She was not eager to agree, but before she could frame a suitable reply he had propelled her into the glittering red-carpeted room where the preparations of the firm were purveyed in a hushed and reverent atmosphere reminiscent of a cathedral.
A girl assistant came forward, but in a moment she was displaced by Braddon himself-frock-coated, smooth oleaginous, hands at washing position.
"This is my manager," said Hayn, and the frock-coated man bowed. "Mr. Braddon, be so good as to show Miss Chandler some samples of the best of our products-the very best."
Thereupon, to the girl's bewilderment, were displayed velvet-lined mahogany trays, serried ranks of them, brought from the shelves that surrounded the room, and set out with loving care on a counter, one after another, till she felt completely dazed. There were rows upon rows of flashing crystal bottles of scent, golden cohorts of lipsticks, platoons of little alabaster pots of rouge, orderly regiments of enamelled boxes of powder. Her brain reeled before the contemplation of such a massed quantity of luxurious panderings to vanity.
"I want you to choose anything you like," said Hayn. "Absolutely anything that takes your fancy, my dear Miss Chandler."
"But -I-I couldn't possibly," she stammered.
Hayn waved her objections aside. "I insist," he said. "What is the use of being master of a place like this if you cannot let your friends enjoy it? Surely I can make you such a small present without any fear of being misunderstood? Accept the trifling gift graciously, my dear lady. I shall feel most hurt if you refuse."
In spite of the grotesqueness of his approach, the circumstances made it impossible to snub him. But she was unable to fathom his purpose in making her the object of such an outbreak. It was a hot day, and he was perspiring freely, as a man of his build is unhappily liable to do, and she wondered hysterically if perhaps the heat had temporarily unhinged his brain. There was something subtly disquieting about his exuberance. She modestly chose a small vanity-case and a little flask of perfume, and he seemed disappointed by her reluctance. He pressed other things upon her, and she found herself forced to accept two large boxes of powder.
"Make a nice parcel of those things for Miss Chandler, Mr. Braddon," said Hayn, and the manager carried the goods away to the back of the shop.
"It's really absurdly kind of you, Mr. Hayn," said the girl confusedly. "I don't know what I've done to deserve it."
"Your face is your fortune, my dear young lady," answered Hayn, who was obviously in a brilliant mood.
She had a terrified suspicion that in a moment he would utter an invitation to lunch, and she hastily begged to be excused on the grounds of an entirely fictitious engagement. "Please don't think me rude, hurrying away like this," she pleaded. "As a matter of fact, I'm already shockingly late."
He was plainly crestfallen. "No one can help forgiving you anything," he said sententiously. "But the loss to myself is irreparable."
She never knew afterwards how she managed to keep her end up in the exchange of platitudes that followed, until the return of Braddon with a neat package enabled her to make her escape.
Hayn accompanied her out into the street, hat in hand. "At least," he said, "promise me that the invitation will not be unwelcome, if I ring you up soon and ask you to suggest a day. I could not bear to think that my company was distasteful to you."
"Of course not-I should love to-and thank you ever so much for the powder and things," she said desperately. "But I must fly now." She fled as best she might.
Hayn watched her out of sight, standing stock still in the middle of the pavement where she had left him, with a queer gleam in his pale eyes. Then he put his hat on, and marched off without reentering the shop. He made his way to the club in Soho, where he was informed that Snake Ganning and some of the Boys were waiting to see him. Hayn let them wait while he wrote a letter, which was addressed to M. Henri Chastel, Poste Restante, Athens; and he was about to ring for the Snake to be admitted when there was a tap on the door and Danny entered.
"There are five of them," said Danny helpfully.
"Five of whom?" said Hayn patiently.
"Five," said Danny, "including the man who pulled Mr. Braddon's hat down over his eyes. They said they must see you at once."
Mr. Hayn felt in the pit of his stomach the dull sinking qualm which had come to be inseparable from the memory of the Saint's electric personality. Every morning without fail since the first warning he had received, there had been the now familiar envelope, beside his plate at breakfast, containing the inevitable card; and every afternoon, when he reached Danny's he found a similar reminder among the letters on his desk. He had not had a chance to forget Simon Templar, even if he had wished to do so-as a matter of fact, the Snake and his Boys were at that moment waiting to receive their instructions in connection with a plot which Hayn had formed for disposing of the menace.
But the Saint's policy was rapidly wearing out Hayn's nerves. Knowing what he did, the Saint could only be refraining from passing his knowledge along to Scotland Yard because he hoped to gain more by silence, yet there had been no attempt to blackmail-only those daily melodramatic reminders of his continued interest.
Hayn was starting to feel like a mouse that has been tormented to the verge of madness by an exceptionally sportive cat. He had not a doubt that the Saint was scheming and working against him still, but his most frenzied efforts of concentration had failed to deduce the most emaciated shred of an idea of the direction from which the next assault would be launched, and seven days and nights of baffled inaction had brought Edgar Hayn to the borders of a breakdown.
Now the Saint-and the rest of his gang also from all appearances-was paying a second visit. The next round was about to begin, and Hayn was fighting in a profounder obscurity than ever. "Show them in," he said in a voice that he hardly recognized as his own.
He bent over some writing, struggling to control his nerves for the bluff that was all he had to rely on, and with an effort of will he succeeded in not looking up when he heard the door opening and the soft footsteps of men filing into the room.
