"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.
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 patronge 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.
"I think so. You're going to ask the Scorpion to pay your income tax."
"I am."
"How?"
The Saint laughed. He pointed to the desecrated overmantel.
"One thousand three hundred and thirty-seven pounds, nineteen and fivepence," he said. "That's my sentence for being a useful wage-earning citizen instead of a prolific parasite, according to the laws of this spavined country. Am I supposed to pay you and do your work as well? If so, I shall emigrate on the next boat and become a naturalised Venezuelan."
"I wish you would," said Teal, from his heart.
He picked up his hat.
"Do you know the Scorpion?" he asked suddenly.
Simon shook his head.
"Not yet. But I'm going to. His donation is not yet assessed, but I can tell you where o
ne thousand three hundred and thirty-eight pounds of it are going to travel. And that is towards the offices of Mr. Lionel Delborn, collector of extortions —may his teeth fall out and his legs putrefy! I'll stand the odd sevenpence out of my own pocket."
"And what do you think you're going to do with the man himself?"
The Saint smiled.
"That's a little difficult to say," he murmured. "Accidents sort of—er—happen, don't they? I mean, I don't want you to start getting back any of your naughty old ideas about me, but——"
Teal nodded; then he met the Saint's mocking eyes seriously.
"They'd have the coat off my back if it ever got round," he said, "but between you and me and these four walls, I'll make a deal—if you'll make one too."
Simon settled on the edge of the table, his cigarette slanting quizzically upwards between his lips, and one whimsically sardonic eyebrow arched.
"What is it?"
"Save the Scorpion for me, and I won't ask how you paid your income tax."
For a few moments the Saint's noncommittal gaze rested on the detective's round red face; then it wandered back to the impaled memorandum above the mantelpiece. And then the Saint looked Teal in the eyes and smiled again.
"O.K.," he drawled. "That's O.K. with me, Claud."
"It's a deal?"
"It is. There's a murder charge against the Scorpion, and I don't see why the hangman shouldn't earn his fiver. I guess it's time you had a break, Claud Eustace. Yes—you can have the Scorpion. Any advance on fourpence?"
Teal nodded, and held out his hand.
"Fourpence halfpenny—I'll buy you a glass of beer at any pub inside the three-mile radius on the day you bring him in," he said.
Chapter V
Patricia Holm came in shortly after four-thirty. Simon Templar had lunched at what he always referred to as "the pub round the corner"—the Berkeley—and had ambled elegantly about the purlieus of Piccadilly for an hour thereafter; for he had scarcely learned to walk two consecutive steps when his dear old grandmother had taken him on her knee and enjoined him to "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday".
He was writing when she arrived, but he put down his pen and surveyed her solemnly.
"Oh, there you are," he remarked. "I thought you were dead, but Teal said he thought you might only have taken a trip to Vladivostok."
"I've been helping Eilen Wiltham—her wedding's only five days away. Haven't you any more interest in her?"
"None," said the Saint callously. "The thought of the approaching crime makes my mind feel unbinged—unhinged. I've already refused three times to assist Charles to select pyjamas for the bridal chamber. I told him that when he'd been married as often as I have——"
"That'll do," said Patricia.
"It will, very nearly," said the Saint.
He cast an eye over the mail that she had brought in with her from the letter-box.
"Those two enevelopes with halfpenny stamps you may exterminate forthwith. On the third, in spite of the deceptive three-halfpenny Briefmarke, I recognise the clerkly hand of Anderson and Sheppard. Add it to the holocaust. Item four"—he picked up a small brown-paper package and weighed it calculatingly in his hand—"is much too light to contain high explosive. It's probably the new gold-mounted sock-suspenders I ordered from Asprey's. Open it, darling, and tell me what you think of them. And I will read you some more of the Hideous History of Charles."
He took up his manuscript.
"With what a zest did he prepare
For the first meeting (open-air)!
With what a glee he fastened on
His bevor and his morion,
His greaves, his ventail, every tace,
His pauldrons and his rerebrace!
He sallied forth with martial eye,
Prepared to do, prepared to die,
But not prepared—by Bayard! not
For the reception that he got.
Over that chapter of the tale
It would be kind to draw a veil:
Let it suffice that in disdain,
Some hecklers threw him in a drain,
And plodding home——
"Excuse me," said the Saint.
His right hand moved like lightning, and the detonation of his heavy automatic in the confined space was like a vindictive thunderclap. It left the girl with a strange hot sting of powder on her wrist and a dull buzzing in her ears. And through the buzzing drifted the Saint's unruffled accents:
"And plodding home, all soaked inside,
He caught pneumonia—and died."
Patricia looked at him, white-faced.
"What was it?" she asked, with the faintest tremor in her voice.
