giggled.
'I shouldn't forget that!' In obscurely elaborate pantomime, he closed his fist with his forefinger extended and his thumb cocked vertically upwards, and aimed the forefinger between Hammel's eyes. 'Shtick 'em up!' he commanded gravely, and at once relapsed into further merriment, in which his guests joined somewhat hysterically.
The group separated at the entrance amid much handshaking and back-slapping and alcoholic laughter; and Lewis Enstone wended his way back with cautious and preoccupied steps towards the lift. Mr. Teal took a fresh bite on his gum and tightened his mouth disgustedly.
'Is he staying here?' asked the Saint.
'He lives here,' said the detective. 'He's lived here even when we knew for a face that he hadn't got a penny to his name. Why, I remember once——'
He launched into a lengthy anecdote which had all the vitality of personal bitterness in the telling. Simon Templar, listening with the half of one well-trained ear that would prick up into instant attention if the story took any twist that might provide the germ of an adventure, but would remain intently passive if it didn't, smoked his cigarette and gazed abstractedly into space. His mind had that gift of complete division; and he had another job on hand to think about. Somewhere in the course of the story he gathered that Mr. Teal had once lost some money on the Stock Exchange over some shares in which Enstone was speculating; but there was nothing much about that misfortune to attract his interest, and the detective's mood of disparaging reminiscence was as good an opportunity as any other for him to plot out a few details of the campaign against his latest quarry.
'. . . So I ,lost half my money, and I've kept the rest of it in gilt-edged stuff ever since,' concluded Mr. Teal rancorously; and Simon took the last inhalation from his cigarette and dropped the stub into an ashtray.
'Thanks for the tip, Claud,' he said lightly. 'I gather that next time I murder somebody you'd like me to make it a financier.'
Teal grunted, and hitched his coat round.
'I shouldn't like you to murder anybody,' he said, from his heart. 'Now I've got to go home—I have to get up in the morning.'
They walked towards the street doors. On their left they passed the information desk; and beside the desk had been standing a couple of bored and sleepy page-boys. Simon had observed them and their sleepiness as casually as he had observed the colour of the carpet, but all at once he realised that their sleepiness had vanished. He had a sudden queer sensitiveness of suppressed excitement; and then one of the boys said something loud enough to be overheard which stopped Teal in his tracks and turned him round abruptly.
'What's that?' he demanded.
'It's Mr. Enstone, sir. He just shot himself.'
Mr. Teal scowled. To the newspapers it would be a surprise and a front-page sensation: to him it was a surprise and a potential menace to his night's rest if he butted into any responsibility. Then he shrugged.
'I'd better have a look,' he said, and introduced himself.
There was a scurry to lead him towards the lift. Mr. Teal ambled bulkily into the nearest car, and quite brazenly the Saint followed him. He had, after all, been kindly invited to 'drop in' the next time the plump detective was handling a case. . . . Teal put his hands in his pockets and started in mountainous drowsiness at the downward-flying shaft. Simon studiously avoided his eye, and had a pleasant shock when the detective addressed him almost genially.
'I always thought there was something fishy about that fellow. Did he look as if he'd anything to shoot himself about, except the head that was waiting for him when he woke up?'
It was as if the decease of any financier, however caused, was a benison upon the earth for which Mr. Teal could not help being secretly and quite immorally grateful. That was the subtle impression he gave of his private feelings; but the rest of him was
