Leslie Charteris - The Saint vs Scotland Yard

"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.

"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 one 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.

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.