13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

Thus did the moustache of Mr. Journ enter the Saint's horizon and pass on, accompanied by Mr. Journ, who looked at them rather closely as he went by; and lest any suspicious reader should be starting to get ideas into his head, the historian desires to explain at once that this moustache has nothing more to do with the story, and has been described at such length solely on account of its own remarkable features qua face-hair. But, as we claimed at the beginning, it is an immutable fact that if it had not been for this phenom­enal decoration the Saint would hardly have noticed Mr. Journ at all, and would thereby have been many thousands of pounds poorer. For, shorn of that incomparable appen­dage, Mr. Journ was quite an ordinary-looking business man, thin, dark, hatchet-faced, well and quietly dressed; and al­though he was noticeably hard about the eyes and mouth, there was really nothing else about him which would have caused the Saint to stare fascinatedly after him and ejaculate in a hushed voice: "Well, I am a piebald pelican balancing rubber balls on my beak!"

Wherefore Mr. Teal would have had no reason to turn his somnolent gaze back to the Saint with a certain dour and puzzled humour, and to say: "I should have thought he was a fellow you'd be sure to know."

"Never set eyes on him in my life," said the Saint. "Do you know who he is?"

"His name's Sumner Journ," Mr. Teal said reluctantly, after a slight pause.

Simon shook his head.

"Even that doesn't ring a bell," he said. "What does he do? No bloke who cultivated a nose-tickler like that could do anything ordinary."

"Sumner Journ doesn't," stated the detective flatly.

He seemed to have realised that he had said too much al­ready; and it was impossible to draw any further information from him. He took his leave rather abruptly, and Simon gazed after his plump departing back with a tiny frown. The only plausible explanation of Teal's sudden taciturnity was that Mr. Journ was engaged in some unlawful or nearly un­lawful activities—Teal had had enough trouble with the vic­tims whom the Saint found for himself, without conceiving any ambition to press fresh material into his hands. But if Chief Inspector Teal did not want the Saint to know more about Mr. Sumner Journ, that was sufficient reason for the Saint to become abnormally inquisitive; and as a matter of fact, his investigations had not proceeded very far when a minor coincidence brought them up to date without further effort.

"This might interest you," said Monty Hayward one eve­ning.

"This" was a very tastefully prepared booklet, on the cover of which was printed: "BRAZILIAN TIMBER BONDS: A Gold Mine for the Small Investor." Simon took it and glanced at it casually; and then he saw something on the first page of the pamphlet which brought him to attention with a de­lighted start:

Managing Director:

SUMNER JOURN Esq., Associate of the Institute of Timber Planters, Fellow of the International Associa­tion of Wood Pulp Producers; formerly Chairman of South American Mineralogical Investments, Ltd., etc., etc.

"How did you get hold of this, Monty?" he asked.

"A young fellow in the office gave it to me," said Monty. "Apparently he was trying to make a bit of money on the side by selling these bonds; but lots of people seem to have heard about 'em. I pinched the book, and told him not be an ass because he'd probably find himself in clink with the organisers when it blew up; but I thought you might like to have a look at it."

"I would," said the Saint thoughtfully, and opened an­other bottle of beer.

He read the booklet through at his leisure, later, and felt tempted to send Monty Hayward a complimentary case of Carlsberg on the strength of it; for the glow of contentment and goodwill towards men which spreads over the rabid entomologist who digs a new kind of beetle out of a log is as the frosts of Siberia to the glow which warms the heart of the professional buccaneer who uncovers a new swindle.

For the stock-in-trade of Mr. Sumner Journ was Trees.

It may be true, as the poet bleats, that Only God Can Make A Tree; but it is also true that only a man capable of grow­ing such a moustache as lurked coyly beneath the sheltering schnozzola of Mr. Sumner Journ could have invented such an enticing method of making God's creation pay gigantic dividends.