Saint Errant (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  He broke off as a flat splat! broke the silence off in the direction of the sea, seeming to come from a clump of magnolia trees.

  “What was that?” Patricia breathed.

  “Probably a backfire, miss,” the waiter said. “Somebody having trouble with a car.”

  “On account of driving it into the sea?” Simon said, and swung a leg over the rail.

  “Could a motorboat do that?” Pat asked.

  “No, darling. Come on.”

  “About your drinks, sir—”

  “Don’t put any cherries in them,” said the Saint.

  He sped down a winding path to the deeply shadowed little grove of trees, white with blossoms that were like wax in the moonlight, and Patricia was only a stride behind him.

  It took no searching at all to find the body. It lay sprawled under a tree, half in shadow, staring upward with glazed eyes that would never see again. It was—had been—Lida Verity. She held an automatic pistol in one hand, and under the swell of her left breast was a small dark hole and a spreading stain.

  The Saint made a brief examination, and knew while he did it that he was only deferring to a conventional routine. There was no doubt now that Lida Verity had had reason to call him, and the line of his mouth was soured by the recollection of his earlier flippancy.

  He knew that Patricia was only obeying the same inescapable conventions when she said, “Simon—is she—”

  He nodded.

  “Now she isn’t scared anymore.”

  Lida Verity had lived—gaily, indifferently, passionately, thoughtfully, frantically. Her life had echoed with the tinkle of champagne glasses, Mendelssohn’s solemnity, the purr of sleek motors, the chatter of roulette frets, before the final sound of a gun in the night had changed the tense of the declarative sentence “I am.”

  The Saint stood quietly summarizing the available data: the body, the wound, the gun, the time, the place. And as he stood, with Patricia wordless beside him, a whisper of footsteps announced the coming of Esteban.

  Simon’s eyes hardened as they moved up the proprietor of that palace of chance in which only the guests took the chance.

  “Welcome to the wake, comrade,” he said coldly.

  Esteban looked over the situation. His expression was impassive, yet his dark eyes were sharp as he added the factors and came up with an answer.

  “The waiter told me there was some trouble,” he said, exactly like one of his headwaiters dealing with some trivial complaint. “You found her—like this?”

  “We did.”

  “Is she—”

  “You’ve lost your place in the script,” Simon said patiently. “We’ve already read that line.”

  “I am sorry,” Esteban said bloodlessly. “She was a lovely lady.”

  “Somebody didn’t share your opinion,” the Saint said.

  The words hung in the quiet night, as if they were three-dimensional, to be touched, and turned, and examined. The pause lengthened while the Saint lighted a cigarette without taking his eyes off Esteban. His meaning seemed to materialize slowly during the silence.

  “But—” Esteban gestured at the body, face upward, black hair glinting in the wash of moonlight. “The gun is in her hand. Surely you cannot mean—”

  “She was murdered.”

  “But that is impossible!” Esteban protested. “It is so obvious, Mr Templar. It is suicide.”

  “Lida wouldn’t have killed herself!” Patricia said hotly. “She was so—so alive. She wouldn’t, I tell you!”

  “Madame,” Esteban said sadly, “you do not know. She lose much money tonight at the gaming table. Perhaps more than she should.”

  “How much?” Simon asked bluntly.

  Esteban shrugged.

  “We do not keep accounts. She buy many chips for the roulette table.”

  “A few minutes ago you thought ‘perhaps’ she had been losing at blackjack. Now you seem to know different.”

  Esteban’s shoulders rose another inch.

  “You ask me to find out, I accommodate you. And now I go call the sheriff. I must ask you not to disturb anything.”

  “I think,” the Saint said softly, “that before the evening is out we shall disturb many things, my friend.”

  Esteban went back up the path, and the Saint took Patricia’s arm and led her off at a tangent to pass around the outside of the building. He had several more questions to ask, and he thought he knew where to start asking them.

  In front of the club, the Admiral was admitting new customers on a froth of salt-water argot. He greeted the Saint and Pat with his largest smile.

  “Ahoy, mates! Enjoying the trip?”

  “That is hardly an accurate description of our emotions at the moment,” Simon said. “We’re after a little information about an incident that occurred a few moments ago.”

  “I keep an accurate log, sir. Fire away.”

  “Did you see Mrs Verity come out of the club?”

  “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 origin
al! 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.”

  “That ain’t all that may be touchin’ you soon, son.”

  “Now you’ve broken the spell,” said the Saint reproachfully. “We are no longer in tune with the infinite. So—it seems as if we may have to leave you with your problem. Unless, of course, you propose to arrest me now and fight it out with my lawyers later.”

