Saint Intervenes (2 page)

“He’s
rich,” said Mr. Immelbern.

“I
wish I could remember where I met him,” said the Colo
nel,
frowning over his own train of thought. “I hate to forget
a face.”

“You
doddering old fool!” snarled Mr. Immelbern, smiling
at him
affectionately. “What do I care about your memory?
The point
is that he’s rich, and he seemed to recognise you. Well, that saves a lot of
trouble, doesn’t it?”

The
Colonel turned towards him and blinked.

“What
do you mean?”

“Will
you never wake up?” moaned Mr. Immelbern, ex
tending his
cigarette-case with every appearance of affability.
“Here you’ve
been sitting whining and moping for half an
hour because we don’t
get a chance to make a click, and when
a chance does come
along you can’t see it. What do I care
where you met the man?
What do I care if you never met
him? He nodded to you, and he’s sitting two
yards away—
and you ask me what I mean!”

The
Colonel frowned at him for a moment. He was, as we
have explained, a born
conservative. He never allowed him
self to be carried away. He
deliberated. He calculated. He
explored. He would, but for the ever-present
stimulus of Mr.
Immelbern, have done as little as any other conservative.

But
gradually the frown faded, and a dignified smile took
its place.

“There
may be something in what you say, Sid,” he con
ceded.

“Go
on,” ordered Mr. Immelbern crudely. “Hop it. And
try to wake
your ideas up a bit. If somebody threw a purse
into your lap, you’d
be asking me what it was.”

Lieut.-Colonel
Uppingdon gave him an aristocratically with
ering look, and rose
sedately from the table. He went over to
where the young man
sat and coughed discreetly.

“Excuse
me, sir,” he said, and the young man looked up
from his idle study of
the afternoon’s runners at Sandown
Park. “You must have thought me a
trifle rude just now.”

“Not
at all,” said the young man amiably. “I thought you
were busy
and didn’t want to be bothered. How are things
these days,
George?”

The
Colonel suppressed a start. The use of his Christian
name implied an
intimacy that was almost alarming, but the young man’s pleasant features still
struck no responsive chord
in his memory.

“To
tell you the truth,” he said, “I’m afraid my eyes are
not as
good as they were. I didn’t recognise you until you had
gone by.
Dear me! How long is it since I saw you last?”

The young
man thought for a moment.

“Was
it at Biarritz in 1929?”

“Of
course!” exclaimed Uppingdon delightedly—he had
never been to Biarritz
in his life. “By Gad, how the times does
fly! I never thought I
should have to ask when I last saw
you,
my dear——
”

He broke
off short, and an expression of shocked dismay
overspread his face.

“Good
Gad!” he blurted. “You’ll begin to think there’s
something
the matter with me. Have you ever had a lapse of
memory like that? I
had your name on the tip of my tongue
—I was just going to say it—and it
slipped off! Wait—don’t
help me—didn’t it begin with H?”

“I’m
afraid not,” said the young man pleasantly.

“Not
either of your names?” pursued the Colonel hopefully.

“No.”

“Then
it must have been J.”

“No.”

“I
mean T.”

The young
man nodded. Uppingdon took heart.

“Let
me see. Tom—Thomson—Travers—Terrington——
”

The other
smiled.

“I’d
better save you the trouble. Templar’s the name—
Simon Templar.”

Uppingdon
put a hand to his head.

“I
knew it!” He was certain that he had never met anyone
named
Simon Templar. “How stupid of me! My dear chap,
I hardly know how to
apologise. Damned bad form, not even
being able to remember a fellow’s name.
Look here, you must
give me a chance to put it right. What about joining us
for a
drink? Or are you waiting for somebody?”

Simon
Templar shook his head.

“No—I
just dropped in.”

“Splendid!”
said the Colonel. “Splendid! Perfectly splen
did !” He seized
the young man’s arm and led him across to
where Mr. Immelbern
waited. “By Gad, what a perfectly splen
did coincidence.
Simon, you must meet Mr. Immelbern. Sid
ney, this is an old
friend of mine, Mr. Templar. By Gad!”

Simon found
himself ushered into the best chair, his drink
paid for, his health
proposed and drunk with every symptom
of cordiality.

“By
Gad!” said the Colonel, mopping his brow and beam
ing.

“Quite
a coincidence, Mr. Templar,” remarked Immelbern,
absorbing the word
into his vocabulary.

“Coincidence
is a marvellous thing,” said the Colonel. “I
remember when I was in
Allahabad with the West Nottinghams
, they had a quartermaster whose wife’s
name was Ellen. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t really our quartermaster—we
borrowed
him from the Southwest Kents. Rotten regiment, the
Southwest Kents. Old
General Plushbottom was with them
before he was thrown out of the
service. His name wasn’t
really Plushbottom, but we called him Old
General Plushbot
tom. The whole thing was a frightful scandal. He had a
fight
with a subaltern on the parade-ground at Poona—as a matter
of fact,
it was almost on the very spot where Reggie Carfew
dropped dead of heart failure the day
after his wife ran away
with a bank clerk.
And the extraordinary thing was that her
name was Ellen too.”

“Extraordinary,”
agreed the young man.

“Extraordinary!”
concurred Mr. Immelbern, and trod viciously on Uppingdon’s toe under the
table.

