The Saint vs Scotland Yard (The Holy Terror) Page 2

  At eight o'clock that evening he was sallying forth in quest of an evening's innocent amusement, and a car that had been standing in the darkness at the end of the cul-de-sac of Upper Berkeley Mews suddenly switched on its headlights and roared towards him. The Saint leapt back and fell on his face in the doorway, and he heard the plop of a silenced gun and the thud of a bullet burying itself in the woodwork above his head. He slid out into the mews again as the car went past, and fired twice as it swung into Berkeley Square, but he could not tell whether he did any damage.

  He returned to brush his clothes, and then continued calmly on his way; and when he met Patricia later he did not think it necessary to mention the incident that had delayed him. But it was the third time since the episode chez Bird that the Scor­pion had tried to kill him, and no one knew better than Simon Templar that it would not be the last attempt.

  Chapter III

  For some days past, the well-peeled eye might at inter­vals have observed a cadaverous and lantern-jawed individual protruding about six and a half feet upwards from the cobbled paving of Upper Berkeley Mews. Simon Templar, having that sort of eye, had in fact noticed the apparition on its first and in all its subsequent visits; and anyone less well-informed than himself might pardonably have suspected some connection be­tween the lanky boulevardier and the recent disturbances of the peace. Simon Templar, however, was not deceived.

  "That," he said once, in answer to Patricia's question, "is Mr. Harold Garrot, better known as Long Harry. He is a moderately proficient burglar; and we have met before, but not professionally. He is trying to make up his mind to come and tell me something, and one of these days he will take the plunge."

  The Saint's deductions were vindicated twenty-four hours after the last firework display.

  Simon was alone. The continued political activities of a certain newspaper proprietor had driven him to verse, and he was covering a sheet of foolscap with the beginning of a minor epic expressing his own views on the subject:

  Charles Charleston Charlemagne St. Charles

  Was wont to utter fearful snarls

  When by professors he was pressed

  To note how England had progressed

  Since the galumptious, gory days

  Immortalised in Shakespeare's plays.

  For him, no Transatlantic flights,

  Ford motor-cars, electric lights,

  Or radios at less than cost

  Could compensate for what he lost

  By chancing to coagulate

  About five hundred years too late.

  Born in the only days for him

  He would have swung a sword with vim,

  Grown ginger whiskers on his face,

  And mastered, with a knobbly mace,

  Men who wore hauberks on their chests

  Instead of little woolen vests,

  And drank strong wine among his peers

  Instead of pale synthetic beers.

  At this point, the trend of his inspiration led the Saint on a brief excursion to the barrel in one corner of the room. He replenished his tankard, drank deeply, and continued:

  Had he not reason to be glum When born in nineteen umpty-um?

  And there, for the moment, he stuck; and he was cogitating the possible developments of the next stanza when he was interrupted by the zing! of the front door bell.

  As he stepped out into the hall, he glanced up through the fanlight above the door at the mirror that was cunningly fixed to the underneath of the hanging lantern outside. He recog­nised the caller at once, and opened the door without hesita­tion.

  "Come in, Harry," invited the Saint cordially, and led the way back to the sitting-room. "I was busy with a work of art that is going to make Milton look like a distant relative of the gargle, but I can spare you a few minutes."

  Long Harry glanced at the sheet half-covered with the Saint's neat handwriting.

  "Poetry, Mr. Templar? We used to learn poetry at school," he said reminiscently.

  Simon looked at him thoughtfully for two or three seconds, and then he beamed.

  "Harry, you hit the nail on the head. For that suggestion, I pray that your shadow may always be jointed at the elbows. Excuse me one moment."

  He plumped himself back in his chair and wrote at speed. Then he cleared his throat, and read aloud:

  "Eton and Oxford failed to floor

  The spirit of the warrior;

  Though ragged and bullied, teased and hissed,

  Charles stayed a Medievalist;

  And even when his worldly Pa

  (Regarding him with nausea)

  Condemned him to the dismal cares

  Of sordid trade in stocks and shares,

  Charles, in top-hat and Jaeger drawers,

  Clung like a limpet to his Cause,

  Believing, in a kind of trance,

  That one day he would have his Chance."

