The Saint Goes On (16 page)

The door opened and Irelock returned, bringing a bottle and glasses on a tray.

“What are the four motives that might make anyone a killer?” asked the Saint.

Teal’s heavy lids settled more wearily over his eyes.

“Revenge? Nobody whom he’s attacking ever seems to have met him before, except his wife. Jealousy?”

“Of what?”

“The fear of being found out?” suggested Irelock.

“We haven’t anything against him,” answered the detective. “And I don’t know how to believe that he’s done anything before that would be big enough to give him such a guilty conscience. He’s the type that makes the usual whine about persecution when he’s caught, but he always goes quietly.”

Simon nodded.

“So that only leaves the best motive of all. Money. Big money.”

“Extortion?” queried Teal sceptically.

“It has been done,” said the Saint mildly. “But it doesn’t meet all the facts this time. What’s he going to extort from Mrs. Ellshaw and me? And how can we know anything that might spoil the racket before Nulland’s even been kidnapped -much less before anyone’s put in the bill for ransom? And how the hell could you get a ransom out of Lord Ripwell if he was dead? Don’t forget that he was on the bumping-off list before tonight.”

Chief Inspector Teal breathed audibly.

“Well, if you’ve got a theory of your own, I’d like to hear it. All you’ve done yet is to make it more complicated.”

“On the contrary,” said the Saint, with that intangible intuitive train of thought still shuffling through the untracked subconscious labyrinths of his imagination, “I think it’s getting simpler.”

“You’ve got a theory?” Irelock pressed him eagerly.

The Saint smiled.

“For the first time since all the excitement started, I’ve got more than a theory,” he answered softly. “I’ve got a fact.”

“What is it?” demanded Teal, too quickly; and the Saint grinned gently, and got up with a swing of his long legs.

“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you? Well, how do you know you don’t?”

Mr. Teal swallowed the last faint scrap of flavour out of his gum, and blinked at him.

“How do I know”

“How do you know you don’t? Because you do.” Simon Templar flattened the stump of his cigarette in an ashtray, and laughed at him soundlessly. He put his hand on Teal’s cushy shoulder. “It’s all there waiting for you, Claud, if you figure it out. Think back a bit, and work on it. Who’s supposed to be the detective here-you or me?”

“Do you mean you know who’s responsible?” asked Irelock.

The Saint turned his head.

“Not yet. Not positively. I’ve just got a few ideas walking around in my mind. One or two of ‘em have got together for a chat, and when they’ve all met up I think they’re going to tell me something. I’d like to see how his lordship’s getting on.”

He went upstairs and let himself quietly into the bedroom. Ripwell was smoking a cigar and reading a book, and he looked up with a steady smile that overcame the pallor of his face.

“Looks as if I’m pretty hard to kill, what? You were splendid-I wish we’d caught one of those blighters. Why the devil didn’t I have that damned revolver? I might have bagged one myself.”

“Inspector Oldwood brought over some ammunition for you,” said the Saint. “I’ll see that you have it before we turn in. It’s a comforting thing to have under your pillow.”

“Damn comforting,” agreed his lordship. “I don’t mind telling you I’m glad to have you in the house-you won’t be leaving yet, will you?”

“Not for a while.”

Lord Ripwell grunted cheerfully.

“That’s good. They got Kenneth, didn’t they? Oh, yes, I know-I dragged it out of Martin just now. Decent of you to try and keep it from me, but I’d rather know. I can stand a good deal. Wish Kenneth could. Still, an experience like that may wake him up a bit. What d’you think they’ll do to him?”

“I don’t know. But somehow I don’t think it’ll be anything -fatal.”

Ripwell nodded.

“Neither do I. If they’d wanted to-do that … they needn’t have taken him away. I’m glad you think so too, though. I wouldn’t like to feel I was hoodwinking myself. Somebody’d better ring up that chap Ferris and tell him Ken won’t be coming down.”

“Do you know the number?”

“Never did know it. Ring up his flat in London and see if you can get it from there. The least we can do is to save Kenneth from getting in trouble for being late again. You’ll find a directory under that table. Address in Duchess Place somewhere, I think.”

“What?”

The question was slapped out of the Saint with such spontaneous startlement that Ripwell dropped his cigar and scorched the sheet.

