The Saint vs Scotland Yard (The Holy Terror)

by Leslie Charteris

  The Saint vs Scotland Yard (The Holy Terror)

  Leslie Charteris

  vs Scotland Yard

  By LESLIE CHARTERIS

  FICTION PUBLISHING COMPANY • NEW YORK

  Copyright, 1932 by Leslie Charteris. Published by Arrangement with Doubleday & Co., Inc. Printed in U.S.A.

  CONTENTS

  PART I—The Inland Revenue

  PART II—The Million Pound Day

  PART III—The Melancholy Journey of Mr. Teal

  PART I

  The Inland Revenue

  Chapter I

  Before the world at large had heard even one lonely rumour about the gentleman who called himself, among other things, the Scorpion, there were men who knew him in secret. They knew him only as the Scorpion, and by no other name; and where he came from and where he lived were facts that certain of them would have given much to learn.

  It is merely a matter of history that one of these men had an unassailable legal right to the name of Montgomery Bird, which everyone will agree was a very jolly sort of name for a bloke to have.

  Mr, Montgomery Bird was a slim and very dapper little man; and although it is true he wore striped spats there were even more unpleasant things about him which were not so noticeable but which it is the chronicler's painful duty to record. He was, for instance, the sole proprietor of a night club officially entitled the Eyrie, but better and perhaps more appropriately known as the Bird's Nest, which was a very low night club. And in this club, on a certain evening, he inter­viewed the Scorpion.

  That Simon Templar happened to be present was almost accidental.

  Simon Templar, in fact, having for some time past cherished a purely businesslike interest in the affairs of Mr. Montgomery Bird, had decided that the time was ripe for that interest to bear its fruit.

  The means by which he became a member of the Eyrie are not known. Simon Templar had his own private ways of doing these things. It is enough that he was able to enter the prem­ises unchallenged. He was saluted by the doorkeeper, climbed the steep stairs to the converted loft in which the Eyrie had its being, collected and returned the welcoming smile of the girl at the reception desk, delivered his hat into the keeping of a liveried flunkey, and passed on unquestioned. Outside the glass doors that separated the supper-room from the lounge he paused for a moment, lighting a cigarette, while his eyes wan­dered lazily over the crowd. He already knew that Mr. Bird was in the habit of spending the evening among his guests, and he just wanted to make sure about that particular evening. He made sure; but his subsequent and consequent movements were forced to diverge slightly from schedule, as will be seen.

  Mr. Bird had met the Scorpion before. When a waiter came through and informed him that a gentleman who would give no name was asking to speak to him, Mr. Bird showed no surprise. He went out to the reception desk, nodded curtly to the visitor, signed him under the name of J. N. Jones, and led the way into his private office without comment.

  He walked to his desk; and there he stopped and turned.

  "What is it now?" he asked shortly, and the visitor shrugged his broad shoulders.

  "Must I explain?"

  Mr. Bird sat down in his swivel chair, rested his right ankle on his left knee, and leaned back. The fingers of one carefully manicured hand played a restless tattoo on the desk.

  "You had a hundred pounds only last week," he said.

  "And since then you have probably made at least three hundred," replied the visitor calmly.

  He sat on the arm of another chair, and his right hand remained in the pocket of his overcoat. Mr. Bird, gazing at the pocket, raised one cynical eyebrow.

  "You look after yourself well."

  "An elementary precaution."

  "Or an elementary bluff."

  The visitor shook his head.

  "You might test it—if you are tired of life."

  Mr. Bird smiled, stroking his small moustache.

  "With that—and your false beard and smoked glasses—you're an excellent imitation of a blackguard," he said.

  "The point is not up for discussion," said the visitor smoothly. "Let us confine ourselves to the object of my presence here. Must I repeat that I know you to be a trader in illicit drugs? In this very room, probably, there is enough material evidence to send you to penal servitude for five years. The police, unaided, might search for it in vain. The secret of your ingenious little hiding-place under the floor in that corner might defy their best efforts. They do not know that it will only open when the door of this room is locked and the third and fifth sections of the wainscoting on that wall are slid upwards. But suppose they were anonymously informed——"

  "And then found nothing there," said Montgomery Bird, with equal suavity.

  "There would still be other suggestions that I could make," said the visitor.

  He stood up abruptly.

  "I hope you understand me," he said. "Your offences are no concern of mine, but they would be a great concern of yours if you were placed in the dock to answer for them. They are also too profitable for you to be ready to abandon them—yet. You will therefore pay me one hundred pounds a week for as long as I choose to demand it. Is that sufficiently plain?"

  "You——"

  Montgomery Bird came out of his chair with a rush.

  The bearded man was not disturbed. Only his right hand, in his overcoat pocket, moved slightly.

  "My—er—elementary bluff is still waiting your investi­gation," he said dispassionately, and the other stopped dead.

  With his head thrust a little forward, he stared into the tinted lenses that masked the big man's eyes.

  "One day I'll get you—you—swine."

  "And until that day, you will continue to pay me one hundred pounds a week, my dear Mr. Bird," came the gentle response. "Your next contribution is already due. If it is not troubling you too much——

  He did not bother to complete the sentence. He simply waited.

