Leslie Charteris - The Saint vs Scotland Yard

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.

"Pass 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.