13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

Lewis Enstone was dead. He lay on his back beside the bed, with his head half rolled over to one side, in such a way that both the entrance and the exit of the bullet which had killed him could be seen. It had been fired squarely into his right eye, leaving the ugly trail which only a heavy-calibre bullet fired at close range can leave. . . . The gun lay under the fingers of his right hand.

"Thumb on the trigger," Teal noted aloud.

He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on a pair of gloves, pink-faced and unemotional. Simon observed the room. An or­dinary, very tidy bedroom, barren of anything unusual except the subdued costliness of furnishing. Two windows, both shut and fastened. On a table in one corner, the only sign of dis­order, the remains of a carelessly-opened parcel. Brown paper, ends of string, a plain cardboard box—empty. The millionaire had gone no further towards undressing than loosening his tie and undoing his collar.

"What happened?" asked Mr. Teal.

"Mr. Enstone had had friends to dinner, sir," explained Fowler. "A Mr. Costello—"

"I know that. What happened when he came back from seeing them off?"

"He went straight to bed, sir."

"Was this door open?"

"At first, sir. I asked Mr. Enstone about the morning, and he told me to call him at eight. I then asked him whether he wished me to assist him to undress, and he gave me to un­derstand that he did not. He closed the door, and I went back to the sitting-room."

"Did you leave that door open?"

"Yes, sir. I was doing a little clearing up. Then I heard -the shot, sir."

"Do you know any reason why Mr. Enstone should have shot himself?"

"On the contrary, sir—I understood that his recent spec­ulations had been highly successful."

Teal nodded.

"Where is his wife?"

"Mrs. Enstone and the children have been in Madeira, sir. We are expecting them home tomorrow."

"What was in that parcel, Fowler?" ventured the Saint.

The valet glanced at the table.

"I don't know, sir. I believe it must have been left by one of Mr. Enstone's guests. I noticed it on the dining-table when I brought in their coats, and Mr. Enstone came back for it on his return and took it into the bedroom with him."

"You didn't hear anything said about it?"

"No, sir. I was not present after coffee had been served—I understood that the gentlemen had private business to dis­cuss."

"What are you getting at?" Mr. Teal asked seriously.

The Saint smiled apologetically; and being nearest the door, went out to open it as a second knocking disturbed the silence, and let in a grey-haired man with a black bag. While the police surgeon was making his preliminary examination, he drifted into the sitting-room. The relics of a convivial dinner were all there—cigar-butts in the coffee cups, stains of spilt wine on the cloth, crumbs and ash everywhere, the stale smell of food and smoke hanging in the air—but those things did not interest him. He was not quite sure what would have interest­ed him; but he wandered rather vacantly round the room, gazing introspectively at the prints of character which a long tenancy leaves even on anything so characterless as an hotel apartment. There were pictures on the walls and the side ta­bles, mostly enlarged snapshots revealing Lewis Enstone re­laxing in the bosom of his family, which amused Simon for some time. On one of the side tables he found a curious ob­ject. It was a small wooden plate on which half a dozen wood­en fowls stood in a circle. Their necks were pivoted at the base, and underneath the plate were six short strings joined to the necks and knotted together some distance further down where they were all attached at the same point to a wooden ball. It was these strings, and the weight of the ball at their lower ends, which kept the birds' heads raised; and Simon discovered that when he moved the plate so that the ball swung round in a circle underneath, thus tightening and slack­ening each string in turn, the fowls mounted on the plate pecked vigorously in rotation at an invisible and apparently in­exhaustible supply of corn, in a most ingenious mechanical display of gluttony.

He was still playing thoughtfully with the toy when he dis­covered Mr. Teal standing beside him. The detective's round pink face wore a look of almost comical incredulity.

"Is that how you spend your spare time?" he demanded.

"I think it's rather clever," said the Saint soberly. He put the toy down, and blinked at Fowler. "Does it belong to one of the children?"

"Mr. Enstone brought it home with him this evening, sir, to give to Miss Annabel tomorrow," said the valet. "He was always picking up things like that. He was a very devoted father, sir."

Mr. Teal chewed for ,a moment; and then he said: "Have you finished? I'm going home."

Simon nodded pacifically, and accompanied him to the lift. As they went down he asked: "Did you find anything?"

Teal blinked.

"What did you expect me to find?"

"I thought the police were always believed to have a Clue," murmured the Saint innocently.