The superintendent listened for a few moments, his expression indicating that his indigestion had returned with a vengeance.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
He dropped the receiver into its cradle and faced the gathering.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” he said heavily, “but I have to return to the station immediately.”
“Another murder?” asked the Saint hopefully.
“I have to brief the chief constable on the progress of our enquiries,” Nutkin said, with a return to his usual pompous manner. But there was something about it which suggested that he would have preferred being summoned to deal with a dead body rather than a live one with gold braid on its shoulders.
The dons rose as the detective made to leave. Their eagerness for the amateur- Sherlock session had clearly evaporated, and the Saint realised that little was likely to be gained by pressing the subject at that moment. He contented himself with the thought that he could always come again.
The goodbyes were brief, and a few minutes later the Saint found himself walking across the main courtyard beside Nutkin. The detective did not seem to welcome his company and Simon saw no reason to force a conversation from which he would learn exactly nothing. Nutkin’s car was parked in the square, and the Saint lingered beneath the main gateway and watched him drive away.
He leaned against the wall while his gaze roamed round the quadrangle. Except for the quantity of snow it was identical to when he had cut across it and discovered Lazentree’s body. But though everything seemed to be the same he had a nagging feeling that it was in some way different.
As he stood scanning the scene and trying to decipher the subtle change that had taken place, a lone figure hurried down the college steps and headed for the doorway into the adjoining court with a large package under his arm.
“A bit early for delivering Christmas presents,” the Saint observed to himself thoughtfully. “Even for a Santa Claus.”
Keeping close to the wall, he followed Professor Edwin Darslow into the neighbouring courtyard, past the spot where Sir Basil had been murdered, and out into a narrow close of terraced cottages that bordered the college grounds.
Staying in the protective shadows of the doorway that gave onto the pavement, he watched Darslow cross the road and stop beside a car. After a hurried glance each way as if to assure himself that the coast was clear, the professor opened the rear hatch and put the parcel inside.
The Saint smiled softly in the darkness and blessed the impulse that had prompted him to follow the professor. Darslow’s actions were curious enough by themselves, but there was something else that made his smile tighten, as he remedied the memory lapse that had worried him a few minutes before. The car was a battered Austin saloon, and the last time he had seen it was in the main courtyard of St. Enoch’s a few moments before Sir Basil Lazentree was murdered.
5
With a final furtive look around, Darslow let himself into the nearest cottage. The slamming of the- door was immediately followed by the scrape of a bolt being shot home. A moment later a light came on behind the curtains of the broad downstairs window.
The roadway and pavement were deserted, but lights showed in several other windows on the street. Simon lingered in the shadows until he was sure that neither the professor nor his neighbours were looking out from behind their curtains. Satisfied that he would be unobserved, he crossed the road and tried the handle at the blunt end of the Austin. It was securely locked. Had he been carrying even the most rudimentary instrument, the mechanism would not have survived his probing for more than a few seconds, but he had not expected for a moment to need any such thing when he set out.
He straightened quickly and glanced along the close at the sound of a door opening and the clatter of milk bottles on the step. Conscious of how suspicious he looked, he turned on his heel and walked briskly back to the college gate from where he could see Darslow’s cottage and most of the close without being visible himself.
Analysed individually, the three pointers that came together to make Professor Edwin Darslow a suspect were each completely innocuous. Why shouldn’t his car be parked outside the college wherein he worked? Why shouldn’t he put a parcel in the boot of the aforementioned automobile? And why shouldn’t an academic who has spent his life surrounded by books be ill at ease in the company of the most notorious outlaw of his generation, especially when the said outlaw is investigating the murder of the said academic’s boss? The Saint was fully aware that he might be adding one and one and one and making four. But it was the only equation that had so far presented itself, and he wasn’t going to dismiss it until he had double-checked the arithmetic.
Short of hammering on Darslow’s door, dragging him out, and forcing him to open his car and the mysterious package, which would have lacked a certain degree of subtlety, there were only two options open. One was to return to the hotel and bring back the kit of burglarious implements which he always carried with him in readiness for all contingencies; the other was to do nothing and wait on events.
While the Saint considered the alternatives the light downstairs was extinguished and after a few moments another came on in the room above. Ten minutes later that too went out.
His watch showed ten forty-five, which seemed a fairly early bedtime unless the professor was planning an equally early start in the morning. The Saint waited for a further five minutes, to assure himself that Darslow had done nothing more exciting than go to bed, before retracing his steps through the college grounds and heading back for his hotel. Whatever Edwin Darslow’s plans for the following day, it seemed an odds-on chance that they included the parcel and its contents. Simon decided that it might prove more interesting to keep an eye on the professor and his package than to pre-empt events by breaking into the car.
In spite of Simon Templar’s scepticism about the virtues of early rising, there were occasions when his vocation made such tiresome activities mandatory. The sun rose at seven twenty-five the next morning and the Saint witnessed its first rays pierce the sky from behind the wheel of the Hirondel. Faced with the choice of enduring the discomforts of keeping the house and its occupant under surveillance all night or of returning early in the morning and risking missing Darslow’s exit, he had gambled on the latter. The fact that the professor’s car was still in the same spot, and he had arrived in time to see the bedroom light switched on, showed that the bet had paid off.
He had parked the Hirondel at the T junction where the close met a quiet side road which in turn connected with the main thoroughfares of the city. Through the side window he could see the entire close at a glance, while the windscreen provided a clear view of the road leading to the city centre, the direction in which anyone leaving the close was most likely to go.
He leaned across and pushed open the passenger door in response to a rap on the window. Chantek slid into the seat beside him.
She smiled brightly.
“Good morning.”
Simon looked at her doubtfully.
“Is it? I’ve been here an hour and he hasn’t done anything more exciting than take in the milk.”
Chantek delved into the carrier bag she had brought and produced a vacuum flask and a stack of bacon sandwiches.
“Coffee?”
“That’s the best offer I’ve had today,” he said gratefully.
Aware that he would have to leave the hotel before the kitchen started serving breakfast, he had taken the precaution of calling Chantek the night before and enlisting her help in combating early morning hypoglycemia, though he was not entirely motivated by the need for nutrition. The department store was closed out of respect, and he had his own ideas about how to fill the time on her hands.