just that, Fernack. Some people are funny that way."
"I mean this!" blared the detective, dabbing at Morgan Dean's headline with a stubby forefinger. "I've warned you once, Templar; and, by God, if you try to win this bet I'll get you for it if it's the last thing I do!"
The Saint lighted a cigarette and leaned back.
"Aren't you being just a little bit hasty?" he inquired reasonably; but his blue eyes were twinkling with imps of mockery that sent cold shivers up and down the detective's spine. "All I've done is to bet that there'll be a burglary at Vascoe's within the week. It may be unusual, but is it criminal? If I were an insurance company----"
"You aren't an insurance company," Fernack said pungently. "But you wouldn't make a bet like that if you thought there was any risk of losing it."
"That's true. But that still doesn't make me a burglar. Maybe I was hoping to put the idea into somebody else's head. Now if you want to give your nasty suspicious mind something useful to work on, why don't you find out something about Vascoe's insurance ?"
For a moment the audacity of the suggestion took Fernack's breath away. And then incredulity returned to his rescue.
"Yeah--and see if I can catch him burgling his own house so he can lose twenty thousand dollars!" He hooted. "Do you know what would happen if I let my suspicious mind have its own way? I'd have you arrested for vagrancy and keep you locked up for the rest of the week!"
The Saint nodded enthusiastically.
"Why don't you do that?" he suggested. "It 'd give me a gorgeous alibi."
Fernack glared at him thoughtfully. The temptation to take the Saint at his word was almost overpowering. But the tantalizing twinkle in the Saint's eyes and the memory of many past encounters with the satanic guile of that debonair freebooter, filled Fernack's heated brain with a gnawing uneasiness that paralyzed him. The Saint must have considered that contingency: if Fernack carried out his threat, he might be doing the very thing that the Saint expected and wanted him to do--he might be walking straight into a baited trap that would elevate him to new pinnacles of ridiculousness before it turned him loose. The thought made him go hot and cold all over.
Which was exactly what Simon meant it to do.
"When I put you in the cooler," Fernack proclaimed loudly, "you're going to stay there for more than a week."
He stormed out of the apartment and went to interview Vascoe.
"With your permission, sir," he said, "I'd like to post enough men around this house to make it impossible for a mouse to get in."
Vascoe shook his head.
"I haven't asked for protection," he said coldly. "If you did that, the Saint would be forced to abandon the attempt. I should prefer him to make it. The Ingerbeck Agency is already employed to protect my collection. There are two armed guards in the house all day, and another man on duty all night. And the place is fitted with the latest burglar alarms. The only way it could be successfully robbed would be by an armed gang, and we know that the Saint doesn't work that way. No, Inspector. Let him get in. He won't find it so easy to get out again. And then I'll be very glad to send for you."
Fernack argued, but Vascoe was obstinate. He almost succeeded in convincing the detective of the soundness of his reasoning. There would be no triumph or glory in merely preventing the Saint from getting near the house, but to catch him red-handed would be something else again. Nevertheless, Fernack would have felt happier if he could have convinced himself that the Saint was possible to catch.
"At least, you'd better let me post one of my own men outside," he said.
"You will do nothing of the sort," Vascoe said curtly. "The Saint would recognize him a mile off. The police have had plenty of opportunities to catch him before this and I don't remember your making any brilliant use of them."
Fernack left the house in an even sourer temper than he had entered it, and if he had been a private individual he would have satisfied himself that anything that happened to Vascoe or his art treasures would be richly deserved. Unfortunately his duty didn't allow him to dispose of the matter so easily. He had another stormy interview with the Assistant Commissioner, who for the first time in history was sympathetic.
"You've done everything you could, Mr Fernack,"
he said. "If Vascoe refuses to give us any assistance he can't expect much."
"The trouble is that if anything goes wrong, that won't stop him squawking," Fernack said gloomily.
Of all the persons concerned, Simon Templar was probably the most untroubled. For two days he peacefully followed the trivial rounds of his normal law-abiding life; and the plain-clothes men whom Fernack had set to watch him, in spite of his instructions, grew bored with their vigil.
At about two o'clock in the morning of the third day his telephone rang.
"This is Miss Vascoe's chauffeur, sir," said the caller. "She couldn't reach a telephone herself so she asked me to speak to you. She said that she must see you."