The Saint Magazine. January 1967. Volume 24, No. 5.

The Five Thousand Pound Kiss by Leslie Charteris

A sequel to THE EXPORT TRADE

Copyright 1933 by Leslie Charteris

It has been said that Simon Templar was a philanderer; but the criticism was not entirely just. A pretty face, or the turn of a slim ankle, appealed to him no more — and not a bit less — than they do to the next man. Perhaps he was more honest about it.

It is true that sometimes, in a particularly buccaneering mood, as he swung down a broad highway leading to infinite adventure, he would sing one of his own inimitable songs against the pompous dreariness of civilisation, as he saw it, with a chorus:

But there was a gesture in that, to be taken with or without salt as the audience pleased; and a fat lot the Saint cared. He was moderate in nothing that he said or did. That insurgent vitality which made him an outlaw first and last and in everything rebelled perhaps too fiercely against all moderation; and if at the same time it made him, to those who knew him best, the one glamorous and romantic figure of his day, that was the judgment which he himself would have asked for.

These chronicles are concerned mainly with episodes in which he provided himself with the bare necessities of life by cunning and strategy rather than daring; but even in those times there were occasions when his career hung on the thread of a lightning decision. That happened in the affair of Mrs. Dempster-Craven’s pink diamond; and if the Saint philandered then, he would have told you that he had no regrets.

“The idea that such a woman should have a jool that keeps me awake at nights,” he complained. “I’ve seen her twice, and she is a Hag.”

This was at dinner one night. Peter Quentin was there; and so was Patricia Holm, who, when all was said and done, was the lady who held the Saint’s reckless heart and knew best how to understand all his misdeeds. The subject of the “Star of Mandalay” had cropped up casually in the course of conversation; and it was worth mentioning that neither of Simon Templar’s guests bothered to raise any philosophical argument against his somewhat heterodox doctrine against the rights of Hags. But it was left for Peter Quentin to put his foot in it.

Peter read behind the wistfulness of the Saint’s words, and said: “Don’t be an idiot, Simon. You don’t need the money, and you couldn’t pinch the Star of Mandalay. The woman’s got a private detective following her around wherever she goes—”

“Couldn’t I pinch it, Peter?” said the Saint, very softly.

Patricia saw the light in his eyes, and clutched Peter’s wrist.

“You ass!” she gasped. “Now you’ve done it. He’d be fool enough to try—”

“Why ‘try’?” asked the Saint, looking round mildly. “That sounds very much like an aspersion on my genius, which I shall naturally have to—”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” protested the girl frantically. “I mean that after all, when we don’t need the money— You said you were thinking of running over to Paris for a week—”

“We can go via Amsterdam, and sell the Star of Mandalay en route,” said the Saint calmly. “You lie in your teeth, my sweetheart. You meant that the Star of Mandalay was too much of a problem for me and I’d only get in a mess if I tried for it. Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking of having a dart at it for some time.”

Peter Quentin drank deeply of the Chambertin to steady his nerves.

“You haven’t been thinking anything of the sort,” he said. “I’ll withdraw everything I said. You were just taking on a dare.”

Simon ordered himself a second slice of melon, and leaned back with his most seraphic and exasperating smile.

“Have I,” he inquired blandly, “ever told you my celebrated story about a bobtailed ptarmigan named Alphonse, who lived in sin with a couple of duck-billed platypi in the tundras of Siberia? Alphonse, who suffered from asthma and was a believer in Christian Science...”

He completed his narrative at great length, refusing to be interrupted; and they knew that the die was cast. When once Simon Templar had made up his mind it was impossible to argue with him. If he didn’t proceed blandly to talk you down with one of his most fatuous and irrelevant anecdotes, he would listen politely to everything you had to say, agree with you thoroughly, and carry on exactly as he had announced his intentions from the beginning; which wasn’t helpful. And he had made up his mind, on one of his mad impulses, that the Star of Mandalay was due for a change of ownership. It was not a very large stone, but it was reputed to be flawless; and it was valued at ten thousand pounds. Simon reckoned that it would be worth five thousand pounds to him in Van Roeper’s little shop in Amsterdam, and five thousand pounds was a sum of money that he could find a home for at any time.