“Eh? What? What’s the matter?”

“Did you say Duchess Place?”

Ripwell picked up his cigar and dusted off the debris of ash from the bedclothes.

“I think that’s right. Kenneth has talked about it. Why?”

Simon did not answer. He sprang up and dived under the extension telephone table by the bedside for the directory. He could hear Mrs. Florence Ellshaw’s unmusical voice rasping in his ear as clearly as if her ghost had been standing beside him, repeating fragments of her long-winded and meandering story: “… In Duchess Place, sir … number six … next door to two young gennelmen as I do for, such nice young gennelmen… .”

“Does he share this flat with another fellow?” Simon jerked out, whipping over the pages.

Lord Ripwell raised his eyebrows foggily.

“I believe he does. Don’t know who it is, though. How did you know?”

The Saint didn’t answer that one either. He had found his place in the directory and run down the list of Ferrises until he came to one whose address was in Duchess Place- at number eight, Duchess Place. And he was staring at the entry with a queer short-winded feeling sinking into his solar plexus and an electric buck-and-wing careering over his ganglions in a style that eclipsed everything else of its kind hitherto. It was several seconds before he spoke at all.

“Holy Smoke,” he breathed. “Jolly Old Jumbo!”

VI
“WHAT’S the matter?” repeated Lord Ripwell, with pardonable blankness.

“Nothing,” said the Saint absently. “It’s just some more of the pieces falling into place. Wait a minute.”

He jumped up and began to pace quickly up and down the room, slamming the directory shut and chucking it back under the table. The train of thought was moving faster, dashing hectically up and down over its maze of sidings faster than he was covering the floor. His tanned keen face was cut into bronze lines of intense thought, with his sea-blue eyes blazing vividly against the sunburned background. He wheeled round with his fist smashing impetuously into his palm.

“It’s getting together. … To kill Mrs. Ellshaw just because she’d come to see me wasn’t such a good motive. I was flattering myself a bit. But she’d always have to talk-to some one. Suppose it was the two young gennelmen that she did for? That’s the sort of coincidence that happens. When Ellshaw had to disappear, who could have foreseen that his wife might go to work for someone who knew the bloke who … Wait for it again… . Yes, they knew Kenneth. And Kenneth never said whether he’d heard of Ellshaw-never had a chance to. … My God, I’d forgotten that piece of organisation!”

Ripwell’s pleasant face was hardening uncertainly.

“What are you driving at? If you’re suggesting that Kenneth
is a murderer”

“Murderer?” The Saint came up with a start, half dazed, out of the trance in which he had been letting his thoughts race on aloud, without making any effort to dictate their
destination. “I never said that. ButGod, am I getting this
untied?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” persisted Ripwell hoarsely.

Simon swung back to the bed and dropped his hands on the old man’s shoulders.

“Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I’m sorry-I didn’t mean to scare you. Even now, I’m not quite sure what I do mean. But I’ll look after things. And I’ll be right back.”

He pressed Ripwell quietly back on the pillows and went out quickly, making for the stairs with an exuberant stride that almost bowled Martin Irelock off the landing.

“What’s the excitement?” demanded the secretary.

“I’ve got some more ideas.” Simon kept hold of the arm which he had clutched to save Irelock from taking the worst of the spill. “Are you busy?”

“No-I was just making sure that your room’s all right.”

“Then come downstairs again. I want to talk to you.”

He did not release the arm until they were downstairs in the living-room. The french casement was ajar, the half-drawn curtains stirring in the draught. Simon took out his cigarette-case.

“Where’s Teal?”

“I don’t know. Oldwood’s man just arrived-I expect he’s showing him round.”

The Saint put a cigarette between his lips and took a match from the ash-stand, stroking it alight with his thumbnail.

“I’ve remembered something that may interest you,” he said. “An interesting scientific fact. If you have a sample of fresh blood, it’s possible to analyse its type and get an exact mathematical ratio of probabilities that it came from some particular person.”

Irelock blinked.

“Is it really? That’s interesting.”

“I said it was interesting. How does it appeal to you?”

The secretary picked up the whisky decanter mechanically, and poured splashes into the three glasses on the tray. All the splashes did not go into the glasses.

“I don’t know-why should it appeal to me particularly?”

