The Saint and Mr Teal (Once More the Saint)

"Why not try Jones's fingerprints?" suggested the Saint mildly. "It seems simpler than suspecting me automatically. I've told you-I'm not in this party. That's why I sent for you."

Teal regarded the two contorted bodies thoughtfully. The photographer had finished his work, and he was packing his exposed plates away in a satchel. The de­tective took a step forward.

" I should take a lot of care, if I were you," murmured the Saint. "I'd hate you to have an accident, and I suppose the juice is still functioning."

They went round the room circumspectly. Someone discovered a collection of switches, and reversed them. A likely-looking terminal was disconnected by a man who donned rubber gloves for the purpose. Finally they approached the dome again, and one of the men tossed bits of wire onto it from various angles. Nothing happened; and eventually Teal knelt down and tried to detach the gun from the dead man's hand. He remained alive, but it took the efforts of two other men to unlock the terrific clutch of the dead man's fingers.

Teal straightened up and clicked out the magazine, "Two shots here." He jerked the sliding jacket. "One in the breech. . . . We picked up four shells, and four shots have been fired in this room." Teal turned the figures over in his head as if he loathed them. The chagrin showed on his face; and Simon Templar relaxed gently. It was the one risk that he had to take-if Jones's gun had contained more shells it would have been a tougher proposition, but seven was a possible load. "You're lucky," Teal said venomously.

He turned the gun over in his hand, and suddenly he stiffened.

"What's that?"

He displayed a thin silvery scratch on the blue-black steel, and Simon gazed at the mark along with the other detectives.

"It looks as if it had hit something," said one of them.

"I'll say it does," grunted Mr. Teal.

He crawled round the room on his hands and knees, studying the bullet scars that had already been dis­covered. One of them occupied him for some time, and he called over one of the other men to join him. There was a low-voiced colloquy; and then Teal rose again and dusted the knees of his trousers. He faced the Saint again.

"That shot there was a ricochet," he said, "and it could have come off Jones's gun."

"Shooting round corners and hitting itself?" drawled the Saint mildly. "You know, you're a genius-or rather Jones must have been. That's an invention that's been wanted for years. Damned useful thing in a tight corner, Claud-you aim one way, and the bullet comes back and hits the man standing behind you --"

''I don't think that was it," said the detective short-windedly. "What kind of gun are you carrying these days?"

Simon spread out his hands.

"You know I haven't got a license."

"Never mind. We'll just look you over."

The Saint shrugged resignedly and held out his arms. Teal frisked him twice, efficiently, and found nothing. He turned to the odd man.

"You'd better get busy and dig out all the bullets. We'll be able to tell from the marks of the rifling whether they were all fired from the same gun."

A trickle of something like ice-cold water fluttered down Simon Templar's spine. That was the one possibility that he had overlooked-the one inspiration he had not expected the plump detective to produce. He hadn't even thought that Teal's suspicions would have worked so hard. That gramophone record must have scored a deeper hit than he anticipated-deeper perhaps than he had ever wanted it to be. It must have taken something that had rubbed salt viciously into an old and stubbornly unhealed wound to kindle an animosity that would drive itself so far in the attempt to pin guilt on a quarter where there was so much prima-facie innocence.

But the Saint schooled himself to a careless shrug. The least trace of expression would have been fatal. He had never acted with such intensity in his life as he did at that moment, keeping unruffled his air of rather bored protest. He knew that Teal was watching him with the eyes of a lynx, with his rather soft mouth compressed into a narrow line which symbolized that unlooked-for streak of malice.

"I can't help it if you want to waste time making a damned fool of yourself," he said wearily. "If there's a scratch on that gun it's probably there because Jones did happen to bang it on something. If there's a ricco anywhere, it's probably one that bounced off some of the apparatus-there's any amount of solid metal about, and I told you how Jones was thrashing around when the current got him. Why go trying to fix some­thing on me?"

"Only because I'm curious," said the detective in­flexibly. "You've had quite a lot of jokes at our expense, so I'm sure you won't mind us having a little harmless fun at yours."

Simon took out his cigarette case.

"Am I to consider myself under arrest-is that the idea?"

"Not yet," said Teal, with a vague note of menace sticking out of the way he said it.