"Mr. Garniman is just finishing breakfast, sir," said the maid doubtfully, "but I'll ask him if he'll see you."
"I'm sure he will," said the Saint, and he said it so winningly that if the maid's name had been Mrs. Garniman the prophecy would have passed automatically into the realm of sublimely concrete certainties.
As it was, the prophecy merely proved to be correct.
Mr. Garniman saw the Saint, and the Saint saw Mr. Garniman. These things happened simultaneously, but the Saint won on points. There was a lot of Mr. Garniman.
"I'm afraid I can't spare you very long, Mr. Herrick," he said. "I have to go out in a few minutes. What did you want to see me about?"
His restless grey eyes flittered shrewdly over the Saint as he spoke, but Simon endured the scrutiny with the peaceful calm which only the man who wears the suits of Anderson and Shepphard, the shirts of Harman, the shoes of Lobb, and self-refrigerating conscience can achieve.
"I came to ask you if you could tell us anything about the Scorpion," said the Saint calmly.
Well, that is one way of putting it. On the other hand, one could say with equal truth that his manner would have made a sheet of plate glass look like a futurist sculptor's impression of a bit of the Pacific Ocean during a hurricane. And the innocence of the Saintly face would have made a Botticelli angel look positively sinister in comparison.
His gaze rested on Mr. Wilfred Garniman's fleshy prow with no more than a reasonable directness; but he saw the momentary flicker of expression that preceded Mr. Garniman's blandly puzzled frown, and wistfully wondered whether, if he unsheathed his swordstick and prodded it vigorously into Mr. Garniman's immediate future, there would be a loud pop, or merely a faint sizzling sound. That he overcame this insidious temptation, and allowed no sign of the soul-shattering struggle to register itself on his face, was merely a tribute to the persistently sobering influence of Mr. Lionel Delborn's official proclamation and the Saint's sternly practical devotion to business.
"Scorpion?" repeated Mr. Garniman, frowning. "I'm afraid I don't quite——"
"Understand. Exactly. Well, I expected I should have to explain."
"I wish you would. I really don't know——"
"Why we should consider you an authority on scorpions. Precisely. The Editor told me you'd say that."
"If you'd——"
"Tell you the reason for this rather extraordinary procedure——"
"I should certainly see if I could help you in any way, but at the same time——"
"You don't see what use you could be. Absolutely. Now, shall we go on like this or shall we sing the rest in chorus?"
Mr. Garniman blinked.
"Do you want to ask me some questions?"
"I should love to," said the Saint heartily. "You don't think Mrs. Garniman will object?"
"Mrs. Garniman?"
"Mrs. Garniman."
Mr. Garniman blinked again.
"Are you——"
"Certain——"
"Are you certain you haven't made a mistake? There is no Mrs. Garniman."
"Don't mention it," said the Saint affably.
He turned the pages of an enormous notebook.
" 'Interviewed Luis Cartaro. Diamond rings and Marcel wave. Query—Do Pimples Make Good Mothers? Said——'
Sorry, wrong page. . . . Here we are: 'Memo. See Wilfred Garniman and ask the big—ask him about scorpions. 28 Mallaby Road, Harrow'. That's right, isn't it?"
"That's my name and address," said .Garniman shortly. "But I have still to learn the reason for this—er—"
"Visit," supplied the Saint. He was certainly feeling helpful this morning.
He closed his book and returned it to his pocket.
"As a matter of fact," he said, "we heard that the Saint was interested in you."
He was not even looking at Garniman as he spoke. But the mirror over the mantelpiece was in the tail of his eyes, and thus he saw the other's hands, which were clasped behind his back, close and unclose—once.
"The Saint?" said Garniman. "Really—"
"Are you sure I'm not detaining you?" asked the Saint, suddenly very brisk and solicitous. "If your staff will be anxious . . ."
"My staff can wait a few minutes."
"That's very good of you. But if we telephoned them——"
"I assure you—that is quite unnecessary."
"I shouldn't like to think of your office being disorganised——"
"You need not trouble," said Garniman. He moved across the room. "Will you smoke?"
"Thanks," said the Saint.
He had just taken the first puff from a cigarette when Garniman turned round with a carved ebony box in his hand.
"Oh," said Mr. Garniman, a trifle blankly.
"Not at all," said the Saint, who was never embarrassed. "Have one of mine?"
He extended his case, but Garniman shook his head.
"I never smoke during the day. Would it be too early to offer you a drink?"
"I'm afraid so—much too late," agreed Simon blandly.
Garniman returned the ebony box to the side table from which he had taken it. Then he swung round abruptly.
"Well?" he demanded. "What's the idea?"
The Saint appeared perplexed.
"What's what idea?" he inquired innocently.
Garniman's eyebrows came down a little.
"What's all this about scorpions——and the Saint?"
"According to the Saint ——"
"I don't understand you. I thought the Saint had disappeared long ago."
"Then you were grievously in error, dear heart," murmured Simon Templar coolly. "Because I am myself the Saint."
He lounged against a book-case, smiling and debonair, and his lazy blue eyes rested mockingly on the other's pale plump face.
"And I'm afraid you're the Scorpion, Wilfred," he said.
For a moment Mr. Garniman stood quite still. And then he shrugged.
"I believe I read in the newspapers that you had been pardoned and had retired from business," he said, "so I suppose it would be useless for me to communicate your confession to the police. As for this scorpion that you have referred to several times——"
"Yourself," the Saint corrected him gently, and Garniman shrugged again.
"Whatever delusion you are suffering from "
"Not a delusion, Wilfred."
"It is immaterial to me what you call it."
The Saint seemed to lounge even more languidly, his hands deep in his pockets, a thoughtful and reckless smile playing lightly about his lips.
"I call it a fact," he said softly. "And you will keep your hands away from that bell until I've finished talking. . . . You are the Scorpion, Wilfred, and you're probably the most successful blackmailer of the age. I grant you that—your technique is novel and thorough. But blackmail is a nasty crime. Your ingenuity has already driven two men to suicide. That was stupid of them, but it was also very naughty of you. In fact, it would really give me great pleasure to peg you in your front garden and push this highly desirable residence over on top of you; but for one thing I've promised to reserve you for the hangman and for another thing I've got my income tax to pay, so——Excuse me one moment."
Something like a flying chip of frozen quicksilver flashed across the room and plonked crisply into the wooden panel around the bell-push towards which Garniman's fingers were sidling. It actually passed between his second and third fingers, so that he felt the swift chill of its passage and snatched his hand away as if it had received an electric shock. But the Saint continued his languid propping up of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and he did not appear to have moved.
"Just do what you're told, Wilfred, and everything will be quite all right—but I've got lots more of them there missiles packed in my pants," murmured the Saint soothingly, warningly, and untruthfully—though Mr. Garniman had no means of perceiving this last adverb. "What was I saying? . . . Oh yes. I have my income tax to pay——"