Leslie Charteris - The Saint Intervenes

The Saint was sublimely sure that Louie Fallon was unlucky, but he did not dream of saying so. He allowed his face to become illumined with a light of breathless cupidity which was everything that Mr. Fallon had desired.

"Well," he said hesitantly, "if you've really taken a fancy to me and I can do anything to help you—"

Louie stared at him for a moment incredulously, as if he had never dared to hope that such a miracle could happen.

"No," he said at length, covering his eyes wearily, "it couldn't be true. My luck can't have changed. You wouldn't do a thing like that for a perfect stranger."

During the conversation that followed, however, it appeared that Louie's luck had indeed changed. His new-found friend, it seemed, was quite prepared to do such a service for a perfect stranger. They talked for another hour, discussing ways and means, and occasionally referring in a gentlemanly way to terms of business; then they went out to lunch in an aura of mutual admiration and regard, and discussed the fortunes which they would assist each other to make; and when they finally separated, the Saint had agreed to meet Mr. Fallon again the following day, bringing with him (in cash) the sum of two thousand pounds which he was to invest in the new industry, on an equal partership basis, as a guarantee of his good faith.

Simon went off with Louie Fallon's diamond in his pocket. As a purely formal precaution, he took it round to a diamond merchant of his acquaintance who pronounced it to be unquestionably genuine; and then he proceeded somewhat light-headedly to make some curious purchases.

The clouds of ill-starred melancholy seemed to have dispersed themselves from Mr. Fallon's sky overnight; for when he opened the door to Simon Templar the next day he was beaming. The flat, Simon noticed, was in some disorder, and there were three freshly labelled suitcases standing in the hall.

"I hope I'm not late," said the Saint anxiously.

"Only a minute or two," said Louie heartily. "It's my own fault that it seems longer. I was just nervous. I guess I couldn't believe that my luck had really changed until I saw you on the step. You see, I've got my tickets and everything — I'm ready to go as soon as everything's fixed up."

The Saint believed him. As soon as everything had been fixed up in the way Louie intended, Mr. Fallon would be likely to go as fast and far as the conveniences of modern travel would take him. Simon made vague noises of sympathy and encouragement, and followed his benefactor into the living-room.

"There's the contract, all drawn up ready," said Louie, producing a large and impressive-looking document with fat red seals attached to it. "All you've got to do is to sign on the dotted line and put in your capital, and you're in charge of the whole business. After that, if you send me two or three hundred pounds a week out of the profits, I'll be quite happy, and I don't much care what you do with the rest."

With all the eagerness that was expected of him, Simon sat down at the table, glanced over the document, and signed his name over the dotted line as requested. Then he took out his wallet and counted out a sheaf of crisp new banknotes; and Louie picked them up and counted them again with slightly unsteady fingers.

"Well, now," said the Saint, "if that's all settled, hadn't you better show me your process?"

"I've written it all out for you—"

"Oh, yes, I'd want that. But couldn't we try it over now just to make sure that I understand it properly?"

"Certainly, my dear chap — certainly." Mr. Fallon pushed up his sleeve to look at his watch, and appeared to make a calculation. "I don't know whether I'll have time to see the experiment right through to the end, but once you've got it started you can't possibly go wrong. It's absolutely foolproof. Come along."

They went into the bathroom and Simon poured out magnesium and iron filings into the crucible exactly as he had seen Louie doing the previous day. The composition of the powder from which the diamonds were actually made gave him more trouble — it was apparently made up of the contents of various other unlabelled bottles, mixed up in certain complicated proportions. It was at this stage in the proceedings that the Saint appeared to become unexpectedly stupid and clumsy. He poured out too much from one bottle and spilt most of the contents of another on to the floor.

"You'll have to be more careful than that," said Louie, pursing his lips, "but I can see you've got the idea. Well, now, if I'm goin' to catch my train—"

"I'd like to finish the job," said the Saint, "even if the mixture has gone wrong. After all, I may as well know if there are any other mistakes I'm likely to make." He put a match to his mixture and stepped back while it flared up. Louie watched this studiously.

"I don't expect you'll get any results," he said, "but it can't do any harm for you to get some practice. Now as soon as the thing's properly white hot—"

He supervised the tipping of the contents of the crucible into the cooler indulgently. He had no cause for alarm. The proportions of the mixture were admittedly wrong, which was a perfectly sound reason to give for the inevitable failure of the experiment. He puffed at his cigar complacently, while the Saint went down on his knees and groped around in the cooling tank.

Then something seemed to go wrong with the mechanism of Mr. Fallon's heart, and for a full five seconds he was unable to breathe. His eyes bulged, and the smug tolerance froze out of his face as if it had been nipped in the bud by the same antarctic zephyr that was playing weird tricks up and down his spine. For the Saint had straightened up again with an exclamation of delight; and in the palm of his hand he displayed three little round grey pebbles.

The chill wind that was playing tricks with Louie Fallon's backbone whistled up into his head and brought out beads of cold perspiration on his brow. For a space of time that seemed to him like three or four years, he experienced all the sensations of a man who has sold somebody a pup and seen it turn out into a pedigree prizewinner. The memory of all the hours of time, all the pounds of hard-earned money, and all the tormenting day-dreams, which he had spent on his own futile experiments, flooded back into his mind in an interval of exquisite anguish that made him feel faintly sick. If he had never believed any of the stories he told about his hard luck before, he believed them all now, and more also. The smile of happy vindication on the Saint's face was in itself an insult that made Louie's blood ferment in his veins. He felt exactly as if he had been run over by a steam roller and then invited to admire his own remarkable flatness.

"Here, wait a minute," he said hoarsely. "That isn't possible!"

"Anyway, it's happened," answered the Saint with irrefutable logic.

Louie swallowed, and picked up one of the stones which the Saint was holding. He knew enough about such things to realise that it was indubitably an uncut diamond — not quite so big as the one which he himself claimed to have made, but easily worth a hundred pounds in the ordinary market nevertheless.

"Try it again," he said huskily. "Can you remember exactly what you did last time?"

The Saint thought he could remember. He tried it again, while Louie watched him with his eyes almost popping out of his head, and his mouth hungrily half open. He himself fished in the cooling tank as soon as the steam had dispersed, and he found two more diamonds embedded in the clinker at the bottom.

Louie Fallon had nothing to say for a long time. He paced up and down the small room, scratching his head, in the throes of the fastest thinking he had ever done in his life. Somehow or other, heaven alone knew how, the young sap who was gloating inanely over his prowess had stumbled accidentally upon the formula which Mr. Fallon had sought for half his life in vain. And the young sap had just paid over two thousand pounds, and received in return his portion of the signed contract which entitled him to a half-share in all the proceeds of the invention. By fair means or foul — preferably more or less fair, for Mr. Fallon was not by nature a violent man — that contract had to be recovered. There was only one way to recover it that Mr. Fallon could see; it was a painful way, but with so much at stake Louie Fallon was no piker.