Alias the Saint (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  “What’s the idea?”

  “Pour encourager les autres.” The Saint extended the hat towards the barman. “Some absent-minded bird in a hurry hung this up on the carpet,” he said blandly. “If he calls in to inquire about it, which is unlikely, return it to him with my compliments.”

  “If you have a quiet time, it isn’t your fault,” said Duncarry appreciatively, and the Saint grinned.

  “We may yet see life,” he said.

  They moved on to the grill room together, and it was there, over the coffee which closed the meal, that Simon checked up what he knew of the Gaydon’s Wharf murder.

  “I gather,” he said, “that Reginald Friste was not very nice to know. Barringer, through some oversight on the part of a deluded parent, had to tolerate him as a guardian up to the age of twenty-one, and thereafter as an infernal nuisance. Barringer, a clever lad, is an analytical chemist attached to Wiltham’s Brewery for the purpose of devising fresh horrors to be inflicted on the public in the sacred name of beer; Friste ran a shipping agency, and probably a number of less reputable organisations as well.”

  “All right so far,” assented Teal.

  “Enter,” said the Saint, “the beautiful heroine, daughter of Sir Enoch Wiltham. Barringer falls. Friste also meets her, and likewise drops with a sickening thud. Friste is wealthy, and Barringer is not, but heroine nobly refuses to be influenced by bank balance. Icy optic for Friste, glad and merry one for Barringer. Joy and black jealousy. Register some black jealousy, Teal.”

  “I’d like to register you a black eye,” sighed the long-suffering detective.

  “The melodrama,” continued the Saint, unmoved, “follows rapidly. Friste visits heroine, proposes for the umpteenth time, and is turned down. Friste utters some unseemly language, makes threats of hideous vengeance, and exit. Red fire at back of stage, and muffled drums and popping of beer corks off.”

  Teal slewed his wad of chewing gum to the westward and nodded again. “Then?”

  “Barringer hears of scene, visits Friste, and threatens to beat him up if he comes within ten miles of the girl again. Barringer has incidentally discovered a new method of producing commercial alcohol at one-third the cost of the cheapest present process. Roseate gleams of dollars on the horizon. Hopes of wedding bells and cottage with roses round the door and garage for two-seater. Is that right?”

  “It’s good enough.”

  “Then the dreadful scene. Sub-title: Came the Dawn…Friste’s staff, after waiting two hours for their boss, endeavour to enter his private office to obtain urgently needed papers. It is discovered to be locked—an unprecedented occurrence. Telephone call to Friste’s house reveals that Friste did not go home the night before, and the staff, loyally dismissing all sinful possibilities from their minds, summon the police. Door bust in, and Friste found dead. Enter Chief Inspector Teal, star performer of the Criminal Investigation Department, the Man of Destiny, with a nose for murders like the nose of a china bloodhound on a mantelpiece. ‘Ah- ha! Foul play! Somebody has bumped this guy off.’ Overcome with his own brilliance, Teal swallows chewing gum. S.O.S. to nearest Vet. to retrieve said gum. What next?”

  “Some sense,” Teal suggested reasonably.

  “Then suppose you let me inspect the scene of the crime,” murmured the Saint. “The great brain shall wallow in its atmosphere, soaking up deductions like a curate absorbing ginger-beer at a parish bun-fight. I was wrong, Teal—this sleuthing business is Big Stuff. Where’s my violin?…Waiter!”

  5

  “The man who called this place Gaydon’s Wharf,” said the Saint, “had a cock-eyed sense of humour.”

  There was certainly nothing hilarious about the place. The three-storied building had almost certainly started its life as a warehouse, but had later been converted into three floors of dingy offices. Friste’s office had been on the second floor, and the Saint appeared to grow slightly perplexed as he climbed the dark, narrow staircase.

  “If Friste was a man of all this wealth,” he remarked, “why did he want to choose a hole like this for his office?”

