Enter the Saint, page 3
part #3 of Simon Templar (Short Stories) Series
Chapter V TO ALL official intents and purposes, the proprietor and leading light of Mr. Edgar Hayn’s night club in Soho was the man after whom it was named-Danny Trask. Danny was short and dumpy, a lazy little tub of a man, with a round red face, a sparse head of fair hair, and a thin sandy moustache. His pale eyes were deeply embedded in the creases of their fleshy lids; and when he smiled-which was often, and usually for no apparent reason-they vanished altogether in a corrugating mesh of wrinkles.
His intelligence was not very great. Nevertheless, he had discovered quite early in life that there was a comfortable living to be made in the profession of “dummy”-a job which calls for not startling intellectual gifts-and Danny had accordingly made that his vocation ever since. As a figure-head, he was all that could have been desired, for he was unobtrusive and easily satisfied. He had a type of mind common to his class of lawbreaker. As long as his salary-which was not small-was paid regularly, he never complained, showed no ambition to join his employer on a more equal basis of division of profits, and, if anything went wrong, kept his mouth shut and deputized for his principal in one of his Majesty’s prisons without a murmur. Danny’s fees for a term of imprisonment were a flat rate of ten pounds a week, with an extra charge of two pounds a week for “hard.” The astuteness of the C.I.D. and the carelessness of one or two of his previous employers had made this quite a profitable proposition for Danny.
He had visions of retiring one day, and ending his life in comparative luxury, when his savings had reached a sufficiently large figure; but this hope had received several set-backs of late. He had been in Mr. Hayn’s service for four years, and Mr. Hayn’s uncanny skill at avoiding the attentions of the police were becoming a thorn in the side of Danny Trask. When Danny was not in “stir,” the most he could command was a paltry seven pounds a week, and living expenses had to be paid out of this instead of out of the pocket of the Government. Danny felt that he had a personal grievance against Mr. Hayn on this account.
The club theoretically opened at 6 p.m., but the food was not good, and most of its members preferred to dine elsewhere. The first arrivals usually began to drift in about 10 p.m., but things never began to get exciting before 11 o’clock. Danny spent the hours between 6 o’clock and the commencement of the fun sitting in his shirt-sleeves in his little cubicle by the entrance, sucking a foul old briar and tentatively selecting the next day’s losers from an evening paper. He was incapable of feeling bored-his mind had never reached the stage of development where it could appreciate the idea of activity and inactivity. It had never been active, so it didn’t see any difference.
He was engaged in this pleasant pursuit towards 8 o’clock on a certain evening when Jerry Stannard arrived. “Has Mr. Hayn come in yet, Danny?”
Danny made a pencil note of the number of pounds which he had laboriously calculated that Wilco would have in hand over Man of Kent in the Lingfield Plate, folded his paper, and looked up. “He don’t usually come in till late, Mr. Stannard,” he said. “No, he ain’t here now.”
Danny’s utterances always contrived to put the cart before the horse. If he had wanted to give you a vivid description of a deathbed scene, he would have inevitably started with the funeral.
“Oh, it’s all right-he’s expecting me,” said Stannard. “When he arrives you can tell him I’m at the bar.” He was plainly agitated. While he was talking, he never stopped fiddling with his signet ring; and Danny, whose shrewd glances missed very little, noticed that his tie was limp and crooked, as if it had been subjected to the clumsy wrestling of shaky fingers.
“Right you are, sir.”
It was none of Danny’s business, anyway.
“Oh-and before I forget…”
“Sir?”
“A Mr. Templar will be here later. He’s O.K. Send down for me when he arrives, and I’ll sign him in.”
“Very good, sir.” Danny returned to his study of equine form, and Stannard passed on. He went through the lounge which occupied the ground floor, and turned down the stairs at the end. Facing these stairs, behind a convenient curtain, was a secret door in the panelling, electrically operated, which was controlled by a button on the desk in Hayn’s private office. This door, when opened, disclosed a flight of stairs running upwards. These stairs communicated with the upstairs rooms which were one of the most profitable features of the club, for in those rooms chemin-de-fer, poker, and trente-et-quarante were played every night with the sky for a limit.
