Prelude for War (7 page)

They didn’t answer.
Incredulity, a traditional habit of
mind, even in spite
of the years that they had spent in wild
pursuit
of the fantastic visions that steered the Saint’s
iconoclastic
path, struggled desperately against the impli
cations
of belief. It would have been so much easier, so
much more soothing, to
let suspicion be lulled away by the
uncritical
rationalizations of ingrained convention, when
to accept what the Saint argued meant something so omi
nous and horrible that the mind instinctively
recoiled from dwelling on it. But it seemed as if the unclouded sunlight
darkened behind the Saint’s tall, disturbing
figure while the
echoes of his last
words ran on through their protesting
brains.

Mr Uniatz removed the neck
of the bottle from his
mouth with a faint squuck.
The intermediate stages of the
conversation had left as
dim a blur on his consciousness as a discourse on the quantum theory would have
left on
an infants’ class in arithmetic; but he had been told
to think
something over and he had been bravely
obeying orders, even though thinking was an activity which always gave him a
dull pain behind the eyes.

“Boss,” he said,
in a sudden wild bulge of inspiration, “I got it. It’s some temperance
outfit.”

Simon blinked at him. There
were occasions when the
strange processes that
went on inside the skull of Mr
Uniatz were too occult
even for him.

“What is?” he
asked fearfully.

“De guys in de
aeroplanes.”

Simon clutched his head.

“What guys?”

“De guys,”
explained Mr Uniatz proudly, “who break
de
bottles of liquor.”

2

The inquest was to be held
at the Assembly Rooms in
Anford, a largish building
which served at various times
for dances, whist drives,
auctions and a meeting place for
the Boy Scouts. When Simon
arrived a small crowd had
already started to gather,
and three or four policemen
were on duty to keep them
back. Among the policemen
Simon recognized the
constable who had taken his arm on
the night of the
fire. He strolled across to him.

“Hullo,
Reginald,” he murmured. “What’s new?”

“Oh, it’s you,
sir.” The policeman lowered his voice
confidentially.
“Well, it all seems quite simple now. The
pore
devil never left ‘is bed—‘e come down, bed and all,
right
through into the libry. Shocking sight ‘e was, too. But
there, he couldn’t ‘ve felt nothing. He must ‘ve bin spiflicated
by the smoke before ever the fire reached ‘im.” He
went on looking at the Saint with a certain amount of awe.
“I didn’t know ‘oo you was till after you’d gorn, sir,” he
said apologetically.

“I’m sorry,” said
the Saint gravely. “But you can still
arrest
me now if you want to, so there’s no harm done.”

“Arrest you?”
repeated the policeman. “Wot—me?” A beaming grin split his face
almost in half. “Why, I’ve read
everythink they
ever printed about you, and fair larfed
myself
sick sometimes, the way you put it over on those
smart
alecks at Scotland Yard. But I never thought I’d ‘ave
the
pleasure of meeting you and not know it—though I did
wonder
‘ow you knew my name the other night.”

“Your name?” said
the Saint faintly.

“Yes sir. Reginald.
That was pretty good, that was.
But I suppose you’ve got
pretty near the ‘ole police force
of the country
taped, haven’t you?”

The Saint swallowed. He
searched unavailingly for an adequate reply.

Fortunately his anguished
efforts were cut short by the
blessed advent of two
large cars that rolled up to the steps
at
the entrance of the building, and a spontaneous move
ment
of the crowd drew the policeman back to his job.
The
Saint took out his cigarette case with a feeling of
precarious
relief and watched the cars disgorge the dignified shapes of Luker,
Fairweather, Sir Robert and Lady
Sangore, and Lady Valerie
Woodchester.

“It must be wonderful
to be famous,” remarked Peter
Quentin reverently.

“Get yourself some
reflected glory,” said the Saint.
“Take
Pat inside—I’m going to float around for a bit.”

He waited while they
disappeared, and presently fol
lowed them in. Immediately
inside the entrance was a fair-
sized hall in which a
number of people were standing about,
conversing in
cathedral mutters. There were single doors
on
each side, and a double pair facing the entrance which
opened
into the main room where the inquest was to take
place.
Near these farther doors Lady Valerie was standing alone, waiting, rather
impatiently tapping the ground with
one trim-shod foot.
Simon went over to her.

“Good morning,”
he said.

She turned languidly and inspected him, one
finely arched
eyebrow slightly raised. She
had lovely eyes, large and
dark and
sparkling, shaded by very long lashes. Her dark
hair gleamed with a warm autumn richness. The poise of
her exquisitely modelled head, the angle of her
childishly
tip-tilted nose, the curl
of her pretty lips, proclaimed her
utter
and profound disinterest in Simon Templar.

“What’s happened to
Luker and the others?” Simon
asked. “I saw
them come in with you just now.”

“They’re in the office
talking to the coroner, if you want
them,” she
said indifferently. Then suddenly she lost some
of
her indifference. “Are you a reporter?”

“No,” said the
Saint regretfully. “But I could get you
one.
May I compliment you on your taste in clothes. I
always
did like that dress.”

He knew the dress very
well, since he had helped Patricia
to choose it.

