With his pipe drawing satisfactorily, Monty possessed himself of the beer-opener and executed a neat flanking movement towards the source of supply.
"Well, one day this fellow Newdick asked me if I'd like to drop over and have a look at his autogiros, so the following Saturday afternoon I hadn't anything particular to do and I took a run out to his aerodrome to see how he was getting along. All he had there was a couple of corrugated-iron sheds and a small field which he used to take off from and land at, but he really had got a helicopter effect which he said he'd made himself. He told me all about it and how it worked, which was all double-Dutch to me; and then he asked me if I'd like to go up in it. So I said 'Thank you very much, I should simply hate to go up in it.' You know what these things look like — an ordinary aeroplane with the wings taken off and just a sort of large fan business to hold you up in the air — I never thought they looked particularly safe even when they're properly made, and I certainly didn't feel like risking my neck in this home-made version that he'd rigged up out of old bits of wood and angle iron. However, he was so insistent about it and seemed so upset when I refused that eventually I thought I'd better gratify the old boy and just keep on praying that the damn thing wouldn't fall to pieces before we got down again."
The Saint sighed.
"So that's what happened to your face," he remarked, in a tone of profound relief. "If you only knew how that had been bothering me—"
"My mother did that," said Monty proudly. "No — we didn't crash. In fact, I had a really interesting flight. Either it must have been a very good machine, or he was a very good flier, because he made it do almost everything except answer questions. I don't know if you've ever been up in one of these autogiros — I've never been up in any other make, but this one was certainly everything that he claimed for it. It went up exactly like going up in a lift, and came down the same way. I never have known anything about the mechanics of these things, but after having had a ride in this bus of his I couldn't help feeling that the Air Age had arrived — I mean, anyone with a reasonable sized lawn could have kept one of 'em and gone tootling off for week-ends in it."
"And therefore," said the Saint reproachfully, "when he asked you if you'd like to invest some money in a company he was forming to turn out these machines and sell them at about twenty pounds a time, you hauled out your cheque-book and asked him how much he wanted."
Monty chuckled good-humouredly.
"That's about it. The details don't really matter, but the fact is that about three weeks later I'd bought above five thousand quids' worth of shares."
"What was the catch?" Simon asked; and Monty shrugged.
"Well, the catch was simply that this helicopter wasn't his invention at all. He had really built it himself, apparently, but it was copied line for line from one of the existing makes. There wasn't a thing in it that he'd invented. Therefore the design wasn't his, and he hadn't any right at all to manufacture it. So the company couldn't function. Of course, he didn't put it exactly like that. He told me that he'd 'discovered' that his designs 'overlapped' the existing patents — he swore that it was absolutely a coincidence, and nearly wept all over my office because his heart was broken because he'd found out that all his research work had already been done before. I told him I didn't believe a word of it, but that wasn't any help towards getting my money back. I hadn't any evidence against him that I could have brought into a court of law. Of course he'd told me that his design was patented and protected in every way, but he hadn't put any of that in writing, and when he came and told me the whole thing was smashed he denied it. He said he'd told me he was getting the design patented. I did see a solicitor about it afterwards, but he told me I hadn't a chance of proving a deliberate fraud. Newdick would probably have been ticked off in court for taking money without reasonable precautions, but that wouldn't have brought any of it back."
"It was a private company, I suppose," said the Saint.
Monty nodded.
"If it had been a public one, with shares on the open market, it would have been a different matter," he said.
"What happened to the money?"
"Newdick had spent it — or he said he had. He told me he'd paid off all the old debts that had run up while he was experimenting, and spent the rest on some manufacturing plant and machinery for the company. He did give me about six or seven hundred back, and told me he'd work like hell to produce another invention that would really be original so he could pay me back the rest, but that was the last I heard of him. He's probably caught several other mugs with the same game since then." Monty grinned philosophically, looked at the clock, and got up. "Well, I must be getting along. I'll look in and see you on Saturday — if you haven't been arrested and shoved in clink before then."
He departed after another bottle of beer had been lowered; and when he had gone Patricia Holm viewed the Saint doubtfully. She had not missed the quiet attention with which he had followed Monty Hayward's narrative; and she had known Simon Templar a long time. The Saint had a fresh cigarette slanting from the corner of his mouth, his hands were in his pockets, and he was smiling at her with a seraphic innocence which was belied by every facet of the twinkling tang of mockery in his blue eyes.
"You know what I told you," she said.
He laughed.
"About getting into trouble? My darling, when will you stop thinking these wicked thoughts? I'm taking your advice to heart. Maybe there is something to be said for going into business. I think I should look rather fetching in a silk hat and a pair of white spats with pearl buttons; and you've no idea how I could liven up a directors' meeting if I set my mind to it."
Patricia was not convinced.
She was even less convinced when the Saint went out the next morning. From his extensive wardrobe he had selected one of his most elegant suits, a creation in light-hued saxony of the softest and most expensive weave — a garment which could by no possible chance have been worn by a man who had to devote his day to honest toil. His tie was dashing, his silk socks would have made a Communist's righteous indignation swell to bursting point, and over his right eye he had tilted a brand new Panama which would have made one wonder whether the strange shapeless headgear of the same breed worn by old gents whilst pottering around their gardens could conceivably be any relation whatsoever of such a superbly stylish lid. Moreover he had taken out the car which was the pride of his stable — the new cream and red Hirondel which was in itself the hallmark of a man who could afford to pay five thousand pounds for a car and thereafter watch a gallon of petrol blown into smoke every three or four miles.
"Where's the funeral?" she asked; and the Saint smiled blandly.
"I'm a young sportsman with far more money than sense, and I'm sure Comrade Newdick will be pleased to see me," he said; and he kissed her.
Mr. Oscar Newdick was pleased to see him — Simon Templar would have been vastly surprised if he hadn't been. That aura of idle affluence which the Saint could put on as easily as he put on a coat was one of his most priceless accessories, and it was never worn for any honest purpose.
But this Mr. Oscar Newdick did not know. To him, the arrival of such a person was like an answer to prayer. Monty Hayward's guess at Mr. Newdick's activities since collecting five thousand pounds from him was fairly accurate, but only fairly. Mr. Newdick had not caught several other mugs, but only three; and one of them had only been induced to invest a paltry three hundred pounds. The helicopter racket had been failing in its dividends, and the past year had not shown a single pennyworth of profit. Mr. Newdick did not believe in accumulating pennies: when he made a touch, it had to be a big one, and he was prepared to wait for it — the paltry three hundred pound investor had been an error of judgment, a young man who had grossly misled him with fabulous accounts of wealthy uncles, which when the time came to make the touch had been discovered to be the purest fiction — but recently the periods of waiting had exceeded all reasonable limits. Mr. Newdick had travelled literally thousands of miles on the more prosperous suburban lines in search of victims — the fellow-passenger technique really was his own invention, and he practised it to perfection — but many moons had passed since he brought a prospective investor home from his many voyages.