Prelude for War (27 page)

It was a bitter draught for
Mr Teal to get past his
uvula, but he managed it,
even though his gorge threatened
to suffocate him. Perhaps
it was one of the most prodigious
victories of
self-discipline that he had ever achieved in his
life.

“That’s what I
want,” he said, with a superhuman effort of carelessness that made him
look as if he was about to
lapse into an apoplectic
coma. “Why should we go on fight
ing each other?
We’re both really out for the same thing,
and
this is a case where we could work together and you
could
save yourself getting into trouble as well. I’ll be quite
frank with you. I remembered everything you said at Wind
lay’s place, and I made some inquiries on my own responsi
bility. I’ve seen a verbatim report of the Kennet inquest,
and I’ve talked with one of the reporters who was there.
I agree with you that it was conducted in a very unsatis
factory way. I put it to the chief commissioner that we
ought to consider reopening the case. He agreed with me
then, but yesterday evening he told me I’d better drop it.
I’m pretty sure there’s pressure being put on him to leave
well alone—the kind of pressure he can’t afford to ignore.
But I don’t like dropping cases. If there’s anything fishy about this
it ought to come out. Now, you said something
to
me about the Sons of France, didn’t you?”

“I may have mentioned
them,” Simon admitted cau
tiously. “But——
”

Chief Inspector Teal
suddenly opened his baby-blue eyes
and they were not bored or comatose or
stupid, but unex
pectedly clear and
penetrating in the round placidity of his
face.

“Well, that’s why I
came to see you. You may have some
thing that puts the whole
puzzle together. Bravache and
Dumaire are
Frenchmen.” Mr Teal paused. He fashioned
his gum once into the
shape of a spindle, and then clamped
his
teeth destructively down on it. “And I happen to have
found out
that John Kennet was a member of the Sons of
France,”
he said.

VI

How
  
Mr
  
Fairweather
  
Opened
  
His

Mouth, and Mr Uniatz Put
His Foot

in It

“
K
ENNET
was a member of the Sons
of France?” Simon
repeated. “Are you
sure?”

“Yes. His mother was
French, and he was brought up
with French as a second
language. He spoke it perfectly.
I told you I’d been making
inquiries. I’ve established the
fact that he joined the
Sons of France six months ago under
the name of Jean de
la Paix. Incidentally, he was also a member of the French Communist
party.” Teal went on
watching the Saint
searchingly and with a glint of malice.
“I
thought you’d have known that.”

The Saint blew a
geometrically faultless smoke ring
across the table.
His face was tranquilly uncommunicative,
relieved
from blankness only by a faint inscrutable smile; but behind the mask his brain
was running like a dynamo.

“I might have
guessed,” he said.

“Did you?”

“I’m a good guesser.
‘Jean de la Paix,’ too—he had a
sense of humour, after all.
And guts. For a registered mem
ber of the French
Communist party to join the Sons of
France at all was
guts, and he must have got further than
just
joining. That would only be another reason why he
had
to be cremated.”

“What was the first
reason?”

Simon looked down at his
fingernails.

“You want to know a
good deal,” he said, and looked up
again.

“Of course I do.”

“Well, so do I.”
The Saint thought for a while, and made
up
his mind. “All right, Claud. You asked for it, and you
can have it. For about the first time in my life I’ll be per
fectly frank with you. It ‘d be worth while if it only meant
that I could get on with my job without having to cope
with all your suspicions and persecutions as well as my own
troubles. But I don’t suppose it ‘ll do any good, because
as usual you probably won’t believe me… . You see,
Claud, the fact is that I don’t know any more than you do.”

Teal’s face darkened.

“I didn’t come here
to waste my time——
”

“And I don’t want you
to waste mine. I told you you
wouldn’t believe me. But
there it is. I don’t know any more than you do. The only difference is that not
being a police
man I haven’t got so many great open
spaces in my brain
to start with, so I don’t need to know
so much.”

Mr Teal’s spearmint, under
the systematic massage of his
molars, became in turn a
sphere, an hourglass and some
thing like a short-handled
frying pan.

“Go on,” he said
lethargically. “Make allowances for
my
stupidity, and tell me how much I know.”

“As you like. Let’s
start with Comrade Luker. As you
know, he is the current top
tycoon of the arms racket.”

“I suppose so.”

“Comrades Fairweather
and Sangore are his stooges in
a couple of British
armaments firms which he controls.”

“I don’t——
”

“Call them what you
like, and they’re still his stooges.
Between them, those
three are running a combine that prac
tically constitutes
a monopoly of the arms industry in this
country.
Their only job is manufacturing engines and instru
ments
and gadgets that kill people, and the only way they
can
make good money is in having a good demand for their
products.
I shall also ask you to grasp the idea that one
customer’s
money will buy as much champagne and caviar as another’s, whoever he wants to
kill. But under the laws we suffer from there’s nothing criminal in any of
that—
nothing that you could take any professional interest
in.
If a man gets drunk and kills somebody with his car,
it’s your job to put him in jail; but if he organizes the killing
of several thousand people they make him an earl, and it’s
your job to stop the traffic when he wants to cross the street.
The technical name for that is civilization. Correct?”