"Walk right in, souls," said the Saint's unmistakable cheery accents. "That's right. Park yourselves along that wall in single rank and stand easy."
Then Hayn raised his eyes, and saw the Saint standing over the desk regarding him affectionately.
"Good morning, Edgar," said the Saint affably. "How's Swan?"
"Good morning, Mr. Templar," said Hayn.
He shifted a gaze to the four men ranged beside the door. They were a nondescript quartet, in his opinion-not at all the sort of men he had pictured in his hazy attempts to visualize Templar's partners. Only one of them could have been under thirty, and the clothes of all of them had seen better days.
"These are the rest of the gang," said the Saint. "I noticed that I was followed home from here last time I called, so I thought it'd save you a lot of sleuthing if I brought the other lads right along and introduced them." He turned. "Squad-shun! Souls, this is dear Edgar, whom you've heard so much about. As I call your names, reading from left to right, you will each take one pace smartly to your front, bow snappily from the hips, keeping the eyebrows level and the thumb in line with seam of the trousers, and fall in again. . . . First, Edgar, meet Saint Winston Churchill. Raise your hat, Winny. . . . On his left, Saint George Robey. Eyebrows level, George. . . . Next, Saint Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, and no relation to the vacuum cleaner. Wave your handkerchief to the pretty gentleman, Herb! Last, but not least, Saint Hannen Swaffer. Keep smiling, Hannen-I won't let anyone slap your face here . . . That's the lot, Edgar, except for myself. Meet me!"
Hayn nodded. "That's very considerate of you, Mr. Templar," he said, and his voice was a little shaky, for an idea was being born inside him. "Is that all you came to do?"
"Not quite, Precious," said the Saint, settling down on the edge of the desk. "I came to talk business."
"Then you won't want to be hurried," said Hayn. "There are some other people waiting to see me. Will you excuse me while I go and tell them to call again later?"
The Saint smiled. "By all manner of means, sonny," said he. "But I warn you it won't be any use telling the Snake and his Boys to be ready to beat us up when we leave here, because a friend of ours is waiting a block away with a letter to our friend Inspector Teal-and that letter will be delivered if we don't report safe and sound in ten minutes from now!"
"You needn't worry," said Hayn. "I haven't underrated your intelligence!"
He went out. It was a mistake he was to regret later-never before had he left even his allies alone in that office, much less a confessed enemy. But the urgency of his inspiration had, for the moment, driven every other thought out of his head. The cleverest criminal must make a slip sooner or later, and it usually proves to be such a childish one that the onlooker is amazed that it should have been made at all. Hayn made his slip then, but it must be remembered that he was a very rattled man.
He found Snake Ganning, sitting at the bar with three picked Boys, and beckoned them out of earshot of the bartender. "The Saint and the rest of his band are in the office," he said, and Canning let out a virulent exclamation. "No-there won't be any rough business now. I want to have a chance to find out what his game is. But when the other four go, I want you to tail them and find out all you can about them. Report here at midnight, and I'll give you your instructions about Templar himself."
"When I get hold of that swine," Ganning ground out vitriolically, "he's going to-"
Hayn cut him short with an impatient sweep of his hand. "You'll wait till I've finished with him," he said. "You don't want to charge in like a bull at a gate, before you know what's on the other side of the gate. I'll tell you when to start-you can bet your life on that!"
And in that short space of time the Saint, having shamelessly seized the opportunity provided by Hayn's absence, had comprehensively ransacked the desk. There were four or five lOU's with Stannard's signature in an unlocked drawer, and these he pocketed. Hayn had been incredibly careless. And then the Saint's eye was caught by an envelope on which the ink was still damp. The name "Chastel" stood out as if it had been spelt in letters of fire, so that Simon stiffened like a pointer. . . . His immobility lasted only an instant. Then, in a flash, he scribbled something on a blank sheet of notepaper and folded it into a blank envelope. With the original before him for a guide, he copied the address in a staggeringly lifelike imitation of Hayn's handwriting. ...
"I shall now be able to give you an hour, if you want it," said Hayn, returning, and the Saint turned with a bland smile.
"I shan't take nearly as long as that, my cabbage," he replied. "But I don't think the proceedings will interest the others, and they've got work to do. Now you've met them, do you mind if I dismiss the parade?"
"Not at all, Mr. Templar."
There was a glitter of satisfaction in Hayn's eyes; but if the Saint noticed it, he gave no sign. "Move to the right in column o' route-etcetera," he ordered briskly. "In English, hop it!"
The parade, after a second's hesitation, shuffled out with expressionless faces. They had not spoken a word from the time of their entrance to the time of their exit. It may conveniently be recorded at this juncture that Snake Ganning and the Boys spent eleven laboriously profitless hours following a kerbstone vendor of bootlaces, a pavement artist, and a barrel-organ team of two ex-servicemen, whom the Saint had hired for ten shillings apiece for the occasion; and it may also be mentioned that the quartet, assembling at a near-by dairy to celebrate the windfall, were no less mystified than were the four painstaking bloodhounds who dogged their footsteps for the rest of the day.
It was the Saint's idea of a joke-but then, the Saint's sense of humour was remarkably good.
Chapter IX "AND now let's get down to business-as the bishop said to the actress," murmured Simon, fishing out his cigarette-case, and tapping a gasper on his thumbnail. "I want to ask you a very important question."
Hayn sat down. "Well, Mr. Templar?"