Hayn’s office was at the foot of the downward flight. He had personally supervised the installation of an ingenious system of mirrors by means of which, with the aid of a large sound-proof window let into the wall at one end of the office, without leaving his seat, he was able to inspect everyone who passed through the lounge above. Moreover, when the secret door swung open in response to the pressure of his finger on the control button, a further system of mirrors panelled up the flight of stairs gave him a view right up the stairway itself and round the landing into the gaming rooms. Mr. Hayn was a man with a cunning turn of mind, and he was preëminently cautious.
Outside the office, in the basement, was the dance floor, surrounded with tables, but only two couples were dining there. At the far end was the dais on which the orchestra played, and at the other end, under the stairs, was the tiny bar. Stannard turned in there, and roused the white-coated barman from his perusal of La Vie Parisienne. “I don’t know what would meet the case,” he said, “but I want something steep in corpse-revivers.”
The man looked him over for a moment with an expert eye, then busied himself with the filling of a prescription. The result certainly had a kick in it. Stannard was downing it when Hayn came in.
The big man was looking pale and tired, and there were shadows under his eyes. He nodded curtly to Jerry. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said. “Just going to get a wash.”
It was not like Mr. Hayn, who ordinarily specialized in the boisterous hail-fellow-well-met method of address, and Stannard watched him go thoughtfully.
Braddon, who had remained outside, followed Hayn into the office. “Who’s the boy friend?” he asked, taking a chair.
“Stannard?” Hayn was skimming through the letters that waited on his desk. “An ordinary young fool. He lost eight hundred upstairs in his first couple of months. Heaven knows how much he owes outside-he’d lost a packet before I started lending him money.”
Braddon searched through his pocket for a cigar, and found one. He bit off the end, and spat. “Got expectations? Rich papa who’ll come across?”
“No. But he’s got the clothes, he’d pass anywhere. I was using him.”
“Was?”
Hayn was frowningly examining the postmark on one of his letters. “I suppose I shall still,” he said. “Don’t bother me-this artistic hijacker’s got me all ends up. But he’s got a fiancee-I’ve only recently seen her. I like her.”
“Any good?”
“I shall arrange something about her.”
Hayn had slit open the letter with his thumbnail, but he only took one glance at what it contained. He tossed it over to Braddon, and it was the manager of Laserre who drew out the now familiar sketch.
“One of those came to my house by the first post this morning,” Hayn said. “It’s as old as the hills, that game. So he thinks he’s going to rattle me!”
“Isn’t he?” asked Braddon, in his heavily cynical way.
“He damned well isn’t!” Hayn came back savagely. “I’ve got the Snake and the men who were with him prowling round the West End just keeping their eyes peeled for the man who beat them up in the Brighton train. If he’s in London, he can’t stay hid for ever. And when Ganning’s found him, we’ll soon put paid to his joke!”
Then he pulled himself together. “I’m giving Stannard dinner,” he said. “What are you doing now?”
“I’ll loaf out and get some food, and be back later,” said Braddon. “I thought I’d take a look in upstairs.”
Hayn nodded. He ushered Braddon out of the office, and locked the door behind him, for even Braddon was not allowed to remain in that sanctum alone. Braddon departed, and Hayn rejoined Stannard at the bar. “Sorry to have kept you waiting, old man,” he apologized, with an attempt to resume his pose of bluff geniality.
“I’ve been amusing myself,” said Stannard, and indicated a row of empty glasses. “Have a spot?”
Hayn accepted, and Stannard looked at his watch.
“By the way,” he said, “there’s a man due here in about an hour. I met him the other day, and he seemed all right. He said he was a South African, and he’s sailing back the day after to-morrow. He was complaining that he couldn’t get any real fun in England, so I dropped a hint about a private gambling club I might be able to get him into and he jumped at it. I thought he might be some use- leaving England so soon, he could hardly make a kick-so I told him to join us over coffee. Is that all right?”
