"My name's Peter Quentin. But I don't want any of your damned —"
"My dear chap, I shouldn't dream of offering you charity." Simon blotted the pink slip and scaled it across the table. "This little chat has been worth every penny of it. Besides, you don't want to go to penal servitude at your age. It isn't healthy. Now be a good fellow and dash back to your office — square things up as well as you can —"
The young man was staring at the name which was scribbled in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper.
"Is that name Simon Templar?"
The Saint nodded.
"You see, I shall get it all back," he said.
He went home with two definite conclusions as a result of his day's work and expenses: first, that Mr. Melford Croon was in every way as undesirable a citizen as he had thought, and second, that Mr. Melford Croon's contribution to the funds of righteousness was long overdue. Mr. Croon's account was, in fact, exactly five thousand pounds overdrawn; and that state of affairs could not be allowed to continue.
Nevertheless, it took the Saint twenty-four hours of intensive thought to devise a poetic retribution; and when the solution came to him it was so simple that he had to laugh.
Mr. Croon went down to his house on the river for the week-end. He invariably spent his week-ends there in the summer, driving out of London on the Friday afternoon and refreshing himself from his labours with three happy days of rural peace. Mr. Croon had an unexpected appetite for simple beauty and the works of nature: he was rarely so contented as when he was lying out in a deck-chair and spotless white flannels, directing his gardener's efforts at the flower-beds, or sipping an iced whisky-and-soda on his balcony while he watched supple young athletes propelling punts up and down the stream.
This week-end was intended to be no exception to his usual custom. He arrived at Marlow in time for dinner, and prepared for an early night in anticipation of the tireless revels of a mixed company of his friends who were due to join him the next day. It was scarcely eleven o'clock when he dismissed his servant and mixed himself a final drink before going to bed.