13 The Saint Intervenes (Boodle)

impenetrable stolidity and aloofness. He dis­missed the escort of page-boys and strode to the door of the millionaire's suite. It was closed and silent. Teal knocked on it authoritatively, and after a moment it opened six inches and disclosed a pale agitated face. Teal introduced himself again and the door opened wider, enlarging the agitated face into the unmistakable full-length portrait of an assistant hotel manager. Simon followed the detective in, endeavouring to look equally official.

'This will be a terrible scandal, Inspector,' said the assist­ant manager.

Teal looked at him woodenly.

'Were you here when it happened ?'

'No. I was downstairs, in my office——'

Teal collected the information, and ploughed past him. On the right, another door opened off the generous lobby; and through it could be seen another elderly man whose equally pale face and air of suppressed agitation bore a certain general similarity and also a self-contained superiority to the first. Even without his sober black coat and striped trousers, grey side-whiskers and passive hands, he would have stamped himself as something more cosmic than the assistant manager of an hotel—the assistant manager of a man.

'Who are you?' asked Teal.

'I am Fowler, sir. Mr. Enstone's valet.'

'Were you here?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Where is Mr. Enstone?'

'In the bedroom, sir.'

They moved back across the lobby, with the assistant man­ager assuming the lead. Teal stopped. 'Will you be in your office if I want you?' he asked, with great politeness; and the assistant manager seemed to disappear from the scene even before the door of the suite closed behind him.

Lewis Enstone was dead. He lay on his back beside the bed, with his head half rolled over to one side, in such a way that both the entrance and the exit of the bullet which had killed him could be seen. It had been fired squarely into his right eye, leaving the ugly trail which only a heavy-calibre bullet fired at close range can leave. . . . The gun lay under the fingers of his right hand.

'Thumb on the trigger,' Teal noted aloud.

He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on a pair of gloves, pink-faced and unemotional. Simon observed the room. An or­dinary, very tidy bedroom, barren of anything unusual except the subdued costliness of furnishing. Two windows, both shut and fastened. On a table in one corner, the only sign of dis­order, the remains of a carelessly-opened parcel. Brown paper, ends of string, a plain cardboard box—empty. The millionaire had gone no further towards undressing than loosening his tie and undoing his collar.

'What happened?' asked Mr. Teal.

'Mr. Enstone had had friends to dinner, sir,' explained Fowler. 'A Mr. Costello—'

'I know that. What happened when he came back from seeing them off?'

'He went straight to bed, sir.'

'Was this door open?'

'At first, sir. I asked Mr. Enstone about the morning, and he told me to call him at eight. I then asked him whether he wished me to assist him to undress, and he gave me to un­derstand that he did not. He closed the door, and I went back to the sitting-room.'