Leslie Charteris - The Saint and Mr. Teal

Teal straightened up and clicked out the magazine,

"Two shots here." He jerked the sliding jacket. "One in the breech… We picked up four shells, and four shots have been fired in this room." Teal turned the figures over in his head as if he loathed them. The chagrin showed on his face; and Simon Templar relaxed gently. It was the one risk that he had to take — if Jones's gun had contained more shells it would have been a tougher proposition, but seven was a possible load. "You're lucky," Teal said venomously.

He turned the gun over in his hand, and suddenly he stiffened.

"What's that?"

He displayed a thin silvery scratch on the blue-black steel, and Simon gazed at the mark along with the other detectives.

"It looks as if it had hit something," said one of them.

"I'll say it does," grunted Mr. Teal.

He crawled round the room on his hands and knees, studying the bullet scars that had already been discovered. One of them occupied him for some time, and he called over one of the other men to join him. There was a low-voiced colloquy; and then Teal rose again and dusted the knees of his trousers. He faced the Saint again.

"That shot there was a ricochet," he said, "and it could have come off Jones's gun."

"Shooting round corners and hitting itself?" drawled the Saint mildly. "You know, you're a genius — or rather Jones must have been. That's an invention that's been wanted for years. Damned useful thing in a tight corner, Claud — you aim one way, and the bullet comes back and hits the man standing behind you—"

''I don't think that was it," said the detective short-windedly. "What kind of gun are you carrying these days?"

Simon spread out his hands.

"You know I haven't got a license."

"Never mind. We'll just look you over."

The Saint shrugged resignedly and held out his arms. Teal frisked him twice, efficiently, and found nothing. He turned to the odd man.

"You'd better get busy and dig out all the bullets. We'll be able to tell from the marks of the rifling whether they were all fired from the same gun."

A trickle of something like ice-cold water fluttered down Simon Templar's spine. That was the one possibility that he had overlooked — the one inspiration he had not expected the plump detective to produce. He hadn't even thought that Teal's suspicions would have worked so hard. That gramophone record must have scored a deeper hit than he anticipated — deeper perhaps than he had ever wanted it to be. It must have taken something that had rubbed salt viciously into an old and stubbornly unhealed wound to kindle an animosity that would drive itself so far in the attempt to pin guilt on a quarter where there was so much prima-facie innocence.

But the Saint schooled himself to a careless shrug. The least trace of expression would have been fatal. He had never acted with such intensity in his life as he did at that moment, keeping unruffled his air of rather bored protest. He knew that Teal was watching him with the eyes of a lynx, with his rather soft mouth compressed into a narrow line which symbolized that unlooked-for streak of malice.

"I can't help it if you want to waste time making a damned fool of yourself," he said wearily. "If there's a scratch on that gun it's probably there because Jones did happen to bang it on something. If there's a ricco anywhere, it's probably one that bounced off some of the apparatus — there's any amount of solid metal about, and I told you how Jones was thrashing around when the current got him. Why go trying to fix something on me?"

"Only because I'm curious," said the detective inflexibly. "You've had quite a lot of jokes at our expense, so I'm sure you won't mind us having a little harmless fun at yours."

Simon took out his cigarette case.

"Am I to consider myself under arrest — is that the idea?"

"Not yet," said Teal, with a vague note of menace sticking out of the way he said it.

"No? Well, I'm just interested. This is the first time in my life I ever behaved like a respectable citizen and gave you your break according to the rules, and I'm glad to know how you take it. It'll save me doing anything so damned daft again."

Teal stripped the wrapping from a wafer of spearmint with a sort of hard-strung gusto.

"I hope you'll have the opportunity of doing it again," he said. "But this looks like the kind of case that would have interested you in other ways. and I shouldn't be doing my duty if I took everything for granted."

Simon looked at him.

"You're wrong," he said soberly. "I tell you, Teal, when I saw that guy Jones dying, all that went through my mind in a flash. Before he killed Quell — before I came through the door — I'd heard enough to know what it meant. I knew I could have taken him prisoner, made him work the process for me — had all the wealth I wanted. You know what one can do with a bit of persuasion. I could have taken him away from this house and left everything as it was — Quell and the King's Messenger mightn't have been found for weeks, and there'd have been nothing in the world to show that I'd ever been near the place. I could have done in real earnest what Jones was trying to kid Quell he was doing. I could have manufactured gold until I'd built up a balance in the Bank of England that would have been the sensation of the century. I could have played fairy godmother in a way that would have made me safe forever from your well-meant persecutions, Claud. I could have paid off the national debt with one check — my own free gift to Great Britain. With love and kisses from the Saint. Think of it! I could have named my own price. I might have been dictator — and then there might have been some more sense in the laws of this nit-witted community than there is now. Certainly you'd never have dared to touch me so long as I lived — there'd have been a revolution if you'd tried it. Simon Templar — the man who abolished income tax. My God, Teal, I don't think anyone's ever been able to dream a miracle like that and see it within his reach!"

"Well?"

Teal was chewing steadily, but his eyes were fixed on the Saint's face with a stolid attentiveness that had not been there before. Something in the Saint's speech commanded the respect that he was unwilling to give — it was drawn from him in spite of himself. Simon's sincerity was starkly irresistible.

"You know what happened. I passed up the idea. And I don't mind telling you, Claud, quite honestly, that if Jones hadn't died as he did, I should have killed him. There you are. You can use that as evidence against me if you like, because this time I haven't a thing on my conscience — just for once."

"What made you pass up the idea?" asked Teal.

Simon took the cigarette from his mouth, and answered with an utter frankness that could have been nothing but the truth.

"It would have made life too damned dull!"

Teal scratched his chin and stared at the toecap of one shoe. The odd man had finished digging out bullets: he dropped them into a matchbox and stood by, listening like the others.

"You know me, Claud," said the Saint. "I was just tempted — just in imagination — for that second or two while I watched Jones die and his bullets were crashing round me. And I saw what a deadly frost it would have been. No more danger — no more risk — no more duels with Scotland Yard — no more of your very jolly back-chat and bloody officiousness as per this evening. Claud, I'd have died of boredom. So I gave you your break. I left everything as it was, and phoned you straight away. There was no need to, but that's what I did. Jones was dead of his own accord, and I'd nothing to be afraid of. I haven't even touched an ounce of the gold — it's there for you to take away, and I suppose if the Quell family's extinct the government will get it and I won't even be offered a rebate on my income tax. But naturally, like the poor dumb boobs you are, you have to sweat blood trying to make me a murderer the one time in my life I'm innocent. Why, you sap, if I'd wanted to get away with anything—"