“What are you doing here?” Stewart demanded of the Saint in a shocked voice.
“I was at the gate when I heard the shot, so I got here as soon as I could—over the wall and around the house. I thought I might catch somebody trying to run away.”
“You’ll have some explaining to do yourself,” Todd said. “But he shot himself. There was nobody to run away.”
Anne Liskard had been sobbing as Simon entered, but now she broke in frantically. “Why doesn’t somebody do something?”
“We can’t do much, really,” Todd replied in a lower voice. “He’s dead.”
Simon was bending over Liskard. Below the hand which held the gun was a scrawled note: “There’s no other way for me.”
The Saint touched Liskard’s wrist. The man who was dressed, who turned out to be the secretary, was dialing a number on the telephone.
“Get away from him,” Stewart snapped, coming toward the Saint.
Simon straightened up and addressed the secretary.
“Who are you calling?”
“The police, of course.”
“Make it an ambulance,” said the Saint. “The Prime Minister is still alive.”
11
The Saint’s words had almost as electric an effect as his entrance into the study had had. Anne Liskard gave a sharp cry and ran to her husband. The men stared.
“Better not touch him,” Simon said. “The sooner a doctor gets to him the better.”
The secretary called for an ambulance, and set about herding out the lesser members of the staff.
“Are you sure?” asked Todd, the Foreign Minister. “He doesn’t seem to be breathing.”
“Try his pulse,” Simon said.
The others, satisfied that Liskard was alive, broke into a babble of conversation.
“Call Chief Inspector Teal of Scotland Yard,” Simon said to the secretary. “He knows I’ve been working with Liskard on a problem of his. He’ll want to know about this, I’m sure. I’m surprised you haven’t heard from him already this evening.”
“We have,” the secretary said. “I took a call from him to Mr Liskard about twenty minutes ago. I’m to monitor calls, you know, and take notes. It seems the police had just picked up a man named Peterson, who was suspected of being in on some scheme about the Prime Minister.”
“Who else knew about the call?” Simon asked.
“Todd and I were saying good night to him in his room when the call was put through,” Stewart said. “But really—you’re taking a lot on yourself, questioning us as if we were…”
“The Prime Minister asked me yesterday evening to help him,” Simon replied. “He’ll confirm that if he’s able.”
“But why would he do this?” Stewart wanted to know.
“It’s my fault!” Anne Liskard blurted suddenly. “He and I had a scene tonight, when we were alone, and I wouldn’t listen to any explanations from him, or forgive him. I…”
“He’d hardly kill himself over a family quarrel,” Stewart said gently.
“It was more than that,” the woman said. “You’ll all know anyway. The newspapers know. There were letters…from Tom to…another woman.” Her voice broke, and then she went on. “Somebody sent some of them to me, with a note saying others were going to the newspapers. Tom asked me to keep it quiet, but I…I lost my temper, of course. I told him this was the end of his career.”
She began to cry, and sank down into a chair. The secretary, meanwhile, had completed his call to Scotland Yard. He went to the hall to speak to members of the delegation and staff who were being kept from the study by some senior member of the group.
“In any case,” Todd said heavily, “it does seem to be the end of his career.” He picked up a stack of papers near Liskard’s elbow. “These apparently are photostats of the letters. Just the first one’s enough to…”
He broke off, with a glance at the Prime Minister’s wife.
“But the papers would think twice about printing that kind of thing, unless they had absolute proof that it wasn’t forged,” Simon said. “And I don’t mind saying this next in front of Mrs Liskard, since it ought to make her feel better. When you think of it, honestly, what sort of shocking news is it when a man, even a man in politics, got himself involved in a personal entanglement of this kind?”
“It could ruin him politically,” Todd insisted. “Especially at this point.”
“I’ve heard those sorts of rumors about almost every head of state in the world,” Simon said, “and I’m sure I’m not the only citizen who hears them. Something like this actually might be good for a man in Liskard’s place. People are more sympathetic with the victim of a blackmail plot than they are disgusted with a man who shows some manly weaknesses.”
A siren was approaching, growing louder along the street in front of Nagawi House.
“Well what exactly is your point?” Stewart asked.
“That we keep all this quiet—about the letters?” Todd speculated dubiously.
“I’m suggesting that there’s much more to this supposed blackmail plot than we seem to be assuming,” the Saint answered. “It never made a lot of sense anyway. Now it’s coming clearer what’s really going on.”
“What?” Stewart asked.
A still partially unbuttoned butler let himself back into the room.
“The ambulance is here. They’re on their way in.”
The next ten minutes were taken up with the removal of Liskard on a stretcher to the ambulance. At the end of that time, as the ambulance was pulling out of the drive, its blue light spinning above the driver’s compartment, a police car with a similar spinning light pulled in the other side. Simon, who was standing on the steps of the house with the others, watched expectantly as the rotund form of Chief Inspector Teal evacuated itself from the car and puffed heavily up to the group. As he was about to speak, Teal’s eyes fell on the Saint and his preparatory air of self-importance collapsed to a semblance of mere controlled dignity.
“I’m sorry to hear about this,” he said to Liskard’s countrymen in general. “Where did it happen?”
