Read Online Saint Errant by Leslie Charteris - Free Book Online Page B

performed on a new customer who wanted to cash a check. And with the same impenetrable decisiveness he said: “Mrs Verity come here with Mr Maurice Kerr. He is what you call a-ah, playboy. A leetle old, perhaps, but most charming. Perhaps you should ask him your questions. If you wait, I tell you where he lives.”
    The address he came back with was only a half mile south, on a side street off Collins Avenue. There were still lights in the house when the Saint’s car pulled up outside a mere matter of minutes later; and a man who could only have been Kerr him self, in white tie and a smoking jacket, opened the door to the Saint’s casual knock. His somewhat florid face peered out under the porch light with strictly reasonable ineffusiveness.
    He said: “What do you want? Who are you?” But his tone was still genial enough to be described as charming.
    “A moment with you, Mr Maurice Kerr,” the Saint answered. “You may call me the Saint-temporarily. Before we’re through with you, you may think of some other names. And this is Miss Holm.”
    Kerr’s eyebrows rose like levitating gray bushes.
    “I don’t pretend to understand you.”
    “May we come in? This is a matter of life and death.”
    Kerr hesitated, frowned, then swung the door wide.
    “Do. In here, in the library.”
    The library was lighted for the benefit of those who liked to read comfortably at the least expense to their eyesight. The walls were lined with books, an artificial fire flickered in the fireplace, and chairs, lovingly fashioned to fit the human form, were spaced at tasty intervals.
    “Sit down,” Kerr invited graciously. “What is this all about?”
    Simon remained standing. He put his lighter to a cigarette and said: “Our spies tell us that you went to the Quarterdeck Club with Lida Verity tonight,”
    He risked the exaggeration intentionally, and saw it pay off as Kerr paused to pick up the highball which he had obviously put down when they knocked.
    Kerr sipped the drink, looked at the Saint. “Yes?”
    “Why did you leave the club without her?”
    “May I ask what that has to do with you?”
    “Lida was a friend of mine,” Patricia said. “She asked us to help her.”
    “Just before she died,” the Saint said.
    Kerr’s soft manicured hand tightened around his glass. His dark eyes swung like pendulums between the Saint and his lady. He didn’t catch his breath-quite; and Saint wondered why.
    “But that’s ghastly!” Kerr’s voice expressed repugnance, shock, and semi-disbelief. “She-she lost too much?”
    “Meaning?” the Saint asked.
    “She killed herself, of course.”
    “Lida,” Simon explained, “was shot through the heart in the grounds of the Quarterdeck Club.”
    “You’re trying to frighten me,” Kerr said. “Lida couldn’t have been-“
    “Who said so? Who told you she committed suicide?”
    “Why, why-it was just a-” Kerr broke off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    The Saint did not actually groan out loud, but the impulse was there.
    “I can’t understand why this is always happening to me,” he complained. “I thought I spoke reasonably good English. The idea should be easy to grasp. All I told you was that Lida Verity was dead. You immediately assumed that she’d committed suicide. Statistics show that suicide is a helluva long way from being the most common way to die. Therefore the probability is that something or someone specifically gave you that idea. Either you knew that she might have had good reason to commit suicide, or somebody else has already talked to you. Whichever it is, I want to know about it.”
    Kerr licked his lips.
    “I fail to see what right you have to come here and cross-examine me,” he said, but his voice was not quite as positive as the words.
    “Let’s not make it a matter of rights,” said the Saint easily. “Let’s put it down to my fatal bigness of heart. I’m giving you the chance to talk to me before you talk to the sheriff.