floundered on recklessly. 'And there won't be a second time—not if I can help it. He's dangerous. You ain't never safe with him. I know. Sent me a message he did, through the post. Knew where I was staying, though I'd only been there two days, an' everything about me. There was five one-pound notes in the letter, and he said if I met a car that'd be waiting at the second milestone north of Hatfield at nine o'clock last Thursday night there'd be another fifty for me to earn.'
'What sort of car was it?'
'I never had a chance to notice it properly, Mr. Templar. It was a big, dark car, I think. It hadn't any lights. I was going to tell you—I was a bit suspicious at first, I thought it must be a plant, but it was that talk of fifty quid that tempted me. The car was waiting for me when I got there. I went up and looked in the window, and there was a man there at the wheel. Don't ask me what he looked like—he kept his head down, and I never saw more than the top of his hat. 'Those are your instructions,' he says, pushing an envelope at me, he says, 'and there's half your money. I'll meet you here at the same time tomorrow.' And then he drove off. I struck a match, and found he'd given me the top halves of fifty pound notes.'
'And then?'
'Then—I went an' did the job, Mr. Templar.'
'What job?'
'I was to go to a house at St. Albans and get some papers. There was a map, an' a plan, an' all about the locks an' everything. I had my tools—I forgot to tell you the first letter said I was to bring them—and it was as easy as the orders said it would be. Friday night, I met the car as arranged, and handed over the papers, and he gave me the other halves of the notes.'
Simon extended a lean brown hand.
'The orders?' he inquired briefly.
He took the cheap yellow envelope, and glanced through the contents. There was, as Long Harry had said, a neatly-drawn map and plan; and the other information, in a studiously characterless copperplate writing, covered two more closely written sheets.
'You've no idea whose house it was you entered?'
'None at all, sir.'
'Did you look at these papers?'
'Yes.' Long Harry raised his eyes and looked at the Saint sombrely. 'That's the one reason why I came to you, sir.'
'What were they?'
'They were love-letters, sir. There was an address—64 Half Moon Street. And they were signed —'Mark'.'
Simon passed a hand over his sleekly perfect hair.
'Oh yes?' he murmured.
'You saw the Sunday papers, sir?'
'I did.'
Long Harry emptied his glass, and put it down with clumsy fingers.
'Sir Mark Deverest shot 'imself at 64 'Alf Moon Street, on Saturday night,' he said huskily.
When he was agitated, he occasionally lost an aspirate, and it was an index of his perturbation that he actually dropped two in that one sentence.
'That's the Scorpion's graft, Mr. Templar—blackmail. I never touched black in my life, but I'd heard that was his game. An' when he sent for me, I forgot it. Even when I was looking through those letters, it never seemed to come into my head why he wanted them. But I see it all now. He wanted 'em to put the black on Deverest, an' Deverest shot himself instead of paying up. And—I 'elped to murder 'im, Mr. Templar.Murder, that's what it was. Nothing less. An' I 'elped!' Long Harry's voice fell to a throaty whisper, and his dull eyes shifted over the clear-etched contours of the Saint's tanned face in a kind of panic of anxiety. 'I never knew what I was doing, Mr. Templar, sir—strike me dead if I did——'
Simon reached forward and crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray.
'Is that all you came to tell me?' he asked dispassionately; and Long Harry gulped.
'I thought you'd be laying for the Scorpion, sir, knowing you always used to be ——'
'Yeah?'