But he said nothing about that to Mrs. Dempster-Craven when he saw her for the third time and spoke to her for the first. He was extremely polite and apologetic. He had good reason to be, for the rakish Hirondel which he was driving had collided with Mrs. Dempster-Craven’s Rolls Royce in Hyde Park, and the glossy symmetry of the Rolls Royce’s real elevation had been considerably impaired.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “Your chauffeur pulled up rather suddenly, and my hand-brake cable broke when I tried to stop.”

His hand-brake cable had certainly divided itself in the middle, and the frayed ends had been produced for the chauffeur’s inspection; but no one was to know that Simon had filed it through before he started out.

“That is not my fault,” said Mrs. Dempster-Craven coldly. She was going to pay a call on the wife of a minor baronet, and she was pardonably annoyed at the damage to her impressive car. “Bagshawe, will you please find me a taxi.”

“The car’ll take you there all right, ma’am,” said the chauffeur incautiously.

Mrs. Dempster-Craven froze him through her lorgnettes.

“How,” she required to know, “can I possibly call on Lady Wiltham in a car that looks as if I had picked it up at a second-hand sale? Kindly call me a taxi immediately, and don’t argue.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the abashed chauffeur, and departed on his errand.

“I really don’t know how to apologise,” said the Saint humbly.

“Then don’t try,” said Mrs. Dempster-Craven discouragingly.

The inevitable small crowd had collected, and a policeman was advancing ponderously towards it from the distance. Mrs. Dempster-Craven liked to be stared at as she crossed the pavement to Drury Lane Theatre on a first night, but not when she was sitting in a battered car in Hyde Park. But the Saint was not so self-conscious.

“I’m afraid I can’t offer you a lift at the moment; but if my other car would be of any use to you for the reception tonight—”

“What reception?” asked Mrs. Dempster-Craven haughtily, having overcome the temptation to retort that she had three other Rolls Royces no less magnificent than the one she was sitting in.

“Prince Marco d’Ombria’s,” answered the Saint easily. “I heard you say that you were going to call on Lady Wiltham, and I had an idea that I’d heard Marco mention her name. I thought perhaps—”

“I am not going to the reception,” said Mrs. Dempster-Craven; but it was noticeable that her tone was not quite so freezing. “I have a previous engagment to dine with Lord and Lady Bredon.”

Simon chalked up the point without batting an eyelid. He had not engineered the encounter without making inquiries about his victim, and it had not taken him long to learn that Mrs. Dempster-Craven’s one ambition was to win for herself and her late husband’s millions an acknowledged position among the Very Best People. That carelessly-dropped reference to a Prince, even an Italian Prince, by his first name, had gone over like a truckload of honey. And it was a notable fact that if Mrs. Dempster-Craven had pursued her own inquiries into the reference, she would have found that the name of Simon Templar was not only recognised but hailed effusively; for there had once been a spot of bother involving a full million pounds belonging to the Bank of Italy which had made the Saint for ever persona grata at the Legation.

The chauffeur returned with a taxi, and Mrs. Dempster-Craven’s fifteen stone of flesh were assisted ceremoniously out of the Rolls. Having had a brief interval to consider pros and cons, she deigned to thank the Saint for his share in the operation with a smile that disclosed a superb set of expensive teeth.

“I hope your car isn’t seriously damaged,” she remarked graciously; and the Saint smiled in his most elegant manner.

“It doesn’t matter a bit. I was just buzzing down to Hurlingham for a spot of tennis, but I can easily take a taxi.” He took out his wallet and handed her a card. “As soon as you know what the damage’ll cost to put right, I do hope you’ll send me in the bill.”

“I shouldn’t dream of doing such a thing,” said Mrs. Dempster-Craven. “The whole thing was undoubtedly Bagshawe’s fault.”

With which startling volte-face, and another display of her expensive denture, she ascended regally into the cab; and Simon Templar went triumphantly back to Patricia.

“It went off perfectly, Pat! You could see the whole line sizzing down her throat till she choked on the rod. The damage to the Hirondel will cost about fifteen quid to put right, but we’ll charge that up to expenses. And the rest of it’s only a matter of time.”

