13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

by Leslie Charteris

  "This will be a terrible scandal, Inspector," said the assist­ant manager.

  Teal looked at him woodenly.

  "Were you here when it happened ?"

  "No. I was downstairs, in my office——"

  Teal collected the information, and ploughed past him. On the right, another door opened off the generous lobby; and through it could be seen another elderly man whose equally pale face and air of suppressed agitation bore a certain general similarity and also a self-contained superiority to the first. Even without his sober black coat and striped trousers, grey side-whiskers and passive hands, he would have stamped himself as something more cosmic than the assistant manager of an hotel—the assistant manager of a man.

  "Who are you?" asked Teal.

  "I am Fowler, sir. Mr. Enstone's valet."

  "Were you here?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Where is Mr. Enstone?"

  "In the bedroom, sir."

  They moved back across the lobby, with the assistant man­ager assuming the lead. Teal stopped. "Will you be in your office if I want you?" he asked, with great politeness; and the assistant manager seemed to disappear from the scene even before the door of the suite closed behind him.

  Lewis Enstone was dead. He lay on his back beside the bed, with his head half rolled over to one side, in such a way that both the entrance and the exit of the bullet which had killed him could be seen. It had been fired squarely into his right eye, leaving the ugly trail which only a heavy-calibre bullet fired at close range can leave. . . . The gun lay under the fingers of his right hand.

  "Thumb on the trigger," Teal noted aloud.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on a pair of gloves, pink-faced and unemotional. Simon observed the room. An or­dinary, very tidy bedroom, barren of anything unusual except the subdued costliness of furnishing. Two windows, both shut and fastened. On a table in one corner, the only sign of dis­order, the remains of a carelessly-opened parcel. Brown paper, ends of string, a plain cardboard box—empty. The millionaire had gone no further towards undressing than loosening his tie and undoing his collar.

  "What happened?" asked Mr. Teal.

  "Mr. Enstone had had friends to dinner, sir," explained Fowler. "A Mr. Costello—"

  "I know that. What happened when he came back from seeing them off?"

  "He went straight to bed, sir."

  "Was this door open?"

  "At first, sir. I asked Mr. Enstone about the morning, and he told me to call him at eight. I then asked him whether he wished me to assist him to undress, and he gave me to un­derstand that he did not. He closed the door, and I went back to the sitting-room."

  "Did you leave that door open?"

  "Yes, sir. I was doing a little clearing up. Then I heard -the shot, sir."

  "Do you know any reason why Mr. Enstone should have shot himself?"

  "On the contrary, sir—I understood that his recent spec­ulations had been highly successful."

  Teal nodded.

  "Where is his wife?"

  "Mrs. Enstone and the children have been in Madeira, sir. We are expecting them home tomorrow."

  "What was in that parcel, Fowler?" ventured the Saint.

  The valet glanced at the table.

  "I don't know, sir. I believe it must have been left by one of Mr. Enstone's guests. I noticed it on the dining-table when I brought in their coats, and Mr. Enstone came back for it on his return and took it into the bedroom with him."

  "You didn't hear anything said about it?"

  "No, sir. I was not present after coffee had been served—I understood that the gentlemen had private business to dis­cuss."

  "What are you getting at?" Mr. Teal asked seriously.

  The Saint smiled apologetically; and being nearest the door, went out to open it as a second knocking disturbed the silence, and let in a grey-haired man with a black bag. While the police surgeon was making his preliminary examination, he drifted into the sitting-room. The relics of a convivial dinner were all there—cigar-butts in the coffee cups, stains of spilt wine on the cloth, crumbs and ash everywhere, the stale smell of food and smoke hanging in the air—but those things did not interest him. He was not quite sure what would have interest­ed him; but he wandered rather vacantly round the room, gazing introspectively at the prints of character which a long tenancy leaves even on anything so characterless as an hotel apartment. There were pictures on the walls and the side ta­bles, mostly enlarged snapshots revealing Lewis Enstone re­laxing in the bosom of his family, which amused Simon for some time. On one of the side tables he found a curious ob­ject. It was a small wooden plate on which half a dozen wood­en fowls stood in a circle. Their necks were pivoted at the base, and underneath the plate were six short strings joined to the necks and knotted together some distance further down where they were all attached at the same point to a wooden ball. It was these strings, and the weight of the ball at their lower ends, which kept the birds' heads raised; and Simon discovered that when he moved the plate so that the ball swung round in a circle underneath, thus tightening and slack­ening each string in turn, the fowls mounted on the plate pecked vigorously in rotation at an invisible and apparently in­exhaustible supply of corn, in a most ingenious mechanical display of gluttony.