  “Possibly he thought it would be convenient for the docks,” said Teal. “If you’d thought of that question before he was killed, I could have asked him.”

  The entrance to the office was secured with a padlock and chain, and a constable stood on guard outside. The Saint lingered to light a cigarette while Teal produced a key and removed the obstruction. They passed into a large, bare room principally furnished with three desks supporting three shrouded typewriters. It was divided approximately into two equal areas by a counter which confronted the visitor on entering. On the right there were two doors, one on either side of the counter.

  Teal opened the nearest one, and they passed into Friste’s private office.

  “There are only these two rooms,” he explained.

  The Saint glanced interestedly around the inner sanctum. Near the centre of the room was a large, flat-topped desk; there was a filing cabinet, two armchairs, and a small table in one corner.

  “How does it strike you?” asked Teal.

  “Hideously,” said the Saint. “That wallpaper—”

  Teal scowled.

  “Do you intend to try to be helpful, or don’t you?”

  “I will do my wonderful best,” said the Saint modestly.

  He drifted round the room in a cloud of cigarette smoke. The single window interested him. Looking out, he found that the wall in which it was set ran sheer down to the river. The face of the building, on that side, at least, would have provided no foothold for anything but an athletic fly.

  “How was this window fixed when the police came in?”

  “It was open about nine inches at the bottom.”

  “And Exhibit B?” The Saint pointed to a long pole feebly resembling a boat-hook, which lay on the floor, close by.

  “That’s exactly as we found it. It was used to open and close the upper sash.”

  “And the deceased?”

  “He was lying in a line between the window and the centre of the room, on his back, about six feet from the window.”

  “How was he shot?”

  “Through the centre of the forehead—from a range of about two inches.”

  “And the doors?”

  “Both locked, as I told you. They’re Yale locks, and there was absolutely no trace of them having been tampered with. Of course, if they had been unlocked when the murderer arrived, he could have slipped the catches and made them lock behind him as he went out.”

  “I see that there’s a third door,” said the Saint, pointing to the wall opposite the window.

  “That’s a private entrance from the landing. Friste could go in or out without passing through the reception-room. But if you’ll look carefully, you’ll see that that door is bolted on the inside, and it was like that when we found it. It’s the one door which the murderer couldn’t possibly have used.”

  The Saint paced the room in silence for a few moments. Then he said: “What about the office staff?”

  “Their alibis are cast iron,” replied the detective. “There were two girl stenographers and a young clerk. On this particular morning the girls arrived together, and the clerk came in about five minutes later. Not one of them was out of sight of somebody for one second, and there’s no possibility of suspecting anyone. But there’s one thing you haven’t read in the newspapers.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The porter downstairs saw Friste come in at ten o’clock, yet he never passed through the outer office. Friste was alive and well at ten o’clock. He must have let himself in by his private entrance and bolted the door behind him. And shortly after that he was shot dead, but there were three people waiting for him in the outer room who never heard the shot that killed him.”

  The Saint frowned.

  “There certainly seem to be some difficulties about this case,” he murmured, and Teal exploded.

  “Difficulties! I tell you, when you’ve sweated
your brain over the case as long as I have, you’ll see that it’s not only difficult—it’s impossible! Nobody could have gone into that office by the private entrance because it was bolted on the inside. No one can have gone in through the outer office, because the staff would have seen him. No one can have got in through the window, because it’s humanly impossible to get at that window except by a rope lowered from the roof. And that rope would have to pass right in front of a similar window in the offices above where there were whole staffs working at the time. Besides, if anyone opened or closed that window on the outside, he managed to do it without disturbing one particle of dust—and the outside of the frame’s thick with it. If someone sat outside that window somehow, and potted Friste through that nine-inch opening at the bottom, I’d like to know how Friste got his head down to that level, even if he was using the pole to try and open the upper sash. If you tell me that someone tied a revolver to a long pole and pushed it across the river from a building on the other side, and Friste obligingly put his head against the gun, I shall have you arrested.”