The time was even shorter than he had expected; for Mrs. Dempster Craven was not prepared to wait any longer than was necessary to see her social ambitions fulfilled, and the highest peak she had attained at that date was a week-end at the house of a younger son of a second viscount.

Three days later Simon’s postbag included a scented mauve envelope, and he knew before he opened it that it was the one he had been waiting for.

“Who said my technique had ever failed me?” Simon demanded of Peter Quentin at lunch-time that day.

“I didn’t,” said Peter, “as I’ve told you all along. Thank God you won’t be going to prison on Thursday, anyway — if it’s only a little party she’s invited you to I don’t suppose you’ll even see the Star of Mandalay.”

Simon grinned.

“Little party be blowed,” he said. “Gertrude has never thrown a little party in her life. When she talks about a ‘little’ party she means there’ll only be two orchestras and not more than a hundred couples. And if she doesn’t put on the Star of Mandalay for Lady Palfrey’s benefit I am a bob-tailed ptarmigan and my name is Alphonse.”

Nevertheless, when he suggested that Peter Quentin should come with him there was not much argument.

“How can you get me in?” Peter demurred. “I wasn’t invited, and I don’t know any princes.”

“You’ve got an uncle who’s a lord or something, haven’t you?”

“I’ve got an uncle who’s the Bishop of Johannesburg; but what does Mrs. Dempster-Craven care about South African bishops?”

“Call him Lord Johannesburg,” said the Saint. “She won’t look him up in Debrett while you’re there. I’ll say we were dining together and I couldn’t shake you off.”

At that point it all looked almost tediously straightforward, a commonplace exploit with nothing but the size of the prize to make it memorable. And when Simon arrived in Berkeley Square on the date of his invitation it seemed easier still; for Mrs. Dempster-Craven, as he had expected, was proudly sporting the Star of Mandalay on her swelling bosom, set in the centre of a pattern of square-cut sapphires in a platinum pendant that looked more like an illuminated sky-sign than anything else. True, there was a large-footed man in badly fitting dress clothes who trailed her around like a devoted dachshund; but private detectives of any grade the Saint felt competent to deal with. Professionals likewise, given a fair warning — although he was anticipating no professional surveillance that night. But he had not been in the house twenty minutes before he found himself confronting a dark slender girl with merry brown eyes whose face appeared before him like the Nemesis of one of his most innocent flirtations — even then he did not guess what Fate had in store for him.

At his side he heard the voice of Mrs. Dempster-Craven cooing like a contralto dove:

“This is Miss Rosamund Armitage — a cousin of the Duke of Trayall.” And then, as she saw their eyes fixed on each other... “But have you met before?”

“Yes — we have met,” said the Saint, recovering himself easily. “Wasn’t it that day when you were just off to Ostend?”

“I think so,” said the girl gravely.

A plaintive baronet in search of an introduction accosted Mrs. Dempster-Craven from the other side, and Simon took the girl in his arms as the second orchestra muted its saxophones for a waltz.

“This is a very happy reunion, Kate,” he murmured. “I must congratulate you.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously.

“When we last met — in that famous little argument about the Kellman necklace — you weren’t so closely related to the Duke of Trayall.”

They made a circuit of the floor — she danced perfectly, as he would have expected — and then she said, bluntly: “What are you doing here, Saint?”

“Treading the light fantastic-drinking free champagne — and watching little monkeys scrambling up the social ladder,” he answered airily. “And you?”

“I’m here for exactly the same reason as you are — my old age pension.”

“I can’t imagine you getting old, Kate.”

“Let’s sit out somewhere,” she said suddenly.

They left the ballroom and went in search of a secluded corner of the conservatory, where there were arm-chairs and sheltering palm trees providing discreet alcoves for romantic couples. Simon noticed that the girl was quite sure of her way around, and said so.

“Of course I’ve been here before,” she said. “I expect you have, too.”

“On the contrary — this is my first visit. I never take two bites at a cherry.”

“Not even a ten thousand pound one?”

“Not even that.”

She produced a packet of cigarettes from her bag and offered him one. Simon smiled, and shook his head.

“There are funny things about your cigarettes that don’t make me laugh out loud, Kate,” he said cheerfully. “Have one of mine instead.”

