And then he laid over it the cement that he had prepared, finishing it off smoothly level with the floor.
Even then he did not rest—he was busy for another hour, filling the pails with earth and carrying them up the stairs and out into the garden and emptying them over the flowerbeds. He had a placidly accurate eye for detail and an enormous capacity for taking pains, had Mr. Wilfred Garniman; but it is doubtful if he gave more than a passing thought to the eternal meaning of what he had done.
Chapter X
To Mr. Teal, who in those days knew the Saint's habits almost as well as he knew his own, it was merely axiomatic that breakfast and Simon Templar coincided somewhere between the hours of 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.; and therefore it is not surprising that the visit which he paid to 7, Upper Berkeley Mews on one historic morning resulted in a severe shock to his system. For a few moments after the door had been opened to him he stood bovinely rooted to the mat, looking like some watcher of the skies who has just seen the Great Bear turn a back-somersault and march rapidly over the horizon in column of all fours. And when he had pulled himself together, he followed the Saint into the sitting-room with the air of a man who is not at all certain that there is no basin of water balanced over the door to await his entrance.
"Have some gum, old dear," invited the Saint hospitably; and Mr. Teal stopped by the table and blinked at him.
"What's the idea?" he demanded suspiciously.
The Saint looked perplexed.
"What idea, brother?"
"Is your clock fast, or haven't you been to bed yet?"
Simon grinned.
"Neither. I'm going to travel, and Pat and I have got to push out and book passages and arrange for international overdrafts and all that sort of thing." He waved towards Patricia Holm, who was smoking a cigarette over The Times. "Pat, you have met Claud Eustace, haven't you? Made his pile in Consolidated Gas. Mr. Teal, Miss Holm. Miss Holm, Mr. Teal. Consider yourselves divorced."
Teal picked up the packet of spearmint that sat sedately in the centre of the table, and put it down again uneasily. He produced another packet from his own pocket.
"Did you say you were going away?" he asked.
"I did. I'm worn out, and I feel I need a complete rest—I did a couple of hours' work yesterday, and at my time of life . . ."
"Where were you going?"
The Saint shrugged.
"Doubtless Thomas Cook will provide. We thought of some nice warm islands. It may be the Canaries, the Balearic or Little by Little ——"
"And what about the Scorpion?"
"Oh yes, the Scorpion . . . Well, you can have him all to yourself now, Claud."
Simon glanced towards the mantelpiece, and the detective followed his gaze. There was a raw puncture in the panelling where a stiletto had recently reposed, but the papers that had been pinned there were gone. The Saint took the sheaf from his pocket.
"I was just going to beetle along and pay my income tax," he said airily. "Are you walking Hanover Square way?"
Teal looked at him thoughtfully, and it may be recorded to the credit of the detective's somnolently cyclopean self-control that not a muscle of his face moved.
"Yes, I'll go with you—I expect you'll be wanting a drink," he said; and then his eyes fell on the Saint's wrist.
He motioned frantically at it.
"Did you sprain that trying to get the last drops out of the barrel?" he inquired.
Simon pulled down his sleeve.
"As a matter of fact, it was a burn," he said.
"The Scorpion?"
"Patricia."
Teal's eyes descended one millimetre. He looked at the girl, and she smiled at him in a seraphic way which made the detective's internal organs wriggle. Previously, he had been wont to console himself with the reflection that that peculiarly exasperating kind of sweetness in the smile was the original and unalienable copyright of one lone face out of all the faces in the wide world. He returned his gaze to the Saint.
"Domestic strife?" he queried, and Simon assumed an expression of pained reproach.
"We aren't married," he said.
Patricia flicked her cigarette into the fireplace and came over. She tucked one hand into the belt of her plain tweed suit, and laid the other on Simon Templar's shoulder. And she continued to smile seraphically upon the detective.
"You see, we were being buried alive," she explained simply.
"All down in the—er—what's-its of the earth," said the Saint.
"Simon hadn't got his knife, but he remembered his cigarette-lighter just in time. He couldn't reach it himself, so I had to do it. And he never made a sound—I never knew till afterwards ——''
"It was a minor detail," said the Saint.
He twitched a small photograph from his pocket and passed it to Teal.
"From the Scorpion's passport," he said, "I found it in a drawer of his desk. That was before he caught me with as neat a trick as I've come across—the armchairs in his study will repay a sleuth-like investigation, Claud. Then, if you pass on to the cellars, you'll find a piece of cement flooring that had only just begun to floor. Pat and I are supposed to be under there. Which reminds me—if you decide to dig down in the hope of finding us, you'll find my second-best boiled shirt somewhere in the depths. We had to leave it behind. I don't know if you've ever noticed it, but I can give you my word that even the most pliant rubber dickey rattles like a suit of armour when you're trying to move quietly."
For a space the detective stared at him.
Then he took out a notebook.
It was, in its way, one of the most heroic things he ever did.
"Where is this place?" he asked.
"Twenty-eight, Mallaby Road, Arrer. The name is Wilfred Garniman. And about that shirt—if you had it washed at the place where they do yours before you go toddling round the night clubs, and sent it on to me at Palma, I expect I could find a place to burn it. And I've got some old boots upstairs which I thought maybe you might like——"
Teal replaced his notebook and pencil.
"I don't want to ask too many questions," he said. "But if Garniman knows you got away——"
Simon shook his head.
"Wilfred does not know. He went out to fetch some water to dilute the concrete, and we moved while he was away. Later on I saw him carting out the surplus earth and dumping it on the gardening notes. When you were playing on the sands of Southend in a pair of pink shrimping drawers, Teal, did you ever notice that you can always dig more out of a hole than you can put back in it? Wilfred had quite enough mud left over to make him happy."
Teal nodded.
"That's all I wanted," he said, and the Saint smiled.
"Perhaps we can give you a lift," he suggested politely.
They drove to Hanover Square in the Saint's car. The Saint was in form. Teal knew that by the way he drove. Teal was not happy about it. Teal was even less happy when the Saint insisted on being escorted into the office.
"I insist on having police protection," he said. "Scorpions I can manage, but when it comes to tax collectors . . . Not that there's a great difference. The same threatening letters, the same merciless bleeding of the honest toiler, the same bleary
"All right," said Teal wearily.
He climbed out of the car, and followed behind Patricia; and so they climbed to the general office. At the high counter which had been erected to protect the clerks from the savage assaults of their victims the Saint halted, and clamoured in a loud voice to be ushered into the presence of Mr. Delborn.
Presently a scared little man came to the barrier.
"You wish to see Mr. Delborn, sir?"
"I do."
"Yes, sir. What is your business, sir?"
"I'm a burglar," said the Saint innocently.
"Yes, sir. What did you wish to see Mr. Delborn about, sir?"
"About the payment of my income tax, Algernon. I will see Mr. Delborn himself and nobody else; and if I don't see him at once, I shall not only refuse to pay a penny of my tax, but I shall also take this hideous office to pieces and hide it in various drains belonging to the London County Council. By the way, do you know Chief Inspector Teal? Mr. Teal, Mr.Veal. Mr. Veal——"