The Saint Around the World (10 page)

He pulled out her jewel case, opened it on top of the night stand, and rapidly transferred its contents to his pockets. He let the crowbar lie on the floor where it had fallen. He leaned over his wife, unfastened the clasp at the back of her neck, and pulled the necklace and its sapphire pendant from under her. He picked up her hand to twist the rings off her fingers …

He did not know precisely what stopped him, whether it was a movement glimpsed out of the corner of his eye or the faint squeak and stir of air that went with it. But he turned his head, and with that became frozen.

The door of a massive old wardrobe across the room was swinging stealthily open.

The door itself cut off the light of the bedside lamp from what was inside. But the shadowed opening was still not too dark for him to see, and recognize, the bulgingly bovine shape of Mrs. Jafferty, the unmistakable mound of her atrociously carrot-tinted hair.

Mr. Clarron’s intestines seemed to turn into coils of quivering lead, and his lungs sagged through his diaphragm and took all his breath with them. A draught from the North Pole squirmed over his skin and brought out beads of clammy sweat where it touched.

“Faith an’ begorra,” said the broadest brogue outside Killar-ney, “if it isn’t himself robbin’ the trinkets from his poor darlin’ wife, and her not yet cold from his poison an’ all!”

There was a breaking point even to Mr. Clarron’s adamantine self-control. He turned and ran out of the room, screaming.

He had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do. He stumbled down the stairs in a pure frenzy of planless flight, flight for its own primitive sake, spurred by the unreasoning need to get away anywhere from the impossible incomprehensible thing that he had seen. Out of- the house, anywhere, where he could have one moment’s reprieve to encompass the exploding debris of disaster, to try and grab the pieces together and re-shape them into some form that would magically ward off utter catastrophe …

He threw open the front door and plunged solidly into the comfortably cushioned facade of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal.

Mr. Teal said “Oof!”—caught him as he bounced off, and set him upright in the hall.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Clarron?” Teal asked drowsily.

As his torpid bulk evacuated the doorway, it revealed two uniformed men on the step outside.

“My wife,” Clarron babbled. “Dead in her bed! Drawer broken open—her jewels gone! And Mrs. Jafferty–-“

He broke off there. The first words had come out, incoherently enough, but unhesitatingly, with a kind of reflex assurance made glib by the number of times he had mentally rehearsed just such a speech. But after he had blurted out Mrs. Jafferty’s name he did not know how to go on. He had never visualized having to say anything about her in her presence.

Mr. Teal, however, did not seem to notice the aposiopesis. He was staring over Mr. Clarron’s shoulder, and upwards, with his baby-blue eyes dilating in a most peculiar manner.

“Bejabers,” trumpeted a voice of distilled shamrock, “and if it isn’t me ould friend the fat boy of Scotland Yard, himself, arrivin’ late for the wake as usual.”

Mr. Clarron turned, drawn by an awful but irresistible magnetism.

Billowing down the stairs came an exuberant female figure crowned with a bird’s-nest of hideous ginger hair.

“She must have done it,” Clarron chattered hysterically. “I should never have taken her without references. She was hiding up there–-“

“Sure, and is that any way for a gentleman to be talkin’, tryin’ to put the blame on an honest workin’ woman? And himself all the time schemin’ to murdher his own wife, the poor soul, an’ run off with his fancy lady next door, who I see sneakin’ in here already to be with him before the body is cold!”

Teal glanced back for a moment, at Adrienne Halberd who was sidling in behind the two constables; and turned back to the staircase with a tinge of purple creeping into his rubicund complexion.

“Take off that ridiculous get-up, Saint,” he roared, “and let’s hear what you think you’re up to!”

“Well, if you insist,” said the Saint meekly. “But I was just starting to get the feel of the part.”

He unbuttoned the oldfashioned black dress, peeled it off, and draped it over the stair rail. Underneath it he wore a kind of upholstered combination garment extending down to his knees and padded in all the necessary places to produce Mrs. Jafferty’s voluptuous contours. He took that off and hung it similarly over the rail, where it slid down to join the dress., Completing his descent of the stairs, he removed the orange-colored wig and set it carefully on the banister knob at the bottom.

