13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

Probably the species Mug is the same as the common cold —there is no single bacillus to account for it. Nor is there likely to be any rigid definition of that precise shade of covetous innocence, that peculiarly grasping guilelessness, which stamps the hard-boiled West Country farmer, accus­tomed to prying into the pedigrees of individual oats before disgorging a penny on them, as a potential purchaser of the Tower of London for two hundred pounds down and the balance by installments. But whatever these symptoms may be, Simon Templar possessed them in their richest beauty. He had only to saunter in his most natural manner down the highways of the world immaculate and debonair, with his soft hat slanted blithely over one eye, and the passing pageant of humanity crystallised into men who had had their pockets picked and only needed five shillings to get home, men with gold bricks, men with oil wells in Texas, men needing assistance in the execution of eccentric wills, men with charts showing the authenticated cemetery of Captain Kidd's treas­ure, men with horses that could romp home on one leg and a crutch, and men who just thought he might like a game of cards. It was one of the Saint's most treasured assets; and he never ordered strawberries in December without a toast to the benign Providence that had endowed him with the gift of having all that he asked of life poured into his lap.

As a matter of fact he was sauntering down the Strand when he met Louie Fallon. He didn't actually run into him, but he did walk into him; but there was nothing particularly remarkable about that, for the Strand is a street which con­tains more crooks to the square yard than any other area of ground outside a prison wall—which may be partly ac­counted for by the fact that it also has the reputation of being the favourite promenading ground of more potential suckers than any other thoroughfare in the Metropolis.

Louie Fallon had a theory that he couldn't walk down the Strand on any day in the week without bumping into a per­ambulating gold-mine which only required skilful scratching to yield him its gilded harvest.

He walked towards the Saint, fumbling in his pockets with a preoccupied air and the kind of flurried abstraction of a man who has forgotten where he put his season ticket on his way down the platform, with his eyes fluttering over every item of the perspective except those which were included in the di­rection in which he was going. At any rate, the last person in the panorama whom he appeared to see was the Saint him­self. Simon saw him, and swerved politely; but with the quick­witted agility of long practice, Louie Fallon blundered off to the same side. They collided with a slight bump, at the very moment when Louie had apparently discovered the article for which he had been searching.

It fell on to the pavement between them and rolled away between the Saint's feet, sparkling enticingly in the sunlight. Muttering profuse apologies, Louie scuffled round to re­trieve it. The movement was so adroitly devised to en­tangle them that Simon would have had no chance to pass on and make his escape, even if he had wanted to.

But it is dawning—slowly and reluctantly, perhaps, but dawning, nevertheless—upon the chronicler that there can be very few students of these episodes who can still be cherishing any delusion that the Saint would ever want to escape from such a situation.

Simon stood by with a slight smile coming to his lips, while Louie wriggled round his legs and recovered his precious pos­session with a faint squeak of delight, and straightened up with the object clutched solidly in his hand.

"Phew!" said Mr. Fallon, fanning himself with his hat. "That was near enough. Did you see where it went? Right to the edge of that grating. If it had rolled down . . ." He blew out his cheeks and rolled up his eyes in an eloquent register of horror at the dreadful thought. "For a moment I thought I'd lost it," he said, clarifying his point conclusively.

Simon nodded. It did not require any peculiar keenness of vision to see that the object of so much concern was a very nice-looking diamond, for Louie was making no attempt to hide it—he was, on the contrary, blowing on it and rubbing it affectionately on his sleeve to remove the invisible specks of grime and dust which it had collected on its travels.

"You must be lucky."

Louie's face fell abruptly. The transition between his almost childish delight and the shadow of awful gloom which sud­denly passed across his countenance was quite startling. Mr. Fallon's artistry had never been disputed even by his rivals in the profession.

"Lucky?" he practically yelped, in a rising crescendo of mournful indignation. "Why, I'm the unluckiest man that ever lived!"

"Too bad," said the Saint, with profound sympathy.