The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

He was a very different man from the whimpering wreck who had suffered all the indignities that Osman's warped brain could think of to heap upon him. From the moment of Osman's death he had become free of the supplies of cocaine that were stocked in that con­cealed cupboard in the saloon: he had used them liberally to maintain himself in the normal state that he would never be able to return to again without the help of drugs, keeping their existence secret until the case was transferred to the mainland and he could secure proper treatment. But there was no treatment that could give him back the flame of life; and so the police surgeon told him.

"Honestly, Clements, if I'd been told that a man could develop the resistance to the stuff that you've got, so that he would require the doses that you require to keep him normal, without killing himself, I shouldn't have believed it. You must have had the constitution of an ox before you started that-that --"

"Folly?" queried Clements, with a flicker of ex­pression passing over his wasted features. "Yes, I used to be pretty strong, once."

"There's no cure for what you've got," said the doc­tor bluntly; for he was still a young man, an old Rugger blue, and some of the things that he saw in his practice hurt him.

But Clements only smiled. He knew that the poisons they were pumping into him six times a day to keep him human would kill him within a matter of weeks, but he could not have lasted much longer anyway. And he had one thing to finish before he died.

He went into the witness box steady-nerved, with his head erect and the sparkle of cocaine in his eyes. The needle that the young doctor had rammed into his arm half an hour before had done that; but that was not in evidence. They knew he was a cocaine addict, of course-he told them the whole story of his association with Abdul Osman, without sparing himself. The de­fense remembered this when their turn came to cross-examine.

"In view of these sufferings which you endured at the hands of the dead man," counsel put it to him, "didn't you ever feel you would like to kill him ?"

"Often," said Clements calmly. "But that would have cut off my supplies of the drug."

"Wouldn't it be quite conceivable, then," counsel continued, persuasively, "that if you had killed him you would be particularly anxious to keep yourself out of the hands of the police at any cost?"

Just for that moment the witness's eyes flashed.

"You'd better ask the doctor," he said. "He'll tell you that I shall probably be dead in a couple of months anyway. Why should I waste my last days of life coming here to tell you lies? It would make no difference to me if you sentenced me to death today."

Counsel consulted his notes.

"You had never met Galbraith Stride before?"

"Never."

Then came the attempt to represent the killing as an act in the defense of a girl's honour.

"I have told the court already," said Clements, with that terribly patient calm of a man for whom time has no more meaning, which somehow set him apart from the reproof that would immediately have descended upon any ordinary witness who attempted to make a speech from the box, "that nothing of the sort was suggested. Miss Berwick had fainted; and during the time that she was being attacked I was only occupied with taking advantage of the confusion to get at Osman's supply of cocaine. I cannot make any excuses for that-no one who has been spared that craving can understand how it overrules all other considerations until it has been satisfied. Deprived of it, I was not a man-I was a hungry animal. I went to the cabinet and gave myself an injection, and sat down to allow the drug time to take effect. When I looked up, Galbraith Stride was there. He had a pistol in his hand, and he appeared to have been drinking. He said: 'Wait a minute, Osman. She's worth more than that. I'm damned if I'll let you have her and get rid of me as well. You can make another choice. If you take her, we'll divide things differently.' Osman flew into a rage and tried to hit him. Stride fired, and Osman fell. I thought Stride was going to fire again, and I caught hold of the nearest weapon I could find-a brass vase-and hit him with it. I hadn't much strength, but luckily it struck him on the chin and knocked him out."

"And it was you who went over to St. Mary's and informed Sergeant Hancock what had happened?"

"Yes."

"On your own initiative?"

"Entirely."

"I suggest that Templar said: 'Look here, Osman's dead, and there's no need for us to get into trouble. Let's go over to Sergeant Hancock and tell him that Stride did it.'"

"That is absurd."

"You remember the statement that Stride made to Sergeant Hancock when he was arrested?"

"Fairly well."