"Just an odd spot of scorpion," answered Simon Templar gently. "An unpleasant specimen of the breed—the last time I saw one like that was up in the hills north of Puruk-jahu. Looks like a pal of mine has been doing some quick travelling, or ... Yes." The Saint grinned. "Get on the phone to the Zoo, old dear, and tell 'em they can have their property back if they care to send round and scrape it off the carpet. I don't think we shall want it any more, shall we?"
Patricia shuddered.
She had stripped away the brown paper and found a little cardboard box such as cheap jewellery is sometimes packed in. When she raised the lid, the tiny blue-green horror, like a miniature deformed lobster, had been lying there in a nest of cotton-wool; while she stared at it, it had rustled on to her and . . .
"It—wasn't very big," she said, in a tone that tried to match the Saint's for lightness.
"Scorpions run to all sizes," said the Saint cheerfully, "and as often as not their poisonousness is in inverse ratio to their size in boots. Mostly, they're very minor troubles—I've been stung myself, and all I got was a sore and swollen arm. But the late lamented was a member of the one and only sure-certain and no-hokum family of homicides in the species. Pity I bumped it off so quickly—it might have been really valuable stuffed."
Patricia's finger-tips slid mechanically around the rough edges of the hole that the nickel-cased .45 bullet had smashed through the polished mahogany table before ruining the carpet and losing itself somewhere in the floor. Then she looked steadily at the Saint.
"Why should anyone send you a scorpion?" she asked.
Simon Templar shrugged.
"It was the immortal Paragot who said: 'In this country the unexpected always happens, which paralyses the brain'. And if a real man-sized Scorpion can't be expected to send his young brothers to visit his friends as a token of esteem, what can he be expected to do?"
"Is that all?"
"All what?"
"All you propose to tell me."
The Saint regarded her for a moment. He saw the tall slim lines of reposeful strength in her body, the fine moulding of the chin, the eyes as blue and level as his own. And slowly he screwed the cap on his fountain pen; and he stood up and came round the table.
"I'll tell you as much more as you want to know," he said.
"Just like in the mad old days?"
"They had their moments, hadn't they?"
She nodded.
"Sometimes I wish we were back in them," she said wistfully. "I didn't fall in love with you in a pair of Anderson and Sheppard trousers——"
"They were!" cried the Saint indignantly. "I distinctly remember ——"
Patricia laughed suddenly. Her hands fell on his shoulders.
"Give me a cigarette, boy," she said, "and tell me what's been happening."
And he did so—though what he had to tell was little enough. And Chief Inspector Teal himself knew no more. The Scorpion had grown up in darkness, had struck from the darkness, and crawled back deeper into the dark. Those who could have spoken dared not speak, and those who might have spoken died too soon . . .
But as he told his tale, the Saint saw the light of all the mad old days awakening again in Patricia's eyes, and it was in a full and complete understanding of that light that he came
to the one thing that Chief Inspector Teal would have given his ears to know.
"Tonight, at nine——"
"You'll be there?"
"I shall," said the Saint, with the slightest tightening of his lips. "Shot up by a bloody amateur! Good God! Suppose he'd hit me! Pat, believe papa—when I pass out, there's going to be a first-class professional, hall-marked on every link, at the thick end of the gun."
Patricia, in the deep armchair, settled her sweet golden head among the cushions.
"What time do we start?" she asked calmly. For a second, glancing at him sidelong. She saw the old stubborn hardening of the line of his jaw. It happened instinctively, almost without his knowing it; and then suddenly he swung off the arm of the chair in the breath of an even older Saintly laughter.
"Why not?" he said. "It's impossible—preposterous—unthinkable—but why not? The old gang have gone—Dicky, Archie, Roger—gone and got spliced on to women and come over all bowler-hat. There's only you left. It'd make the vicar's wife let out one piercing squawk and swallow her knitting-needles, but who cares? If you'd really like to have another sniff at the old brew——"
"Give me the chance!"
Simon grinned.
"And you'd flop after it like a homesick walrus down a water-chute, wouldn't you?"
"Faster," she said.
"And so you shall," said the Saint. "The little date I've got for tonight will be all the merrier for an extra soul on the side of saintliness and soft drinks. And if things don't turn out exactly according to schedule, there may be an encore for your especial entertainment. Pat, I have a feeling that this is going to be our week!"
Chapter VI
It was one of the Saint's most charming characteristics that he never hurried and never worried. He insisted on spending an idle hour in the cocktail bar of the May Fair Hotel, and seven-thirty had struck before he collected his car, inserted Patricia, and turned the Hirondel's long silver nose northwards at an unwontedly moderate speed. They dined at Hatfield, after parking the Hirondel in the hotel garage, and after dinner the Saint commanded coffee and liqueurs and proceeded to incinerate two enormous cigars of a plutocratically delicate bouquet. He had calculated exactly how long it would take to walk out to location, and he declined to start one moment before his time-table demanded it.
The Saint vs Scotland Yard (The Holy Terror) Page 3