“Go on.”

The Saint poured out some
more coffee.

“Now let’s go to
France. There they have a political
Fascist
organization called the Sons of France. It may or
may
not be illegal. I seem to remember that they passed
a
law not long ago to ban all organizations of that kind,
and the old Croix de Feu was disbanded on account of it.
The Sons of France may have found a way to get round
the law, or the law may not give a damn, or they may have too much pull
already, or something; or they may just be
illegal
and proud of it, and even if that’s the case it’s noth
ing
to do with you. It’s a matter for the French police.”

“I’m listening.”

“That’s something.
Well, from one indication and
another it seems pretty
clear that Luker is backing the
Sons of France. That’s
natural enough. Dictators always
go in for rearmament in a
big way, and therefore Fascist
regimes are good for
business. Besides which, if you can
get enough synthetic
Caesars thumping their chests and bel
lowing defiance at
each other it won’t be long before you
have
a nice big war, which means a boom for the armourers.
But
it isn’t a crime to finance a political party, or else
half
the titled people in England would be in the hoose-
gow.
Unless the Sons of France
are
an illegal organization,
in which case it’s still a matter for the French police and
not for you.”

“You haven’t got down
to Kennet yet,” Teal said slug
gishly.

“Kennet was a
pacifist, a Communist, and all kinds of
idealistic
‘ist
.’
He thought he could do a lot of good by show
ing
up the arms racket. Old stuff. Dozens of people have
done it before, and everybody says ‘How shocking!’
and
‘Why can’t something be done about
it ?’ and then they go
off and forget
about it. But Kennet went on. He joined
the Sons of France. And by some fluke he must have found
out something that really was worth finding out; so
he had
an accident. But you still
can’t do anything about it.”

“I can do something
about wilful murder.”

“I did say he was
murdered, but that’s just what seems
obvious to me. I’ve
no evidence at all. We both know
Windlay was murdered, but
I’ve no evidence to pin it on
any particular person any
more than you have. It’s no
good just saying that
whoever did the actual jobs we know
that Luker was at
the back of them. What are you going to
tell
a jury ? With people like we’re dealing with, you’d want an army of
eyewitnesses before you could even get a war
rant.
Even then I don’t know if you could get it. They’re too big. Look how you’ve
already had the word from up
top to lay off the case.
British justice is the most incorrupt
ible in the world,
so they tell you; but you can always
whitewash a crook
if he’s big enough because it isn’t what they call ‘in the public interest’
that he should be shown up.
And look at the
circumstances of these Kennet and Windlay
cases.
It’s a million to one that you could never get any conclusive evidence on
either of them if you worked until
you could tuck your
beard into your boots.”

Mr Teal rolled the pink
wrapping of his chewing gum
into a ball and went on
rolling it. His china-blue eyes were
still unwaveringly
inquisitorial.

“I’ll agree with some
of that up to a point. But you know more than that. You know something else
that you’re still
working on.”

“Only one
thing.” Simon was calm and collected: he had
made
up his mind to be candid, and he was going through
with
it—it could do him no harm, only perhaps reduce the
complications
of Teal’s interference. “Kennet fell pretty
hard
for Lady Valerie Woodchester, who was set on to
him
by Fairweather to try and steer him off. He talked
to
her a lot—I don’t know how much he told her. And he
left
some of his evidence in writing. That’s why the flat was
torn apart when Windlay was murdered. They were looking
for it. But it wasn’t there. Lady Valerie’s got it.”

The detective’s eyes
suddenly opened wide.

“But——
”

“I know,” said
the Saint wearily. “You’re too brilliant,
Claud,
that’s what’s the matter with you. I know all about
it.
So all you’ve got to do is to go to Lady Valerie and say,
‘Where’s that stuff that Kennet gave you?’ Well, you try
it. I have.”

“But if she’s
concealing evidence——
”

“Who said she was? She
did. To me alone—without
witnesses. If you pulled
her into court, she could deny
every word of it, and you
couldn’t prove anything different.”

“But what is she doing
it for?”

“Champagne
coupons.”

“What?”

“Dough. Geetus.
Mazuma. Boodle. Crackle paper. She’s
in business for the
money, the same as I used to be. And
she knows that that
evidence is worth cash to Fairweather and Co. The only way you could break her
down would be
to talk her language, which means
putting up more cash
than the others will, which
personally I don’t propose to do
and you in your job
couldn’t do.” The Saint shook his head.
“It’s
no good, Claud. You still aren’t in the running. You
can’t
even go after her and batter her with your sex appeal
—not
with a figure like yours. You’re sunk. Why don’t you pack up and go home to
chivvying the poor little street
bookmakers in Soho, where
you can’t go wrong?” .