The Saint in the Sun by Leslie Charteris Page A

sometimes, but I want to know what I’m puttin’ my half-crown on. Anyone who’d send someone a hundred quid to play with, like that, must be a proper Charley, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so.”
    Simon went back to his car and studied his second list-the names which had been singled out with an X in Mr Gull’s personal register. Of the remaining six, one lived in Croydon, but the others were in Bournemouth, Worthing, Sevenoaks, Torquay, and Scarborough-a variety of respectable distances in too many different directions for it to be practicable to continue the investigation by personal visits.
    He drove back to Skindle’s, stopping on the way to buy a large and expensive box of chocolates, and hoping that the telephone operator had a sweet tooth and a sympathetic disposition.
    Already he had an inkling of a pattern, but it was not until that evening that he had finally succeeded in contacting all the names and proving it beyond peradventure.
    “The ones with the crosses are all satisfied customers,” he told Penelope. “The others are real live people too-or at least the four I’d jotted down-but every one of them denies having had anything to do with Brother Gull.”
    Her eyes were big and wide.
    “Why would they do that?”
    “It could be because they’re all ashamed to admit that they’re secret gamblers. But I doubt it. I want to have another look at the original card index.”
    They went to the office after dinner, and he went through the cards one by one, confirming an impression which he had suddenly recalled that afternoon, during one of the waits between calls.
    “Had you noticed that apart from the London addresses, which come up regularly, the earliest replies all came from the south and west, and not too far away? Later on they get more varied- here’s St Albans, Cambridge, Clacton, Folkestone … But there isn’t one of the ‘O’ names with an address as far away as Torquay or Scarborough.”
    “No, I hadn’t,” she said. “Would it be because people living a long way from London aren’t so interested in racing?”
    “Not that I ever heard. Who do you think goes to all those tracks in the North-and even in Scotland?”
    “Yes, that was silly. But then, what is the answer?”
    “I think we may have stumbled on a Communist conspiracy to ruin the capitalist countries by debasing their currency. Tom Gull is a mad scientist who has invented a molecular multiplier which makes three or four fivers out of one. The advertisement is a code which tells all the cell captains to send in as much cash as they can; after a while they get it back, but the Central Committee has built up a store of perfect duplicates ready to flood the international exchanges. The ‘O’ names, of course, are the eggheads who are secretly cooperating in the scheme. The ‘X’ is a shorthand form of the hammer and sickle, and indicates the elite of the organization. Tom Gull’s cabin is actually a camouflaged rocket pad-“
    “And he’s got the fuel buried in all the flower-beds he digs up. I know. There’s somebody who writes books like that.”
    The Saint’s smile was a silent laugh.
    “Is Gull going racing again tomorrow?” he asked.
    “He said he was going to Ascot again. He was there today.”
    “Good. Then it should be safe to have a closer look at that shack of his in the afternoon.”
    “Do you have a theory, really?”
    “It’s such a wild one that I wouldn’t dare tell you until I’ve proved it,” he said. “Then if I’m wrong, you won’t classify me with that writer. But invite me for cocktails tomorrow, and I may dazzle you with my brilliance.”
    He had one more call to make in the morning, to David Lewin of the Express, and before lunch he had the answer to a question which gave him considerably more confidence when he set out for Cookham.
    He enjoyed a couple of pasties and a pint of bitter at the Crown, and left his car parked there when he left soon after two o’clock to retrace the