Leslie Charteris - The Saint Abroad

“I’m sorry to hear about this,” he said to Liskard’s countrymen in general. “Where did it happen?”

They led the way through the house, and Teal spoke to Simon.

“I got your message, and we found Peterson at Mary Bannerman’s apartment. But now it looks as if he wasn’t any threat at all — and you’re going to have a lot to explain.” Teal’s pink face grew almost tomato colored as he strode along the hallway. “While we were wasting our time there—”

“Somebody else shot Liskard,” Simon supplied. “But Peterson is in on it. You weren’t wasting your time — for once.”

Teal faced him at the study door.

“Shot Liskard? He shot himself, didn’t he?”

“No,” Simon said. “He wasn’t the type. Much too levelheaded to be thrown this far by a lot of old love letters. And besides, he has a sense of duty. He wouldn’t just bow out and let his country fall into chaos.”

“This way,” Todd said.

Teal went into the, study, received a complete rundown on events, and looked over the evidence. When he had examined the gun, the blotter, the furniture, the suicide note, and the photostats, he pondered the situation as he stood in the center of the room with his thumbs hooked in the belt of his capacious dark blue coat.

“Pity he was moved,” he grumbled. “If there’s any doubt about the question of suicide...”

“That’s true,” Simon said thoughtfully. “We could have let him bleed to death so as to keep the evidence tidy.”

“What do you mean, doubt?” Anne Liskard asked.

She had regained control of herself and was showing more poise and energy than Simon had seen in her since their first meeting.

“Mr Templar here seems to believe your husband may have been shot,” Teal said.

Simon nodded. Teal’s assistants, Stewart, and Anne Liskard looked toward the desk as he spoke.

“If you’d seen the way he was lying, even you would have noticed it yourself, Claud. It was an amateurish job, done in a hurry. If you’re going to kill yourself you don’t go through the discomfort of twisting your arm around and shooting yourself from some odd angle behind the ear.”

“You might,” Teal said, instinctively rejecting anything the Saint proposed.

“You might,” Simon said to him, “but Liskard was never an idiot.”

Teal walked stolidly to the window.

“And there’s this,” he continued. “Was this window open when you found him? It’s a cold night. He wouldn’t have left it open, would he?”

“Not likely,” Stewart said. “In fact he was very sensitive to cold. Most of us are, raised in a tropical climate.”

“So,” said Teal, “someone may have come in, shot him, left the note, and escaped through the window.”

“Great Scot!” the Saint exclaimed admiringly. “I think he’s got it!”

The detective looked at Simon with the face of a soured persimmon.

“Is there any reason for Mr Templar to be here?” he enquired stiffly.

“He and my husband were working to catch these blackmailers,” Anne Liskard explained. “Mr Stewart and Mr Todd will tell you the rest. I must get dressed and go to the hospital. There may be something I can do for Tom.”

She went toward the door as Todd came back from the hall.

“I’ve phoned our P.R.O.,” he said to the group in general. “He’ll do what he can to squelch any stories in the papers about the letters.”

Simon turned to Teal after Anne Liskard had gone on before him into the hall.

“Could I speak to you alone for a minute, Claud?”

Teal followed him out to the driveway where they could speak without being overheard. Simon filled the detective in on what had taken place since they had met in the Mister Snowball van.

“Now listen, Claud,” he said firmly. “I know you’d like to devote yourself exclusively to proving me wrong, but there’s more at stake than your reputation and my self-interest.”

He lowered his voice. “You won’t find any footprints outside the window except mine, and the guard on the gate himself can testify that I was outside these grounds when the shot was fired.”

“So it was a suicide attempt?”

“No. It was attempted murder. By somebody in the building.”

“Who?” Teal retorted.

“I may be brilliant, but I’m not totally omniscient. It was undoubtedly somebody in on the plot with Jeff Peterson. I’m sure the scheme was something like this: use the letters to give Liskard a motive for suicide, and then commit the suicide for him since he wouldn’t do it himself — leaving the window open as a false clue to murder if the suicide setup wasn’t convincing enough. His death was to be the cue for a revolution of some sort in Nagawiland, probably in the name of equality and democracy, but in fact a power grab. Peterson and his father, who’s back in Nagawiland, were in on it, but Peterson’s father would never be accepted as head of state. He’s a notorious alcoholic down there. The top man still hasn’t blown his horn.”

“So you have it all figured out,” Teal said slowly. “Except the small matter of who did it.”

The Saint shrugged.

“I can’t do all your work for you, Claud — I’m only trying to do most of your thinking. Now if you’ll try to control your natural envy of superior intellects, I’ll let you in on a brilliant plan I’ve come up with for catching the leader of this conspiracy.”

Teal managed a rather theatrical sneer.

“What plan would that be?” he grumbled. “Torture the ones we’ve caught until they tell who the boss is?”

“No, Claud, I’m suggesting we not use standard police methods this time.” Simon looked warily around. “If you want to catch your man before breakfast, don’t waste any more of my time here — and don’t try to keep me out of that hospital. Whatever other ideas you have about me, you know me well enough by now to know that murdering a man like Liskard isn’t my kind of fun. But if you’ll cooperate with me this time, you can have all the glory.”

His tone was no longer mocking, and the detective had jousted with him for long years enough to recognize his sincerity.

Teal peered at him torpidly, chomping his gum like a shrewd and very thoughtful cow. A cartoonist depicting the scene might have drawn a small and almost wattless bulb glowing feebly above his head.

“You’re thinking of a trap,” he stated expressionlessly.

“Good for you, Claud, old tortoise,” Simon congratulated him. “And it needs you to help rig the cheese.”

Nearly three hours later, on the third floor of the Edgington Hospital, a doctor appeared at one end of a corridor as two other doctors came out of a room and walked away along the corridor in the other direction. Another door on the same corridor was flanked by a uniformed policeman and a plain-clothes detective. A student nurse carrying a covered metal tray came out of that room and followed the two doctors.

No one paid any particular attention to the doctor who then walked alone down the corridor. He wore a white smock which covered his body from his shoulders to his knees. Over his mouth and nose was a white mask, and a white cap closely covered the top of his head and his forehead. At the guarded door he merely nodded to the detective, opened the door, and stepped in. Beyond a small alcove was the patient’s bed. The patient lay still, his own head thoroughly bandaged. Only his eyes were not covered by gauze, and they were closed.

A nurse who was sitting near the bed stood up and looked at the doctor in surprise.

“I thought he was supposed to sleep,” she said.

“He is,” the doctor whispered. “But his reaction in the next hour may be critical. Please get everything prepared for a transfusion if necessary. And while you’re at it, you’d better also ask for an oxygen tent.”