Leslie Charteris - Saint Errant

And then, almost as the words were forming, the mind’s eye of the Saint visualized a long succession of such brush-offs and he reflected on how small a price was the cost of a drink in return for gratitude in the mild eyes of a lonely old character.

“I don’t know the going rate on marvels in these degenerate times,” said the Saint gently, “but one drink sounds fair enough.”

“Double?” spoke the old-timer hopefully.

The bartender halted the bottle in mid-flight and again the Saint felt a tensing among the habitués along the brass rail.

“Double,” Simon agreed, and the bartender relaxed as if a great decision had been reached, and finished pouring the drink.

The little man lifted a battered canvas grip and placed it tenderly on the bar. He reached for the drink and lifted it toward his lips. Then he set the drink back on the bar and drew himself up to a dignified five feet five.

“Beggin’ your parding, mister — James Aloysius McDill, an’ your servant.”

“Simon Templar, and yours, sir,” the Saint said gravely.

He lifted his own drink and they clinked glasses in solemn ritual, after which James Aloysius McDill demonstrated just how quickly a double bourbon can slide down a human throat. Then he opened his shabby bag, and took out an oblong box of lovingly polished wood.

It was very much like a small table-model radio. A pair of broad-faced dials on its upper surface sported impressive indicator needles. There was a stirrup handle at either end of the box and a sort of sliding scale on top.

“Nice-lookin’ job, ain’t she?” the little man appealed to the Saint.

“Mighty pretty,” responded the Saint, gazing at it as intelligently as he would have surveyed a cyclotron.

The little man beamed. He spoke diffidently to the bartender.

“Got a silver dollar, Frank?”

The bartender obliged, with the air of one who has done this before, and the other customers duplicated his ennui. Once the Saint succumbed to the pitch for a double rye, the show was pretty well routined.

J. Aloysius McDill tossed the silver dollar across the room. It landed in the sawdust on the floor with a dull thump.

“Watch,” he said.

He turned a switch, made some adjustments, and grasped the handles on the varnished box, which thereupon emitted a low hymenopterous humming, and advanced upon the dollar like a hunter stalking skittish game. As he neared the coin, the humming began to keen up the scale. He stood still, and the sound held steady; again toward the dollar and the wail of the box slid up and up until, held directly above the coin, it gave forth the whine of a band saw eating into a pine knot.

The Saint walked over and inspected the setup. He picked up the dollar and tossed it back to the bartender.

“Let’s see what it does about this change in my pocket,” he said, slapping his trouser leg.

Mr McDill moved the device over the indicated area, but the humming remained at a low murmur. He ceased his efforts and grinned.

“You ain’t got any change in your pocket, mister.”

Grinning in turn, the Saint pulled out the pocket. It was empty.

“Can’t fool the Doodlebug,” said McDill complacently. “See” — he held the box for the Saint to look at — “it works the same way for any other kind o’ metal.”

The Saint duly noted the markings etched along the sliding scale on top. He moved the indicator to “Gold,” and the Doodlebug, which had been humming like a happy bee, suddenly whined like an angry mosquito. The Saint jerked back his left wrist with the gold watch on it, and the machine dropped again to a gentle hum. McDill set it on the bar, and it fell completely silent.

“Ain’t she a beauty?” the little man demanded.

“Lovely,” Simon agreed. “Just what you need any time you drop a silver dollar.”

“She’s good for more than that,” said McDill. “She’ll find the stuff they make dollars out of. That’s why she’s so beautiful. Takes the guesswork out of prospectin’.”

“Aw, yes,” Simon said. “Have you tested her in the field yet, Mr McDill?”

A rattle of laughter cackled across the barroom. It was as though a whiplash had been laid across the face of the little man; he flinched.

“Ask him,” drawled one of the audience, “why his dingus ain’t located no claims yet, if it’s so good.”

McDill faced the speaker, his chin high.

“Jest ain’t happened to look in the right places, that’s all,” he said stoutly, but there was a quaver in his voice. He turned to Simon. “You’ve seen her, mister. You’ve seen what she can do. All I need’s a grubstake and a little equipment. If you was, maybe, interested in minin’, we c’d be pardners.”

The Saint saw the general merriment waxing along the bar again, and had one of his ready quixotic impulses.

“Well, Mr McDill,” he said in a loud clear voice, “mining’s a little out of my own line, but I have a friend I might be able to interest. I’m certainly impressed by your demonstration. Here’s my San Francisco address.” He scribbled on a card and handed it to James Aloysius McDill, then he dug into another pocket. “And here’s fifty dollars for a week’s option on your gadget.”

He was aware of glasses being set down all along the bar, of incredulous eyes appraising his well-cut gabardines and evaluating, but it was mostly McDill’s reaction that he cared about.

The blue eyes in the seamed old face flamed with happiness. They could not resist a single triumphant glance at the hangers-on, then the little man’s hand stuck straight out.

“Put ’er there, Mr Templar,” he said, with a ring in his voice. “I’ll be right here, any time your pardner wants me. Bonanza City Hotel.”

Simon shook the thin callused hand, and beckoned the bartender. No longer bored, a sycophant stepped up with alacrity.

“Yes, sir!”

“The same, for Mr McDill and myself,” ordered the Saint. “Double,” he added.

He drove away from the Bonanza City Hotel through the light bright California sunshine bearing within him a warmth entirely unconnected with alcoholic potations, and pondering on the varied expressions of man’s unending search for riches. Perhaps that was what had moved him to dawdle on back roads and in odd corners of the old gold-rush country for a full three days on his way to San Francisco. When the mood was on him, the Saint enjoyed the exploration of seemingly useless, if fascinating, trivia — in this instance, the dreaming gold camps and ghost towns of the forty-niners.

It was a penchant which sometimes paid surprising dividends, so that the Saint had come to have an almost superstitious faith in his infallible destiny, but in this case the connection came even faster and more unexpectedly than usual.

He had been installed in rooms in the Fairmont, high on Nob Hill, for the duration of a sleep and a breakfast, when his telephone asserted itself, for the first time since his arrival.

“I’ve called every day since I got your card,” said Larry Phelan, “and I was pretty sure you’d show up within the year. What trouble did you come here to stir up?”

“None at all,” said the Saint virtuously. “I am on a vacation, and I have taken a vow to right no wrong, rescue no young ladies in distress, and acquire no money by fair means or foul, until further notice.”

“That’s fine,” said Phelan. “There’s nothing in your vow about rescuing old ladies in distress, is there?”

“Not so fast,” said the Saint. “Whose old lady is in distress?”

“My old lady, if you must know.”

“Your mother?”

“None other.”

“This,” said the Saint, “is beginning to sound like a Gilbert and Sullivan duet. You can buy me lunch and tell me all about it.”