Leslie Charteris - Saint Errant

“Aye, that I did, not more than fifteen minutes ago. Fact is, I’d just sounded four bells when she went ashore.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?” Simon asked sharply. “You knew we were waiting for her.”

“Why, shiver my timbers, sir, I supposed she’d already seen you. It’s hardly my place to stop the passengers.”

“Hmm. I see.”

“Did you miss her, sir?”

“We did, but somebody else didn’t. They got her dead center.”

The Admiral blinked, and seemed to examine the remark for some time. A puzzled frown formed on his round face.

“Blow me down, sir, but your message isn’t clear.”

“She’s dead.”

The Admiral’s jaw dropped.

“No! Why, she was smiling pretty as pretty when she passed me, sir. Give me a dollar, too. If I’d known she was going to scuttle herself, I’d have made her heave to.”

Simon gave him a long speculative stare.

“That’s an interesting deduction, chum,” he murmured. “When did I say that she killed herself?”

The man blinked.

“Why, what else, sir? Surely nobody would harm a fine lady like Mrs Verity. Tell me, sir, what did happen?”

“She was shot.” The Saint pointed. “On the other side of the building, down towards the beach. Did you notice anyone wandering about outside?”

The Admiral thought, chin in gloved hand.

“No, sir. Only Mrs. Verity. She went off that way, and I supposed she was going to her car.”

“But you didn’t see her drive out.”

“I didn’t notice, sir. There were other passengers arriving and leaving at the same time, and I was pretty busy.”

“But you noticed that no one else was wandering around.”

“That’s just my impression, sir. Of course, there’s the back way out to the promenade deck too.”

The Saint’s cigarette glowed brightly again to a measured draw.

“I see. Well, thanks...”

He took Patricia back into the club and located the bar. They sat on high stools and ordered bourbon. Around them continued the formless undertones of the joint, the clink of chips, the rattle of dice, the whir of wheels, the discreet drone of croupiers, the tinkle of ice and glass, a low-key background broken from time to time by the crash of a cocktail mixer or a burst of high excited laughter. For the other guests of the Quarterdeck Club, life went on unaware of the visit of Death, and if the employees had heard anything of it, their faces were trained to inscrutability.

“Do you think I’m nuts?” Simon asked presently. “Do you think it was suicide?”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” Patricia said thoughtfully. “I keep thinking of the dress she was wearing.”

Simon regarded her.

“That,” he said, with some asperity, “would naturally be the key to the whole thing. Was she correctly dressed for a murder?”

“You idiot,” said his lady, in exasperation. “That was a Mainbocher, an original! No pretty girl in her right mind would ruin an expensive dress like that by putting a bullet through it. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.”

“But we didn’t see it, darling,” Simon reminded her gently. “Not with our own eyes.”

He put down his glass and found the silent-moving Esteban at his elbow again.

“The sheriff is here, Mr Templar. You will please come this way?”

It could have been suspected, from his appearance, that Sheriff Newt Haskins had spent all his life in black alpaca. One must admit that his first article of apparel was probably three-cornered, but he wore the tropical-weight black as if he had never changed his clothes since he got any. He sat with his well-worn but carefully shined black shoes on Esteban’s polished maple desk and welcomed Simon with a mere flick of his keen gray eyes, and Patricia Holm with the rather sad faint smile of a man long past the age when the sight of such beauty would inspire any kind of activity—

“Can’t say I’m exactly pleased to see you again, Saint, said Haskins. “How do, Miss Holm.” The amenities fulfilled, he turned to Esteban. “Well?”

Esteban shrugged.

“I tell you on the phone. You have seen the body?

“Yep, I saw it. And I’m sure curious” — he looked at the Saint — “Mr Templar.”

“So am I, Sheriff,” Simon said easily, “but possibly not about the same thing.”

“You admit you came here lookin’ for the dead woman, son?”

“Now, daddy,” the Saint remonstrated. “You know I’d be looking for a live woman.”

“Hum,” Newt Haskins said. “Reckon so. But the law’s found plenty o’ dead people around right after you been in the neighborhood. So when I see you here right next to a death that’s just happened, I kinda naturally start wonderin’ how much you know about it.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting that I murdered her?”

“You done the suggestin’, son. That she was murdered, that is. Everything else points to the lady’s takin’ the hard way out of a jam.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Will you excuse me?” Esteban said. “My guests...”

Sheriff Newt Haskins waved a negligent hand.

“Go ahead, Esteban. Call you if I want ya.” To the Saint, after Esteban had gone, he said, “He ain’t much help.”

“Are you sure he couldn’t be if he wanted to?”

“Wa’al—” Newt Haskins shrugged his thin shoulders noncommittally. “Let’s get back to your last question. Nope, I don’t think Mrs Verity shot herself. Seems how good-lookin’ dames like her hate to disfigure themselves. It’s generally gas, or sleepin’ tablets. Still, you can’t say it’s never happened.”

Pat said, “Think of that little evening bag. Lida wouldn’t have carried a gun in that.”

Haskins pulled his long upper lip.

“It ain’t exactly probable, ma’am,” he agreed. “But on the other hand, it ain’t impossible, either.”

“Permit me to call your attention,” Simon said, “to one thing that is impossible.”

“The white thread caught in the trigger guard?” Haskins anticipated blandly. “Yup, I saw that, son.”

“You’ve got good eyes for your age, daddy. It’s a white cotton thread. Lida Verity was wearing a green silk dress. She didn’t have anything white on her that I noticed. On the other hand, if someone had wiped the gun with a handkerchief to get rid of fingerprints—”

Haskins nodded, his eyes on Patricia.

“You’re wearin’ a white jacket thing, Miss Holm.”

“This bolero? You can’t suggest that I—”

“Don’t get excited darling,” said the Saint. “The sheriff is just stirring things up, to see what comes to the top.”

Haskins held the creases in his leathery face unchanged.

“Any reason, son, why you and Miss Holm shouldn’t lay your cards on the table?”

“We always like to know who’s staying in the game, daddy. Somebody around this place has a couple of bullets, back to back.”

The lanky officer sighed. He picked up a glass paperweight, turned it in bony fingers, gazed into it pensively.

“I guess I’ll have to put it to you straight, then.”

“A novelty,” the Saint said, “from the law. You’re going to say that Mrs Verity was loaded down with moola.”

“An’ might have been shaken down for some of it. Your crystal ball’s workin’ almost as good as mine, son...”

The Saint looked out into space, poising puppets with a brown hand.

“If you’ll just concentrate... concentrate... I may be able to do more — I have it!” He might have expected to get his palm crossed with a silver dollar. “My record leads you to suspect me of a slight tendency towards—”

“Bein’ interested in other folks’ money.”

“Your confidence touches me.”