  He laid the sheet down reverently.

  "A mere pastime for me, but I believe Milton used to sweat blood over it," he remarked complacently. "Soda or water, Harry?"

  "Neat, please, Mr. Templar."

  Simon brought over the glass of Highland cream, and Long Harry sipped it, and crossed and uncrossed his legs awkwardly.

  "I hope you don't mind my coming to see you, sir," he ventured at last.

  "Not at all," responded the Saint heartily. "Always glad to see any Eton boys here. What's the trouble?"

  Long Harry fidgeted, twiddling his fingers and corrugating his brow. He was the typical "old lag," or habitual criminal, which is to say that outside of business hours he was a per­fectly ordinary man of slightly less than average intelligence and rather more than average cunning. On this occasion he was plainly and ordinarily ill at ease, and the Saint surmised that he had only begun to solve his worries when he mustered up the courage to give that single, brief, and symptomatic ring at the front door bell.

  Simon lighted a cigarette and waited impassively, and pres­ently his patience reaped its harvest.

  "I wondered—I thought maybe I could tell you something that might interest you, Mr. Templar."

  "Sure." The Saint allowed a thin jet of smoke to trickle through his lips, and continued to wait.

  "It's about . . . it's about the Scorpion, Mr. Templar."

  Instantaneously the Saint's eyes narrowed, the merest fraction of a millimetre, and the inhalation that he drew from his cigarette was long and deep and slow. And then the stare that he swivelled round in the direction of Long Harry was wide blue innocence itself.——'

  "What Scorpion?" he inquired blandly.

  Long Harry frowned.

  "I thought you'd 've known about the Scorpion, of course,Mr. Templar, you being——"

  "Yeah?"

  Simon drawled out the prompting diphthong in a honeyed slither up a gently persuasive G-string; and Long Harry shuffled his feet uncomfortably.

  "Well, you remember what you used to be, Mr. Templar. There wasn't much you didn't know in those days."

  "Oh, yes—once upon a time. But now—"

  "Last time we met, sir——"

  The Saint's features relaxed, and he smiled.

  "Forget it, Harold," he advised quietly. "I'm now a respect­able citizen. I was a respectable citizen the last time we met, and I haven't changed. You may tell me anything you like, Harry—as one respectable citizen to another—but I'd recom­mend you to forget the interview as you step over the front door mat. I shall do the same—it's safer."

  Long Harry nodded.

  "If you forget it, sir, it'll be safer for me," he said seriously.

  "I have a hopeless memory," said the Saint carefully. "I've already forgotten your name. In another minute, I shan't be sure that you're here at all. Now shoot the dope, son."

  "You've got nothing against me, sir?"

  "Nothing. You're a professional burglar, housebreaker, and petty larcenist, but that's no concern of mine. Teal can attend to your little mistakes."

  "And you'll forget wh
at I'm going to say—soon as ever I've said it?"

  "You heard me."

  "Well, Mr. Templar——" Long Harry cleared his throat, took another pull at his drink, and blinked nervously for some seconds. "I've worked for the Scorpion, Mr. Templar," he said suddenly.

  Simon Templar never moved a muscle.

  "Yes?"

  "Only once, sir—so far." Once having left the diving-board, Long Harry floundered on recklessly. "And there won't be a second time—not if I can help it. He's dangerous. You ain't never safe with him. I know. Sent me a message he did, through the post. Knew where I was staying, though I'd only been there two days, an' everything about me. There was five one-pound notes in the letter, and he said if I met a car that'd be waiting at the second milestone north of Hatfield at nine o'clock last Thursday night there'd be another fifty for me to earn."

  "What sort of car was it?"

  "I never had a chance to notice it properly, Mr. Templar. It was a big, dark car, I think. It hadn't any lights. I was going to tell you—I was a bit suspicious at first, I thought it must be a plant, but it was that talk of fifty quid that tempted me. The car was waiting for me when I got there. I went up and looked in the window, and there was a man there at the wheel. Don't ask me what he looked like—he kept his head down, and I never saw more than the top of his hat. 'Those are your instructions,' he says, pushing an envelope at me, he says, 'and there's half your money. I'll meet you here at the same time tomorrow.' And then he drove off. I struck a match, and found he'd given me the top halves of fifty pound notes."

