Leslie Charteris - The Saint 49 Count On The Saint

With a slow pensive smile the Saint relaxed into a chair and rested his feet on the counterpane of the bed.

“You don’t say?” he drawled. “And why should you consider yourself the next candidate for the hereafter?”

Again several seconds of silence passed while Brian Casden carefully shaped his reply. The businessman’s natural caution vying with personal anxiety, Simon thought. He waited patiently, confident that, having decided to make contact, the other would not hang up now.

“Sir Basil and I were discussing a donation to the college,” Casden said finally. “When he was murdered I didn’t imagine for a moment that it had anything to do with our plans. Stanton Wakeforth was also involved and when he was killed I began to wonder. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. But now that Harker has been murdered...”

“How did you know Colonel Harker was dead?” Simon cut in quickly.

“It was on the radio news. Nothing much, just that a report has been received that he had been shot while hunting.”

The Saint nodded to himself, satisfied with the explanation. The murder had taken place early enough for word of it to have reached the reporters who were already in Cambridge following up the previous killings.

He returned to his original line of questioning.

“What exactly were the four of you planning?”

“Wakeforth and I were to endow a new faculty for business studies.”

“And Colonel Harker?”

“He owns — owned — some land near the college. He was prepared to let St. Enoch’s have it at a nominal price providing his company was given the building contract.”

All of which, Simon judged, made sense. Even if it still did not provide him with the motive he sought, it did at least link the three dead men.

“Have you spoken to the police yet?” he asked.

“No.”

It was too curt an answer to pass unchallenged.

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want to get involved,” said Casden hesitantly. “It wouldn’t be good publicity for a company such as ours. I had read that you were investigating and I thought I would talk to you first. One of the stories in the newspapers mentioned where you were staying.”

Again the Saint was satisfied with the explanation.

“Tell me,” he said thoughtfully. “You say you have been discussing all this with Sir Basil and the other two — for how long?”

“Since October, soon after Sir Basil came to Cambridge. It was all finally agreed last week, and we were due to sign the necessary papers tomorrow.”

“On Christmas Eve? Why the rush?”

“Both my company and Wakeforth’s end our financial years on January 31,” Casden replied. “There were certain tax advantages to be considered regarding the funds we were making available.”

“And who else knew about these plans of yours?”

As he put the question Simon heard other voices in the background and guessed that Casden was no longer alone. The businessman’s sudden vagueness confirmed the impression.

“I can’t go into details now,” he answered abruptly.

“How soon can we meet?” Simon asked.

“Come to my office at six this evening.”

The Saint consulted his watch.

“That gives you five and a quarter hours in which to get yourself killed,” he pointed out.

“I can’t see you before then.”

Casden sounded irritable, and the volume of background noise suggested that his company had increased. Without prompting he continued: “Every year we hold a Christmas party in our canteen for deprived children. It’s this afternoon. I shan’t be free until six, but I also won’t be alone.”

The Saint was unimpressed by the degree of safety such a gathering would provide and sensed that Casden too was more hopeful than confident. But at least he was prepared for danger, which was an advantage none of the others had enjoyed.

“Where is your office?” Simon asked resignedly, convinced by the other’s tone that there would be little point in pressing for an earlier meeting.

Casden told him and the Saint repeated the directions, both to confirm them and to commit them to memory.

The hubbub surrounding his caller had grown so loud that it threatened to drown Casden’s voice completely.

“I must go now,” he said firmly.

The Saint sighed.

“Don’t talk to any strange Santas,” he advised, but the line was dead before he finished speaking.

Simon returned to the adjusting of his tie and thought through what Casden had told him. What interested him most of all was not what had been said but what had not been said. Casden had been unresponsive when asked who else knew what was being planned. If he had thought nobody else was involved he could have said so without giving anything away to those around him. But he had chosen to refuse to talk, which meant that he knew that somebody else knew but didn’t want to reveal who it was. As to whether that person was a suspected murderer or a potential victim he had offered no clue.

The Saint was slipping on his jacket when the telephone buzzed again, but this time it was just to inform him that Chantek had arrived.

He walked down to the lobby, looking in at the private room he had booked an hour before to check that all was as it should be. It was, and so was Chantek. He kissed her lightly on the forehead and smiled at the nervousness in her eyes.

“Don’t worry, they’re not ogres,” he reassured her as he led the way back up the stairs, adding mischievously: “Well, not all of them.”

She pouted.

“It’s all right for you. I have to return to St. Enoch’s in January. You don’t.”

“January is another year,” Simon said airily. “Personally I rarely plan beyond tomorrow. Sufficient unto the day, et cetera. And the day has hardly begun.”

They were taking the first sips of their respective aperitifs, hers a vermouth, his a pink gin, when Darslow arrived. He hovered a step inside the room and eyed them uncertainly.

“Dr. Burridge said I was invited.” He made it sound like an apology.

“And so you are, Edwin, old thing,” Simon confirmed with a grin.

He ordered a large measure of malt to top up the professor’s already high spirit level. Judging by his breath and slightly rolling gait, Darslow must have been drinking steadily since he had left Chantek over an hour earlier.

Darslow cupped the tumbler in both hands and gulped at the contents.

“What’s happened?” he asked in an attempt at a conspiratorial whisper that came out loud enough to be heard in the back row of the stalls.

The Saint smiled.

“If you mean has anything new occurred to affect you in connection with this morning’s shenanigans, then the answer is nothing.”

Darslow looked blank.

“Then why do you want me here?”

Simon patted him encouragingly between the shoulder blades as he guided him towards a chair.

“Because I like you, Edwin,” he responded with a bonhomie that made Darslow peer at him in bleary-eyed suspicion. “I want you to tell me all about codicils and torts and Gintrap v. Gintrap 1929, and fascinating things like that.”

He motioned to the waiter at the side table that was serving as a bar to top up his guest’s glass. Darslow drunk, he decided, might be more interesting than Darslow sober. Without the stimulus of alcohol he was likely to repeat his nervous seat perching silences of the previous evening, whereas once sufficiently lubricated there was always the chance that he might inadvertently contribute something of interest to the debate.

Leaving Chantek to keep him company, the Saint turned to greet the arrival of Dr. Burridge and Godfrey Nyall.

“Good of you to come, gentlemen.”

“Kind of you to invite us, Mr. Templar,” the dean rejoined stiffly.