It is rather trite to remark that the greatest and sublimest characters always have concealed in them somewhere a speck of human jelly that wobbles furtively behind the imposing armour-plate, as if Nature's sense of proportion refused to tolerate such a thing as a perfect superman. Achilles had his heel. The hard-boiled hoodlum weeps openly to the strains of a syncopated Mammy song. The learned judge gravely inquires: "What is a gooseberry?" The Cabinet Minister prances pontificalty about the badminton court. The professor of theology knows the Saint Saga as well as the Epistle to the Ephesians. These things are familiar to every student of the popular newspapers.
But to Simon Templar they were more than mere curious facts, to be ranked with "Believe-it-or-not" strips or popular articles describing the architectural principles of the igloo. They were the very practical psychology of his profession.
"Every man on earth has at least one blind spot somewhere," Simon used to say, "and once you've found that spot you've got him. There's always some simple little thing that'll undermine his resistance, or some simple little trick that he's never heard of. A high-class card-sharper might never persuade him to play bridge for more than a penny a hundred, and yet a three-card man at a race track might take a fiver off him in five minutes. Develop that into a complete technique, and you can live in luxury without running any risks of getting brain fever."
One of Simon Templar's minor weaknesses was an insatiable curiosity. He met Patricia at Charing Cross underground station one afternoon with a small brown bottle.
"A man at the Irving Statue sold me this for a shilling," he said.
The broad reach of pavement around the Irving Statue, at the junction of Green Street and Charing Cross Road, is one of the greatest open-air theatres in London. Every day, at lunchtime, idle crowds gather there in circles around the performers on the day's bill, who carry on their work simultaneously like a three-ring circus. There is the Anti-Socialist tub-thumper, the numerologist, the strong man, the Indian selling outfits to enable you to do the three-card trick in your own home, the handcuff escape king, the patent medicine salesman, every kind of huckster and street showman takes up his pitch there on one day or another and holds his audience spellbound until the time comes for passing the hat. Simon rarely passed there without pausing to inspect the day's offerings, but this was the first occasion on which he had been a buyer.
His bottle appeared to contain a colourless fluid like water, with a slight sediment of brownish particles.
"What is it?" asked Patricia.
"Chromium plating for the home," he said. "The greatest invention of the century — according to the salesman. Claimed to be the same outfit sold by mail-order firms for three bob. He was demonstrating it on a brass shell-case and old brass doorknobs and what not, and it looked swell. Here, I'll show you."
He fished a penny out of his pocket, uncorked the bottle, and poured a drop of the liquid on to the coin. The tarnished copper cleared and silvered itself under her eyes, and when he rubbed it with his handkerchief it took a silvery polish like stainless steel.