Leslie Charteris - The Saint Intervenes

"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."