Leslie Charteris - The Saint Intervenes

"That's awfully good of you, old man," said Hammel, with the blurry-eyed solemnity of his condition.

"Less have lunch together on Tuesday," suggested Costello. "We might be able to talk about something that'd interest you."

"Right," said Enstone dimly. "Lush Tooshday. Hic."

"An' don't forget the kids," said Hammel confidentially.

Enstone giggled.

"I shouldn't forget that!" In obscurely elaborate pantomime, he closed his fist with his forefinger extended and his thumb cocked vertically upwards, and aimed the forefinger between Hammel's eyes. "Shtick 'em up!" he commanded gravely, and at once relapsed into further merriment, in which his guests joined somewhat hysterically.

The group separated at the entrance amid much handshaking and back-slapping and alcoholic laughter; and Lewis Enstone wended his way back with cautious and preoccupied steps towards the lift. Mr. Teal took a fresh bite on his gum and tightened his mouth disgustedly.

"Is he staying here?" asked the Saint.

"He lives here," said the detective. "He's lived here even when we knew for a face that he hadn't got a penny to his name. Why, I remember once—"

He launched into a lengthy anecdote which had all the vitality of personal bitterness in the telling. Simon Templar, listening with the half of one well-trained ear that would prick up into instant attention if the story took any twist that might provide the germ of an adventure, but would remain intently passive if it didn't, smoked his cigarette and gazed abstractedly into space. His mind had that gift of complete division; and he had another job on hand to think about. Somewhere in the course of the story he gathered that Mr. Teal had once lost some money on the Stock Exchange over some shares in which Enstone was speculating; but there was nothing much about that misfortune to attract his interest, and the detective's mood of disparaging reminiscence was as good an opportunity as any other for him to plot out a few details of the campaign against his latest quarry.

"…So I,lost half my money, and I've kept the rest of it in gilt-edged stuff ever since," concluded Mr. Teal rancorously; and Simon took the last inhalation from his cigarette and dropped the stub into an ashtray.

"Thanks for the tip, Claud," he said lightly. "I gather that next time I murder somebody you'd like me to make it a financier."

Teal grunted, and hitched his coat round.

"I shouldn't like you to murder anybody," he said, from his heart. "Now I've got to go home — I have to get up in the morning."

They walked towards the street doors. On their left they passed the information desk; and beside the desk had been standing a couple of bored and sleepy page-boys. Simon had observed them and their sleepiness as casually as he had observed the colour of the carpet, but all at once he realised that their sleepiness had vanished. He had a sudden queer sensitiveness of suppressed excitement; and then one of the boys said something loud enough to be overheard which stopped Teal in his tracks and turned him round abruptly.

"What's that?" he demanded.

"It's Mr. Enstone, sir. He just shot himself."

Mr. Teal scowled. To the newspapers it would be a surprise and a front-page sensation: to him it was a surprise and a potential menace to his night's rest if he butted into any responsibility. Then he shrugged.

"I'd better have a look," he said, and introduced himself.

There was a scurry to lead him towards the lift. Mr. Teal ambled bulkily into the nearest car, and quite brazenly the Saint followed him. He had, after all, been kindly invited to "drop in" the next time the plump detective was handling a case… Teal put his hands in his pockets and started in mountainous drowsiness at the downward-flying shaft. Simon studiously avoided his eye, and had a pleasant shock when the detective addressed him almost genially.

"I always thought there was something fishy about that fellow. Did he look as if he'd anything to shoot himself about, except the head that was waiting for him when he woke up?"

It was as if the decease of any financier, however caused, was a benison upon the earth for which Mr. Teal could not help being secretly and quite immorally grateful. That was the subtle impression he gave of his private feelings; but the rest of him was impenetrable stolidity and aloofness. He dismissed the escort of page-boys and strode to the door of the millionaire's suite. It was closed and silent. Teal knocked on it authoritatively, and after a moment it opened six inches and disclosed a pale agitated face. Teal introduced himself again and the door opened wider, enlarging the agitated face into the unmistakable full-length portrait of an assistant hotel manager. Simon followed the detective in, endeavouring to look equally official.

"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."