Lady Valerie stared at him
hard for a moment and then
her expression changed
completely. It ceased altogether to
be cold and
disdainful: her features became animated with
eagerness.

“Oh,” she said.
“How silly of me! Of course I remember
you
now. You’re the hero, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

She frowned a little.

“Not that I really
hoot a lot about this hero business,”
she
went on. “I daresay it’s all very fine for great he-men
to go rushing about dripping with sweat and doing noble
things, but
I think there ought to be special places set apart
for them to perform in.”

“You were rescued
yourself the other night, weren’t
you?” said the
Saint pleasantly.

“Rescued? My good
man, I was simply thrown about
like an old sack. When the
fire alarm went off I didn’t
realize what it was for a
moment, and then when Don
Knightley came charging into my room with his
hair stand
ing on end and his eyes sticking
out and his ears absolutely
flapping
with the most frightful emotion I merely thought
I was in for a fate worse than death, and believe me I was.
I mean, all’s fair in love and war and all that
sort of thing, but to be heaved up by one arm and one leg and slung over
a
man’s bony shoulder, and then to be galloped about over
miles of lawn with your only garment flapping up around
your neck …”

She seemed to be expecting
sympathy.

Simon laughed.

“It must have been
rather trying,” he admitted. “I
haven’t
seen my rival today. By the way, where is he?”

“He had to go and
change the guard, or something
dreary. But it doesn’t
matter. It’s nice to see
you
again.”

She might almost have meant
it.

“Next time you want
rescuing, you must drop me a line,”
said
the Saint. “I’m told I have a very delicate touch with
damsels in distress. Maybe I could give you more satisfaction.”

She glanced sideways at him, out of the corners
of her
eyes. Her lips twitched slightly.

“Maybe you
could,” she said.

“All the same,”
Simon continued resolutely, “it would
have
been even more trying if you’d been left in your room,
wouldn’t
it?”

Again her expression changed like magic; in a
moment
she looked utterly woebegone.

“Yes,” she said in a low voice.
“Like—like John.”

She turned wide, distressed eyes on him.

“I—I can’t think
what could have happened,” she said
tremulously.
“He—he must have heard the alarm, and I
—I
know he wasn’t drunk or anything like that. He couldn’t
have committed suicide, could he? Nobody would commit
suicide like—like that.”

She seemed to be begging
him to reassure her that Kennet
had not committed suicide;
there were actually tears in her
eyes. Simon was puzzled.

“No, he didn’t
commit suicide,” he answered. “I’ll bet
anything
on that. But why should you think of it?”

“Well, we did have the
most awful row,” and—and I
swore I’d never speak to him again, and he
seemed to take
it rather to heart. Of course
I didn’t really mean it, but
I was
getting awfully fed up with the whole silly business,
and he was being terribly stupid and awkward and
unreason
able.”

“Were you engaged to
him, or something like that?”

“Oh no. Of course he
may have thought … But then, nobody takes those things seriously. Oh, damn!
It’s all so
hopelessly foul and horrible, and all
just because of a silly
bet.”

“So he may have
thought you were in love with him. You’d let him think so. Is that it?”
Simon persisted.

“Yes, I suppose so, if
you put it that way. But what else
could I do?”

She stared at him
indignantly, as if she were denying
a thoroughly unjust
accusation.

“I bet you wouldn’t
see a thousand-guinea fur coat that
you were simply
aching to have go slipping away just
because you
couldn’t make a bit of an effort with a man,”
she
said vehemently. “And it was in a good cause, too.”

The Saint smiled
sympathetically. He still hadn’t much
idea what she was
talking about, but he knew with a tumul
tuous
certainty that he was getting somewhere. Out of all
that
confusion something clear and revealing must emerge
within
another minute or two—if only luck gave him that
other
minute. He was aware that his pulses were beating
a
shade faster.

“Was John going to
give you a fur coat?” he inquired.

“John? My dear, don’t
be ridiculous. John would never have given me a fur coat. Why, he never even
took me
anywhere in a taxi.”

She paused.

“He wasn’t
mean,” she added quickly. “You mustn’t
think
that. He was terribly generous, really, even though
he
didn’t have much money. But he used to spend it all on
frightfully
earnest
things, like books and lectures and
Brotherhood
of Man leagues and all that sort of thing.”
She
shook her head dejectedly. “He used to work so hard
and study such a lot and have such impossible ideals, and
now
…
If only he’d had a good time first, it wouldn’t
seem
quite so bad somehow,” she said chokingly. “But he
just wouldn’t have a good time. He was much too earnest.”

“He probably enjoyed
himself in his own way,” said the
Saint
consolingly. “But about this fur coat. Where was that
coming from?”

“Oh, that was Mr
Fairweather,” she answered. “Of
course
he’s got simply
lashings
of money; a thousand
guineas
is simply nothing to him. You see, he thought it
would
be quite a good thing if John became reconciled with
his
father and stopped being stupid, and then he thought
that
if John was engaged to me—only in a sort of unofficial
way,
of course—I could make him stop being stupid. So he
bet
me a thousand-guinea fur coat to see if I could do it.
So
of course I had to try.”