“It’s Templar!” croaked Mr. Clarron. And for one delirious instant he felt inspired, invulnerable. “He did it in that disguise! He was with Mrs. Halberd this afternoon when I said I was going to London. She’s probably his accomplice––”

“Miss Halberd,” Teal said precisely, “is a police officer, acting under my orders.”

“As it eventually dawned on me,” said the Saint. “And there never was a Mrs. Jafferty, except when Reginald dressed up in that outfit. Instead of trying to dream up the perfect alibi, which has tripped up a lot of bright lads, he dreamed up the perfect scapegoat. And before he has any more attacks of genius, and before I budge from here, I wish someone would go through his pockets, where they’ll find Mrs. Clarron’s jewels. And if he has anything to say after that, ask him why he’s wearing those white cotton gloves.”

viii

“What do you mean, it eventually dawned on you that I was with the police?” Adrienne Halberd demanded sulkily.

Simon lighted a cigarette.

“The way you picked me up at Skindle’s was rather determined,” he said. “But I could swallow that temporarily. When you told me you were investigating for an insurance company, I could take that for a while too. There are such things as female private eyes, even if they aren’t very often eyefulls. And when you said you’d been a distant adorer of mine since you were in pigtails, it was piling it up a bit tall, but I could still open my mouth that wide. Weird as it may seem, I have met such crazy gals. But with all that build-up, you’d set yourself a lot to live up to. And soon after you found out that I hadn’t any information to add to what you’d told me, or any definite plan to let you in on, you changed quite startlingly. Gone was the worshiping bug-eyed fan. You became impatient, critical—even caustic. You couldn’t see any merit at all in the idea that I adlibbed on two seconds’ notice when Reggie started to amble over. And it wasn’t such a bad ene, either. But it made you almost rude.”

“If I remember,” she said, “you weren’t such a para-gon–-“

“But I wasn’t trying to sell anything, darling. You had been. And the transformation was just too sudden. A real fan would have thought anything I suggested was marvelous, no matter how screwy or dangerous it sounded. And then I realized something else. This was Claud Eustace’s last big case, and he’d warned me to keep out of it, but I told him I intended to stick my nose in anyway. Yet I came straight to Maidenhead, and none of the local constabulary was around to meet me and back up Teal’s orders. More surprising still, there wasn’t even a vestige of a cop anywhere around here, keeping tabs on Reggie or trying to save Mrs. Clarron from being bumped off. So at last I connected. The cop had to be you. Teal had plenty of time to phone you while I was driving down from Heath Row, tell you I was headed for Skindle’s, tell you to pick me up there, rope me, keep me handy. The explanation you had to hatch up between you wasn’t so hard to invent; but I could almost hear the wheels whirring in Teal’s fat head, and see his buttons popping with pride at his own brilliance.”

Chief Inspector Teal thumbed open a tiny envelope of spearmint and mailed the contents in his mouth.

“All right,” he said trenchantly. “But what happened after Miss Halberd left you in her cottage?”

“After she left me to phone you for more advice,” said the Saint smoothly, “I went over those random hunches again and convinced myself. Then I knew I wouldn’t have much more time to work on my own, and I really was seriously worried about what my appearance and my story might rush Reggie into doing. And I decided I just had to see if I couldn’t find a clue in his house—which you couldn’t have tried without a search warrant. You know my methods, Claud. Impulsive. So I picked up the phone and called Mrs. Clarron, and said I was the local police.”

“Falsely representing yourself to be a police officer,” barked Teal.

“For which I might easily get fined a few pounds,” said the Saint sadly. “I said that Mr. Clarron had asked us to keep an eye on her on account of a suspicious character in the neighborhood; and it was really a break when she wasn’t a bit surprised. Reggie had warned her about the Saint. So I asked if we might send a man over to make sure that everything was all right. She said yes, but she couldn’t let him in. I said that was all right, Mr. Clarron had left us a key. I moved my car up the road, walked back, and jiggered the lock, which is a very easy one.”

“He broke in,” jabbered Mr. Clarron forlornly. “He admits it!”