  “Not right away, son. We don’t none of us want to be too hasty. But just don’t get too far away, or the old police dog might have to start bayin’ a trail.”

  “We’ll be around,” said the Saint, and ushered Patricia out.

  As the murmurous inanities of the public rooms lapped around them again, she glanced up and found his eyes as blue and debonair as if no cares had ever crossed his path. The smile he gave her was as light as gosling down.

  “I hardly think,” he drawled, “that we have bothered Señor Esteban enough. Would’st you care to join me?”

  “Try and lose me,” said the girl.

  They found Esteban keeping a weather eye on the play of his guests, and followed his politely lifted brows to the patio.

  “The moonlight, she is so beautiful,” Esteban said, with all the earnestness of a swing fan discussing Handel. “Did the sheriff let you go?”

  “Like he let you—on probation,” Simon answered cheerfully. “He just told us to stick around.”

  The man formed insolent question marks with the corners of his mouth.

  “I did not think you would care to stay here after your friend kill herself.”

  “I heard you the first time, Esteban. I’m sure if your customers have to die on the premises, you’d much rather have a Monte Carlo suicide than a murder. It wouldn’t scare half so many suckers away. But we happen to know that Mrs Verity wasn’t the sort to be worried about being blackjacked out of a few hundreds, or even thousands, in this kind of clip joint.”

  There was no reaction in the dark lizard eyes.

  “You hint at something, maybe?”

  “I hint at nothing, maybe. I’m still asking questions. And one thing I’ve been wondering is, who did she come here with?”

  Esteban repeated, without inflection, “Who she come here with?”

  “She wouldn’t have come here alone,” said Patricia. “She didn’t come with her husband, because he’s still in Tokyo. So—who?”

  “A little while ago, madame, you tell me she come here to meet you.”

  “Tonight, perhaps,” Simon admitted patiently. “But this wasn’t her first visit. The Admiral of the watch seemed to know her quite well. So who did she usually come with?”

  Esteban shrugged.

  “I do not inquire about these things.”

  The Saint’s voice became rather gentle.

  “Comrade, you don’t seem to get the point. I’m a guy who might make a great deal of trouble for you. On the other hand, I might save you a lot.”

  Esteban took note of the steady blue eyes, the deceptive smile that played across the Saint’s chiseled mouth. He forced a laugh.

  “You frighten me terribly, Señor Templar.”

  “B
ut you don’t frighten me, Don Esteban. Because whatever Sheriff Haskins may think, I have the advantage of knowing that I had nothing to do with killing Mrs Verity. Which leaves me with a clear head to concentrate on finding out who did. So if you don’t co-operate, I can only draw one conclusion.”

  There was silence, save for the rustle of palm fronds and the thud and hiss of the surf—and the muffled sounds of the Quarterdeck doing business as usual.

  At last Esteban said craftily, “What will you do if I help you?”

  “That depends on how much you know and how much you tell. I don’t mind admitting that Miss Holm and I are slightly allergic to people who kill our friends. Also, it wouldn’t bother me a bit if the sheriff closed your Parcheesi parlor. You ought to know how much you’ve really got to be scared of.”

  Esteban seemed to give him the same poker-faced assessment that he would have performed on a new customer who wanted to cash a check. And with the same impenetrable decisiveness he said, “Mrs Verity come here with Mr Maurice Kerr. He is what you call a—ah, playboy. A leetle old, perhaps, but most charming. Perhaps you should ask him your questions. If you wait, I tell you where he lives.”

  The address he came back with was only a half mile south, on a side street off Collins Avenue. There were still lights in the house when the Saint’s car pulled up outside a mere matter of minutes later, and a man who could only have been Kerr himself, in white tie and a smoking jacket, opened the door to the Saint’s casual knock. His somewhat florid face peered out under the porch light with strictly reasonable ineffusiveness.

  He said, “What do you want? Who are you?” But his tone was still genial enough to be described as charming.

  “A moment with you, Mr Maurice Kerr,” the Saint answered. “You may call me the Saint—temporarily. Before we’re through with you, you may think of some other names. And this is Miss Holm.”

  Kerr’s eyebrows rose like levitating gray bushes.

  “I don’t pretend to understand you.”

  “May we come in? This is a matter of life and death.”

  Kerr hesitated, frowned, then swung the door wide.

  “Do. In here, in the library.”

  The library was lighted for the benefit of those who liked to read comfortably at the least expense to their eyesight. The walls were lined with books, an artificial fire flickered in the fireplace, and chairs, lovingly fashioned to fit the human form, were spaced at tasty intervals.