They led the way through the house, and Teal spoke to Simon.
“I got your message, and we found Peterson at Mary Bannerman’s apartment. But now it looks as if he wasn’t any threat at all—and you’re going to have a lot to explain.” Teal’s pink face grew almost tomato colored as he strode along the hallway. “While we were wasting our time there…”
“Somebody else shot Liskard,” Simon supplied. “But Peterson is in on it. You weren’t wasting your time—for once.”
Teal faced him at the study door.
“Shot Liskard? He shot himself, didn’t he?”
“No,” Simon said. “He wasn’t the type. Much too levelheaded to be thrown this far by a lot of old love letters. And besides, he has a sense of duty. He wouldn’t just bow out and let his country fall into chaos.”
“This way,” Todd said.
Teal went into the study, received a complete rundown on events, and looked over the evidence. When he had examined the gun, the blotter, the furniture, the suicide note, and the photostats, he pondered the situation as he stood in the center of the room with his thumbs hooked in the belt of his capacious dark blue coat.
“Pity he was moved,” he grumbled. “If there’s any doubt about the question of suicide…”
“That’s true,” Simon said thoughtfully. “We could have let him bleed to death so as to keep the evidence tidy.”
“What do you mean, doubt?” Anne Liskard asked.
She had regained control of herself and was showing more poise and energy than Simon had seen in her since their first meeting.
“Mr Templar here seems to believe your husband may have been shot,” Teal said.
Simon nodded. Teal’s assistants, Stewart, and Anne Liskard looked toward the desk as he spoke.
“If you’d seen the way he was lying, even you would have noticed it yourself, Claud. It was an amateurish job,
done in a hurry. If you’re going to kill yourself you don’t go through the discomfort of twisting your arm around and shooting yourself from some odd angle behind the ear.”
“You might,” Teal said, instinctively rejecting anything the Saint proposed.
“You might,” Simon said to him, “but Liskard was never an idiot.”
Teal walked stolidly to the window.
“And there’s this,” he continued. “Was this window open when you found him? It’s a cold night. He wouldn’t have left it open, would he?”
“Not likely,” Stewart said. “In fact he was very sensitive to cold. Most of us are, raised in a tropical climate.”
“So,” said Teal, “someone may have come in, shot him, left the note, and escaped through the window.”
“Great Scot!” the Saint exclaimed admiringly. “I think he’s got it!”
The detective looked at Simon with the face of a soured persimmon.
“Is there any reason for Mr Templar to be here?” he enquired stiffly.
“He and my husband were working to catch these blackmailers,” Anne Liskard explained. “Mr Stewart and Mr Todd will tell you the rest. I must get dressed and go to the hospital. There may be something I can do for Tom.”
She went toward the door as Todd came back from the hall.
“I’ve phoned our PRO,” he said to the group in general. “He’ll do what he can to squelch any stories in the papers about the letters.”
Simon turned to Teal after Anne Liskard had gone on before him into the hall.
“Could I speak to you alone for a minute, Claud?”
Teal followed him out to the driveway where they could speak without being overheard. Simon filled the detective in on what had taken place since they had met in the Mister Snowball van.
“Now listen, Claud,” he said firmly. “I know you’d like to devote yourself exclusively to proving me wrong, but there’s more at stake than your reputation and my self-interest.”
He lowered his voice. “You won’t find any footprints outside the window except mine, and the guard on the gate himself can testify that I was outside these grounds when the shot was fired.”
“So it was a suicide attempt?”
“No. It was attempted murder. By somebody in the building.”
“Who?” Teal retorted.
“I may be brilliant, but I’m not totally omniscient. It was undoubtedly somebody in on the plot with Jeff Peterson. I’m sure the scheme was something like this: use the letters to give Liskard a motive for suicide, and then commit the suicide for him since he wouldn’t do it himself—leaving the window open as a false clue to murder if the suicide setup wasn’t convincing enough. His death was to be the cue for a revolution of some sort in Nagawiland, probably in the name of equality and democracy, but in fact a power grab. Peterson and his father, who’s back in Nagawiland, were in on it, but Peterson’s father would never be accepted as head of state. He’s a notorious alcoholic down there. The top man still hasn’t blown his horn.”
“So you have it all figured out,” Teal said slowly. “Except the small matter of who did it.”
The Saint shrugged.
“I can’t do all your work for you, Claud—I’m only trying to do most of your thinking. Now if you’ll try to control your natural envy of superior intellects, I’ll let you in on a brilliant plan I’ve come up with for catching the leader of this conspiracy.”
Teal managed a rather theatrical sneer.
“What plan would that be?” he grumbled. “Torture the ones we’ve caught until they tell who the boss is?”
“No, Claud, I’m suggesting we not use standard police methods this time.” Simon looked warily around. “If you want to catch your man before breakfast, don’t waste any more of my time here—and don’t try to keep me out of that hospital. Whatever other ideas you have about me, you know me well enough by now to know that murdering a man like Liskard isn’t my kind of fun. But if you’ll cooperate with me this time, you can have all the glory.”
His tone was no longer mocking, and the detective had jousted with him for long years enough to recognize his sincerity.
