"It's wonderful what you can do with the full sanction of the law," Peter Quentin said presently, in a rather sourly reflective tone; and the Saint smiled at him wryly. He knew that Peter was not thinking about the more obvious inanities of the English licensing laws.
"I rather wanted to get a good close-up of James, and watch him in action," he said. "I guess all the stories are true."
There were several stories about James Deever; but none of them ever found their way into print — for libel actions mean heavy damages, and Mr. Deever sailed very comfortably within the law. His business was plainly and publicly that of a moneylender, and as a money-lender he was duly and legally registered according to the Act which had done so much to bring the profession of usury within certain humane restrictions. And as a plain and registered money-lender Mr. Deever retained his offices in Manchester, superintending every detail of his business in person, trusting nobody, sending out beautifully-worded circulars in which he proclaimed his readiness to lend anybody any sum from ₤10 to ₤50,000 on note of hand alone, and growing many times richer than the Saint thought anyone but himself had any right to be. Nevertheless, Mr. Deever's business would probably have escaped the Saint's attentions if those few facts had covered the whole general principle of it.
They didn't. Mr. Deever, who, in spite of the tenor of his artistically-printed circulars, was not in the money-lending business on account of any urge to go down to mythology as the little fairy godmother of Manchester, had devised half a dozen ingenious and strictly legal methods of evading the limitations placed on him by the Act. The prospective borrower who came to him, full of faith and hope, for the loan of ₤10 to ₤50,000 was frequently accommodated — not, one must admit, on his note of hand alone, but eventually on the basis of some very sound security. And if the loan were promptly repaid, there the matter ended — at the statutory rate of interest for such transactions. It was only when the borrower found himself in further difficulties that Mr. Deever's ingenious schemes came into operation. It was then that the victim found himself straying little by little into a maze of complicated mortgages, discounted checks, "nominal" promissory notes, mysterious "conversions," and technically-worded transfers — straying into that labyrinth so gradually at first that it all seemed quite harmless, slipping deeper into it over an easy path of documents and signatures, floundering about in it at last and losing his bearings more and more hopelessly in his struggles to climb back — finally awakening to the haggard realisation that by some incomprehensible jugglery of papers and figures he owed Mr. Deever five or six times as much money as Mr. Deever had given him in cash, and having it proved to him over his own signature that there was no question of the statutory rate of interest having been exceeded at any time.
Exactly thus had it been proved to the widow of a certain victim in the case that they had listened to that afternoon; and there were other similar cases that had come to the Saint's receptive knowledge.
"There were days," remarked the Saint, rather wistfully, "when some lads of the village and I would have carved Brother Deever into small pieces and baited lobster-pots with him from the North Foreland to the Lizard."
"And what now?" queried Peter Quentin.
"Now," said the Saint, regretfully, "we can only call on him for a large involuntary contribution to our Pension Fund for Deserving Outlaws."
Peter lowered the first quarter of his second highball.
"It'll have to be something pretty smart to catch that bird," he said. "If you asked me, I should say you couldn't take any story to him that wouldn't have to pass under a microscope."