It was not a very effective effort, considering the heap of jewels from his pockets which one of the constables was laboriously inventorying while the other counted them on to an outspread handkerchief; and Teal glanced at him almost pityingly,

“I told her I wanted to check all the windows,” Simon went on, “which gave me an excuse to roam through the house. I didn’t have to roam far. In Reggie’s bedroom, the first thing that caught my eye was a typical old theatrical trunk. I opened the lid; and right on top was this wig, and underneath it those dowager-size falsies.”

He paused for a dramatic moment which he could not deny himself, releasing a leisured streamer of smoke.

“It was all clear in a bolt of lightning. There was no mistaking that hair—I’d seen Mrs. Jafferty at the pub, as Adrienne can tell you. And she’d told me that he was an actor, and once played with a sort of minstrel troupe. And I could see Reggie’s face as I’d met him this afternoon, and of course it was Mrs. Jafferty’s, with the powder and rouge and lipstick off and those horn-rimmed glasses added. And I remembered that in those old music-hall skits with a comic charwoman, which Mrs. Jafferty had reminded me of nothing else but, the part was nearly always played by a man.”

“Go on.”

“What a wonderful gag, Claud! He passes himself off as his own housekeeper, and creates an identity that a dozen tradesmen and villagers will vouch for—only telling his wife that he can’t find anyone and he’s doing all the housework himself. Being confined to her bed, she never saw him go out or come in in that costume; and they never had visitors. So when she’s found dead, and her jewels are stolen, and Mrs. Jafferty has disappeared, it’s so obvious that he doesn’t need much of an alibi. The beetle brains of the CID are so busy combing the country for Mrs. Jafferty that they’d never think of anything else.”

“But what did you do? Teal almost howled.

“I didn’t stop there. In the top drawer of his dresser I found those gloves he had on, and a small crowbar which is now on the floor of his wife’s bedroom where he used it to jimmy her jewel drawer. No doubt someone would swear Mrs. Jafferty bought it. I went to the maid’s room. There were a few clothes and personal articles which a woman like that would have— he was that thorough. And I also found this, which you can bet Mrs. Jafferty bought from the local chemist.”

He produced a small dark bottle from his pocket and handed it over.

“Believe me, Claud, that was a jolt. I’d hoped to goose him into something rash, but it was meant to be something that I could move in fast and prevent—like perhaps a clonk on the head with that crowbar. And now I was certain that this was the night, with him going to London and Mrs. Jafferty supposedly out. But poison …”

Adrienne Halberd was reading the label on the bottle over Teal’s shoulder, and her face had gone white.

“She had a lovely plate of Irish stew,” said the Saint remorselessly. “I said, just to clinch it: “I bet your cook is an Irish woman.’ ‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘we haven’t been able to get a cook for weeks. My husband has to do everything, but he does it so well–-‘ “

A sort of inarticulate sob came from the talented husband; and Mr. Teal somewhat belatedly remembered an official obligation.

“Mr. Clarron,” he said formally, “it’s my duty to warn you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence. Now, did you wish to make any statement?”

“I did it,” Clarron said hopelessly. “Everything. Just as he said.”

Teal nodded to the constable with the notebook.

“And the one before?”

“Yes. I knocked the radio into her bath.”

“What about the first one—the one who was drowned?”

“I killed her too,” Clarron said with his head in his hands ‘I upset the boat and held her under.”

Suddenly the girl thrust herself between them.

“You idiots, all of you!” she cried insubordinately. “We might still save this one. We should be getting a doctor–-“

“Don’t waste his time,” said the Saint. “I tried to break it all to Mrs. Clarron, but it was tough going. As you can imagine. She got quite hysterical at one stage; but luckily there was quite a hysterical play on television at the same time, so nobody outside would have noticed much. But at least she lost all her appetite. I took advantage of that to arrange the table as if she’d been eating, and put most of the stew, the wine, and the coffee in other containers, which you can take for analysis if you need it. I got her half convinced, but I knew she was in no condition to play dead when Reggie came in, even if I could have talked her into trying; and she had to do that if he was to book himself all the way to the gallows. So when I heard his key in the lock, I just gave her a little judo tap on the neck.” Simon smiled apologetically. “She should wake up any minute now, and all she’ll need is an aspirin and a good dinner.”

As if on cue, a dull moan reached them from the floor above; and Adrienne ran up the stairs.

ix

It was somewhat later when Teal, Simon, and the girl wound up back at the cottage next door.