  He was still playing thoughtfully with the toy when he dis­covered Mr. Teal standing beside him. The detective's round pink face wore a look of almost comical incredulity.

  "Is that how you spend your spare time?" he demanded.

  "I think it's rather clever," said the Saint soberly. He put the toy down, and blinked at Fowler. "Does it belong to one of the children?"

  "Mr. Enstone brought it home with him this evening, sir, to give to Miss Annabel tomorrow," said the valet. "He was always picking up things like that. He was a very devoted father, sir."

  Mr. Teal chewed for ,a moment; and then he said: "Have you finished? I'm going home."

  Simon nodded pacifically, and accompanied him to the lift. As they went down he asked: "Did you find anything?"

  Teal blinked.

  "What did you expect me to find?"

  "I thought the police were always believed to have a Clue," murmured the Saint innocently.

  "Enstone committed suicide," said Teal flatly. "What sort of clues do you want ?"

  "Why did he commit suicide?" asked the Saint, almost child­ishly.

  Teal ruminated meditatively for a while, without answer­ing. If anyone else had started such a discussion he would have been openly derisive. The same impulse was stirring him then; but he restrained himself. He knew Simon Templar's wicked sense of humour, but he also knew that sometimes the Saint was most worth listening to when he sounded most absurd.

  "Call me up in the morning," said Mr. Teal at length, "and I may be able to tell you."

  Simon Templar went home and slept fitfully. Lewis Enstone had shot himself—it seemed an obvious fact. The windows had been closed and fastened, and any complicated trick of fastening them from the outside and escaping up or down a rope-ladder was ruled out by the bare two or three seconds that could have elapsed between the sound of the shot and the valet rushing in. But Fowler himself might. . . . Why not suicide, anyway? But the Saint could run over every word and gesture and expression of the leave-taking which he him­self had witnessed in the hotel lobby, and none of it carried even a hint of suicide. The only oddity about it had been the queer inexplicable piece of pantomime—the fist clenched, with the forefinger extended and the thumb cocked up in crude symbolism of a gun—the abstruse joke which had dissolved Enstone into a fit of inanely delighted giggling, with the hearty approval of his guests. . . . The psychological problem fascinated him. It muddled itself up with a litter of brown paper and a cardboard box, a wooden plate of pecking chick­ens, photographs . . . and the tangle kaleidoscoped through his dreams in a thousand different convolutions until morn­ing.

  At half-past twelve he found himself turning on to the Em­bankment with every expectation of being
told that Mr. Teal was too busy to see him; but he was shown up a couple of minutes after he had sent in his name.

  "Have you found out why Enstone committed suicide?" he asked.

  "I haven't," said Teal, somewhat shortly. "His brokers say it's true that he'd been speculating successfully. Perhaps he had another account with a different firm which wasn't so lucky. We'll find out."

  "Have you seen Costello or Hammel ?"

  "I've asked them to come and see me. They're due here about now."

  Teal picked up a typewritten memorandum and studied it absorbedly. He would have liked to ask some questions in his turn, but he didn't. He had failed lamentably, so far, to es­tablish any reason whatsoever why Enstone should have com­mitted suicide; and he was annoyed. He felt a per­sonal grievance against the Saint for raising the question with­out also taking steps to answer it, but pride forbade him to ask for enlightenment. Simon lighted a cigarette and smoked imperturbably until in a few minutes Costello and Hammel were announced. Teal stared at the Saint thought­fully while the witnesses were seating themselves, but strange­ly enough he said nothing to intimate that police interviews were not open to outside audiences.

  Presently he turned to the tall man with the thin black moustache.