“Quite all right, old man.” A thought struck Mr. Hayn. “You’re quite sure he wasn’t one of these clever dicks?”
“Not on your life!” scoffed Stannard. “I think I know a busy when I see one by now. I’ve seen enough of ‘em dancing here. And this man seems to have money to burn.”
Hayn nodded. “I meant to come to some arrangment with you over dinner,” he said. “This bird can go down as your first job, on commission. If you’re ready, we’ll start.”
Stannard assented, and they walked over to the table which had been prepared. Hayn was preoccupied. If his mind had not been simmering with other problems, he might have noticed Stannard’s ill-concealed nervousness, and wondered what might have been the cause of it. But he observed nothing unusual about the younger man’s manner.
While they were waiting for the grapefruit, he asked a question quite perfunctorily. “What’s this South African’s name?”
“Templar-Simon Templar,” answered Jerry.
The name meant nothing at all to Mr. Hayn.
Chapter VI OVER the dinner, Hayn made his offer-a twenty per cent commission on business introduced. Stannard hardly hesitated before accepting.
“You don’t want to be squeamish about it,” Hayn argued. “I know it’s against the law, but that’s splitting hairs. Horse-racing is just as much a gamble. There’ll always be fools who want to get rich without working, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t take their money. You won’t have to do anything that would make you liable to be sent to prison, though some of my staff would be jailed if the police caught them. You’re quite safe. And the games are perfectly straight. We only win because the law of probabilities favours the bank.”
This was not strictly true, for there were other factors to influence the runs of bad luck which attended the players upstairs; but this sordid fact Mr. Hayn did not feel called upon to emphasize.
“Yes-I’ll join you,” Stannard said. “I’ve known it was coming. I didn’t think you went on giving and lending me money for looking decorative and doing an odd job or two for you now and again.”
“My dear fellow-“
“Dear-fellowing doesn’t alter it. I know you want more of me than my services in decoying boobs upstairs. Are you going to tell me you didn’t know I was caught the other day?”
Hayn stroked this chin. “I was going to compliment you. How you got rid of that parcel of snow-“
“The point that matters is that I did get rid of it,” cut in Stannard briefly. “And if I hadn’t been able to, I should have been on remand in Brixton Prison now. I’m not complaining. I suppose I had to earn my keep. But it wasn’t square of you to keep me in the dark.”
“You knew-“
“I guessed. It’s all right-I’ve stopped kicking. But I want you to let me right in from now on, if you’re letting me in at all. I’m joining you, all in, and you needn’t bother to humbug me any longer. How’s that?”
“That’s all right,” said Mr. Hayn, “If you must put things so crudely. But you don’t even have to be squeamish about the dope side of it. If people choose to make fools of themselves like that, it’s their own look-out. Our share is simply to refuse to quibble about whether it’s legal or not. After all, alcohol is sold legally in this country, and nobody blames the publican if his customers get drunk every night and eventually die of D.T.‘s.”
Stannard shrugged. “I can’t afford to argue, anyhow,” he said. “How much do I draw?”
“Twenty per cent-as I told you.”
“What’s that likely to make?”
“A lot,” said Hayn. “We play higher here than anywhere else in London, and there isn’t a great deal of competition in the snow market. You might easily draw upwards of seventy pounds a week.”
“Then will you do something for me, Mr. Hayn? I owe a lot of money outside. It’ll take three thousand flat for the first year, to pay off everybody and fit myself up with a packet in hand.”
“Three thousand pounds is a lot of money,” said Hayn judicially. “You owe me nearly a thousand as it is.”
“If you don’t think I’m going to be worth it-“
Mr. Hayn meditated, but not for long. The making of quick decisions was the whole reason for his success, and he didn’t mind how much a thing cost if he knew it was worth it. He had no fear that Stannard would attempt to double-cross him. Among the other purposes which it served, Danny’s formed a working headquarters for the Snake’s Boys; Stannard could not help knowing the reputation of the gang, and he must also know that they had worked Hayn’s vengeance on traitors before, No-there was no chance that Stannard would dare to try a double cross… . “I’ll give you a check to-night,” said Hayn.
