Prelude for War (6 page)

“I mean—murder,”
said the Saint.

II

How Lady Valerie
 
Complained about

Heroes, and Mr Fairweather
Dropped

His Hat

“S
EEING
that time is flying,” said Peter Quentin, “and since
you have to attend an inquest this morning, I suppose you
could use some extra nourishment.”

“How right you
are,” said the Saint. “Some people have
no
respect for anything. It’s a gloomy thought. Even when
you’re
dead, you’re liable to be lugged out of the morgue
at
the squeak of dawn to have your guts poked over by some
revoltingly healthy jury of red-faced yokels.”

“I like getting you up
early,” said Patricia. “It seems to
lend
a sort of ethereal delicacy to your ideas.”

Simon Templar grinned and
watched Peter nipping the
caps from a row of bottles
of Carlsberg. As a matter of fact it was nearly ten o’clock, and for half an
hour after
breakfast they had been sitting in the
sun on the porch out
side Peter’s dining room.
Two days had gone by since the
fire, and it would have
been hard to identify the supremely
elegant Saint who
sprawled in Peter’s most comfortable de
ck
chair with the blistered smoke-blackened scarecrow
who
had arrived there in the small hours of a certain morning with his grim
foreboding.

He took the tall glass
that Peter handed him and eyed
fit appreciatively.

“And while we’re
soothing our tender nerves with this
ambrosia,” he
said, “I suppose we’d better just run over
what
we’ve found out about these people who roast their
week-end
guests.”

“I might have known I
should be let in for this,” Peter
said
moodily. “I ought to have known better than to ask
you down. This was the most peaceful place in England
before you came near it, but wherever you go something
unpleasant happens.” He lifted his glass and drank. “However,
as usual, I’ve been doing your dirty work. Our local
gossip
writer has been snooping and eavesdropping, and
will
now present his report—such as it is.”

He returned to his chair
and lighted a cigarette before
he went on.

“As you know, the
house that provided the fireworks was
called Whiteways.
The owner is Mr A. S. Fairweather,
a gentleman of
wealth who is highly respected in local
circles.
For fifteen years he warmed a seat in the House
of
Commons as Conservative M.P. for Hamborough, and
for
one year just before he retired he held the job of
secretary
of state for war. His abilities must have impressed
some
people more than they impressed the other members’
of
that cabinet, because as soon as he retired he was offered
a place on the board of the Norfelt Chemical Company,
where he has sat ever since. He has a town house in Grosvenor
Square, a Rolls Royce, and he has recently subscribed
five hundred pounds toward the restoration of our local
parish church—which means that he either has, or has not,
a ripe sense of humour.”

Down by the bottles
something stirred. It was something
that looked rather
like a reconstruction of the Piltdown
Man might have
looked if it had been first badly mauled
with
a sledge hammer and then encased in a brilliant check
suit.

“I know a guy once
what has a chemical factory,”
announced Hoppy
Uniatz, with the happy interest of a
big-game hunter who
hears the conversation veering round
to the subject of
big game. “He makes any kind of liquor. Just say de woid, an’ it’s rye or
boigundy wit’ all de labels
an’ everyting.” A
thought appeared to strike him in a vital
spot.
“Say, maybe we got someting, boss. Maybe dis guy
Fairwedder
is in de same racket.”

The Saint sighed.

Between Simon and Peter
there was the understanding
of men who had fought
shoulder to shoulder in many bat
tles. Between Simon and
Hoppy Uniatz there was no such
bond, since Nature, by
some unfortunate oversight, had neglected to provide Mr Uniatz with any more
gray matter
than was required for the elementary
functions of eating, drinking and handling firearms. He was at once the joy and
despair of Simon’s life; but his dumb devotion to
what he regarded as the positively supernatural genius of the Saint
was so wistful that Simon had never had the heart to let
him go.

“No, Hoppy,” he
said. “That stuff only burns your
throat.
The Norfelt product burns you all over.”

“Chees,” said Mr
Uniatz admiringly. “Where do ya git
dis
stuff?”

“It’s dropped from
aeroplanes,” explained Peter. “In
large
containers weighing about six hundred pounds each.”

Mr Uniatz looked worried.

“But what happens when
dey hit de ground?”

“They break,”
said Peter. “That’s the whole idea. Think it over, Hoppy, while I go on
with my gossip column.”

He refreshed himself again
and continued:

“Brigadier-General
Sir Robert Sangore has stayed with
Fairweather before.
During his last visit he delivered a
stirring address to
the Church Lads’ Brigade, in which Com
rade
Fairweather takes a benevolent interest. He warned
them
particularly against Socialists, Communists, and Paci
fists,
and told them that the Great War was a glorious spree
for
everyone who fought in it. He graduated from Sand
hurst
in the year Dot, served all over the place, got into
the
War Office in 1917 and stayed there until 1930, when he retired to become a
director of the Wolverhampton
Ordnance Company. He is an
officer, a gentleman and a
member of the Cavalry
Club.”