  "We're trying to find a reason for Enstone's suicide, Mr. Costello," he said. "How long have you known him?"

  "About eight or nine years."

  "Have you any idea why he should have shot himself?"

  "None at all, Inspector. It was a great shock. He had been making more money than most of us. When we were with him last night, he was in very high spirits—his family was on the way home, and he was always happy when he was looking forward to seeing them again."

  "Did you ever lose money in any of his companies?"

  "No."

  "You know that we can investigate that?"

  Costello smiled slightly.

  "I don't know why you should take that attitude, Inspector, but my affairs are open to any examination."

  "Have you been making money yourself lately?"

  "No. As a matter of fact, I've lost a bit," said Costello frankly. "I'm interested in International Cotton, you know."

  He took out a cigarette and a lighter, and Simon found his eyes riveted on the device. It was of an uncommon shape, and by some means or other it produced a glowing heat in­stead of a flame. Quite unconscious of his own temerity, the Saint said: "That's something new, isn't it? I've never seen a lighter like that before."

  Mr. Teal sat back blankly and gave the Saint a look which would have shrivelled any other interrupter to a cinder; and Costello turned the lighter over and said: "It's an inven­tion of my own—I made it myself."

  "I wish I could do things like that," said the Saint admir­ingly. "I suppose you must have had a technical training."

  Costello hesitated for a second. Then:

  "I started in an electrical engineering workshop when I was a boy," he explained briefly, and turned back to Teal's desk.

  After a considerable pause the detective turned to the tubby man with glasses, who had been sitting without any signs of life except the ceaseless switching of his eyes from one speak­er to another.

  "Are you in partnership with Mr. Costello, Mr. Hammel?" he asked.

  "A working partnership—yes."

  "Do you know any more about Enstone's affairs than Mr. Costello has been able to tell us?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "What were you talking about at dinner last night?"

  "It was about a merger. I'm in International Cotton, too. One of Enstone's concerns was Cosmopolitan Textiles. His shares were standing high and ours aren't doing too well, and we thought that if we could induce him to amalgamate it would help us."

  "What did Enstone think about that?"

  Hammel spread his hands.

  "He didn't think there was enough in it for him. We had certain things to offer, but he decided they weren't sufficient."

  "There wasn't any bad feeling about it?"

  "Why, no. If all the business men who have refused to com­bine with each at different times became enemies, there'd hardly be two men in the City on speaking terms."

  Simon cleared his throat.

  "What was your first important job, Mr. Hammel?" he queried.

  Hammel turned his eyes without moving his head.

  "I was chief salesman of a general manufacturer in the Mid­lands."

  Teal concluded the interview soon afterwards without se­curing any further revelations, shook hands perfunctorily with the two men, and ushered them out. When he came back he looked down at the Saint like a cannibal inspecting the latest missionary.

  "Why don't you join the force yourself?" he inquired heavily. "The new Police College is open now, and the Com­missioner's supposed to be looking for men like you."

  Simon took the sally like an armoured car taking a snow­ball. He was sitting up on the edge of his chair with his blue eyes glinting with excitement.

  "You big sap," he retorted, "do you look as if the Police College could teach anyone to solve a murder?"

  Teal gulped as if he couldn't believe his ears, He took hold of the arms of his chair and spoke with an apoplectic restraint, as if he were conscientiously determined to give the Saint every fair chance to recover his sanity before he rang down for the bugs wagon.

  "What murder are you talking about?" he demanded. "Enstone shot himself."

  "Yes, Enstone shot himself," said the Saint. "But it was murder just the same."

  "Have you been drinking something?"

  "No. But Enstone had."

  Teal swallowed, and almost choked himself in the process.

  "Are you trying to tell me," he exploded, "that any man ever got drunk enough to shoot himself while he was making money?"

  Simon shook his head.

  "They made him shoot himself."

  "What do you mean—blackmail ?"

  "No."

  The Saint pushed a hand through his hair. He had thought of things like that. He knew that Enstone had shot himself, because no one else could have done it. Except Fowler, the valet—but that was the man whom Teal would have suspected at once if he had suspected anyone, and it was too obvious, too insane. No man in his senses could have planned a murder with himself as the most obvious suspect. Blackmail, then? But the Lewis Enstone he had seen in the lobby had never looked like a man bidding farewell to blackmailers. And how could a man so openly devoted to his family have been led to provide the commoner materials of blackmail?

