At half-past twelve he found himself turning on to the Embankment with every expectation of being told that Mr. Teal was too busy to see him; but he was shown up a couple of minutes after he had sent in his name.
"Have you found out why Enstone committed suicide?" he asked.
"I haven't," said Teal, somewhat shortly. "His brokers say it's true that he'd been speculating successfully. Perhaps he had another account with a different firm which wasn't so lucky. We'll find out."
"Have you seen Costello or Hammel ?"
"I've asked them to come and see me. They're due here about now."
Teal picked up a typewritten memorandum and studied it absorbedly. He would have liked to ask some questions in his turn, but he didn't. He had failed lamentably, so far, to establish any reason whatsoever why Enstone should have committed suicide; and he was annoyed. He felt a personal grievance against the Saint for raising the question without also taking steps to answer it, but pride forbade him to ask for enlightenment. Simon lighted a cigarette and smoked imperturbably until in a few minutes Costello and Hammel were announced. Teal stared at the Saint thoughtfully while the witnesses were seating themselves, but strangely enough he said nothing to intimate that police interviews were not open to outside audiences.
Presently he turned to the tall man with the thin black moustache.
"We're trying to find a reason for Enstone's suicide, Mr. Costello," he said. "How long have you known him?"
"About eight or nine years."
"Have you any idea why he should have shot himself?"
"None at all, Inspector. It was a great shock. He had been making more money than most of us. When we were with him last night, he was in very high spirits—his family was on the way home, and he was always happy when he was looking forward to seeing them again."
"Did you ever lose money in any of his companies?"
"No."
"You know that we can investigate that?"
Costello smiled slightly.
"I don't know why you should take that attitude, Inspector, but my affairs are open to any examination."
"Have you been making money yourself lately?"
"No. As a matter of fact, I've lost a bit," said Costello frankly. "I'm interested in International Cotton, you know."
He took out a cigarette and a lighter, and Simon found his eyes riveted on the device. It was of an uncommon shape, and by some means or other it produced a glowing heat instead of a flame. Quite unconscious of his own temerity, the Saint said: "That's something new, isn't it? I've never seen a lighter like that before."
Mr. Teal sat back blankly and gave the Saint a look which would have shrivelled any other interrupter to a cinder; and Costello turned the lighter over and said: "It's an invention of my own—I made it myself."
"I wish I could do things like that," said the Saint admiringly. "I suppose you must have had a technical training."
Costello hesitated for a second. Then:
"I started in an electrical engineering workshop when I was a boy," he explained briefly, and turned back to Teal's desk.
After a considerable pause the detective turned to the tubby man with glasses, who had been sitting without any signs of life except the ceaseless switching of his eyes from one speaker to another.
"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.