  The Saint sighed.

  “It certainly is difficult,” he repeated.

  He knelt beside the window and examined the inside of the sill.

  “There’s a tiny mark here,” he said. “Looks as if it had had a bang.”

  Teal and Duncarry came up to inspect the discovery, but the Saint sauntered off and lighted another cigarette. He was stretched out in one of the armchairs, apparently asleep, when Teal rose to his feet again.

  “Does it mean anything to you, Templar?”

  The Saint roused aggrievedly.

  “Not yet,” he said. “But I thought it might mean something to you. Anyway, you can call it a Clue, and tell the newspapers about it.”

  He stretched up out of his chair, yawning, and then he suddenly stiffened.

  “Where is the dragon?” he asked, and Teal stared.

  “What dragon?”

  The Saint gazed at him with a slow smile.

  “If you don’t know anything about the dragon I’m not going to tell you. But that dragon is a good joke. Remember to ask me about it later.” The Saint yawned again. “And now I’m tired of this case. Also, I require some beer.”

  He faded away abruptly, and the disgruntled detective followed with Duncarry. The Saint decanted them in Whitehall, told them to be good boys and to take care not to get brain fever, and headed the car towards home after extracting Eileen Wiltham’s address.

  As it happened, this was a precaution that he need not have taken.

  “Pat,” said the Saint, as Patricia opened the door to him, “I have sad news. I’ve just been out with a bloke whose literary tastes include parish magazines, and he tells me that our chosen bishop has had his hair cut. Now we shall have to wait until it grows again, or that scalp I promised you will look moth-eaten.”

  “There’s someone here to see you,” said Patricia. “I thought it might save you some trouble if I raked her up.”

  Simon gazed at her with admiration.

  “Eileen herself? Pat, you’re a genius.”

  He went through into the sitting-room, and a tall, pale girl, who had been occupying his favourite chair, rose as he entered.

  “Pleased to meet you, Eileen,” said the Saint briskly. “And you’re pleased to meet me. Splendid. Have some beer?”

  Eileen Wiltham smiled.

  “I’m not sure why Miss Holm should have fetched me—”

  “Nor am I, unfortunately,” said the Saint. “But if you can tell me anything interesting, or let me know anything I can do—”

  He offered his cigarette-case, lighted a cigarette for himself, and seated himself on the table.

  “I didn’t know you worked with the police,” said the girl.

  “Nor did I,” said Simon cheerfully. “In fact, this is a record.”

  “I’ve read about you, of course—”

  “Then you know my sticky reputation.”

  “You were pardoned some time ago—”

  “Some of my sins have certainly been forgiven,” admitted the Saint largely. “The process of reformation continues but very slowly. Now tell me your worry.”

  “It’s not about myself,” said the girl after a pause. “But my fiancé, Charles Barringer—since I’m here, can you tell me why he’s being followed about wherever he goes?”

  “Teal’s faithful hounds.” The Saint chuckled. “But I don’t see what I can do about that. If I gave them a clip under the ear and ordered them back to barracks, they mightn’t consider that the orders came from an authoritative source.”

  “But do they really believe that he committed that murder?”

  The Saint looked at her for a moment before replying. She was undeniably pretty, but the strain and worry of the last few days showed in her face.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to deny that there are temporary suspicions,” he said seriously. “Consider the facts. After Friste had made a nuisance of himself with you, your boy went round to his office and bawled him out. He threatened to murder him if the offence was repeated, and he fired off all his stuff in the hearing of Friste’s entire staff. That same evening, before the office closed, Friste went out and had a number of drinks at a neighbouring pub and repeated the whole story of the row to anyone who’d listen. He was rather a heavy drinker, but thoroughly booze-proof, and the landlord of the pub swears that he’s never seen the little rat the worse for it. Then Friste went back to his office as the staff were closing up, and the next morning he was shot.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “The porter saw him come in at about ten o’clock, but his staff never saw him. Therefore he went into his private office by the other door. No one came through the outer office, and therefore the only man who could have shot him also entered by the private door. And your fiancé had a key to that door.”