  "No, Claud," said the Saint. "It wasn't that. They just made him do it."

  Mr. Teal's spine tingled with the involuntary reflex chill that has its roots in man's immemorial fear of the supernat­ural. The Saint's conviction was so wild and yet real that for one fantastic moment the detective had a vision of Costello's intense black eyes fixed and dilating in a hypnotic stare, his slender sensitive hands moving in weird passes, his lips under the thin black moustache mouthing necromantic commands. ... It changed into another equally fantastic vision of two courteous but inflexible gentlemen handing a weapon to a third, bowing and going away, like a deputation to an officer who has been found to be a traitor, offering the graceful al­ternative to a court-martial—for the Honour of High Fi­nance. . . . Then it went sheer to derision.

  "They just said: 'Lew, why don't you shoot yourself?' and he thought it was a great idea—is that it?" he gibed.

  "It was something like that," Simon answered soberly. "You see, Enstone would do almost anything to amuse his children."

  Teal's mouth opened, but no sounds came from it. His ex­pression implied that a whole volcano of devastating sarcasm was boiling on the tip of his tongue, but that the Saint's lu­nacy had soared into realms of waffiness beyond the reach of repartee.

  "Costello and Hammel had to do something," said the Saint. "International Cottons have been very bad for a long time—as you'd have known if you hadn't packed all your stuff away in a gilt-edged sock. O
n the other hand, Enstone's in­terest—Cosmopolitan Textiles—were good. Costello and Ham­mel could have pulled out in two ways: either by a merger, or else by having Enstone commit suicide so that Cosmopolitans would tumble down in the scare and they could buy them in —you'll probably find they've sold a bear in them all through the month, trying to break the price. And if you look at the papers this afternoon you'll see that all Enstone's securities have dropped through the bottom of the market—a bloke in his position can't commit suicide without starting a panic. Costello and Hammel went to dinner to try for the merger, but if Enstone turned it down they were ready for the other thing."

  "Well?" said Teal obstinately; but for the first time there seemed to be a tremor in the foundations of his disbelief.

  "They only made one big mistake. They didn't arrange for Lew to leave a letter."

  "People have shot themselves without leaving letters."

  "I know. But not often. That's what started me thinking."

  "Well?" said the detective again.

  Simon rumpled his hair into more profound disorder, and said: "You see, Claud, in my disreputable line of business you're always thinking'; 'Now, what would A do?—and what would B do?—and what would C do?' You have to be able to get inside people's minds and know what they're going to do and how they're going to do it, so you can always be one jump ahead of 'em. You have to be a practical psychologist —just like the head salesman of a general manufacturer in the Midlands."

  Teal's mouth opened, but for some reason which was be­yond his conscious comprehension he said nothing. And Si­mon Templar went on, in the disjointed way that he some­times fell into when he was trying to express something which he himself had not yet grasped in bare words:

  "Sales psychology is just a study of human weaknesses. And that's a funny thing, you know. I remember the manager of one of the biggest novelty manufacturers in the world telling me that the soundest test of any idea for a new toy was whether it would appeal to a middle-aged business man. It's true, of course. It's so true that it's almost stopped being a joke—the father who plays with his little boy's birthday presents so energetically that the little boy has to shove off and smoke papa's pipe. Every middle-aged business man has that strain of childishness in him somewhere, because without it he would never want to spend his life gathering more paper millions than he can ever spend, and building up rickety castles of golden cards that are always ready to topple over and be built up again. It's just a glorified kid's game with a box of bricks. If all the mighty earth-shaking business men weren't like that they could never have built up an economic system in which the fate of nations, all the hunger and happi­ness and achievement of the world, was locked up in bars of yellow tooth-stopping." Simon raised his eyes suddenly— they were very bright and in some queer fashion sightless, as if his mind was separated from every physical awareness of his surroundings. "Lewis Enstone was just that kind of a man," he said.