The Saint versus Scotland Yard (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  “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 what 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 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 4

  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.

  “I’ve been interested for some time,” murmured the Saint. “Just recently, though, the interest’s become a shade too mutual to be healthy. Did you know the Scorpion was an amateur!” he added abruptly.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I don’t think it—I know it. The Scorpion is raw. That’s one reason why I shall have to tread on him. I object to being shot up by amateurs—I feel it’s liable to lower my stock. And as for being finally killed by an amateur…Teal, put it to yourself!”

  “How do you know this?”

  The Saint renewed his cigarette at leisure.

  “Deduction. The Sherlock Holmes stuff again. I’ll teach you the trick one day, but I can give you this result out flat. Do you want chapter and verse?”

  “I’d be interested.”

  “O.K.” The Saint leaned back. “A man came and gave me some news about the Scorpion last night, after hanging around for three days—and he’s still alive. I was talking to him on the phone only half an hour ago. If the Scorpion had been a real professional, that man would never even have seen me—let alone have been alive to ring me up this morning. That’s one point.”

  “What’s the next?”

  “You remember the Portsmouth Road murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wilbey had worked for the Scorpion, and he was a possible danger. If you’ll consult your records, you’ll find that Wilbey was acquitted on a charge of felonious loitering six days before he died. It was exactly the same with the bird who came to see me last night. He had also worked for the Scorpion, and he was discharged at Bow Street only two days before the Scorpion sent for him. Does that spell anything to you?”

  Teal crinkled his forehead.

  “Not yet, but I’m trying.”

  “Let me save you the trouble.”

  “No—just a minute. The Scorpion was in court when the charges were dismissed—”

  “Exactly. And he followed them home. It’s obvious. If you or I wanted someone to do a specialised bit of crime—say burglary, for instance—in thirty hours we could lay our hands on thirty men we could commission. But the genuine aged-in-the-wood amateur hasn’t got those advantages, however clever he may be. He simply hasn’t got the connections. You can’t apply for cracksmen to the ordinary labour exchange, or advertise for them in The Times, and if you’re a respectable amateur you haven’t any among your intimate friends. What’s the only way you can get hold of them?”

  Teal nodded slowly.

  “It’s an idea,” he admitted. “I don’t mind telling you we’ve looked over all the regulars long ago. The Scorpion doesn’t come into the catalogue. There isn’t a nose on the pay-roll who can get a whiff of him. He’s something right outside our register of established clients.”

  The name of the Scorpion had first been mentioned nine months before, when a prominent Midland cotton-broker had put his head in a gas-oven and forgotten to turn off the gas. In a letter that was read at the inquest occurred the words: “I have been bled for years, and now I can endure no more. When the Scorpion stings, there is no antidote but death.”

  And in the brief report of the proceedings:

  THE CORONER: Have you any idea what the deceased meant by that reference to a scorpion?

  WITNESS: No.

  THE CORONER: Is there any professional blackmailer known to the police by that name?—I have never heard it before.

  And thereafter, for the general run of respectable citizens from whom the Saint expressly dissociated Teal and himself, the rest had been a suavely expanding blank…

  But through that vast yet nebulous area popularly called “the underworld” began to voyage vague rumours, growing more and more wild and fantastic as they passed from mouth to mouth, but still coming at last to the respective ears of Scotland Yard with enough credible vitality to be interesting. Kate Allfield, “the Mug,” entered a railway carriage in which a Member of Parliament was travelling alone on a flying visit to his constituency: he stopped the train at Newbury and gave her in charge, and when her counter-charge of assault broke down under ruthless cross-examination she “confessed” that she had acted on the instigation of an unknown accomplice. Kate had tried many ways of making easy money, and the fact that the case in question was a new one in her history meant little. But round the underworld travelled two words of comment and explanation, and those two words said simply “The Scorpion.”

  “Basher” Tope—thief, motor-bandit, brute, and worse—was sent for. He boasted in his cups of how he was going to solve the mystery of the Scorpion, and went alone to his appointment. What happened there he never told; he was absent from his usual haunts for three weeks, and when he was seen again he had a pink scar on his temple and a surly disinclination to discuss the matter. Since he had earned his nickname, questions were not showered upon him, but once again the word went round…

  And so it was with half a dozen subsequent incidents, and the legend of the Scorpion grew up and was passed from hand to hand in queer places, unmarked by sensation-hunting journalists, a mystery for police and criminals alike. Jack Wilbey, ladder
larcenist, died and won his niche in the structure, but the newspapers noted his death only as another unsolved crime on which to peg their perennial criticisms of police efficiency, and only those who had heard other chapters of the story linked up that murder with the suicide of a certain wealthy peer. Even Chief Inspector Teal, whose finger was on the pulse of every unlawful activity in the Metropolis, had not visualized such a connecting link as the Saint had just forged before his eyes, and he pondered over it in a ruminative silence before he resumed his interrogation.

  “How much else do you know?” he asked at length, with the mere ghost of a quickening of interest in his perpetually weary voice.

  The Saint picked up a sheet of paper.

  “Listen,” he said.

  “His faith was true: though once misled

  By an appeal that he had read

  To honour with his patronage

  Crusades for better Auction Bridge

  He was not long deceived; he found

  No other paladins around

  Prepared to perish, sword in hand,

  While storming in one reckless band

  Those strongholds of Beelzebub

  The portals of the Portland Club.

  His chance came later; one fine day

  Another paper blew his way:

  Charles wrote; Charles had an interview;

  And Charles, an uncrowned jousting Blue,

  Still spellbound by the word Crusade,

  Espoused the cause of Empire Trade.”

  “What on earth’s that?” demanded the startled detective.

  “A little masterpiece of mine,” said the Saint modestly. “There’s rather an uncertain rhyme in it, if you noticed. Do you think the Poet Laureate would pass patronage and Bridge? I’d like your opinion.”

  Teal’s eyelids lowered again.

  “Have you stopped talking?” he sighed.

  “Very nearly, Teal,” said the Saint, putting the paper down again. “In case that miracle of tact was too subtle for you, let me explain that I was changing the subject.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  Teal glanced at the automatic on the table and then again at the papers on the wall, and sighed a second time.