  Bird went back to the desk and opened a drawer. He took out an envelope and threw it on the blotter.

  "Thank you," said the visitor.

  His fingers had just touched the envelope when the shrill scream of a bell froze him into immobility. It was not an ordinary bell. It had a vociferous viciousness about it that stung the eardrums—something like the magnified buzzing of an infuriated wasp.

  "What is that?"

  "My private alarm."

  Bird glanced at the illuminated clock on the mantelpiece; and the visitor, following the glance, saw that the dial had turned red.

  "A police raid?"

  "Yes."

  The big man picked up the envelope and thrust it into his pocket.

  "You will get me out of here," he said.

  Only a keen ear would have noticed the least fraying of the edges of his measured accents; but Montgomery Bird noticed it, and looked at him curiously.

  "If I didn't——

  "You would be foolish—very foolish," said the visitor quietly.

  Bird moved back, with murderous eyes. Set in one wall was a large mirror; he put his hands to the frame of it and pushed it bodily sideways in invisible grooves, revealing a dark rec­tangular opening.

  And it was at that moment that Simon Templar, for his own inscrutable reasons, tired of his voluntary exile.

  "Stand clear of the lift gates, please," he murmured.

  To the two men, wheeling round at the sound of his voice like a pair of marionettes whose control wires have got mixed up with a dynamo, it seemed as if he had appeared out of the fourth dimension. Just for an instant. And then they saw the open door of the capacious cupboard behind him.

  "Pa
ss right down the car, gents," he murmured, encourag­ingly.

  He crossed the room. He appeared to cross it slowly, but that, again, was an illusion. He had reached the two men before either of them could move. His left hand shot out and fastened on the lapels of the bearded man's coat—and the bearded man vanished. It was the most startling thing that Mr. Montgomery Bird had ever seen; but the Saint did not seem to be aware that he was multiplying miracles with an easy grace that would have made a Grand Lama look like a third-rate three-card man. He calmly pulled the sliding mirror back into place, and turned round again.

  "No—not you, Montgomery," he drawled. "We may want you again this evening. Back-pedal, comrade."

  His arm telescoped languidly outwards, and the hand at the end of it seized the retreating Mr. Bird by one ear, fetching him up with a jerk that made him squeak in muted anguish.

  Simon steered him firmly but rapidly towards the open,cup­board.

  "You can cool off in there," he said; and the next sensations that impinged upon Montgomery Bird's delirious conscious­ness consisted of a lot of darkness and the sound of a key turning in the cupboard lock.

  The Saint straightened his coat and returned to the centre of the room.

  He sat down in Mr. Bird's chair, put his feet on Mr. Bird's desk, lighted one of Mr. Bird's cigars, and gazed at the ceiling with an expression of indescribable beatitude on his face; and it was thus that Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal found him.

  Some seconds passed before the detective recovered the use of his voice; but when he had done this, he made up for lost time.

  "What," he snarled, "the blankety blank blanking blank-blanked blank——

  "Hush," said the Saint.

  "Why?" snarled Teal, not unreasonably.

  Simon held up his hand.

  "Listen."

  There was a moment's silence; and then Teal's glare re­calorified.

  "What am I supposed to be listening to?" he demanded violently; and the Saint beamed at him.

  "Down in the forest something stirred—it was only the note of a bird," he explained sweetly.

  The detective centralised his jaw with a visible effort.

  "Is Montgomery Bird another of your fancy names?" he inquired, with a certain lusciousness. "Because, if it is——"

  "Yes, old dear?"

  "If it is," said Chief Inspector Teal grimly, "you're going to see the inside of a prison at last."

  Simon regarded him imperturbably.

  "On what charge?"

  "You're going to get as long as I can get you for allowing drinks to be sold in your club after hours—

  "And then——?"

  The detective's eyes narrowed.

  "What do you mean?"

  Simon flourished Mr. Bird's cigar airily.

  "I always understood that the police were pretty bone-headed," he remarked genially, "but I never knew before that they'd been reduced to employing Chief Inspectors for ordi­nary drinking raids."

  Teal said nothing.

  "On the other hand, a dope raid is quite a different matter," said the Saint.

  He smiled at the detective's sudden stillness, and stood up, knocking an inch of ash from his cigar.

  "I must be toddling along," he murmured. "If you really want to find some dope, and you've any time to spare after you've finished cleaning up the bar, you ought to try locking the door of this room and pulling up bits of wainscoting. The third and fifth sections—I can't tell you which wall. Oh, and if you want Montgomery, he's simmering down in the Frigi­daire. . . . See you again soon."

  He patted the crown of Mr. Teal's bowler hat affectionately, and was gone before the detective had completely grasped what was happening.

  The Saint could make those well-oiled exits when he chose; and he chose to make one then, for he was a fundamentally tactful man. Also, he had in one pocket an envelope purport­ing to contain one hundred pounds, and in another pocket the entire contents of Mr. Montgomery Bird's official safe; and at such times the Saint did not care to be detained.

  Chapter II

  Simon Templar pushed back his plate.

  "Today," he announced, "I have reaped the first-fruits of virtue."

