The Saint vs Scotland Yard (9 page)

“The private war will go on,” said the Saint comfortably.

His deductions, as usual, were precisely true; but there was
one twist
in the affairs of Wilfred Garniman of which he did not know, and if he had
known of it he might not have taken
life quite so easily as he did for the
next few days. That is just
possible.

On the morning of that first interview, he had hung around
in the
middle distances of Mallaby Road with intent to in
crease his store of
information; but Mr. Garniman had driven
off to his righteous
labours in a car which the Saint knew at a
glance it would be
useless to attempt to follow in a taxi. On the second morning, the Saint
decorated the same middle
distances at the wheel of his own car, but a
traffic jam at
Marble Arch baulked him of his quarry. On the third
morning
he tried again, and collected two punctures in the first half-
mile; and
when he got out to inspect the damage he found
sharp steel spikes
strewn all over the road. Then, fearing that
four consecutive
seven-o’clock breakfasts might affect his
health, the Saint
stayed in bed on the fourth morning and did
some thinking.

One error in his own technique he perceived quite clearly.

“If I’d sleuthed him on the first morning, and postponed the
backchat
till the second, I should have been a bright lad,” he
said. “My genius seems to
have gone off the boil.”

That something of the sort had happened was also evi
denced by
the fact that during those four days the problem of
evolving a really
agile method of inducing Mr. Garniman to
part with a
proportion of his ill-gotten gains continued to
elude him.

Chief Inspector Teal heard the whole story when he called
in on the
evening of that fourth day to make inquiries, and
was almost
offensive.

The Saint sat at his desk after the detective had gone, and
contemplated
the net result of his ninety-six hours’ cerebration
moodily. This
consisted of a twelve-line epilogue to the Epic
History of Charles.

His will was read. His father learned

Charles wished his body to be burned

With huge heroic flames of fire

Upon a Roman funeral pyre.

But Charles’s pa, sole legatee,

Averse to such publicity,

Thought that his bidding might be done

Without disturbing anyone,

And, in a highly touching scene,

Cremated him at Kensal Green.

And so Charles has his little shrine

With cavalier and concubine.

Simon Templar scowled sombrely at the sheet for some
time; and
then, with a sudden impatience, he heaved the
inkpot out of the
window and stood up.

“Pat,” he said, “I feel that the time is ripe for us to
push
into a really wicked night club and drown our sorrows in iced
ginger-beer.”

The girl closed her book and smiled at him.

“Where shall we go?” she asked; and then the Saint sud
denly shot
across the room as if he had been touched with a
hot iron.

“Holy Pete!” he yelled. “Pat—old sweetheart—old angel——
”

Patricia blinked at him.

“My dear old lad——
”

“Hell to all dear old lads!” cried the Saint recklessly.

He took her by the arms, swung her bodily out of her chair, put her
down, rumpled her hair, and kissed her.

“Paddle on,” he commanded breathlessly. “Go on—go
and
have a bath—dress—undress—glue your face on—anything. Sew
a gun into
the cami-whatnots, find a butterfly net—and let’s
go!”

“But what’s the excitement about?”

“We’re going entomo-botanising. We’re going to prowl
around the
West End fishing for beetles. We’re going to look
at every night club in
London—I’m a member of them all. If
we don’t catch anything, it won’t be
my fault. We’re going to
knock the L out of London and use it to tie
the Home
Secretary’s ears together. The voice of the flatfooted
periwin
kle shall be heard in the land——
”

He was still burbling foolishly when Patricia fled; but when
she
returned he was resplendent in Gents’ Evening Wear and
wielding a
cocktail-shaker with a wild exuberance that made
her almost giddy to watch.

“For heaven’s sake,” she said, catching his arm, “pull
your
self together and tell me something!”

“Sure,” said the Saint daftly. “That nightie of yours is a
dream. Or is it meant to be a dress? You can never tell, with
these long
skirts. And I don’t want to be personal, but are you
sure you haven’t
forgotten to put on the back or posterior
part? I can see all
your spine. Not that I mind, but …
Talking of swine—spine—there was a very fine specimen at
the
Embassy the other night. Must have
measured at least thirty-
two inches
from snout to——
They say the man who
landed it
played it for three weeks.
Ordinarily trout line and gaff, you
know.
…”

Patricia Holm was almost hysterical by the time they
reached the
Carlton, where the Saint had decided to dine. And
it was not until he
had ordered an extravagant dinner, with
appropriate wines,
that she was able to make him listen to a
sober question. And
then he became the picture of innocent
amazement.

“But didn’t you get me?” he asked. “Hadn’t you figured it
out for
yourself? I thought you were there long ago. Have you
forgotten my little
exploit at the Bird’s Nest? Who d’you think
paid for that bit of
coloured mosquito-net you’re wearing?
Who bought these studs I’m wearing?
Who, if it comes to that,
is standing us this six-course indigestion? .
. . Well, some peo
ple
might say it was Montgomery Bird, but personally——”

The girl gasped. “You mean that other man at the Bird’s
Nest was the Scorpion?”

