The solicitor placed the tips of his fingers together with a discreet modicum of satisfaction.
“I take it that you are prepared to accept our offer?”
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t. A pal of mine who came over the other day told me there was a dam good show at the Folies Bergère, and since you’re only young once—”
“Doubtless you will be permitted to include the entertainment in your bill of expenses,” said the solitictor dryly. “If the notice is not too short, we should be very pleased if you were free to visit the — ah — Folies Bergère to-morrow night.”
“Suits me,” murmured the Saint laconically.
The solicitor rose.
“You will travel by air, of course,” he said. “I shall return later this evening to deliver the package into your keeping, after which you will be solely responsible. If I might give you a hint, Mr. Templar,” he added, as the Saint shepherded him to the door, “you will take particular pains to conceal it while you are traveling. It has been suggested to us that the French police are not incorruptible.”
He repeated his warning when he came back at six o’clock and left Simon with a brown-paper packet about four inches square and two inches deep, in which the outlines of a stout cardboard box could be felt. Simon weighed the package several times in his hand — it was neither particularly light nor particularly heavy, and he puzzled over its possible contents for some time. The address to which it was to be delivered was typed on a plain sheet of paper; Simon committed it to memory, and burnt it.
Curiosity was the Saint’s weakness. It was that same insatiable curiosity which had made his fortune, for he was incapable of looking for long at anything that struck him as being the least bit peculiar without succumbing to the temptation to probe deeper into its peculiarities. It never entered his head to betray the confidence that had been placed in him, so far as the safety of the package was concerned; but the mystery of its contents was one which he considered had a definite bearing on whatever risks he had agreed to take. He fought off his curiosity until he got up the next morning, and then it got the better of him. He opened the packet after his early breakfast, carefully removing the seals intact with a hot palette-knife, and was very glad that he had done so.
When he drove down to Croydon aerodrome later the package had been just as carefully refastened, and no one would have known that it had been opened. He carried it inside a book, from which he had cut the printed part of the pages to leave a square cavity encircled by the margins; and he was prepared for trouble.
He checked in his suit-case and waited around patiently during the dilatory system of preparations which for some extraordinary reason is introduced to negative the theoretical speed of air transport. He was fishing out his cigarette-case for the second time when a dark and strikingly pretty girl, who had been waiting with equal patience, came over and asked him for a light.
Simon produced his lighter, and the girl took a packet of cigarettes from her bag and offered him one.
“Do they always take as long as this?” she asked.
“Always when I’m traveling,” said the Saint resignedly. “Another thing I should like to know is why they have to arrange their timetables so that you never have the chance to get a decent lunch. Is it for the benefit of the French restaurants at dinner-time?”
She laughed. “Are we fellow passengers?”
“I don’t know. I’m for Paris.”
“I’m for Ostend.”
The Saint sighed.
“Couldn’t you change your mind and come to Paris?”
He had taken one puff from the cigarette. Now he took a second, while she eyed him impudently. The smoke had an unfamiliar, slightly bitter taste to it. Simon drew on the cigarette again thoughtfully, but this time he held the smoke in his mouth and let it trickle out again presently, as if he had inhaled. The expression on his face never altered, although the last thing he had expected had been trouble of that sort.
“Do you think we could take a walk outside?” said the girl. “I’m simply stifling.”
“I think it might be a good idea,” said the Saint.
He walked out with her into the clear morning sunshine, and they strolled idly along the gravel drive. The rate of exchange had done a great deal to discourage foreign travel that year, and the airport was unusually deserted. A couple of men were climbing out of a car that had drawn up beside the building; but apart from them there was only one other car turning in at the gates leading from the main road, and a couple of mechanics were fussing round a gigantic Handley-Page that was ticking over on the tarmac.
“Why did you give me a doped cigarette?” asked the Saint with perfect casualness; but as the girl turned and stared at him his eyes leapt to hers with the cold suddenness of bared steel.
“I–I don’t understand. Do you mind telling me what you mean?”
Simon dropped the cigarette and trod on it deliberately. “Sister,” he said, “if you’re thinking of a Simon Templar who was born yesterday, let me tell you it was someone else of the same name. You know, I was playing that cigarette trick before you cut your teeth.”
The girl’s hand went to her mouth; then it went up in a kind of wave. For a moment the Saint was perplexed; and then he started to turn. She was looking at something over his shoulder, but his head had not revolved far enough to see what it was before the solid weight of a sandbag slugged viciously into the back of his neck. He had one instant of feeling his limbs sagging powerlessly under him, while the book he carried dropped from his hand and sprawled open to the ground; and then everything went dark.
He came back to earth in a small barely-furnished office overlooking the landing-field, and in the face that was bending over him he recognised the round pink countenance of Chief Inspector Teal, of Scotland Yard.
“Were you the author of that clout?” he demanded, rubbing the base of his skull tenderly. “I didn’t think you could be so rough.”
“I didn’t do it,” said the detective shortly. “But we’ve got the man who did — if you want to charge him. I thought you’d have known Kate Allfield, Saint.”
Simon looked at him.
“What — not ‘the Mug’? I have heard of her, but this is the first time we’ve met. And she nearly made me smoke a sleepy cigarette!” He grimaced. “What was the idea?”
“That’s what we’re waiting for you to tell us,” said Teal grimly. “We drove in just as they knocked you out. We know what they were after all right — the Deacon’s gang beat them to the necklace, but that wouldn’t make the Green Cross bunch give up. What I want to know is when you started working with the Deacon.”
“This is right over my head,” said the Saint, just as bluntly. “Who is this Deacon, and who the hell are the Green Cross bunch?”
Teal faced him calmly.
“The Green Cross bunch are the ones that slugged you. The Deacon is the head of the gang that got away with the Palfrey jewels yesterday. He came to see you twice yesterday afternoon — we got the wire that he was planning a big job and we were keeping him under observation, but the jewels weren’t missed till this morning. Now I’ll hear what you’ve got to say; but before you begin I’d better warn you—”
“Wait a minute.” Simon took out his cigarette-case and helped himself to a smoke. “With an unfortunate reputation like mine, I expect it’ll take me some time to drive it into your head that I don’t know a thing about the Deacon. He came to me yesterday and said he was a solicitor — he wanted me to look after a valuable sealed packet that he was sending over to Paris, and I took on the job. That’s all. He wouldn’t even tell me what was in it.”
“Oh, yes?” The detective was dangerously polite. “Then I suppose it’d give you the surprise of your life if I told you that that package you were carrying contained a diamond necklace valued at about eight thousand pounds?”