"I'm terribly sorry," he repeated. "My oil pressure started to drop rather quickly, and I had to come down where I could. I don't think I've done any damage. If you can direct me to the village, I'll arrange to get the machine moved as quickly as possible."
"One of the servants will show you the way."'
Renway looked up with his complacent squint and glanced at the gardener, who put away his pruning knife and dusted his hands.
"It's very good of you," said the Saint; and then an unfortunate accident happened.
He was carrying a valise in one hand, which he had taken out of the machine and brought with him. It could not have been very securely fastened, for at that moment it fell open.
A cascade of shirts, socks, pyjamas, shaving tackle, and similar impedimenta might not have distracted Renway for more than a couple of seconds from his horticultural absorption; but nothing of the kind fell out. Instead, the valise emptied itself of a heavy load of small square tins such as cough lozenges are sold in. The tins did, in fact, carry printed labels proclaiming their contents to be cough lozenges; but one of them burst open in its fall and scattered a small snowfall of white powder over the path.
Simon dropped on his knees and shoveled the tins back with rather unsteady hands, forcing them into the attache case with more haste than efficiency. He scraped the white powder clumsily back into the one which had burst open; and when Renway touched him on the shoulder he jumped.
"Pardon my curiosity," said Renway, with unexpected suaveness, "but you have the most unusual luggage."
Simon laughed somewhat shortly.
"Yes, I suppose it is. I'm the Continental traveller for--er--some patent-medicine manufacturers------"
"I see."
Renway looked back at the aeroplane again; and again his hands tensed involuntarily at his sides. And then, once more, he looked at the Saint. Simon forced the last tin into his case, crammed the locks together, and straightened up.
"I'm awfully sorry to give you so much trouble," he said.
"Not at all." Renway's voice was dry, unnatural. He was aghast at himself, sweating coldly under the arms at the realization of what he was doing; but he spoke without any conscious volition. The jangling of his nerves forced him on, provided the motive power for the fantastic inspiration which had seized him. "In fact, my chauffeur can drive into Folkestone himself and make the necessary arrangements, while you stay here. You can give him instructions; and it's sure to mean a good deal of waiting about. I surrpose the authorities will have to be notified . . ."
He was watching the pilot closely when he uttered that last sentence, although the cast in his eye made him appear to be staring past him; and he did not miss the slight instantaneous tightening of the dangerous mouth.
"Oh, I couldn't possibly let you do that," Simon protested. "I've given you quite enough trouble as it is-----"
"Not a bit of it," insisted Renway, still watching him.
He was quite sure now. The pilot stiffened almost imperceptibly--Renway saw the shift off his eyes and the whitening of his knuckles on the hand which clutched the valise, and went on with more pronounced assurance: "It's no trouble at all to me, and my chauffeur has far too little to do. Besides, that landing must have given you one or two bad moments; and I'm sure you wouldn't refuse a drink. Come along up to the house, my dear fellow, and let me "see what I can find for you."
He took the Saint's arm and led him away with a grim cordiality which it would have been difficult to resist---even if Simon had wanted to. They went through a small rockery up to the tennis lawn, across the lawn to a paved terrace, through open French windows into a rather stuffy library.
"Will you have a cigarette--or is it too early for a cigar?"
Simon took a cigarette and lighted it while Renway rang the bell.
"Sit down, Mr.--er------"
"Tombs."
"Sit down, Mr. Tombs."
The Saint sat on the edge of a plush armchair and smoked in silence until the butler answered the bell. Renway ordered drinks, and the butler went out again. The silence went on. Renway went over to a window and stood there, humming unmusically to himself.
"Awkward thing to have happen to you," ventured the Saint.
Renway half turned his head.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said, it's an awkward thing to have happened to you--oil pressure going down."
"Quite," said Renway and went on humming.
The butler came in with a tray, put it down, and departed. Renway crossed over to it and poured whisky into two glasses.
"Soda?"
"Thanks."
Renway worked the siphon and handed over the drink. Then he took up his own glass; and abruptly, as if he were blurting out something which he had been mustering his determination to say for several minutes, he snapped: "I suppose you don't think I believe that story of yours about being a patent-medicine salesman?"
"Don't you?" said the Saint evasively.
"Of course not. I know cocaine when I see it."
Simon, who had carefully rilled all his tins with boracic, wanted to smile. But he glanced apprehensively at the valise, which he had put down beside his chair, and then hardened his face into an ineffective mask.
"But don't worry," said Renway. "I'm not going to tell the police. It's none of my business. I'm only wondering why a fellow like you--clever, daring, a good pilot--why you should waste your time over small stuff like that."
Simon licked his lips.
"It isn't so very small. And what else is there for me to do? There aren't so many jobs going these days for an out-of-work ace. You know yourself that war heroes are two a penny nowadays. I'm desperate enough to take the risk; and I want the money."
"You'll never make a million out of it."
"If you know anything that I can make a million out of, I'll do it." .
Renway swallowed another gulp of whisky and put down his glass. In the last few moments the jangling of his nerves seemed to have risen to a pitch at which anything might crack. And yet it was without the tense wearing raggedness that he had felt before--he had a crazy breathless presentiment of success, waiting for him to grasp if he risked the movement. It had come miraculously, incredibly, literally out of the blue; and it was all personified in the broad-shouldered blue-eyed shape of the dangerous young man whose leather coat filled his armchair. Renway wiped his mouth on a silk handkerchief and tucked it away.
"Tomorrow morning," he said, "an aeroplane will leave Croydon for Paris with about ten tons of gold on board--as a matter of fact, the value will be exactly three million pounds. It is going to be shot down over the Channel, and the gold is going to be stolen. If you were desperate enough, you would be the man to do it."
VII
Simon Templar did not need to act. The peculiar stillness that settled over him called for no simulation. It was as starkly genuine as any expression his face had ever worn.
And far back in the dim detached recesses of consciousness he was bowing down before the ever-lasting generosity of fortune. He had taken that wide sweep out over the sea and choked his engine over the cliffs at the southern boundary of March House, staged his whole subsequent demonstration of guilt and truculence, rolled the dice down the board from beginning to end with nothing more substantial behind the play than a vast open-minded optimism; but the little he knew and the little he had guessed, the entire nebulous theory which had given him the idea of establishing himself as a disreputable airman, was revealed to be so grotesquely inadequate that he was temporarily speechless. His puerile stratagem ought to have gained him nothing more than a glimpse of March House from the inside and a quick passage to the nearest police station; instead of which, it had flung doors wide open into something which even now he could scarcely believe in cold blood.
"It couldn't be done," he said at length.
"It can be done by a few men with the courage to take big chances for a share in three million pounds," said Renway. "I have all the necessary information. I have everything organized. The only thing I need to make it certain is the perfect pilot."