  “But that door was bolted on the inside,” Patricia put in. “So the man couldn’t have got out that way.”

  “I know. And yet he didn’t go through the outer office because he would have been seen. He might have dived straight from the window into the river, but I doubt it. The whole show is one of the most frantic mysteries of this bleary age. Teal did the best thing he could think of when he pinched your fiancé. But he had to let him go almost at once.”

  “Then why are they still shadowing him?” asked the girl helplessly.

  “It’s the system. It’s vaguely possible that he might have killed Friste, though no one can think out how he could have done it. Teal had to let him go for the time being when your revered parent butted in and cemented his alibi.”

  “But Charles couldn’t have done it! He was staying with us that night—”

  “I know that, too. And your house is at Cookham, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Until after midnight he was discussing the development of his invention with your father—then some more drinks and smokes, and so to bed. That was the night of the murder. According to the processes of Teal’s apology for a brain, Charles might have crept out later and borrowed your father’s car to get to London and do the job. But if he did that, he also did big things in the wash and polish line afterwards, for it was a filthy night, and the car was clean when he drove back to London in it with your father and found Teal sitting on his bed with a welcoming smile and a pair of handcuffs. He might have used a car from a neighbouring garage, but the inquiries that have been made seem to rule that out. He might even have used a push-bike—”

  “But at ten o’clock he was having breakfast with us.”

  The Saint nodded.

  “Exactly. The whole thing is quite impossible; but it’s also impossible that anyone else could have killed Friste.”

  Eileen Wiltham raised her eyes wearily.

  “I don’t see it. If everyone thinks that Charles couldn’t possibly have done it—”

  “The snag,” said the Saint, “is that Teal isn’t quite sure about the authenticity of the Reginald Friste wh
om the door porter saw alive and well at ten o’clock.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The Saint shook his head and shrugged. He tried to explain the methods of Scotland Yard when investigating an apparently impossible crime, but it was a difficult and unwelcome task. When he found that he could give Eileen Wiltham no useful help or information of any kind, he changed the subject and tried to sidetrack her mind from it; and when, later, Patricia reminded him that they were invited to fill the Hannassays’ box at the Gaiety, he thought he had an inspiration.

  “Take Eileen instead,” he said. “Kit and Susan won’t mind, and it’ll do her good.”

  But the girl shook her head.

  “I’d love to go, but I promised to go to a show with Charles.”

  “When are you meeting him?”

  “At a quarter past eight.”

  “Then you can go to the preliminary dinner,” said the Saint. “They’re good and cheery souls, and just now I think that the best thing you can do is to jump at anything that’ll stop you from thinking too much. Pat, you might get on to Susan and give them due warning. Make my excuses also—I’m afraid I shouldn’t have been able to go, anyway. I think tonight is going to be a busy night.”

  He over-ruled all protests, and at seven o’clock he drove Patricia and Eileen to the Hannassays’ house in Hamilton Place.

  And from Hamilton Place he proceeded along to the Victoria. He paused briefly at the door, where he received some interesting information; and then, continuing his researches further, he found Duncarry in the grill room, lingering over a menu. The New Yorker offered the glad hand.

  “If you’ve nothing better to do, Dun,” said the Saint, “you might join up with me. I’m alone.”

  “I’m not feeling any too crowded myself,” Duncarry confessed. “You’ve leaped down like a little ray of sunshine out of a dark sky. London can be a darned lonesome place.”

  “Got a gun?”

  Duncarry did not blink an eyelid at this odd question, but shook his head and plumped for smoked salmon.

  “Pack this, then,” said the Saint, pushing an automatic pistol under the table.