“You may have the right idea,” he said grudgingly, running immediately afoul of a triple-pronged, interconnecting cul-de-sac which must have brought frustration to many a hungry mouse.
“I do,” said the Saint. “And isn’t it nice that the fun of investigation will be all yours — because for once I don’t know a thing about what’s going on.”
Teal’s finger had backtracked and was once more near the entrance. After a moment of desperate study it rushed off again in another direction, and rapidly reached another deadend. With a grunt of exasperation he snatched his hand away and hid it beneath the table.
“I just hope for once you’re telling the truth and will stay out of this,” he growled.
“Don’t feel bad about being beaten by a tricky little puzzle like that,” the Saint said sympathetically. “I’ll bet lots of mice never made it even half as far as you did.”
6
Teal’s simmering expression said that if he had had the power he would cheerfully have produced a razor-edged scimitar and with one careless flick disengaged the Saint’s impudent head from his body. But he was practical enough to know that the Saint’s position was logically irrefutable, galling as it was to have to concede it.
“Is there anything else you have to tell me?” he asked.
“No,” said the Saint with genuine sincerity, “except I wish you all the luck in the world with this case, and I’ll be looking forward to reading about it in the papers.”
He stood up, and the detective regarded him with lingering regret and habitual distrust.
“Saint — don’t think for a minute I believe you’ll stay out of this if you thought there was something in it for you.”
“But what could be in it for me? After you’ve done the spadework I may step in and reap the harvest, but for the time being I wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to proceed.”
Teal glowered and called for Grey Wyler, who came sauntering over with a bored expression that plainly stated his feelings about having to waste his time talking to anyone with the low intellectual equipment of a policeman. Dr Manders had picked up some scientific bulletin and was pretending to show his detachment by reading it, but the drumming fingers of his other hand betrayed his nervousness.
Simon stopped beside Jenny on his way to the door and murmured in her ear.
“Don’t change any plans. Don’t speculate out loud about what’s going on.”
“Are you leaving?”
“Before Teal changes his mind about letting me go. Do you know Manders’ address?”
“Not offhand, but he’s in the phone book.”
“What’s the first name or initials?”
“G.F.... But listen, won’t I be seeing you again?”
“You seem to know my number,” he smiled, and went out to his car.
He drove off in the general direction of Tottenham Court Road, but came upon a street-corner phone booth before he got there, and quickly found the address he wanted in the directory. It turned out to be in Bloomsbury, right on the fringe of the University area, and he took the shortest way to it as automatically as if it had been his own home, calling on a knowledge of the complex streets of London that had once been as complete as that of any taxi driver although he had mastered it for less legitimate purposes. And in this case his most urgent purpose was to get there before Teal or some of his deputies got there with similar quests in mind.
Whenever they got around to it, they would be armed with proper search warrants. Simon Templar was perfectly happy to dispense with such luxuries, but his project might be complicated somewhat if the professor turned out to have a family snoozing at home while he was being questioned by Inspector Teal at two-thirty in the morning. Even a wife and possibly a tribe of juvenile Manderses would not, however, present insurmountable difficulties to an adept second-story man like the Saint. Besides, he did not think he had to worry; Bast, in telling about his visit to Manders’ place, had not mentioned the presence of any relatives, and Manders showed no signs in face or jewelry of the bonds of married life.
As he had expected, then, the Saint found Manders’ dwelling dark and to all appearances deserted. It was a very small house of dingy exterior, wedged between larger but even dingier former mansions which had probably been divided into flats or had decayed into student rooming houses. There were no traces of wakefulness in them either. Simon’s only potential problem, then, would be the possible untimely arrival of Dr Manders himself if Teal failed for some reason to detain him. But even a thorough questioning would take a while — and a while, even a short while, was all that Simon needed to carry out what amounted to a routine search for additional evidence.
The lock of Manders’ door offered no more resistance to the Saint’s skill than a stick of butter to a hot knife. Within a few seconds he was inside, carefully replacing the door in its original position, and in fact locking it behind him. Even Manders, if he did return, would not have to know he had a guest.
Simon’s eyes were already accustomed to darkness, and he did not need to add his pen flashlight to the general luminosity of the night in order to find his way through the house. The dining room and the kitchen held no interest for him, nor did the living room at the front of the house. A scholarly type such as Manders would surely possess a room devoted to books, files, records, and the other paraphernalia of his profession, even if the University furnished him with office space at the place of his work.
And if Manders, in addition to being a scholar, also was involved in dishonest or even questionable dealings, he would not be likely to leave incriminating documents lying around the college buildings for any charwoman or prying student to stumble on. The most logical spot for the beginning of a search, then, was his private study, and within two minutes of entering the house the Saint had found it.
It was not a large room, and its lack of space was exaggerated by the quantity of bookshelves and cabinets which lined the walls. Near the single window was a desk and chair. The Saint began his search in the unlocked drawers of the desk and soon decided he was on the wrong track. Even a man quite sure of the safety of his home from prying eyes would not leave damaging papers lying about in the most obvious and easily accessible places — particularly if he had murder on his mind. On the other hand, common sense indicated that Manders was no professional criminal, and it was unlikely that he would go to the extreme of having even minor alterations made in the architecture of his home, the solidity of his chair legs, or the stuffings of his mattress for the purpose of hiding things.
What would such a man do, then, with materials he didn’t wish to share with anybody? He would probably just lock them up in something — assuming he did not burn them — and indulge in the usual naive relaxation of people who think that any run-of-the-mill lock can cause more than three minutes’ discomfiture to a really dedicated searcher.
So Simon quite simply went around the study until he came to the first locked cabinet — a wooden one — and forced it with a letter opener from the top of the desk.
There he found a number of photographs which would ordinarily have held no interest except to a student of a rather specialized type of pornography. The nature of the pictures, however, implied that Dr Manders might be particularly susceptible to blackmail. Such peripheral facts were pleasantly enlightening, but not of much concrete use to the Saint. He was delighted to find, beneath the pictures, some other materials.
The most immediately striking was a letter, typed except for the nourished initial “T” at the bottom, whose text ran as follows: