Mr. Tanfold's eyes goggled, and his stomach flopped down past the waistband of his trousers and left a sick void in its place. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. Whatever else he might have feared, he had never thought of anything like that; and for some seconds the sheer shock held him speechless.
In the silence, Simon Templar smiled — he had only recently decided that his alter ego had earned a bank account in its own name, and he did not know how he could have christened it better. He turned to the manager.
"Of course it's a forgery," he said. "But I don't want to be too hard on the man — that's why I asked you over the phone not to send for the police at once. I really believe there's some good in him. You can see from the clumsy way he tried to forge my signature that it's a first attempt."
"That's as you wish, of course, Mr. Tombs," said the manager doubtfully. "But—"
"Yes, yes," said the Saint, with a paralysing oleaginousness that would have served to lubricate the bearings of a highspeed engine, "but I've spent a lot of time trying to make this fellow go straight and you can't deny me a last attempt. Let me take him home and talk to him for a while. I'll be responsible for him; and you and the cashier can still be witnesses to what he did if I can't make him see the error of his ways."
Mr. Tanfold's bouncing larynx almost throttled him. Never in all his days had he so much as dreamed of being the victim of such a staggering unblushing impudence. In a kind of daze, he felt himself being gripped by the arm; and a brief panorama of London streets swam dizzily through his vision and dissolved deliriously into the facade of the Palace Royal Hotel. Even the power of speech did not return to him until he found himself once more in the painfully reminiscent surroundings of Mr. Tombs's suite.
"Well," he demanded hoarsely, "what's the game?"
"The game," answered Simon Templar genially, "is the royal and ancient sport of hoisting engineers with their own petards, dear old wallaby. Take a look at where you are, Gilbert. I'm here to let you out of the mess — at a price."
Mr. Tanfold's mouth opened.
"But that — that's blackmail!" he gasped.