There was always the danger that the thief had passed it on to some back-street merchant to melt down for the scrap value of the metal and stones, but the Saint’s renewed optimism refused to let him dwell for long on that possibility. One thing was certain: the mugger would try to get rid of the chalice as soon as he discovered that the violin case did not contain an easily pawnable violin.
The taxi stopped in one of the sheltered courts of Gray’s Inn. Simon paid off the driver and strolled through a brick-domed passageway into a small quadrangle. Although only a writ’s throw away from some of the busiest of London’s thoroughfares, the complex of age-mellowed buildings retained an air of more peaceful and leisurely days. Perhaps they lacked something of the quaintness of the Temple, where some of the last gas lamps in London still-flickered, but they also embodied the feeling that the law, and lawyers, are not to be hurried.
He entered a building directly opposite the passageway and located the office he sought within the labyrinth of winding corridors. Robin Nash greeted his visitor with a ready smile and a firm handshake as soon as his secretary ushered the Saint into the room.
“Simon! Good to see you, it’s been a long time,” Nash said warmly, at last releasing the Saint’s hand from his grip and indicating a chair. “I was beginning to think you’d taken a dislike to lawyers.”
“Not to lawyers, just to the law,” Simon said with a grin.
Robin Nash looked steadily at him, automatically estimating what was not apparent on the surface.
“Is this a social or a professional visit?” he asked after the brief scrutiny. “Are you in trouble again?”
“Professional. But I’m not in trouble.”
“I’ll believe the first answer and reserve my judgement on the second.”
Simon laughed.
“There speaks the legal mind. But what can I expect from the best solicitor in London?”
“Flattery won’t get you everything but it will win you a cup of tea.”
He flicked a switch on the intercom and relayed the order to his secretary. Simon, who had tasted the lawyer’s own blend of Earl Grey before, was pleased.
Robin Nash sat back in his chair. He was a tall man in his early forties, hair receding at the temples and with a spreading waistline threatening to become a paunch. In sombre three-piece suit he looked what he was, one of the more successful solicitors in the capital. But there was also a certain strength to the shoulders and hands and an indefinably irreverent light behind the eyes which indicated that he had not spent all his life poring over dusty statute books. He had known the Saint well for more years than any legal practitioner conscious of the Bar’s disciplinary council should freely admit.
Simon came to the point of his visit as soon as the tea was dispensed and the secretary had withdrawn.
“Tomorrow morning at Bow Street a kid called Taffy Owen comes up before the beak. The police are hanging a holding charge on him of assaulting a police officer. In fact they believe he stole a valuable antique chalice, but they haven’t yet got all the evidence they need for a committal. I want you to represent him and get bail.”
Nash considered the request for a time and then nodded.
“Okay. But why? What’s your interest?”
“For the moment I can’t tell you,” Simon said. “Just leave it that I’m trying to prevent a miscarriage of justice.”
Nash showed his scepticism at the reason with a dry smile.
“Sounds very noble. What about sureties?”
“I’ll put up the money. Father Bernardo of St. Jude’s Mission in Soho will promise the magistrates to keep an eye on him.”
“The trouble is, Simon,” the lawyer pointed out, “the magistrates may not consider you a very good risk. Your reputation would hardly commend you to them as a fit person to guarantee anybody’s good behaviour.”
“I don’t want my name mentioned in court anyway. Tell them the money is being put up by Father Bernardo. And don’t tell Taffy who really sprung him until he’s outside. Then tell him if he wants real help to come and see me.”
Nash considered the commission for a while in silence. Finally he shrugged.
“There’s nothing in the rule book which says you have to tell me your motives. I’ll consider myself hired.”
Simon stood up.
“Thanks. Keep in touch.”
Nash saw him to the door.
“You keep in touch. One of these days you may need a good attorney.”
“Perhaps, when I write my will,” said the Saint cheerfully.
As the office door closed behind him he looked at his watch. It showed a quarter past four.
At six o’clock J.J. Grondheim entered the lobby of the Savoy Hotel trailed by a porter carrying a large suitcase. The case, like its owner, was clearly well travelled. The labels plastered across it bore the names of many exotic destinations, while the scuffed leather along the sides showed that baggage handlers are the same the world over.
J.J. Grondheim wore no badge, but the reception clerk’s experienced eye marked the new guest down as American before he had written a Los Angeles address in the register and listed his occupation as art dealer. Neither was Mr. Grondheim scuffed, being dressed in a precision-tailored lightweight grey suit only slightly creased by the long transatlantic flight. But there was a worldliness in his manner which suggested that he had seen the inside of more hotel rooms than the average chambermaid. He was comfortably over six feet, but the slight stoop of his broad shoulders made him appear shorter. His eyes were shielded by square horn-rimmed tinted glasses, and the black hair was heavily flecked with grey.
Once in his suite, he unpacked and arranged his clothes in wardrobe and chest and his toilet gear in the bathroom, indicating that he would be staying for at least a few days. That done, he went down to the bar and sank an old-fashioned at a corner table away from the main mob of customers before sauntering through to the Grill.
Again he chose a table apart from immediate neighbours and lingered over a Dover sole and a bottle of Muscadet. Returning at last to his room, he carefully rumpled the bedclothes so that the bed appeared to have been slept in and then, pocketing his key, made his way down by the stairs and left the hotel via the less frequented Embankment exit.
J. J. Grondheim stood for a moment looking across at the reflection of the lights in the dark waters of the Thames, and took off his tinted glasses to reveal to no one a pair of wickedly clear blue eyes that could only have belonged to Simon Templar.
6
Vic Reefly was indexed in the Saint’s mental data bank of villains under the umbrella heading “Racketeer.” By the tax collector and the law-abiding populace generally he was believed to earn his comfortable living quite legally as owner of the Montparnasse Club in Frith Street.
Although it did not come within a champagne cork’s flight of those select late night pleasure domes in the quieter environs of Mayfair and Knightsbridge, the Montparnasse was still a rung above most of its competitors in Soho. The nightly takings kept his bank manager smiling, while the Vic Reefly Pension Fund was taken care of by a miscellany of extracurricular activities, most of which centred around detaching mugs from their money. None had so far been sufficiently poisonous to warrant the Saint’s intervention, but Reefly was ambitious and the Saint maintained a watching brief.
It was Vic Reefly’s boast that a rat couldn’t sneeze between Piccadilly Circus and Tottenham Court Road without him hearing it.
Looking fresher and more elegant than anyone has a right to look in a night club at eleven-thirty in the morning, Simon Templar entered the Montparnasse with the sole intent of testing the claim. He descended the stairs from the front door into the reception lobby, where during business hours members were welcomed by a doorman whose physique was discreetly concealed by the cut of his dinner jacket. The experienced eye would also have noted that some of the waiters also appeared to have had more strenuous jobs in their time.