Leslie Charteris - The Saint 49 Count On The Saint

With the briefest of apologies for his sudden departure and a promise to call her later, he left Chantek and headed for the college.

In the entrance hallway he met Professor Darslow, who looked at him sheepishly and began to stammer excuses for his behaviour the previous day. Simon cut him short.

“Never mind that now. You said something about Nyall. ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ What were you getting at?”

“I think I remember,” Darslow replied uncertainly. “It was a joke, really. Godfrey is always advising people about shares to buy. It’s just a bit of a joke that if he’s so clever why isn’t he rich? That’s all.”

“Aren’t his tips any good?”

“I don’t really know. I haven’t followed them.”

“Then you don’t actually know that he isn’t rich,” said the Saint provocatively.

He left the professor and hurried to the bursar’s office. It was locked. He was considering picking the lock when another thought came to him. He went back to Darslow.

“Where is Sir Basil’s office?” he asked.

“First floor, almost directly above us. Why?”

“Tell you later,” said the Saint, the words floating over his shoulder as he took the stairs three at a time.

The office of the Master of St. Enoch’s College was unlocked but not empty. Professor Denzil Rosco turned in surprise as Simon swept into the room. “Good afternoon,” said the Saint evenly. “Found anything interesting?”

Rosco looked up from the open drawers of the desk by which he was standing.

“I suppose this appears rather suspicious,” he admitted with a wry smile. “Well, the police have just been trying to nail me for murder, so I suppose breaking and entering will be considered small cheese after that.”

The Saint perched himself on the edge of the desk.

“Tell me about it,” he invited.

Rosco obliged. He had spent the day and night before with friends, completely unaware of what had happened until he had returned that morning to find a policeman waiting for him in his rooms. He had been informed that his pistol had been used to kill Lazentree and Wakeforth. The police had searched his study and found it.

The Saint interrupted.

“They found the pistol in your study?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Never mind. Carry on.”

Rosco carried on. He had tried to explain that anyone could have taken it, but Nutkin had not been impressed. Only when his alibi had been checked had the superintendent reluctantly allowed him to leave.

“So what exactly are you doing here?” Simon wanted to know.

“Clutching at straws,” Rosco replied with a sigh. “But I thought it was worth a try.”

“What was?”

“Sir Basil and I became friendly very quickly. We both had similar ideas about St. Enoch’s, which made us both unpopular in certain quarters.”

“What did he tell you?”

Rosco shrugged.

“Not much, but he hinted. Said he’d got the financial backing for his plans. Businessmen, from what I could gather, but he didn’t say who. Said he was planning a fait accompli to present to the others in the New Year. He was very excited about it.”

Rosco paused and seemed less confident of himself when he continued.

“I started thinking about what you said about motive. Could someone have found out about it and killed him to stop it happening? It seemed absurd, but I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. If that was possible, then mightn’t Wakeforth be one of the businessmen? Couldn’t Casden and Harker also have been involved? I thought I’d see if there was any sort of clue in Basil’s office.”

The Saint regarded him with respect.

“Professor, you must have your eye on Nutkin’s job,” he said. “But finding out who was backing Basil wouldn’t point to who killed him.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Simon produced Casden’s address book.

“I thought I’d see if they had any other chums in common, which might point to another possible murderer. Then I could watch him until the murderer tries for another killing.” He looked at the young man keenly. “Are you sure Basil never mentioned any names?”

Rosco’s brow furrowed as he thought. At last he said: “Yes, there was someone, but I can’t quite remember. It was someone in the House of Lords who was going to lend his name to whatever Basil was planning. It would add some distinction, he said.”

Simon flicked through the address book. It was hardly Debrett’s. Two Sirs were the best he could find until he came to the G’s.

“Grantchester. Lord Grantchester. How does that sound?”

Rosco nodded.

“That’s it. I’m sure of it. I knew there was a local connection but I couldn’t think what.”

“What’s the betting our noble lord is next on the list?” Simon mused as he lifted the telephone and gave the number from Casden’s book to the operator.

He waited impatiently until she came back to say that the number of unobtainable. Last night’s storm, he was informed, had brought down the overhead lines. Reconnection was not expected until after Christmas holiday.

“By which time Lord Grantchester is likely to be as cold as tomorrow’s turkey,” Simon observed.

“I’ll contact the police,” Rosco was saying as he reached to take over the telephone. But the Saint stopped him.

“Why should we let the superintendent have all the fun? I consider this a very personal party.”

Five minutes later he was pointing the long nose of the Hirondel down the ice coated road towards Grantchester.

The weather is the favourite conversational gambit among the English for one simple reason: they are always totally unprepared for it. In summer, a week of what in any Latin country would be regarded as pleasantly warm weather leads to newspaper headlines that cry “Heat Wave” and moves to ration water. In winter, what any Indian worth his monsoon would consider a fairly heavy shower results in radio warnings of bursting river banks and flooded homes. But these pale into insignificance beside the chaos produced by a few inches of snow. Roads are blocked, trains stop, and pipes burst. The populace gazes at the white crystal falling like magic from the sky and wonders at the fact that it is snowing in December, forgetting that they have been singing about dreaming of a white Christmas for most of the month.

So ran the Saint’s thoughts as he grimly forced the Hirondel towards its destination.

The worst of the storm had passed before first light and by midday had subsided to brief flurries not heavy enough to fill a footprint. The volume of traffic had ensured that the town centre streets remained clear, but once the outskirts were reached the going became steadily slower. And if the outskirts were bad the cross-country roads were worse. The main trunk route to London was passable with care, but the lanes leading to the villages it by-passes featured hard-packed ruts alternating with treacherous soft drifts.

The light was failing quickly as the sharp brightness of the afternoon gave way to twilight that hung like a blue-black backdrop against the whiteness of the land. The Hirondel’s powerful headlamps carved a tunnel of brilliance through the gloom, and the Saint drove along it as fast as the conditions allowed, which was not breaking any records.

The broad tread of the Hirondel’s winter tyres hugged the icy surface, giving him better control than most of the other traffic, but still the journey seemed to take an age. It was not so much the snow and ice themselves as the mishaps which had befallen other motorists that delayed him. A lorry loaded with bricks had failed to master an incline and had been abandoned while its driver went for help, causing a long tailback. Once that obstacle had been passed, it was found that a family car had managed to get stuck in a snow bank on the other side of the hill, and again he found himself obliged to join some other compulsory Samaritans in helping to dig it out and clear the blockage. And so it went on.