“Who else? … But I never rumbled to it till tonight! I
told you
he was busy putting the black on Montgomery when
Teal and I butted in.
I overheard the whole conversation, and
I was certainly
curious. I made a mental note at the time to
investigate that
bearded battleship, but it never came into my
head that it must have
been Wilfred himself—I’m damned if I
know why!”

Patricia nodded.

“I’d forgotten to think of it myself,” she said.

“And I must have been fast asleep the whole time! Of
course it
was the Scorpion—and his graft’s a bigger one than I
ever dreamed. He’s
got organisation, that guy. He probably
has his finger in
half the wicked pies that are being cooked in
this big city. If he
was on to Montgomery, there’s no reason
why he shouldn’t have
got on to a dozen others that you and I
can think of; and
he’ll be drawing his percentage from the
whole bunch. I grant
you I put Montgomery out of business, but ——
”

“If you’re right,” said Patricia, “and the Scorpion hasn’t
done a bunk, we may find him anywhere.”

“Tonight,” said the Saint. “Or, if not tonight, some
other
night. And I’m prepared to keep on looking. But my income
tax has got
to be paid tomorrow, and so I want the reunion to
be tonight.”

“Have you got an idea?”

“I’ve got a dozen,” said the Saint. “And one of them says
that
Wilfred is going to have an Evening!”

His brain had suddenly picked up its stride again. In a few
minutes he
had sketched out a plan of campaign as slick and
agile as anything his
fertile genius had ever devised. And once
again he was proved a
true prophet, though the proceedings
took a slight twist which he had not
foreseen.

For at a quarter past eleven they ran Wilfred Garniman to
earth at
the Golden Apple Club. And Wilfred Garniman cer
tainly had an Evening.

He was standing at the door of the ballroom, sardonically
surveying
the clientele, when a girl walked in and stopped
beside him. He glanced
round at her almost without thinking.
Having done which, he stayed
glancing—and thought a lot.

She was young, slim, fair-haired, and exquisite. Even
Wilfred
Garniman knew that. His rather tired eyes, taking in other details of her
appearance, recognised the simple perfection of a fifty-guinea gown. And her
face was utterly innocent
of guile—Wilfred Garniman had a shrewd
perception of
these things also. She scanned the crowd anxiously, as
though
looking for someone, and in due course it became apparent
that the
someone was not present. Wilfred Garniman was the
last man she looked
at. Their glances met, and held for some
seconds; and then the
faintest ripple of a smile touched her
lips.

And exactly one hour later, Simon Templar was ringing the
bell at
28, Mallaby Road, Harrow.

He was not expecting a reply, but he always liked to be sure
of his
ground. He waited ten minutes, ringing the bell at
intervals; and then
he went in by a ground-floor window. It
took him straight into
Mr. Garniman’s study. And there, after
carefully drawing the
curtains, the Saint was busy for some
time. For thirty-five minutes by his watch, to be exact.

And then he sat down in a chair and lighted a cigarette.

“Somewhere,” he murmured thoughtfully, “there is a catch
in
this.”

For the net result of a systematic and expert search had
panned out
at precisely nil.

And this the Saint was not expecting. Before he left the
Carlton, he
had propounded one theory with all the force of
an incontestable fact.

“Wilfred may have decided to take my intrusion calmly, and
trust that
he’ll be able to put me out of the way before I
managed to strafe him
good and proper; but he’d never leave
himself without at least one line of
retreat. And that implies
being able to take his booty with him. He’d
never have put it
in a bank, because there’d always be the chance that
someone
might notice things and get curious. It will have been in a safe
deposit;
but it won’t be there now.”

Somewhere
or other—somewhere within Wilfred Garniman’s
easy
reach—there was a large quantity of good solid cash, ready
and willing to be converted into all manner of
music by
anyone who picked it up and
offered it a change of address. It
might
have been actually on Wilfred Garniman’s person; but
the Saint didn’t think so. He had decided that it
would most
probably be somewhere in
the house at Harrow; and as he
drove
out there he had prepared to save time by considering
the potential hiding-places in advance. He had
thought of
many, and discarded them
one by one, for various reasons;
and
his final judgment had led him unhesitatingly into the
very room where he had spent thirty-five fruitless
minutes
… and where he was now
getting set to spend some more.

“This is the Scorpion’s sacred lair,” he figured, “and
Wilfred
wouldn’t let himself forget it. He’d play it up to himself for
all it was
worth. It’s the inner sanctum of the great ruthless
organisation that
doesn’t exist. He’d sit in that chair in the
evenings—at that
desk—there—thinking what a wonderful man
he was. And he’d look
at whatever innocent bit of interior
decoration hides his secret cache, and
gloat over the letters and
dossiers that he’s got hidden there, and the
money they’ve
brought in or are going to bring in—the fat, slimy,
wallowing
slug… .”