Leslie Charteris - The Saint 49 Count On The Saint

“Do you think he will kill again?” Darslow asked.

“There’s an old superstition that things always go in threes.”

“So we just hang around until he decides to kill somebody else and hope he leaves a footprint or a cigarette butt or a trail of blood or some such clue so that the worthy Superintendent Nutkin can do his Sherlock Holmes act,” Rosco said cheerfully.

“We’re really interested to know — as, er, off-the-record fans of yours — what you’d be doing in the meantime, if you were in Nutkin’s place,” said Nyall.

“I’d be looking for a motive,” said the Saint, “and hoping that it would point me to a suspect. You knew Sir Basil, have you any idea why somebody should want to murder him?”

He looked at each of the three men in turn as he spoke. Both Nyall and Rosco returned his gaze negatively, but Darslow concentrated on the liquid in his glass and avoided a direct encounter. His nervousness was so apparent that the Saint warned himself against jumping to conclusions.

But before any of the three dons could answer his question, the door opened to admit a tall imperious individual who could only be the dean. A pace behind him trailed the less imposing figure of Superintendent Nutkin.

“Why, here’s the man himself!” Simon exclaimed joyfully. “How’ve you been getting on with your enquiries, Mr. Nutcase?”

The look on the detective’s face when he saw the Saint suggested a sudden violent attack of indigestion.

“What are you doing here, Templar?” he demanded in a strangled voice which indicated that his pains were getting worse.

“Nothing much, just passing the evening trying to solve a couple of homicides,” the Saint said breezily. “And you? Have you come to enrol for a degree in detection or did you just slip in before they shut the door?”

The dean, whose gaze had flittered between the two like an umpire at a tennis match, stepped into the breach of the peace.

“I ran into the superintendent on my way from the railway station,” he explained. “I thought it might be helpful if he joined us for an informal chat. I presume that you are Mr. Simon Templar. I am Dr. Burridge, the dean of St. Enoch’s.”

Burridge’s solemn monotone matched his sombre features. His handshake was strong and authoritative. Nutkin tried to ignore the Saint with the same dedication he might have used to try to forget an aching tooth. When he and the dean were seated, Nyall summarised the conversation they had missed, up to the Saint’s question.

“Can any of you gentlemen think of anyone who might have had a grudge against Sir Basil?”

Burridge slowly shook his head.

“You must remember, Mr. Templar, that Sir Basil had only been Master here for a few months. I don’t think any of us knew him before then, although naturally we knew of him because of his broadcasting activities. As far as I know, he made no enemies since he came here.”

Denzil Rosco’s mouth curved in a cynical smile.

“Only the spiders,” he drawled, with a mischievous sidelong glance at the bursar.

“I beg your pardon?” said Nutkin sharply.

“I meant that only spiders might take a dislike to people who brush away cobwebs.”

“What Professor Rosco may be trying to say,” Nyall explained, “is that some of us did not like a few of Sir Basil’s ideas for the future of the college.”

“And what where they?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Rosco said lightly. “He just wanted to bring St. Enoch’s into the twentieth century.”

“St. Enoch’s is not as old or as famous or as rich as many of the Cambridge colleges,” Nyall said starchily, sitting forward in his chair and glaring at Rosco. “But that doesn’t mean that we do not have our traditions and that we are not proud of them.”

“But you still haven’t told us what his plans were,” the Saint reminded them.

Again it was the dean who intervened like the chairman of an unruly committee. He spoke quickly to prevent either Nyall or Rosco from continuing their apparent feud.

“That is because we do not know. Sir Basil talked in generalisations — about getting new patrons to endow new fellowships in new and perhaps controversial subjects. He had not taken us into his confidence about anything specific. It was mainly his general attitude that may have struck some of us as a bit commercial and unacademic.”

“But not upset them enough to make anyone think of murdering him, I suppose?” Nutkin asked.

Edwin Darslow gave a short nervous laugh. It was the first sound he had made for such a long time that it drew all eyes to him. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair as he realised he had become the focus of attention.

“I hardly think anyone would take us for murderous types, Superintendent,” he said hastily, in a voice a tone higher than it should have been.

“You’d be surprised,” Nutkin said rather smugly, “if you met some of the murderers I’ve had to deal with.”

“All caught with your own bare hands?” said the Saint with mock admiration.

The summons of the telephone splintered the tension that was building again.

Nyall lifted the receiver and then handed it to Nutkin.

The superintendent listened for a few moments, his expression indicating that his indigestion had returned with a vengeance.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

He dropped the receiver into its cradle and faced the gathering.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” he said heavily, “but I have to return to the station immediately.”

“Another murder?” asked the Saint hopefully.

“I have to brief the chief constable on the progress of our enquiries,” Nutkin said, with a return to his usual pompous manner. But there was something about it which suggested that he would have preferred being summoned to deal with a dead body rather than a live one with gold braid on its shoulders.

The dons rose as the detective made to leave. Their eagerness for the amateur- Sherlock session had clearly evaporated, and the Saint realised that little was likely to be gained by pressing the subject at that moment. He contented himself with the thought that he could always come again.

The goodbyes were brief, and a few minutes later the Saint found himself walking across the main courtyard beside Nutkin. The detective did not seem to welcome his company and Simon saw no reason to force a conversation from which he would learn exactly nothing. Nutkin’s car was parked in the square, and the Saint lingered beneath the main gateway and watched him drive away.

He leaned against the wall while his gaze roamed round the quadrangle. Except for the quantity of snow it was identical to when he had cut across it and discovered Lazentree’s body. But though everything seemed to be the same he had a nagging feeling that it was in some way different.

As he stood scanning the scene and trying to decipher the subtle change that had taken place, a lone figure hurried down the college steps and headed for the doorway into the adjoining court with a large package under his arm.

“A bit early for delivering Christmas presents,” the Saint observed to himself thoughtfully. “Even for a Santa Claus.”

Keeping close to the wall, he followed Professor Edwin Darslow into the neighbouring courtyard, past the spot where Sir Basil had been murdered, and out into a narrow close of terraced cottages that bordered the college grounds.

Staying in the protective shadows of the doorway that gave onto the pavement, he watched Darslow cross the road and stop beside a car. After a hurried glance each way as if to assure himself that the coast was clear, the professor opened the rear hatch and put the parcel inside.

The Saint smiled softly in the darkness and blessed the impulse that had prompted him to follow the professor. Darslow’s actions were curious enough by themselves, but there was something else that made his smile tighten, as he remedied the memory lapse that had worried him a few minutes before. The car was a battered Austin saloon, and the last time he had seen it was in the main courtyard of St. Enoch’s a few moments before Sir Basil Lazentree was murdered.