“Lady Valerie
Woodchester,” said Patricia, “is the
spoiled
darling of London Society. She uses Mond’s Van
ishing Cream, Kissabel
Lipstick, and Charmante Skin Tonic.
She goes
to all the right places at all the right times, and
she has her photograph in the
Bystander
every
week. She
has also stolen all my best
clothes.”

“Don’t worry about
that, darling,” said the Saint reas
suringly.
“I’ll take them off her.”

Pat made a face at him.

“That wouldn’t
surprise me a bit,” she said calmly.

“The young hero who
rescued Lady Valerie,” resumed Peter, when order had been restored,
“is Captain Donald
Knightley of the Dragoon
Guards. He has a fine seat on
a horse and a set of
membership cards to all the best night
clubs.
That’s all I could find out about him… . And that
only
leaves John Kennet, the man who didn’t fit in anywhere.”

“Yes,” said the
Saint thoughtfully. “The man who didn’t
fit
in. And he seems to have been the most important one
of
all.”

Patricia made a sharp
restless movement.

“Are you sure?”
she said, as if she was still fighting
against
conviction. “After all, if Fairweather has been in
Parliament, he may have got friendly with Kennet’s
father——
”

“I wouldn’t argue.
The old man may be a bit bothered
about his aitches
now and again, and he may still pretend
that
he belongs to the Labour party, but he joined the
national
government at the right time so of course all the
duchesses
love him because they know his heart must be
in
the right place. If it had been the old man, it might have
been all right. But it wasn’t. It was young Kennet. And
young Kennet
was a pacifist, an anti-blood-sporter, an anti-
capitalist, an anti-Fascist and the Lord knows what not;
and he once said publicly that his father had
proved to be the arch-Judas of the working classes. Well, there
may
be
all sorts of harmless reasons why a fellow like
that should
have been invited to join
that congregation of worshippers
of
the golden calf, but you must admit that he still looks
like the ideal burnt offering.”

There was a silence, in
which the only interruption was
the sound of Mr Uniatz
cautiously uncorking his private bottle of Vat 69, while their thoughts went
on.

Peter said: “Yes. But
that isn’t evidence. You’ve been
very mysterious all this
time, but you must have something
more definite than
that.”

“I’ll give you four
things,” said the Saint.

He stood up and leaned
against one of the pillars of the
porch, facing them,
very tall and dark and somehow deadly
against the sunlit
peace of the garden. Their eyes were
drawn as if by a
magnet.

“One: Kennet’s door
was locked.”

Patricia stared at him.

“So you
mentioned,” Peter said slowly. “But if everybody who locked a door——
”

“I can only think of
two kinds of people who’d lock their
bedroom doors when
they were staying in a private house,”
said
the Saint. “Frightened virgins and—frightened men.”

“Maybe he was
expecting a call from Lady Valerie,”
suggested
Patricia half heartedly.

“Maybe he was,”
agreed the Saint patiently. “But if
that
made him lock his door, he must have been a very
undiscriminating
young man. And in any case, that’s only
half
of it. He not only locked his door, but he took the
key
out of the lock. Now, even assuming that anyone might
lock
a door, there’s only one reason for taking the key out
of
the lock. And that’s when you realize that an expert
might
be able to turn the key from the outside—in other
words,
when you’re really thinking hard along the lines of
a
pretty determined attempt to get at you.”

“He might have been
tight when he went to bed,” Peter
pointed
out. “That would account for almost any weird thing he did. And besides
that, it might account for him
not hearing the fire
alarm.”

“It might,” said
the Saint bluntly. “But while you’re at it, why don’t you think of the
other possibility? Suppose
he didn’t lock the door at
all. Suppose somebody else did ?”

They were silent again.

“Go on,” said
Patricia.

Simon looked at her.

“Two: during all the
time we were there, did you see
any signs of a
servant?”

“It might have been
their night out.”

“Yes. And with a
house that size, there must have been
several of them. And
Fairweather let them all go out
together, on a Saturday
night, when he had a house full
of week-end guests. And
Valerie Woodchester cooked the
dinner, and Lady Sangore
washed the dishes. Why don’t
we make up some more
brilliant theories? Maybe the
servants were all burnt
in the fire, too, only nobody thought
of mentioning it.”

Peter sipped his beer
abstractedly.

“What else?”

“Three: when we
arrived, every door and window that
I could see on the
ground floor was wide open. Let me try
and
save your brains some of this fearful strain. Maybe
that
was because everybody who heard the alarm rushed
out
through a different window. Or maybe it was because
they
always went to bed with the ground-floor windows
open
so that if any burglars wanted to drop in they wouldn’t
have to break the glass. Of course that’s much more likely
than that somebody wanted a good draught to make sure
that the fire would burn up nice and fast.”

This time there was no
comment.

“Point four,”
said the Saint quietly, “is only Luker. The
man
who ties Sangore and Fairweather together. And the man who perfectly represents
the kind of bee that Kennet
had in his bonnet… .
Do you really think I’m insane,
or doesn’t it all seem like
too many coincidences even to
you?”