“That
was a marvellous trip we had on the
Bremen
—I
mean to
Biarritz—wasn’t it?” said the Colonel, wincing.

Simon
Templar smiled.

“We
had some good parties, didn’t we?”

“By
Gad! And the casino!”

“The
Heliopolis!”

“The races!” said the
Colonel, seizing his cue almost too
smartly,
and moving his feet quickly out of range of Mr. Immelbern’s
heavy heel.

Mr. Immelbern gave an elaborate
start. He pulled a watch from his waistcoat pocket and looked at it accusingly.

“By
the way, Sir George,” he interrupted with a faintly con
spiratorial air. “I don’t
want to put you out at all, but it’s get
ting
a bit late.”

“Late?”
repeated the Colonel, frowning at him.

“You know,” said Mr.
Immelbern mysteriously.

“Oh,”
said the Colonel, grasping the point.

Mr. Immelbern turned to Simon.

“I’m
really not being rude, Mr. Templar,” he explained,
“but
Sir George has important business to attend to this after
noon, and
I had to remind him about it. Really, Sir George,
don’t think I’m
butting in, but it goes at two o’clock, and if
we’re going to get any
lunch——
”

“But
that’s outrageous!” protested the Colonel indignantly.
“I’ve
only just brought Mr. Templar over to our table, and
you’re suggesting that
I should rush off and leave him!”

“Please
don’t bother about me,” said Simon hastily. “If you
have
business to do——
”

“My
dear chap, I insist on bothering. The whole idea is absurd. I’ve put far too
great a strain on your good nature
already. This is preposterous. You must certainly join us
in
another drink. And in lunch. It’s the very
least I can do.”

Mr. Immelbern did not look
happy. He gave the impression
of a man torn
between politeness and frantic necessity, frus
trated by having to talk in riddles, and perhaps pardonably exasperated
by the obtuseness of his companion.

“But
really, Sir George——
”

“That’s
enough,” said the Colonel, raising his hand. “I
refuse to
listen to anything more. Mr. Templar is an old friend
of mine, and my
guarantee should be good enough for you.
And as far as you are concerned, my dear
chap,” he added,
turning to Simon,
“if you are not already engaged for lunch,
I won’t hear any other excuse.”

Simon
shrugged.

“It’s
very good of you. But if I’m in the way——
”

“That,”
said the Colonel pontifically, “will do.” He con
sulted his
watch, drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the
table for a moment,
and said: “The very thing! We’ll go
right along to my
rooms, and I’ll have some lunch served
there. Then Mr.
Immelbern and I can do our business as well
without being rushed
about.”

“But
Sir George!” said Immelbern imploringly. “Won’t
you listen
to reason ? Look here, can I speak to you alone for
a minute? Mr. Templar will excuse
us.”

He
grabbed the spluttering Colonel by the arm and dragged
him away almost by main
force. They retreated to the other
end of the lounge.

“We’ll
get him,” said the Colonel, gesticulating furiously.

“I
know,” said Mr. Immelbern, beating his fist on the palm
of his
hand. “That is, if you don’t scare him off with that
imitation
of a colonel. That stuff’s so old-fashioned it makes
me want to cry. Have you found out who he
is?”

“No. I
don’t even recognise his name.”

“Probably
he’s mistaken you for somebody else,” said Mr.
Immelbern, appearing
to sulk.

The
Colonel turned away from him and marched back to
the table, with Mr.
Immelbern following him glumly.

“Well,
that’s settled, by Gad,” he said breezily. “If you’ve finished your
drink, my dear fellow, we’ll get along at once.”

They went
in a taxi to the Colonel’s apartment, a small
suite at the lower
end of Clarges Street. Uppingdon burbled
on with engaging
geniality, but Mr. Immelbern kept his mouth
tightly closed and
wore the look of a man suffering from
toothache.

“How
about some caviar sandwiches and a bottle of wine ?”
suggested
the Colonel. “I can fix those up myself. Or if you’d
prefer
something more substantial, I can easily get it sent in.”

“Caviar
sandwiches will do for me,” murmured Simon ac
commodatingly.

There was
plenty of caviar, and some excellent sherry to
pass the time while
the Colonel was preparing the sandwiches.
The wine was
impeccable, and the quantity apparently un
limited. Under its
soothing influence even the morose Mr. Immelbern seemed to thaw slightly,
although towards the end
of the meal he kept looking at his watch and comparing it
anxiously with the clock on the mantelpiece. At a
quarter to
two he caught his
partner’s eye in one of the rare lulls in the
Colonel’s meandering flow of reminiscence.

“Well,
Sir George,” he said grimly, “if you can spare the
time now——
”

“Of
course,” said the Colonel brightly.

Mr.
Immelbern looked at their guest, and hesitated again.

“Er—to
deal with our business.”

Simon put
down his glass and rose quickly.

“I’ll
leave you to it,” he said pleasantly. “Really, I’ve imposed on you
quite long enough.”

“Sit
down, my dear chap, sit down,” commanded the Colo
nel testily.
“Dammit, Sidney, your suspicions are becoming
ridiculous. If you go
on in this way I shall begin to believe
you suffer from
delusions of persecution. I’ve already told
you that Mr. Templar
is an old friend of mine, by Gad, and
it’s an insult to a guest in my house
to suggest that you can’t
trust him. Anything we have to discuss can be
said in front
of him.”