13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

When Mr. Tanfold arrived at the Palace Royal Hotel a little before one o'clock on Monday, however, he did not have the air of a man who was getting set to experiment in what could be done with a pot of red paint and the metropolitan sky­line. Laying his hat and stick on the table and pulling off his lavender-tinted gloves in Mr. Tombs's suite, he was laconi­cally unresponsive to the younger Tombs's effusive cries of welcome.

"Look here, Tombs," he said bluntly, when he had straight­ened his heliotrope tie, "there's something you'd better know."

"Tell me all, dear old wombat," said Mr. Tombs, who ap­peared to have acquired some of the frothier mannerisms of the City during his visit. "What have you done?"

"I haven't introduced myself properly," said his guest bra­zenly. "I am Gilbert Tanfold."

For a moment the antipodean Tomblet seemed taken aback; and then he grinned good-humouredly.

"Well, you certainly spruced me, Gilbert," he said. "What a joke! So it was really your own studio we went to!"

Mr. Tombs grinned again. He made remarks about Mr. Tanfold's unparalleled sense of humour in terms which were clearly designed to be flattering, but which were too biological in trend to be acceptable in mixed company. Mr. Tanfold, however, was not there to be flattered. He cut his host short with a flick of one well-manicured hand.

"Let's talk business," he said shortly. "I've got a photo­graph that was taken of you while you were at the studio."

Mr. Tombs's expression wavered uncertainly; and it may be mentioned that that waver was not the least difficult of the facial exercises which the Saint had had to go through during his acquaintance with Mr. Tanfold. For the expression which was at that moment spreading itself across Simon Templar's inside was a wholly different affair, which would have made the traditional Cheshire cat look like a mask of melancholy: even then, he had not outgrown the urchin glee of watching the feet of the ungodly planting themselves firmly on the ba­nana-skin of doom.

Nevertheless, outwardly he wavered.

"Photograph?" he repeated.

Mr. Tanfold drew out his wallet, extracted a photograph therefrom, and handed it over. The Saint stared at it, and beheld his own unmistakable likeness, except for the horn­rimmed spectacles which were not a normal part of his attire, wrapped in a most undignified grapple with a damsel whose clothing set up its own standard of the irreducible minimum of diaphanous underwear.

"Good Lord!" he gasped. "When was this taken?"

"You ought to remember," said Mr. Tanfold, polishing his finger-nails on his coat lapel.

"But—but ——" The first dim inkling of the perils of the picture which he held seemed to dawn on Mr. Tombs, and he choked. "But this was an accident! You remember, Tanfold. They wanted her to sit on top of a step-ladder—they asked me to help her up—and I only caught her when she slipped——"

"I know," said Mr. Tanfold. "But nobody else does. You're the mug, Tombs. That photograph wouldn't look so good in a Melbourne paper, would it? With a caption saying: 'Son of prominent Melbourne business man "holding the baby" at artists' revel in Paris'—or something like that."

Mr. Tombs swallowed.

"But  I  can  explain  it  all,"  he  protested.   "It was——"

"Your father wouldn't listen to any explanations when your younger brother made a mistake, would he?" said Tanfold. "Besides, what were you doing in that studio at all? Take a look at where you are, Tombs, and get down to business. I'm here to sell you the negative of that picture—at a price."

The Saint's mouth opened.

"But that—that's blackmail!" he gasped.

"It doesn't bother me what you call it," Tanfold said smug­ly. "There's the position, and I want five thousand pounds to let you out of it."

Simon's eyes narrowed.

"Well, perhaps this'll bother you," he said; and a fist like a chunk of stone shot over and sent Tanfold sprawling into the opposite corner of the room. Mr. Tombs unbuttoned his coat. "Get up and come back for some more, you lousy crook," he invited.

Tanfold wiped his smashed lips with his handkerchief, and spat out a tooth. His small eyes went black and evil, but he did not get up.

"Just for that, it'll cost you ten thousand," he said viciously. "That stuff won't help you, you damn fool. Whatever you do, you won't get the plate back that way."

"It gives me a lot of fun, anyway," said the Saint coldly. "And I only wish your miserable body could stand up to more of it."

He picked Mr. Tanfold up by the front of his mauve shirt with one hand, and slammed him back into the corner again with the other; and then he dropped into a chair by the table, pushed Mr. Tanfold's hat and stick on to the floor, and took out a cheque-book and a fountain-pen. He made out the cheque with some care, and dropped that also on the floor.

"There's your money," he said, and watched the trembling Mr. Tanfold pick it up. "Now you can get out."