  "And then?"

  "Then—I went an' did the job, Mr. Templar."

  "What job?"

  "I was to go to a house at St. Albans and get some papers. There was a map, an' a plan, an' all about the locks an' everything. I had my tools—I forgot to tell you the first letter said I was to bring them—and it was as easy as the orders said it would be. Friday night, I met the car as arranged, and handed over the papers, and he gave me the other halves of the notes."

  Simon extended a lean brown hand.

  "The orders?" he inquired briefly.

  He took the cheap yellow envelope, and glanced through the contents. There was, as Long Harry had said, a neatly-drawn map and plan; and the other information, in a stu­diously characterless copperplate writing, covered two more closely written sheets.

  "You've no idea whose house it was you entered?"

  "None at all, sir."

  "Did you look at these papers?"

  "Yes." Long Harry raised his eyes and looked at the Saint sombrely. "That's the one reason why I came to you, sir."

  "What were they?"

  "They were love-letters, sir. There was an address—64 Half Moon Street. And they were signed —'Mark'."

  Simon passed a hand over his sleekly perfect hair.

  "Oh yes?" he murmured.

  "You saw the Sunday papers, sir?"

  "I did."

  Long Harry emptied his glass, and put it down with clumsy fingers.

  "Sir Mark Deverest shot 'imself at 64 'Alf Moon Street, on Saturday night," he said huskily.

  When he was agitated, he occasionally lost an aspirate, and it was an index of his perturbation that he actually dropped two in that one sentence.

  "That's the Scorpion's graft, Mr. Templar—blackmail. I never touched black in my life, but I'd heard that was his game. An' when he sent for me, I forgot it. Even when I was looking through those letters, it never seemed to come into my head why he wanted them. But I see it all now. He wanted 'em to put the black on Deverest, an' Deverest shot himself instead of paying up. And—I 'elped to murder 'im, Mr. Templar.Murder, that's what it was. Nothing less. An' I 'elped!" Long Harry's voice fell to a throaty whisper, and his dull eyes shifted over the clear-etched contours of the Saint's tanned face in a kind of panic of anxiety. "I never knew what I was doing, Mr. Templar, sir—strike me dead if I did——"

  Simon reached forward and crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray.

  "Is that all you came to tell me?" he asked dispassionately; and Long Harry gulped.

  "I thought you'd be laying for the Scorpion, sir, knowing you always used to be ——"

  "Yeah?"

  Again that mellifluous dissyllable, in a voice that you could have carved up with a wafer of butter.

  "Well, sir, what I mean is, if you were the Saint, sir, and if you hadn't forgotten that you might ever have been him, you might——"

  "Be hunting scorpions?"

  "That's the way I thought it out, sir."

  "And?"

  "I was hanging around last night, Mr. Templar, trying to make up my mind to come and see you, and I saw the shoot­ing."

  "And?"

  "That car—it was just like the car that met me out beyond Hatfield, sir."

  "And?"

  "I thought p'raps it was the same car."

  "And?"

  Simon prompted him for the fourth time from the corner table where he was replenishing Long Harry's glass. His back was turned, but there was an inconspicuous little mirror just above the level of the eyes—the room was covered from every angle by those inconspicuous little mirrors. And he saw the twitching of Long Harry's mouth.

  "I came because I thought you might be able to stop the Scorpion getting me, Mr. Templar," said Long Harry, in one jerk.

  "Ah!" The Saint swung round. "That's more like it! So you're on the list, are you?"

  "I think so." Long Harry nodded. "There was a shot aimed at me last night, too, but I suppose you wouldn't 've noticed it."

  Simon Templar lighted another cigarette.