Teal peered at him torpidly, chomping his gum like a shrewd and very thoughtful cow. A cartoonist depicting the scene might have drawn a small and almost wattless bulb glowing feebly above his head.
“You’re thinking of a trap,” he stated expressionlessly.
“Good for you, Claud, old tortoise,” Simon congratulated him. “And it needs you to help rig the cheese.”
12
Nearly three hours later, on the third floor of the Edgington Hospital, a doctor appeared at one end of a corridor as two other doctors came out of a room and walked away along the corridor in the other direction. Another door on the same corridor was flanked by a uniformed policeman and a plain-clothes detective. A student nurse carrying a covered metal tray came out of that room and followed the two doctors.
No one paid any particular attention to the doctor who then walked alone down the corridor. He wore a white smock which covered his body from his shoulders to his knees. Over his mouth and nose was a white mask, and a white cap closely covered the top of his head and his forehead. At the guarded door he merely nodded to the detective, opened the door, and stepped in. Beyond a small alcove was the patient’s bed. The patient lay still, his own head thoroughly bandaged. Only his eyes were not covered by gauze, and they were closed.
A nurse who was sitting near the bed stood up and looked at the doctor in surprise.
“I thought he was supposed to sleep,” she said.
“He is,” the doctor whispered. “But his reaction in the next hour may be critical. Please get everything prepared for a transfusion if necessary. And while you’re at it, you’d better also ask for an oxygen tent.”
The nurse peered at his eyes.
“I’m sorry, doctor, but I don’t recognize…”
“Bronson,” he said impatiently. “I’m on the Prime Minister’s personal staff—from Nagawiland. Now, if you please…”
The nurse, accustomed to obeying doctors without question, thinned her lips, nodded, and left the room.
Instantly the doctor hurried to the bed. The patient lay still, his breathing slow and shallow, only his closed eyes showing through the bands of gauze and adhesive that swathed his head. With a swift glance over his shoulder at the door, the doctor pulled something that looked like a thin pointed stick from beneath his white smock. He bent over the bed, bringing the long slender shaft down toward the throat of the man in the bed.
The patient suddenly came to life. He rolled violently toward the doctor, catching him low in the stomach with a foot that shot out from between the sheets and sent him tumbling back across the room. The doctor’s eyes were wide with surprise and panic. The patient flung back the covers and sprang out on his feet. The doctor reeled back toward the door, wildly swinging the stick to cover his retreat, but the patient now had an automatic in his hand, pointing accurately at the center of the doctor’s chest
“If I were in the movies,” came Simon Templar’s voice from behind the patient’s mask, “I’d say, Sorry to interrupt your operation, doctor, but this time I’m afraid you’re the one who gets stuck.”
The doctor froze, his back to the alcove which led into the main corridor.
“Now drop that magic wand—which looks to me like a souvenir Nagawi arrow, probably dipped in some jolly native poison,” Simon said, pulling off his own bandages.
The other man seemed about to obey, but then he drew back his arm and flicked his wrist, and the arrow flashed through the air toward the Saint. Simon ducked aside, and the sharp stained point whipped past his ear and clattered against the wall beyond the bed in which he had been lying.
He could easily have shot his opponent dead in that single second, even while he was dodging the arrow, which might actually have been what the other was hoping for, if his last desperate throw failed to inflict a scratch which could likely have been leth
al. But the Saint wanted him alive. So when the man followed the arrow with a wild suicidal lunge at him, Simon once more held his fire, but sidestepped and deflected the blow with a numbing karate cut into the forearm. His own right hand jabbed the gun muzzle cruelly into the “doctor’s” belly. His left caught him flat on the side of his head, and then snatched away the white mask.
“Foreign Minister Todd,” Simon said pleasantly. “I suppose this is a sample of how your followers would have gone back to nature if your little revolution had come off?”
Todd tried another futile swing even though he was dazed and against the wall. He succeeded only in knocking over a table lamp. Simon swung him around and locked him in a comparatively painless if undignified judo hold.
“One thing you’re not,” the Saint said regretfully, “and that’s a fighter. I suppose those diplomatic cocktail parties aren’t the best exercise in the world. All right, everybody—the show’s over.”
The door of the communicating lavatory burst open, and half a dozen people came through it in fairly rapid succession. Among them were two police officers and Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal.
Simon released Todd with a motion that swung him directly into Teal’s arms.
“Liskard’s dead?” Todd asked as he was put in handcuffs.
“Don’t sound so hopeful,” Simon answered. “You’re as bad a shot as you are a brawler. You fractured his jaw, but that should only increase any politician’s popularity.”
Anne Liskard had also come into the room. She stared at Todd with shock and horror.
“Why?” was all she could say.
“He’s a tyrant!” Todd screamed hysterically.
“And you wanted to take his place—which is both more truthful and to the point,” Simon put in. “Obviously you didn’t have any hope of getting all the way to the top on your own merits, so you thought it easily might be worth a couple of thousand lives to get there through a coup.”
“It’s a revolution!” Todd raved defiantly. “It can go on without me.”
The Saint Abroad Page 17
