Leslie Charteris - Follow the Saint

"Better take down some more details," he said gruffly to the constable with the notebook, and turned to Rosemary Chase. "The deceased's name is Nora Prescott — is that right miss?"

"Yes."

"You knew her quite well?"

"Of course. She was one of my father's personal secretaries," said the dark girl; and the Saint suddenly felt as if the last knot in the tangle had been untied.

He listened with tingling detachment while Rosemary Chase talked and answered questions. The dead girl's father was a man who had known and helped Marvin Chase when they were both young, but who had long ago been left far behind by Marvin Chase's sensational rise in the financial world. When Prescott's own business was failing, Chase had willingly lent him large sums of money, but the failure had still not been averted. Illness had finally brought Prescott's misfortunes to the point where he was not even able to meet the interest on the loan, and when he refused further charity Chase had sent him to Switzerland to act as an entirely superfluous 'representative' in Zurich and had given Nora Prescott a job himself. She had lived more as one of the family than as an employee. No, she had given no hint of having any private troubles or being afraid of anyone. Only she had not seemed to be quite herself since Marvin Chase's motor accident…

The bare supplementary facts clicked into place in the framework that was already there, as if into accurately fitted sockets, filling in sections of the outline without making much of it more recognizable. They filed themselves away in the Saint's memory with mechanical precision; and yet the closeness which he felt to the mystery that hid behind them was more intuitive than methodical, a weird sensitivity that sent electric shivers coursing up his spine.

A grey-haired ruddy-cheeked doctor arrived and made his matter-of-fact examination and report.

"Three stab wounds in the chest — I'll be able to tell you more about them after I've made the post-mortem, but I should think any one of them might have been fatal. Slight contusions on the throat. She hasn't been dead much more than an hour."

He stood glancing curiously over the other faces.

"Where's that ambulance?" said the sergeant grumpily.

"They've probably gone to the house," said the girl. "I'll send them down if I see them — you don't want us getting in your way any more, do you?"

"No, miss. This isn't very pleasant for you, I suppose. If I want any more information I'll come up and see you in the morning. Will Mr Forrest be there if we want to see him?"

Forrest took a half step forward.

"Wait a minute," he blurted. "You haven't—"

"They aren't suspicious of you, Jim," said the girl, with a quiet firmness. "They might just want to ask some more questions."

"But you haven't said anything about Templar's—"

"Of course." The girl's interruption was even firmer. Her voice was still quiet and natural, but the undercurrent of determined warning in it was as plain as a siren to the Saint's ears. "I know we owe Mr Templar an apology, but we don't have to waste Sergeant Jesser's time with it. Perhaps he'd like to come up to the house with us and have a drink — that is, if you don't need him any more, Sergeant."

Her glance only released the young man's eye after it had pinned him to perplexed and scowling silence. And once again Simon felt that premonitory crisping of his nerves.

"All this excitement certainly does dry out the tonsils," he remarked easily. "But if Sergeant Jesser wants me to stay—"

"No, sir." The reply was calm and ponderous. "I've made a note of your address, and I don't think you could run away. Are you going home tonight?"

"You might try the Bell first, in case we decide to stop over."

Simon buttoned his coat and strolled towards the door with the others; but as they reached it he stopped and turned back.

"By the way," he said blandly, "do you mind if we take our lawful artillery?"

The sergeant gazed at him, and dug the guns slowly out of his pocket. Simon handed one of them to Mr Uniatz, and leisurely fitted his own automatic back into the spring holster under his arm. His smile was very slight.

"Since there still seems to be a murderer at large in the neighbourhood," he said, "I'd like to be ready for him."

As he followed Rosemary Chase and Jim Forrest up a narrow footpath away from the river, with Hoppy Uniatz beside him and the butler bringing up the rear, he grinned inwardly over that delicately pointed line, and wondered whether it had gone home where he intended it to go. Since his back had been turned to the real audience, he had been unable to observe their reaction; and now their backs were turned to him in an equally uninformative reversal. Neither of them said a word on the way, and Simon placidly left the silence to get tired of itself. But his thoughts were very busy as he sauntered after them along the winding path and saw the lighted windows of a house looming up through the thinning trees that had hidden it from the river bank. This, he realized with a jolt, must be the New Manor, and therefore the boathouse where Nora Prescott had been murdered was presumably a part of Marvin Chase's property. It made no difference to the facts, but the web of riddles seemed to draw tighter around him…

They crossed a lawn and mounted some steps to a flagged terrace. Rosemary Chase led them through open french windows into an inoffensively furnished drawing-room, and the butler closed the windows behind him as he followed. Forrest threw himself sulkily into an armchair, but the girl had regained a composure that was just a fraction too detailed to be natural.

"What kind of drinks would you like?" she asked.

"Beer for me," said the Saint, with the same studied urbanity. "Scotch for Hoppy. I'm afraid I should have warned you about him — he tikes to have his own bottle. We're trying to wean him, but it isn't going very well."

The butler bowed and oozed out.

The girl took a cigarette from an antique lacquer box, and Simon stepped forward politely with his lighter. He had an absurd feeling of unreality about this new atmosphere that made it a little difficult to hide his sense of humour, but all his senses were vigilant. She was even lovelier than he had thought at first sight, he admitted to himself as he watched her face over the flame — it was hard to believe that she might be an accomplice to wilful and messy and apparently mercenary murder. But she and Forrest had certainly chosen a very dramatic moment to arrive…

"It's nice of you to have us here," he murmured, "after the way we've behaved."

"My father told me to bring you up," she said. "He seems to be quite an admirer of yours, and he was sure you couldn't have had anything to do with — with the murder."

"I noticed — down in the boathouse — you knew my name," said the Saint thoughtfully.

"Yes — the sergeant used it."

Simon looked at the ceiling.

"Bright lads, these policemen, aren't they? I wonder how he knew?"

"From — your gun licence, I suppose."

Simon nodded.

"Oh, yes. But before that. I mean, I suppose he must have told your father who I was. Nobody else could have done it, could they?"

The girl reddened and lost her voice; but Forrest found his. He jerked himself angrily out of his chair.

"What's the use of all this beating about the bush, Rosemary?" he demanded impatiently. "Why don't you tell him we know all about that letter that Nora wrote him?"

The door opened, and the butler came back with a tray of bottles and glasses and toured the room with them. There was a strained silence until he had gone again. Hoppy Uniatz stared at the newly opened bottle of whisky which had been put down in front of him, with a rapt and menacing expression which indicated that his grey matter was in the throes of another paroxysm of Thought.