  "I see. The Scorpion spotted you hanging around here, and tried to bump you off. That's natural. But, Harry, you never even started hanging around here until you got the idea you might like to tell me the story of your life—and still you haven't told me where that idea came from. Sing on, Harry— I'm listening, and I'm certainly patient."

  Long Harry absorbed a gill of Maison Dewar in comparative silence, and wiped his lips on the back of his hand.

  "I had another letter on Monday morning, telling me to be at the same place at midnight tomorrow."

  "And?"

  "Monday afternoon I was talking to some friends. I didn't tell 'em anything, but I sort of steered the conversation around, not bringing myself in personal. You remember Wil­bey?"

  "Found full of bullets on the Portsmouth Road three months ago? Yes—I remember."

  "I heard—it's just a story, but I heard the last job he did was for the Scorpion. He talked about it. The bloke shot himself that time, too. An' I began thinking. It may surprise you, Mr. Templar, but sometimes I'm very si-chick."

  "You worked it out that as long as the victims paid up, everything was all right. But if they did anything desperate, there was always a chance of trouble; and the Scorpion wouldn't want anyone who could talk running about without a muzzle. That right?"

  Long Harry nodded, and his prominent Adam's apple flick­ered once up and down.

  "Yes, I think if I keep that appointment tomorrow I'll be— what's that American word?—on the spot. Even if I don't go——" The man broke off with a shrug that made a feeble attempt at bravado. "I couldn't take that story of mine to the police, Mr. Templar, as you'll understand, and I wondered——"

  Simon Templar settled a little deeper into his chair and sent a couple of perfect smoke-rings chasing each other up towards the ceiling.

  He understood Long Harry's thought processes quite clearly. Long Harry was a commonplace and more or less peaceful yegg, and violence was not among the most prominent inter­ests of his life. Long Harry, as the Saint knew, had never even carried so much as a life-preserver. . . . The situation was obvious.

  But how the situation was to be turned to account—that required a second or two's meditation. Perhaps two seconds. And then the little matter of spoon-feeding that squirming young pup of a plan up to a full-sized man-eating carnivore hopping around on its own pads .... maybe five seconds

&nbs
p; more. And then ——

  "We deduce," said the Saint dreamily, "that our friend had arranged for you to die tomorrow; but when he found you on the outskirts of the scenery last night, he thought he might save himself a journey."

  "That's the way I see it, Mr. Templar."

  "From the evidence before us, we deduce that he isn't the greatest snap shot in the world. And so——"

  "Yes, Mr. Templar?"

  "It looks to me, Harry," said the Saint pleasantly, "as if you'll have to die tomorrow after all."

  Chapter IV

  Simon was lingering over a cigarette and his last break­fast cup of coffee when Mr. Teal dropped in at half-past eleven next morning.

  "Have you breakfasted?" asked the Saint hospitably. "I can easily hash you up an egg or something——"

  "Thanks," said Teal, "I had breakfast at eight."

  "A positively obscene hour," said the Saint

  He went to an inlaid smoking-cabinet, and solemnly trans­ported a new and virginal packet of spearmint into the detec­tive's vicinity.

  "Make yourself at home, Claud Eustace. And why are we thus honoured?"

  There was a gleaming automatic, freshly cleaned and oiled, beside the breakfast-tray, and Teal's sleepy eyes fell on it as he undressed some Wrigley. He made no comment at that point, and continued his somnambulation round the room. Before the papers pinned to the overmantel, he paused.

  "You going to contribute your just share towards the ex­penses of the nation?" he inquired.

  "Someone is going to," answered the Saint calmly.

  "Who?"

  "Talking of scorpions, Teal——"

  The detective revolved slowly, and his baby eyes suddenly drooped as if in intolerable ennui.

  "What scorpions?" he demanded, and the Saint laughed.

  "Pass it up, Teal, old stoat. That one's my copyright."

  Teal frowned heavily.

  "Does this mean the old game again, Saint?"

  "Teal! Why bring that up?"

  The detective gravitated into a pew.

  "What have you got to say about scorpions?"

  "They have stings in their tails."

  Teal's chewing continued with rhythmic monotonousness.

  "When did you become interested in the Scorpion?" he questioned casually.