13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

Mr. Tanfold did not rub his hands gloatingly; but he or­dered another drink, and when it had been served he laid a ten-pound note on the bar.

"You needn't bother about the change," he said, "if you'd like to do me a small favour."

The barman looked at the note, and picked it up. The only other customers at the bar at that moment were two men at the other end of the room, who were out of earshot.

"What can I do, sir?" he asked.

Mr. Tanfold put a card on top of the note—it bore the name  of a firm of private inquiry agents who existed only in his imagination.

"I've been engaged to make some inquiries about this fellow," he said. "Will you point him out to me when he comes in? I'd like you to introduce us. Tell him I'm another lonely Australian, and ask if he'd like to meet me—that's all I want."

The barman hesitated for a second, and then folded the note and put it in his pocket with a cynical nod. Mr. Tombs meant nothing to him, and ten pounds was ten pounds.

"That ought to be easy enough, sir," he said. "He usually gets here about this time. What name do I say?"

It was, as a matter of fact, almost ridiculously simple—so simple that it never occurred to Mr. Tanfold to wonder why. To him, it was only an ordinary tribute to the perfection of his routine—it is an illuminating sidelight on the vanity of "clev­er" criminals that none of Simon Templar's multitudinous victims had ever paused to wonder whether perhaps someone else might not be able to duplicate their brilliantly applied psychology, and do it just a little better than they did.

Mr. Tombs came in at half-past six. After he had had a drink and glanced at an evening paper, the barman whispered to him. He looked at Mr. Tanfold. He left his stool and walked over. Mr. Tanfold beamed. The barman performed the requisite ceremony. "What'll you have?" said Mr. Tombs.  "This is with me," said Mr. Tanfold.

It was as easy as that.

"Cheerio," said Mr. Tombs.

"Here's luck," said Mr. Tanfold.

"Lousy weather," said Mr. Tombs, finishing his drink at the second gulp.

"Well," said Mr. Tanfold, "London isn't much of a place to be in at any time."

The blue eyes of Mr. Tombs, behind their horn-rimmed spectacles, focused on him with a sudden dawn of interest. Actually, Simon was assuring himself that any man bom of woman could really look as unsavoury as Mr. Tanfold and still remain immune to beetle-paste. In this he had some justifi­cation, for Mr. Gilbert Tanfold was a small and somewhat fleshy man with a loose lower lip and a tendency to pimples, and his natty clothes and the mauve shirts which he affected did not improve his appearance, though no doubt he believed they did. But the only expression which Mr. Tanfold discerned was that which might have stirred the features of a "weeping Israelite by the waters of Babylon who perceived a fellow exile drawing nigh" to hang his harp on an adjacent tree.

"You've found that too, have you?" said Mr. Tombs, with the morbid satisfaction of a hospital patient discovering an equally serious case in the next bed.

"I've found it for the last six months," said Mr. Tanfold firmly. "And I'm still finding it. No fun to be had anywhere. Everything's too damn respectable. I hope I'm not shocking you——"

"Not a bit," said Mr. Tombs. "Let's have another drink."

"This is with me," said Mr. Tanfold.

The drinks were set up, raised, and swallowed.

"I'm not respectable," said Mr. Tanfold candidly. "I like a bit of fun. You know what I mean." Mr. Tanfold winked— a contortion of his face which left no indecency unsuggested. "Like you can get in Paris, if you know where to look for it."

"I know," said Mr. Tombs hungrily. "Have you been there?"

"Have I been there!" said Mr. Tanfold.

Considering the point later, the Saint was inclined to doubt whether Mr. Tanfold had been there, for the stories he was able to tell of his adventures in the Gay City were far more lurid than anything else of its kind which the Saint had ever heard—and Simon Templar reckoned that he knew Paris from the Champs-Élysées to the fortifs. Nevertheless, they served to pass the time very congenially until half-past seven, when Mr. Tanfold suggested that they might have dinner together and afterwards pool their resources in the quest for "a bit of fun."

"I've been here a bit longer than you," said Mr. Tanfold generously, "so perhaps I've found a few places you haven't come across."

It was a very good dinner washed down with liberal quan­tities of liquid, for Mr. Tanfold was rather proud of the hard­ness of his head. As the wine flowed, his guest's tongue loos­ened—but there, again, it had never occurred to Mr. Tanfold that a tongue might be loosened simply because its owner was anxious that no effort should be spared to give its host all the information which he wanted to hear.