The Saint vs Scotland Yard Read Free Page A

cost
    Could compensate for what he lost
    By
chancing to coagulate
    About five hundred years too late.
    Born in the only days for him
    He would have swung a sword with vim,
    Grown
ginger whiskers on his face,
    And mastered, with a knobbly mace,
    Men who wore hauberks on their chests
    Instead of little woolen vests,
    And drank strong wine among his peers
    Instead of pale synthetic beers.
     
    At this point, the trend of his inspiration led the Saint on a brief
excursion to the barrel in one corner of the room. He replenished his
tankard, drank deeply, and continued:
    Had he not reason to be glum When born
in nineteen umpty-um?
    And there, for the moment, he stuck; and he was cogitating the
possible developments of the next stanza when he was interrupted by the zing! of the front door bell.
    As he stepped out into the hall, he glanced up through the fanlight
above the door at the mirror that was cunningly fixed to the underneath of
the hanging lantern outside. He recog nised the caller at once, and opened
the door without hesita tion.
    “Come in, Harry,” invited the Saint cordially, and led the way back to
the sitting-room. “I was busy with a work of art that is going to make
Milton look like a distant relative of the gargle, but I can spare you a few
minutes.”
    Long Harry glanced at the sheet half-covered with the Saint’s
neat handwriting.
    “Poetry, Mr. Templar? We used to learn poetry at school,” he said
reminiscently.
    Simon looked at him thoughtfully for two or three seconds, and then he
beamed.
    “Harry, you hit the nail on the head. For that suggestion, I pray that
your shadow may always be jointed at the elbows. Excuse me one
moment.”
    He plumped himself back in his chair and wrote at speed. Then he cleared
his throat, and read aloud:
     
    “Eton and Oxford failed to floor
    The spirit of the warrior;
    Though ragged and bullied, teased and hissed,
    Charles stayed a Medievalist;
    And even when his worldly Pa
    (Regarding him with nausea)
    Condemned him to the dismal cares
    Of
sordid trade in stocks and shares,
    Charles, in top-hat and Jaeger drawers,
    Clung like a limpet to his Cause,
    Believing, in a kind of trance,
    That one day he would have his Chance.”
     
    He laid the sheet down reverently.
    “A mere pastime for me, but I believe Milton used to sweat blood over
it,” he remarked complacently. “Soda or water, Harry?”
    “Neat, please, Mr. Templar.”
    Simon brought over the glass of Highland cream, and Long Harry
sipped it, and crossed and uncrossed his legs awkwardly.
    “I hope you don’t mind my coming to see you, sir,” he ventured at
last.
    “Not at all,” responded the Saint heartily. “Always glad
to see any Eton boys here. What’s the trouble?”
    Long Harry fidgeted, twiddling his fingers and corrugating his brow. He
was the typical “old lag,” or habitual criminal, which is
to say that outside of business hours he was a per fectly ordinary man of
slightly less than average intelligence and rather more than
average cunning. On this occasion he was plainly and ordinarily ill at ease,
and the Saint surmised that he had only begun to solve his worries
when he mustered up the courage to give that single, brief, and symptomatic
ring at the front door bell.
    Simon lighted a cigarette and waited impassively, and presently his
patience reaped its harvest.
    “I wondered—I thought maybe I could tell you something that might
interest you, Mr. Templar.”
    “Sure.” The Saint allowed a thin jet of smoke to trickle through
his lips, and continued to wait.
    “It’s about … it’s about the Scorpion, Mr. Templar.”
    Instantaneously the Saint’s eyes narrowed, the merest frac tion of a
millimetre, and the inhalation that he drew from his cigarette was long and
deep and slow. And then the stare that he swivelled round in
the direction of Long Harry was wide blue innocence itself.——’
    “What Scorpion?” he inquired blandly.
    Long Harry frowned.
    “I thought you’d ‘ve known