11 The Brighter Buccaneer

He had made a very profitable killing on a certain trip which he took to Maderia; but coming back overland from Lisbon a sylph-like blonde detained him too long in Paris, and he woke up one morning to find that he was a full twenty pounds short of his fare to New York. He set out for London with this pressing need of capital absorbing his mind; and it was merely his bad luck that the elegant young man whom he discovered lounging idly over the rail when the cross-Channel boat left Boulogne should have been christened Simon Tem­plar.

Simon was not looking for trouble on that trip, but he was never averse to having his expenses paid; and when Mr. Till­son hinted that it was distressingly difficult to find any congen­ial way of passing the time on cross-Channel journeys, he knew what to expect. They played casino, and Simon won fifteen pounds in the first half-hour.

"A bit slow, don't you think?" observed the benevolent Mr. Tillson, as he shuffled the cards at this point and called for another brace of whiskies. "Shall we double the stakes?"

This was what Simon had been waiting for-and that gift of waiting for the psychological moment was one which he always employed on such occasions. Fifteen pounds was a small fish in his net, but who was he to criticise what a beneficent Provi­dence cast kindly into his lap?

"Certainly, brother," he murmured. "Treble 'em if you like. I'll be with you again in a sec-I've just got to see a man about a small borzoi."

He faded away towards a convenient place; and that was the last Mr. Tillson saw of him. It was one of Mr. Tillson's saddest experiences; and three years later it was still as fresh in his memory as it had been the day after it happened. "Happy" Fred Jorman, that most versatile of small-time confidence men, whose round face creased up into such innumerable wrinkles of joy when he smiled, heard that "Broads" Tillson was in London, called on him on that third anniversary, and had to listen to the tale. They had worked together on one coup several years ago, but since then their ways had lain apart.

"That reminds me of a beggar I met this spring," said Happy Fred, not to be outdone in anecdote-and the ecclesias­tical-looking Mr. Tillson hoped that "beggar" was the word he used. "I met him in the Alexandra-he seemed interested in horses, and he looked so lovely and innocent. When I told him about the special job I'd got for Newmarket that afternoon --"

This was one of Happy Fred's favourite stories, and much telling of it had tended to standardize the wording.

There was a certain prelude of this kind of conversation and general reminiscence before Happy Fred broached the real reason for his call.

"Between ourselves, Broads, things aren't going too well in my business. There's too many stories in the newspapers these days to tell the suckers how it's done. Things have got so bad that one or two of the boys have had to go on the legit just to keep themselves alive."

"The circumstances are somewhat similar with me, Fred," confessed Mr. Tillson, regretfully. "The Atlantic liners are half empty, and those gentlemen who are travelling don't seem to have the same surplus of lucre for the purposes of-um- recreation as they used to."

Happy Fred nodded.

"Well, that's how it struck me, Broads," he said. "And what with one thing and another, I said to myself, 'Fred,' I said, 'the old tricks are played out, and you'd better admit it. Fred," I said, 'you've got to keep up with the times or go under. And what's wanted these days,' I said to myself, 'is a New Swindle.' "

Mr. Tillson raised his episcopal eyebrows.

"And have you succeeded in devising this-um-novel system of remunerative equivocation?"

"I have invented a new swindle, if that's what you mean," said Happy Fred. "At least, it's new enough for me. And the beauty of it is that you don't have to do anything criminal- anyway, not that anyone's ever going to know about. It's all quite straight and above-board, and whatever happens you can't get pinched for trying it, if you're clever enough about the way you work it."

"Have you made any practical experiments with this new method?" inquired Mr. Tillson.