13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

"Are you in partnership with Mr. Costello, Mr. Hammel?" he asked.

"A working partnership—yes."

"Do you know any more about Enstone's affairs than Mr. Costello has been able to tell us?"

"I'm afraid not."

"What were you talking about at dinner last night?"

"It was about a merger. I'm in International Cotton, too. One of Enstone's concerns was Cosmopolitan Textiles. His shares were standing high and ours aren't doing too well, and we thought that if we could induce him to amalgamate it would help us."

"What did Enstone think about that?"

Hammel spread his hands.

"He didn't think there was enough in it for him. We had certain things to offer, but he decided they weren't sufficient."

"There wasn't any bad feeling about it?"

"Why, no. If all the business men who have refused to com­bine with each at different times became enemies, there'd hardly be two men in the City on speaking terms."

Simon cleared his throat.

"What was your first important job, Mr. Hammel?" he queried.

Hammel turned his eyes without moving his head.

"I was chief salesman of a general manufacturer in the Mid­lands."

Teal concluded the interview soon afterwards without se­curing any further revelations, shook hands perfunctorily with the two men, and ushered them out. When he came back he looked down at the Saint like a cannibal inspecting the latest missionary.

"Why don't you join the force yourself?" he inquired heavily. "The new Police College is open now, and the Com­missioner's supposed to be looking for men like you."

Simon took the sally like an armoured car taking a snow­ball. He was sitting up on the edge of his chair with his blue eyes glinting with excitement.

"You big sap," he retorted, "do you look as if the Police College could teach anyone to solve a murder?"

Teal gulped as if he couldn't believe his ears, He took hold of the arms of his chair and spoke with an apoplectic restraint, as if he were conscientiously determined to give the Saint every fair chance to recover his sanity before he rang down for the bugs wagon.

"What murder are you talking about?" he demanded. "Enstone shot himself."

"Yes, Enstone shot himself," said the Saint. "But it was murder just the same."

"Have you been drinking something?"

"No. But Enstone had."

Teal swallowed, and almost choked himself in the process.

"Are you trying to tell me," he exploded, "that any man ever got drunk enough to shoot himself while he was making money?"

Simon shook his head.

"They made him shoot himself."

"What do you mean—blackmail ?"

"No."

The Saint pushed a hand through his hair. He had thought of things like that. He knew that Enstone had shot himself, because no one else could have done it. Except Fowler, the valet—but that was the man whom Teal would have suspected at once if he had suspected anyone, and it was too obvious, too insane. No man in his senses could have planned a murder with himself as the most obvious suspect. Blackmail, then? But the Lewis Enstone he had seen in the lobby had never looked like a man bidding farewell to blackmailers. And how could a man so openly devoted to his family have been led to provide the commoner materials of blackmail?

"No, Claud," said the Saint. "It wasn't that. They just made him do it."

Mr. Teal's spine tingled with the involuntary reflex chill that has its roots in man's immemorial fear of the supernat­ural. The Saint's conviction was so wild and yet real that for one fantastic moment the detective had a vision of Costello's intense black eyes fixed and dilating in a hypnotic stare, his slender sensitive hands moving in weird passes, his lips under the thin black moustache mouthing necromantic commands. ... It changed into another equally fantastic vision of two courteous but inflexible gentlemen handing a weapon to a third, bowing and going away, like a deputation to an officer who has been found to be a traitor, offering the graceful al­ternative to a court-martial—for the Honour of High Fi­nance. . . . Then it went sheer to derision.

"They just said: 'Lew, why don't you shoot yourself?' and he thought it was a great idea—is that it?" he gibed.

"It was something like that," Simon answered soberly. "You see, Enstone would do almost anything to amuse his children."

Teal's mouth opened, but no sounds came from it. His ex­pression implied that a whole volcano of devastating sarcasm was boiling on the tip of his tongue, but that the Saint's lu­nacy had soared into realms of waffiness beyond the reach of repartee.