“Because,” answered the Saint deliberately, “I’ve an idea that if I asked Teal to have the blood on Ken’s handkerchief analysed, and then we took a sample of your blood from that graze on your arm, we’d find that the odds were that it was your blood!”

“What do you–—”

“What do I mean? I’m always hearing that question. I mean that I told you and Teal just now that I’d got a fact, and this is it. There was only one shot fired in the front of the house. It scratched your wrist-low down. This handkerchief was in Kenneth’s breast pocket. I noticed it. While it’s possible that you may have gone out of the door with your hands shoulder high, it’s damned unlikely; and therefore I didn’t quite see how a bullet that passed you about the level of your hips could have hit Ken in the chest, unless the warrior who fired it was lying at your feet-which again is unlikely.”

Irelock’s knuckles showed white where he gripped his glass, and for a second or two he made no reply. Then, with an imperceptible shrug, he looked back at the Saint, tight-lipped.

“All right,” he said, with a nod of grim resignation. “You’ve seen through it. I’m afraid I should make a rotten criminal. It was my blood.”

“How come?”

Irelock grimaced ruefully.

“Teal suspected it.”

“You mean to tell me that Ken ran away?”

“Yes.”

Simon drew smoke from his cigarette and trickled it through his nostrils.

“Go on.”

“That’s about all I know. I don’t know why. I could see a silhouette of the car against the headlights when they were switched on, and there was only one man in it. I found the handkerchief while I was pretending to help you to look for him, and I wiped it on my arm and dropped it back on the drive. I suppose it was a silly thing to do, but the only thing I could think of was how to try and cover him up-to make it look as if he hadn’t run away.”

There was no doubt that he was speaking the truth, but Simon drove on at him relentlessly.

“Why should you think he wanted covering up?” “Why else should he want to run away? Besides, you must have seen that there was something on his mind all the evening-I saw you looking at him. I don’t know what it was. But he’s always been wild. I’ve tried to help him. Lord Ripwell would probably have disinherited him more than once if I hadn’t been able to get him out of some of his scrapes.” “Such as?”

“Oh, the usual wild things that a fellow like that does. He gambles. And he drinks too much.”

“Gets obstreperous when he’s tight, does he?” “Yes. You wouldn’t think it of him, but he does. When he’s drunk he’d pick a fight with anybody, but when he’s sober he’d run away from a mouse.”

“Could he have killed anyone when he was drunk?” Irelock stared at him with horror. “Good Lord-you don’t think that?”

“I don’t know what I think,” said the Saint impatiently. “I’m just trying to sort things out. Ripwell hasn’t disinherited him yet, has he? Well, who’d make the biggest profit out of Rip-well’s death? … But even that hasn’t anything to do with the rest of it. There are two mysteries tangled up, and I’m trying to make them tie. The hell with it!”

He picked up a glass and subsided with it into a chair, frowning savagely. Odd loose ends out of the tangle kept on linking up and matching, tantalising him with a deceptive hope that the rest of the pattern was just about to follow on and fall neatly into place; but at the climax there was always one clashing colour, some shape or other that did not fit. Somewhere in the web there must be a thin tortuous thread that would hold it all together, but the thread was always dancing just beyond his grasp.

“If-if you’re not quite sure,” Irelock was saying hesitantly, “have you got to say anything to Teal? I mean, unless Lord Ripwell-unless everybody’s got to know that Kenneth funked…”

He broke off at the sound of a footstep on the path outside, but his bright eyes continued the appeal. Simon moved his head noncommittally, but he had no immediate intention of making Chief Inspector Teal a free gift of the wear and tear on his own valuable grey matter.

“I’ve posted the constable outside, under the bedroom window,” said the detective, and looked at the glass which Irelock was offering him. “No, thank you-fat men didn’t ought to drink. It’s had for the heart. The doctor hasn’t been able to get hold of a nurse yet, so we’d better take it in turns to sit up.”

Irelock nodded, and took the first sip at his highball.

“I don’t mind taking the–—”

His voice wrenched into a ghastly retching sound, and they stared at him in momentary paralysis. And then, as Simon started to his feet, he lurched forward and knocked the glass spinning out of the Saint’s hand with a convulsive sweep of his arm.

“For God’s sake!” he gasped. “Don’t drink…. Poison!”