Stannard was effusively grateful. “You won’t lose by it,” he promised. “Templar’s a speculation, granted, but I’ve met him only once. But there are other people with mints of money, people I’ve known for years, that I can vouch for absolutely… .“He went on talking, but Hayn only listened with half an ear, for he was anxious to turn the conversation on to another topic, and he did so at the first opportunity.
Under pretence of taking a fatherly interest in his new agent’s affairs, he plied him with questions about his private life and interests. Most of the information which he elicited was stale news to him, for he had long since taken the precaution of finding out everything of importance that there was to know about his man; but in these new enquiries Mr. Hayn contrived to make Stannard’s fiancee the center of interrogation. It was very cleverly and surreptitiously done, but the fact remains that at the end of half an hour, by this process of indirect questioning Hayn had discovered all that he wanted to know about the life and habits of Gwen Chandler. “Do you think you could get her along here to supper on Thursday?” he suggested. “The only time I’ve met her, if you remember, I think you rather prejudiced her against me. It’s up to you to put that right.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Stannard.
After that, his point won, Hayn had no further interest in directing the conversation, and they were chatting desultorily when Simon Templar arrived.
The Saint, after weighing the relative merits of full evening dress or an ordinary lounge suit for the auspicious occasion, had decided on a compromise, and was sporting a dinner jacket; but he wore it, as might have been expected, as if he had been an ambassador paying a state visit in full regalia.
“Hullo, Jerry, dear angel!” he hailed Stannard cheerfully. Then he noticed Mr. Hayn, and turned with outstretched hand. “And you must be Uncle Ambrose,” he greeted that gentleman cordially. “Pleased to meet you… . That’s right, isn’t it, Jerry? This is the uncle who died and left all his money to the Cats’ Home? … Sorry to see you looking so well, Uncle Ambrose, old mongoose!”
Mr. Hayn seemed somewhat taken aback. This man did not wear his clothes in the manner traditionally asociated with raw Colonials with money to burn; and if his speech was typical of that of strong silent men from the great open spaces of that vintage, Mr. Hayn decided that the culture of Picadilly must have spread farther abroad into the British Empire than Cecil Rhodes had ever hoped in his wildest dreams. Mr. Hayn had never heard of Rhodes-to him, Rhodes, was an island where they bred red hens-but if he had heard of Rhodes he might reasonably have expressed his surprise like that.
He looked round to Jerry Stannard with raised eyebrows, and Stannard tapped his forehead and lifted his glass significantly.
“So we’re going to see a real live gambling hell!” said the Saint, drawing up a chair. “Isn’t this fun? Let’s all have a lot of drinks on the strength of it!”
He called for liqueurs, and paid for them from a huge wad of bank-notes which he tugged from his pocket. Mr. Hayn’s eyes lit up at the sight, and he decided that there were excuses for Templar’s eccentricity. He leant forward and set himself out to be charming. The Saint, however, had other views on the subject of the way in which the conversation should go, and at the first convenient pause, he came out with a remark that showed he had been paying little attention to what had gone before.
“I’ve bought a book about card tricks,” he said. “I thought it might help me to spot sharpers. But the best part of it was the chapter on fortune-telling by cards. Take a card, and I’ll tell you all your sins.”
He produced a new pack from his pocket and pushed it across the table towards Hayn.
“You first, Uncle,” he invited. “And see that your thoughts are pure when you draw, otherwise you’ll give the cards a wrong impression. Hum a verse of your favourite hymn, for instance.” Mr. Hayn knew nothing about hymns, but he complied tolerantly. If this freak had all that money, and perhaps some more, by all means let him be humoured.
“Now, isn’t that sweet!” exclaimed the Saint, taking up the card Hayn had chosen. “Jerry, my pet, your Uncle Ambrose has drawn the ace of hearts. That stands for princely generosity. We’ll have another brandy with you, Uncle, just to show how we appreciate it. Waiter!… Three more brandies, please! Face Ache-I mean Uncle Ambrose-is paying! … Uncle, you must try your luck again.”