“Look here,” she said. “Let’s put our cards on the table. You’re after that pendant, and so am I. Everything on our side is planned out, and you’ve just told me this is your first visit. You can’t possibly get in front of us this time. You took the Kellman necklace away under our noses, but you couldn’t do it again. Why not retire gracefully?”

He gazed at her thoughtfully for a few seconds; and she touched his hand.

“Won’t you do that — and save trouble?”

“You know, Kate,” said the Saint, “You’re a lovely child. Would you mind very much if I kissed you?”

“I could make it worth a hundred pounds to you — for nothing — if you gave us a clear field.”

Simon wrinkled his nose.

“Are there forty-nine of you?” he drawled. “It seems a very small share-out to me.”

“I might be able to make it two hundred. They wouldn’t agree to any more.”

The Saint blew smoke-rings towards the ceiling.

“If you could make it two thousand I don’t think you’d be able to buy me off, darling. Being bought off is so dull. So what’s the alternative? Am I slugged with another sandbag and locked up in the pantry?”

Suddenly he found that she was gripping his arm, looking straight into his face.

“I’m not thinking about your health, Saint,” she said quietly. “I want that pendant. I want it more than I’d expect you to believe. I’ve never asked any other man a favour in my life. I know that in our racket men don’t do women favours — without getting paid for it. But you’re supposed to be different, aren’t you?”

“This is a new act, Kate,” murmured the Saint interestedly. “Do go on — I want to hear what the climax is.”

“Do you think this is an act?”

“I don’t want to be actually rude, darling, especially after all the dramatic fervour you put into it, but—”

“You’ve got every right to think so,” she said; and he saw that the merriment was gone from her great brown eyes. “I should think the same way if I were in your place. I’ll try to keep the dramatic fervour out of it. Can I tell you — that that pendant means the way out of the racket for me? I’m going straight after this.” She was twisting her handkerchief, turning away from him now. “I’m going to get married — on the level. Funny, isn’t it?”

He glanced at her doubtfully, with that mocking curve still lingering on his lips. For some reason he refrained from asking whether her other husbands had been informed of this plan: he knew nothing about her private life. But even with the best intentions a modern Robin Hood must get that way; and he did not know why he was silent.

And then, quite clearly, he heard the tread of leisurely feet on the other side of the clump of imported vegetation behind which they were concealed. Instinctively they glanced at one another, listening, and heard a man’s fat chuckle beyond the palms.

“I guess this new plan makes it a lot easier than the way we were going to work it.”

Simon saw the girl half rising from the settee. In a flash he had flung one arm round her, pinning her down, and clapped his other hand over her mouth.

“Maybe it’ll save a little trouble, anyway,” spoke the second man. There came the scratch of a match, and then: “What are you doing about the girl?”

“I don’t know... She’s a pretty little piece, but she’s getting too serious. I’ll have to ditch her in Paris.”

“She’ll be sore.”

“Well, she ought to know how to take the breaks. I had to keep her going to get us in here, but it ain’t my fault if she wants to make it a permanency.”

“What about her share?”

“Aw, I might send her a coupla hundred, just for conscience money. She ain’t a bad kid. Too sentimental, that’s all.”

A short pause, and then the second man again:

“Well, that’s your business. It’s just a quarter after eleven. Guess I better see Watkins and make sure he’s ready to fix those lights.”

The leisured feet receded again; and Simon released the girl slowly. He saw that she was as white as a sheet, and there were strange tears in her eyes. He lighted a cigarette methodically. It was a tough life for women — always had been. They had to know how to take the breaks.

“Did you hear?” she asked, and he looked at her again.

“I couldn’t very well help it. I’m sorry, kid... That was your prospective husband, I suppose?”

She nodded.

“Anyway, you’ll know it wasn’t an act.”

There was nothing he could say. She stood up, and he walked beside her back to the ball-room. She left him there, with a smile that never trembled; and the Saint turned and found Peter Quentin beside him.

“Must you keep all the fun to yourself, old boy?” pleaded Peter forlornly. “I’ve been treading on the toes of the fattest dowager in the world. Who’s your girl friend? She looks a stunner.”

