Leslie Charteris - The Brighter Buccaneer

Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal looked at him suspiciously. "I might ask the same question."

"I'm recuperating," said the Saint blandly, "from many months of honest toil. There are times when I have to get away from London just to forget what gas fumes and soot smell like. Come and have a drink."

Teal handed his bag to the boots and chewed on his gum continuously.

"What I'm wanting just now is some breakfast. I've been on the go since five o'clock this morning without anything to eat."

"That suits me just as well," murmured the Saint, taking the detective's arm and steering him towards the dining-room. "I see you're staying. Has some sinister local confectioner been selling candy at illegal hours?"

They sat down in the deserted room, and Teal ordered himself a large plate of porridge. Then his sleepily cherubic blue eyes gazed at the Saint again, not so suspiciously as before, but rather regretfully.

"There are times when I wish you were an honest man, Saint," Teal said.

Simon raised his eyebrows a fraction. "There's something on your mind, Claud," he said. "May I know it?"

Mr. Teal pondered while his porridge was set before him, and dug a spoon into it thoughtfully. "Have you heard of Sir Joseph Whipplethwaite?"

Simon stared at him; and then he covered his eyes. "Have I not!" he articulated tremulously. He flung out a hand. " 'Badminton,' " he boomed, " 'is a game that has made we politicians what we are. Without badminton, we politicians —' "

"I see you have heard of him. Did you know he lived near here?"

Simon shook his head. He knew that Sir Joseph Whipplethwaite had acquired the recently-created portfolio of the Minister of International Trade, and had gathered from broadcast utterances that Sir Joseph considered Whipplethwaite an ideal man for the job, but he had not felt moved to investigate the matter further. His energetic life was far too full to allow him time to trace the career of every pinhead who exercised his jaw in the Houses of Parliament at the long-suffering taxpayer's expense.

"His house is only about a mile away — a big modern place with four or five acres of garden. And whatever you like to think about him yourself, the fact remains that he has fairly important work to do. Things go through his office that it's sometimes important to keep absolutely secret until the proper time comes to publish them."

Simon Templar had never been called slow. "Good Lord, Teal — is this a stolen treaty business?"

The detective nodded slowly. "That sounds a little sensational, but it's about the truth of it. The draft of our commercial agreement with the Argentine is going before the House tomorrow, and Whipplethwaite brought it down here on Saturday night late to work on it — he has the pleasure of introducing it for the Government. I don't know much about it myself, except that it's to do with tariffs, and some people could make a lot of money out of knowing the text of it in advance."

"And it's been stolen?"

"On Sunday afternoon."

Simon reached thoughtfully for his cigarette-case. "Teal, why are you telling me this?"

"I don't really know," said the detective, looking at him sombrely.

"When you walked in and found me here, I suppose you thought I was the man."

"No — I didn't think that. A thing like that is hardly in your line, is it?"

"It isn't. So why bring me in?"

"I don't really know," repeated the detective stubbornly, watching his empty porridge plate being replaced by one of bacon and eggs. "In fact, if you wanted to lose me my job you could go right out and sell the story to a newspaper. They'd pay you well for it."

The Saint tilted back his chair and blew a succession of smoke-rings towards the ceiling. Those very clear and challenging blue eyes rested almost lazily on the detective's somnolent pink half-moon of a face.

"I get you, Claud," he said seriously, "and for once the greatest criminal brain of this generation shall be at the disposal of the Law. Shoot me the whole works."

"I can do more than that," said Teal, with a certain relief. "I'll show you the scene presently. Whipplethwaite's gone to London for a conference with the Prime Minister."

The detective finished his breakfast, and refused a cigarette.

After a few minutes they set out to walk to Whipplethwaite's house, where Teal had already spent several hours of fruitless searching for clues after a special police car had brought him down from London.

Teal, having given his outline of the barest facts, had become taciturn, and Simon made no attempt to force the pace. The Saint appreciated the compliment of the detective's confidence — although perhaps it was only one of many occasions on which those two epic antagonists had been silent in a momentary recognition of the impossible friendship that might have been just as epic if their destinies had lain in different paths. Those were the brief interludes when a truce was possible between them; and the hint of a sigh in Teal's silent ruminations might have been taken to indicate that he wished the truce could have been extended indefinitely.

In the same silence they turned in between the somewhat pompous concrete gate-pillars that gave entrance to the grounds of Sir Joseph Whipplethwaite's country seat. From there, a gravelled carriage drive led them in a semicircular curve through a rough, densely-grown plantation and brought them rather suddenly into sight of the house, which was invisible from the road. A uniformed local constable was patrolling in front of the door; he saluted as he saw Teal, and looked at the Saint inquiringly.

Teal, however, was uncommunicative. He stood aside for the Saint to pass, and ushered him personally through the front door — a performance which, from the village constable's point of view, was sufficient introduction to one who could scarcely have been less than an Assistant Commissioner.

The house was not only modern, as Teal had described it — it was almost prophetic. From the outside, it looked at first glance like the result of some close in-breeding between an aquarium, a wedding cake, and a super cinema. It was large, white and square, with enormous areas of window and erratic balconies which looked as if they had been transferred bodily from the facade of an Atlantic liner. Inside, it was remarkably light and airy, with a certain ascetic barrenness of furnishing that made it seem too studiously sanitary to be comfortable, like a hospital ward.

Teal led the way down a long wide white hall, and opened a door at the end. Simon found himself in a room that needed no introduction as Sir Joseph's study. Every wall had long bookshelves let into its depth in the modern style, and there was a glass-topped desk with a steel-framed chair behind it; the upper reaches of the walls were plastered with an assortment of racquets, bats, skis, skates, and illuminated addresses that looked oddly incongruous.

"Is this architecture Joseph's idea?" asked the Saint.

"I think it's his wife's," said Teal. "She's very progressive."

It certainly looked like a place in which any self-respecting mystery should have died of exhaustion looking for a suitable place to happen. The safe in which the treaty had reposed was the one touch about it that showed any trace of fantasy, for it was sunk in flush with the wall and covered by a mirror, which, when it was opened, proved to be the door of the safe itself, and the keyhole was concealed in a decorative scroll of white metal worked into a frame of the glass which slid aside in cunningly-fashioned grooves to disclose it.

Teal demonstrated its working; and the Saint was interested.

"The burglars don't seem to have damaged it much," he remarked, and Teal gave him a glance that seemed curiously lethargic.

"They haven't damaged it at all," he said. "If you go over it with a magnifying glass you won't find a trace of its having been tampered with."