Андрей Л.Рюмин: 03 Enter the Saint

He was engaged in this pleasant pursuit towards 8 o'clock on a certain evening when Jerry Stannard arrived. "Has Mr. Hayn come in yet, Danny?"

Danny made a pencil note of the number of pounds which he had laboriously calculated that Wilco would have in hand over Man of Kent in the Lingfield Plate, folded his paper, and looked up. "He don't usually come in till late, Mr. Stannard," he said. "No, he ain't here now."

Danny's utterances always contrived to put the cart before the horse. If he had wanted to give you a vivid description of a deathbed scene, he would have inevitably started with the funeral.

"Oh, it's all right-he's expecting me," said Stan­nard. "When he arrives you can tell him I'm at the bar." He was plainly agitated. While he was talking, he never stopped fiddling with his signet ring; and Danny, whose shrewd glances missed very little, noticed that his tie was limp and crooked, as if it had been subjected to the clumsy wrestling of shaky fingers.

"Right you are, sir."

It was none of Danny's business, anyway.

"Oh-and before I forget..."

"Sir?"

"A Mr. Templar will be here later. He's O.K. Send down for me when he arrives, and I'll sign him in."

"Very good, sir." Danny returned to his study of equine form, and Stannard passed on. He went through the lounge which occupied the ground floor, and turned down the stairs at the end. Facing these stairs, behind a convenient curtain, was a secret door in the panelling, electrically operated, which was controlled by a button on the desk in Hayn's private office. This door, when opened, dis­closed a flight of stairs running upwards. These stairs communicated with the upstairs rooms which were one of the most profitable features of the club, for in those rooms chemin-de-fer, poker, and trente-et-quarante were played every night with the sky for a limit.

Hayn's office was at the foot of the downward flight. He had personally supervised the installation of an ingenious system of mirrors by means of which, with the aid of a large sound-proof window let into the wall at one end of the office, without leaving his seat, he was able to inspect everyone who passed through the lounge above. Moreover, when the se­cret door swung open in response to the pressure of his finger on the control button, a further system of mirrors panelled up the flight of stairs gave him a view right up the stairway itself and round the land­ing into the gaming rooms. Mr. Hayn was a man with a cunning turn of mind, and he was preлmi­nently cautious.

Outside the office, in the basement, was the dance floor, surrounded with tables, but only two couples were dining there. At the far end was the dais on which the orchestra played, and at the other end, under the stairs, was the tiny bar. Stannard turned in there, and roused the white-coated bar­man from his perusal of La Vie Parisienne. "I don't know what would meet the case," he said, "but I want something steep in corpse-revivers."

The man looked him over for a moment with an expert eye, then busied himself with the filling of a prescription. The result certainly had a kick in it. Stannard was downing it when Hayn came in.

The big man was looking pale and tired, and there were shadows under his eyes. He nodded curtly to Jerry. "I'll be with you in a minute," he said. "Just going to get a wash."

It was not like Mr. Hayn, who ordinarily specialized in the boisterous hail-fellow-well-met method of address, and Stannard watched him go thoughtfully.

Braddon, who had remained outside, followed Hayn into the office. "Who's the boy friend?" he asked, taking a chair.

"Stannard?" Hayn was skimming through the let­ters that waited on his desk. "An ordinary young fool. He lost eight hundred upstairs in his first couple of months. Heaven knows how much he owes outside-he'd lost a packet before I started lending him money."

Braddon searched through his pocket for a cigar, and found one. He bit off the end, and spat. "Got expectations? Rich papa who'll come across?"

"No. But he's got the clothes, he'd pass anywhere. I was using him."

"Was?"

Hayn was frowningly examining the postmark on one of his letters. "I suppose I shall still," he said. "Don't bother me-this artistic hijacker's got me all ends up. But he's got a fiancee-I've only recently seen her. I like her."

"Any good?"

"I shall arrange something about her."

Hayn had slit open the letter with his thumbnail, but he only took one glance at what it contained. He tossed it over to Braddon, and it was the manager of Laserre who drew out the now familiar sketch.

"One of those came to my house by the first post this morning," Hayn said. "It's as old as the hills, that game. So he thinks he's going to rattle me!"

"Isn't he?" asked Braddon, in his heavily cynical way.

"He damned well isn't!" Hayn came back savage­ly. "I've got the Snake and the men who were with him prowling round the West End just keeping their eyes peeled for the man who beat them up in the Brighton train. If he's in London, he can't stay hid for ever. And when Ganning's found him, we'll soon put paid to his joke!"

Then he pulled himself together. "I'm giving Stannard dinner," he said. "What are you doing now?"

"I'll loaf out and get some food, and be back later," said Braddon. "I thought I'd take a look in upstairs."

Hayn nodded. He ushered Braddon out of the office, and locked the door behind him, for even Braddon was not allowed to remain in that sanctum alone. Braddon departed, and Hayn rejoined Stan­nard at the bar. "Sorry to have kept you waiting, old man," he apologized, with an attempt to resume his pose of bluff geniality.

"I've been amusing myself," said Stannard, and indicated a row of empty glasses. "Have a spot?"

Hayn accepted, and Stannard looked at his watch.

"By the way," he said, "there's a man due here in about an hour. I met him the other day, and he seemed all right. He said he was a South African, and he's sailing back the day after to-morrow. He was complaining that he couldn't get any real fun in England, so I dropped a hint about a private gam­bling club I might be able to get him into and he jumped at it. I thought he might be some use- leaving England so soon, he could hardly make a kick-so I told him to join us over coffee. Is that all right?"

"Quite all right, old man." A thought struck Mr. Hayn. "You're quite sure he wasn't one of these clever dicks?"

"Not on your life!" scoffed Stannard. "I think I know a busy when I see one by now. I've seen enough of 'em dancing here. And this man seems to have money to burn."

Hayn nodded. "I meant to come to some arrang­ment with you over dinner," he said. "This bird can go down as your first job, on commission. If you're ready, we'll start."

Stannard assented, and they walked over to the table which had been prepared. Hayn was preoc­cupied. If his mind had not been simmering with other problems, he might have noticed Stannard's ill-concealed nervousness, and wondered what might have been the cause of it. But he observed nothing unusual about the younger man's manner.

While they were waiting for the grapefruit, he asked a question quite perfunctorily. "What's this South African's name?"

"Templar-Simon Templar," answered Jerry.

The name meant nothing at all to Mr. Hayn.

Chapter VI OVER the dinner, Hayn made his offer-a twenty per cent commission on business introduced. Stannard hardly hesitated before accepting.

"You don't want to be squeamish about it," Hayn argued. "I know it's against the law, but that's split­ting hairs. Horse-racing is just as much a gamble. There'll always be fools who want to get rich without working, and there's no reason why we shouldn't take their money. You won't have to do anything that would make you liable to be sent to prison, though some of my staff would be jailed if the police caught them. You're quite safe. And the games are perfectly straight. We only win because the law of probabilities favours the bank."