“She stunned me once,” said the Saint reminiscently. “Or some pals of hers did. She’s passing here as Rosamund Armitage; but the police know her best as Kate Allfield, and her nickname is The Mug.”

Peter’s eyes were following the girl yearningly across the room.

“There ought to be some hideous punishment for bestowing names like that,” he declared; and the Saint grinned absentmindedly.

“I know. In a story-book she’d be Isabelle de la Fontaine; but her parents weren’t thinking about her career when they christened her. That’s real life in our low profession — and so is the nickname.”

“Does that mean there’s competition in the field?”

“It means just that.” Simon’s gaze was sweeping systematically over the other guests; and at that moment he saw the men he was looking for. “You see that dark bird who looks as if he might be a gigolo? Face like a pretty boy, till you see it’s just a mask cut in granite... That’s Philip Carney. And the big fellow beside him — just offering the Dempster-Craven a cigarette. That’s George Runce. They’re two of the slickest jewel thieves in the business. Mostly they work the Riviera — I don’t think they’ve ever been in England before. Kate was talking in the plural all the time, and I wondered who she meant.”

Peter’s mouth shaped a silent whistle.

“What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know definitely; but I should like to prophesy that at any moment the lights will go out—”

And as he spoke, with a promptness that seemed almost uncanny, the three enormous cut-glass chandeliers which illuminated the ball-room simultaneously flicked out as if a magic wand had conjured them out of existence; and... the room was plunged into inky blackness.

The buzz of conversation rose louder, mingled with sporadic laughter. After trying valiantly to carry on for a couple of bars, the orchestra faded out irregularly, and the dancers shuffled to a standstill. Over in one corner, a facetious party started singing, in unison: “Where — was — Moses — when — the — lights — went — out?”... And then, rising above every other sound, came Mrs. Dempster-Craven’s hysterical shriek:

“Help!”

There was a momentary silence, broken by a few uncertain titters. And Mrs. Dempster-Craven’s voice rang wildly through the room again.

“My pendant! My pendant! Put on the lights!”

Then came the sharp vicious smash of a fist against flesh and bone, a coughing grunt, and the thud of a fall. Peter Quentin felt around him, but the Saint had gone. He started across the room, plunging blindly among the crowd that was heaving helplessly in the darkness. Then one or two matches flared up, and the light grew as other matches and lighters were struck to augment the illumination. And just as suddenly as they had gone out, the great chandeliers lighted up again.

Peter Quentin looked at the scene from the front rank of the circle of guests. George Runce was lying on the floor, with blood trickling from a cut in his chin; and a couple of yards from him sat Simon Templar, holding his jaw tenderly. Between them lay Mrs. Dempster-Craven’s priceless pendant, with the chain broken; and while Peter looked she snatched it up with a sob, and he saw that the Star of Mandalay was missing from its centre.

“My diamond!” she wailed. “It’s gone!”

Her private detective came elbowing through from the back of the crowd, pushing Peter aside, and grabbed the Saint’s shoulder.

“Come on, you!” he barked. “What happened?”

“There’s your man,” said the Saint, pointing to the unconscious figure beside him. “As soon as the lights went out, he grabbed the pendant—”

“That’s a lie!”

Philip Carney had fallen on his knees beside Runce, and was loosening the man’s collar. He turned round and yapped the denial indignantly enough; but Peter saw that his face had gone pale.

“I was standing beside Mr. Runce.” He pointed to the Saint. “That man snatched the pendant, and Mr. Runce tried to stop him getting away.”

“Why weren’t you here, Watkins?” wailed Mrs. Dempster-Craven, shaking the detective wildly by the arm. “Why weren’t you watching? I shall never see my diamond again—”

“I’m sorry, madam,” said the detective. “I just left the room for one minute to find a glass of water. But I think we’ve got the man all right.” He bent down and hauled the Saint to his feet. “We’d better search this fellow, and one of the footmen can go for the police while we’re doing it.”

Peter saw that the Saint’s face had gone hard as polished teak. In Simon’s right hand was the Star of Mandalay, pressed against his jaw as he was holding it. As soon as the lights had gone out he had guessed what was going to happen: he had crossed the floor like a cat, grasped it neatly as Runce tore it out of its setting, and sent the big man flying with one well-directed left. All that he had been prepared for; but there were wheels turning that he had never reckoned with.

