Saint Intervenes Read Free Page A

everything we hear from various sources,
of times when the result of a certain race has posi tively been arranged.
Then all we have to do is to make our bets and collect the money. That
happens to be our business this afternoon. We have an absolutely certain winner
for the two o’clock race at Sandown Park, and in a few minutes we shall be
backing it.”
    Mr.
Immelbern dosed his eyes as if he could endure no more.
    “That
seems quite harmless,” said Templar.
    “Of
course it is,” agreed the Colonel. “What Immelbern is so
frightened of is that somebody will discover what we’re doing—I
mean that it might come to the knowledge of some of our friends who
are owners or trainers or jockeys, and then our sources of
information would be cut off. But, by Gad, I insist on the privilege of being
allowed to know when I can trust my own friends.”
    “Well,
I won’t give you away,” Simon told him obligingly.
    The Colonel
turned to Immelbern triumphantly.
    “There
you are! So there’s no need whatever for our little party to break up
yet, unless Mr. Templar has an engagement. Our business will be
done in a few minutes. By Gad, damme, I think you owe Mr. Templar an apology!”
    Mr. Immelbern sighed, stared at
his finger-nails for a while in grumpy
silence, and consulted his watch again.
    “It’s
nearly five to two,” he said. “How much can we get on?”
    “About
a thousand, I think,” said the Colonel judiciously.
    Mr. Immelbern got up and went
to the telephone, where he dialed a number.
    “This is Immelbern,”
he said, in the voice of a martyr responding to the roll-call for the all-in
lion-wrestling event. “I want two
hundred pounds on Greenfly.”
    He heard
his bet repeated, pressed down the hook, and dialed again.
    “We
have to spread it around to try and keep the starting price from
shortening,” explained the Colonel.
    Simon
Templar nodded, and leaned back with his eyes half- closed, listening to
the click and tinkle of the dial and Immelbern’s afflicted voice. Five times
the process was repeated, and during the giving of the fifth order Uppingdon
interrupted again.
    “Make
it two-fifty this time, Sidney,” he said.
    Mr.
Immelbern said:   “Just a moment,
will you hold on?” to the transmitter, covered it with his hand, and
turned aggrievedly .
    “I
thought you said a thousand. That makes a thousand and fifty.”
    “Well,
I thought Mr. Templar might like to have fifty on.” Simon
hesitated.
    “That’s
about all I’ve got on me,” he said.
    “Don’t
let that bother you, my dear boy,” boomed Colonel Uppingdon.   “Your credit’s good with me, and I feel
that I owe you something to compensate for what you’ve put up with. Make
it a hundred if you like.”
    “But
Sir George!” wailed Mr. Immelbern.
    “Dammit,
will you stop whining ‘But Sir George!’?” ex ploded the Colonel.
“That settles it. Make it three hundred—- that will be a hundred
on for Mr. Templar. And if the horse doesn’t win, I’ll stand the loss
myself.”
    A somewhat
strained silence prevailed after the last bet had been made. Mr.
Immelbern sat down again and chewed the unlighted end of a
cigar in morbid meditations. The Colonel twiddled his thumbs as
if the embarrassment of these recur rent disputes was hard to shake off.
Simon Templar lighted a cigarette and smoked calmly.
    “Have
you been doing this long?” he inquired. “For about two years,”
said the Colonel. “By Gad, though, we’ve made money at it.
Only about one horse in ten that we back doesn’t romp home, and most of
‘em are at good prices. Sometimes our money does get back to the
course and spoil the price, but I’d rather have a winner at evens than a
loser at ten to one any day. Why, I remember one race meeting we had at
Delhi. That was the year when old Stubby Featherstone dropped his cap in
the Ganges—he was the fella who got killed at Cambrai… .”
    He
launched off on another wandering reminiscence, and Simon listened to