She found herself saying: "You see, all Bill's got is his radio business, and he's invented a new valve that's going to make him a fortune; but I got Father to lend him the five thousand pounds Bill needed to develop it. Father gave him the money, but he made Bill sign a sort of mortgage that gave Father the right to take his invention away from him if the money wasn't paid back. Now Father says that if Bill tries to marry me he'll foreclose, and Bill wouldn't have anything left. I know how Bill's getting on and I know if he only has a few months more he'll be able to pay Father back ten times over."
"Can't you wait those few months?" asked the Saint. "If Bill's on to something as good as that—"
She shook her head.
"But Father says that if I don't marry the Comte de Beaucroix as soon as he asks me to — and I know he's going to — he'll foreclose on Bill anyway, and Bill won't get a penny for all his work." Her voice broke, and when Simon glanced at her quickly he saw the shine of tears in her eyes. "Bill doesn't know — if you tell him, I'll kill you! But he can't understand what's the matter with me. And I–I—" Her lovely face tightened with a strange bitterness. "I always thought these things only happened in pictures," she said huskily. "How can any man be like that?"
"You wouldn't know, darling," said the Saint gently.
That was all he said at the time; but at the same moment he resolved that he would invest five of his shillings in an admission to Mr. Elliot Vascoe's exhibition. Certain things were indubitably Ordained…
He arrived just after the official opening, on the first day. The rooms in which the exhibition was being held were crowded with aspiring and perspiring socialites, lured there either in the hope of collecting one of Mr. Vascoe's bacchanalian invitations to dinner, or because they hoped to be recognised by other socialites, or because they hoped to be mistaken for connoisseurs of Art, or just because they hadn't the courage to let anyone think that they couldn't spend five shillings on charity just as easily as anyone else. Simon Templar shouldered his way through them until he sighted Vascoe. He had done some thinking since he drove Meryl home, and it had only confirmed him in his conviction that Nemesis was due to overtake Mr. Vascoe at last. At the same time, Simon saw no reason why he shouldn't deal himself in on the party.
With Vascoe and Meryl was a tall and immaculately dressed young man with a pink face whose amiable stupidity was accentuated by a chin that began too late and a forehead that stopped too soon. Simon had no difficulty in identifying him as the Comte de Beaucroix, and that was how Meryl introduced him before Vascoe turned round and recognised his unwelcome visitor.
"How did you get in here?" he brayed.
"Through the front door," said the Saint genially. "I put down my five bob, and they told me to walk right in. It's a public exhibition, I believe. Did you come in on a free pass?"