He looked the detective in the eyes.

“The less you talk about the police the better,” he said quietly. “I was in the conservatory a few minutes ago, and I happened to hear Mr. Carney say: ‘I’d better see Watkins and make sure he’s ready to fix those lights.’ I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but this looks like an explanation.”

There was an instant’s deadly silence; and then Philip Carney laughed.

“That’s one of the cleverest tricks I’ve ever heard of,” he remarked. “But it’s a bit libellous, isn’t it?”

“Not very,” said a girl’s clear voice.

Again the murmur of talk was stifled as if a blanket had been dropped in it; and in the hush Kate Allfield came into the front of the crowd. George Runce was rising on his elbows, and his jaw dropped as he heard her voice. She gave him one contemptuous glance, and faced Mrs. Dempster-Craven with her head erect.

“It’s perfectly true,” she said. “I was with Mr. Templar in the conservatory, and I heard it as well.”

Carney’s face had gone grey.

“The girl’s raving,” he said; but his voice was a little shaky. “I haven’t been in the conservatory this evening.”

“Neither have I,” said Runce, wiping the frozen incredulity off his features with an effort. “I’ll tell you what it is—”

But he did not tell them what it was, for at that point a fresh authoritative voice interrupted the debate with a curt “Make way please,” and the crowd opened to let through the burly figure of a detective-sergeant in plain clothes. Simon looked round, and saw that he had posted a constable at the door as he came in. The sergeant scanned the faces of the group, and addressed Mrs. Dempster-Craven.

“What’s the trouble, madam?”

“My pendant—”

She was helped out by a chorus of bystanders whose information, taken in the mass, was somewhat confusing. The sergeant sorted it out phlegmatically; and at the end he shrugged.

“Since these gentlemen are all accusing each other, I take it you don’t wish to make any particular charges?”

“I cannot accuse my guests of being thieves,” said Mrs. Dempster-Craven imperially. “I only want my diamond.”

The sergeant nodded. He had spent twelve years in C Division, and had learned that Berkeley Square is a region where even policemen have to be tactful.

“In that case,” he said, “I think it would help us if the gentlemen agreed to be searched.”

The Saint straightened up.

It had been a good evening; and he had no regrets. The game was worth playing for its own sake, to him: the prizes came welcomely, but they weren’t everything. And no one knew better than he that you couldn’t win all the time. There were chances that couldn’t be reckoned with in advance; and the duplicity of Mr. Watkins was one of those. But for that, he would have played his hand faultlessly, out-bluffed and out-manoeuvred the Carney-Runce combination in a fair field, and made as clean a job of it as anything else he had done. But that single unexpected factor had turned the scale just enough to bring the bluff to a show-down, as unexpected factors always would. And yet Peter Quentin saw that the Saint was smiling.

“I think that’s a good idea,” said the Saint.

Between Philip Carney and George Runce flashed one blank glance; but their mouths remained closed.

“Perhaps there’s another room we could go to,” said the sergeant, almost genially; and Mrs. Dempster-Craven I inclined her head like a queen dismissing a distasteful odour.

“Watkins will show you to the library.”

Simon turned on his heel and led the way towards the door, with Mr. Watkins still gripping his arm; but as his path brought him level with Kate Allfield he stopped and smiled down at her.

“I think you’re a swell kid,” he said.

His voice sounded a trifle strange. And then, before two hundred shocked and startled eyes, including those of Lord and Lady Bredon, the Honourable Celia Mallard, three baronets, and the aspiring Mrs. Dempster-Craven herself, he laid his hands gently on her shoulders and kissed her outrageously on the mouth; and in the silence of appalled aristocracy which followed that performance made his stately exit.

“How the devil did you get away with it?” asked Peter Quentin weakly, as they drove away in a taxi an hour later. “I was fairly sweating blood all the time you were being stripped.”

The Saint’s face showed up in the dull glow as he drew at his cigarette.

“It was in my mouth,” he said.

“But they made you open your mouth—”

“It was there when I kissed Kate, anyway,” said the Saint, and sang to himself all the rest of the way home.