  He raised the letter he had received, and adjusted an imag­inary pair of pince-nez. Patricia waited expectantly.

  The Saint read:

  "Dear Mr: Templar,

  "Having come across a copy of your book 'The Pirate' and having nothing to do I sat down to read it. Well, the impression it gave me was that you are a writer with no sense of proportion. The reader's sympathy owing to the faulty setting of the first chapter naturally goes all the way with Kerrigan, even though he is a crook. It is not surprising that this book has not gone to a second edition. You do not evidently understand the mentality of an English reading public. If instead of Mario you had se­ lected for your hero an Englishman or an American, you would have written a fairly readable and a passable tale— but a lousy Dago who works himself out of impossible difficulties and situations is too much. It is not convincing. It does not appeal. In a word it is puerile.

  "I fancy you yourself must have a fair amount of Dago blood in you——"

  He stopped, and Patricia Holm looked at him puzzledly.

  "Well?" she prompted.

  "There is no more," explained the Saint. "No address—no signature—no closing peroration—nothing. Apparently words failed him. At that point he probably uttered a short sharp yelp of intolerable agony, and began to chew pieces out of the furniture. We may never know his fate. Possibly, in some distant asylum——"

  He elaborated on his theory.

  During a brief spell of virtue some time before, the Saint had beguiled himself with the writing of a novel. Moreover, he had actually succeeded in finding a home for it; and the adventures of Mario, a super-brigand of South America, could be purchased at any bookstall for three half-crowns. And the letter that he had just read was part of his reward.

  Another part of the reward had commenced six months previously.

  "Nor is this all," said the Saint, taking another document from the table. "The following billet-doux appears to close some entertaining correspondence:

  "Previous applications for payment of the undermen­tioned instalment for the year 1931-1932, due from you on the 1st day January, 1932, having been made to you with­out effect, PERSONAL DEMAND is now made for pay­ment, and I HEREBY GIVE YOU FINAL NOTICE that if the amount be not paid or remitted to me at the above address within SEVEN DAYS from this date, steps will be taken for recovery by DISTRAINT, with costs.

  "LIONEL DELBORN, COLLECTOR."

  In spite of the gloomy prognostications of the anonymous critic, The Pirate had not passed utterly unnoticed in the spate of sensational fiction. The Intelligence Department ("A beautiful name for them," said the Saint) of the Inland Revenue had observed its appearance, had consulted their records, and had discovered that the author, the notorious Simon Templar, was not registered as a contributor towards the expensive extravagances whereby a modern boobocracy does its share in encouraging the survival of the fattest. The Saint's views about his liabilities in this cause were not invited: he simply received an assessment which presumed his income to be six thousand pounds per annum, and he was invited to appeal against it if he thought fit. The Saint thought fit, and declared that the assessment was bad in law, erroneous in principle, excessive in amount, and malicious in intent. The discussion that followed was lengthy and diverting; the Saint, conducting his own case with remarkable forensic ability and eloquence, pleaded that he was a charita­ble institution and therefore not taxable.

  "If," said the Saint, in his persuasive way, "you will look up the delightful words of Lord Macnaghten, in Income Tax Commissioners v. Pemsel, 1891, A.C. at p. 583, you will find that charitable purposes are there defined in four principal divisions, of which the fourth is 'trusts for purposes beneficial to the community, not falling under any of the preceding heads.' I am simply and comprehensively beneficial to t
he community, which the face of the third Commissioner from the left definitely is not."

  We find from the published record of the proceedings that he was overruled; and the epistle he had just quoted was final and conclusive proof of the fact.

  "And that," said the Saint, gazing at the formidable red lettering gloomily, "is what I get for a lifetime of philanthropy and self-denial."

  "I suppose you'll have to pay," said Patricia.

  "Someone will," said the Saint significantly.

  He propped the printed buff envelope that had accompa­nied the Final Demand against the coffee-pot, and his eyes rested on it for a space with a gentle thoughtfulness—amaz­ingly clear, devil-may-care blue eyes with a growing glimmer of mischief lurking somewhere behind the lazily drooping lids.

  And slowly the old Saintly smile came to his lips as he contem­plated the address.

  "Someone will have to pay," repeated the Saint thoughtfully; and Patricia Holm sighed, for she knew the signs.

  And suddenly the Saint stood up, with his swift soft laugh, and took the Final Demand and the envelope over to the fireplace. On the wall close by hung a plain block calendar, and on the mantelpiece lay an old Corsican stiletto. "Che la mia ferita sia mortale," said the inscription on the blade.

  The Saint rapidly flicked over the pages of the calendar and tore out the sheet which showed in solid red figures the day on which Mr. Lionel Delborn's patience would expire. He placed the sheet on top of the other papers, and with one quick thrust he drove the stiletto through the collection and speared it deep into the panelled overmantel.

  "Lest we forget," he said, and turned with another laugh to smile seraphically into Patricia's outraged face. "I just wasn't born to be respectable, lass, and that's all there is to it. And the time has come for us to remember the old days."

  As a matter of fact, he had made that decision two full weeks before, and Patricia had known it; but not until then had he made his open declaration of war.