Prelude for War

I

"Seeing 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 outside 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 deck 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' everything." A thought appeared to strike him in a vital spot. "Say, maybe we got something, 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 battles. 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 Comrade Fairweather takes a benevolent interest. He warned them particularly against Socialists, Communists, and Pacifists, and told them that the Great War was a glorious spree for everyone who fought in it. He graduated from Sandhurst 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 Vanishing 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 reassuringly. "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?"

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 implications 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 ominous 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 poor 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 movement 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 followed 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 standing 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 unreasonable."

"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 tumultuous 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."

"Did you have any luck?"

She shook her head.

"No. He was terribly obstinate and silly. I wanted him to have a good time and forget all his stupid ideas, but he just wouldn't. Instead of enjoying himself like an ordinary person he'd just sit and talk to me for hours, and sometimes he'd bring along a fellow called Windlay that he lived with, and then they'd both talk to me."

"What did they talk about?"

She spread out her hands in a vague gesture.

"Politics — you know, stupid things. And he used to talk about a thing called the Ring, and Mr Luker, and General Sangore, and even his own father, and say the beastliest things about them. And there were newspapers, and factories, and some people called the Sons of France—"

The Saint was suddenly very rigid.

"What was that again?"

"The Sons of France — or something like that. I don't know what it was all about and I don't care. I know he used to say that he was going to upset everything in a few weeks and make things uncomfortable for everybody, and I used to tell him not to be so damned selfish, because after all what's the point in upsetting everybody? Live and let live is my motto, and I wouldn't interfere with other people's private affairs if they'll leave mine alone."

The Saint put another cigarette between his lips and steadied his hands round his lighter.

"Have you any idea what he was going to do that was going to upset everybody so much?" he asked.

The girl shrugged her slim shoulders.

"I don't know. He had a lot of papers that he was going to publish and prove something. And just a week or two ago he was frightfully excited about some photographs that he'd got hold of. I don't know what they were, but both he and Windlay were frightfully worked up about it. But what does it matter, anyway?"

3

Simon Templar filled his lungs with smoke and let it out again in a trailing streamer that flowed with the unbroken evenness of a deep river. The shock that had brought him to conscious immobility had passed, letting the tenseness ebb out of his muscles to leave his natural lazy imperturbability apparently unchanged. But under his effortless and unruffled poise his brain was thrumming like an intoxicated dynamo.

He had fished for clues and he had brought them up in a pail. It didn't matter for the moment how they fitted together. Luker and the Arms Ring; Sangore, formerly of the War Office, how a director of the Wolverhampton Ordnance Company; Fairweather, sometime secretary of state for war, now on the board of Norfelt Chemicals; Kennet the pacifist, the groping crusader. Papers, exposes, photographs. And the Sons of France. Whichever way you spilled them, they fell into some sort of pattern. The drums he had heard such a short while ago thundered in the Saint's temples; the blaring brass shrieked in his ears. He felt as if he were standing on the brink of a breathless precipice, watching the boiling of a hideously parturient abyss. The keen clear zenithal winds of destiny fanned through his hair.

He was conscious, in a curiously distant way, that the girl was still talking.

"I never used to listen very hard — I was too busy trying to think of ways to stop them. If I hadn't stopped them, they'd have gone on all night. So when I'd had enough of politics I'd say something like 'Let's go to the Berkeley and have a drink,' and then they'd both start talking about the snobbishness of big hotels and how bad drink was for me; and I didn't mind that nearly so much, because I quite like talking about hotels and drink."

The Saint brought himself back to her with a deliberate effort. He could think afterwards; now, precious time was flying, and the inquest was already late. He could have no more than a few seconds to take advantage of what Providence had thrown into his lap.

He said: "But if Kennet hated Luker and Sangore so much, what made him come down here for the week end?"

"I did. I thought that if he could come down here and see what they were really like, he might have given up his stupid ideas. And I knew they were going to offer him an awfully good job. Algy told me so."

"Who?"

"Algy. Algy Fairweather. Of course you know."

"Of course," said the Saint humbly. "And didn't Kennet appreciate it?"

"No. That's what made me so furious. When we got here he told me he was glad they wanted to see him, because he wanted to see them, too, and instead of them giving him a job he was going to see that theirs were made so uncomfortable that they'd be glad to give them up. So I told him I thought he was a silly, stupid, narrow-minded, bigoted halfwit, and a crashing bore as well, and — and we parted. After dinner he went into the library to talk to them, and I went to the movies with Don Knightley, and I never saw John again." She gazed at the Saint appealingly. "D-do you really think it was my fault that all this happened?"

He considered her without smiling.

"I think you deserve a damned good hiding for leading Kennet up the garden," he said dispassionately. "And if I were Windlay I'd see that you got one."

She pouted. She seemed to be more disappointed that he could think of her like that than seriously annoyed by what he had said. And then, quite unanswerably, a gleeful little twinkle came into her eyes that made her look momentarily like a mischievous and very attractive child.

"You wouldn't say that if you knew Windlay," she giggled. "He's a very pale and skinny young man with glasses."

Simon gave up the struggle. Actually he felt a colder anger against the men who had used the girl as their tool. The possibility that she might have been something more than an unsuspecting instrument was one which he discarded almost at once. She had already told him far too much. And her mind, whatever its obvious failings, could never have worked that way.

"Where did Kennet and Windlay live?" he asked flatly.

"Oh, miles from anywhere, out in Notting Hill, in an awful place called Balaclava Mansions."

"Notting Hill isn't miles from anywhere," said the Saint. "The trouble with you is that you've never heard of any place outside the West End. You've got a brain; why don't you get reckless and try using it?"

She sighed.

"My God," she said. "Now you're going to come over all earnest on me. You think I ought to have a good hiding for the way I treated Johnny. I suppose my intentions weren't serious enough. I oughtn't to have pretended something I didn't mean. Is that it?"

"More or less," he said bluntly.

He wondered what excuse she was going to make for herself.

She didn't make any excuse. She laughed.

"You have the nerve to stand there, in your beautiful clothes, with your dark hair and dashing blue eyes, and tell me that," she said startlingly. "I bet you've made love to heaps of women yourself, hundreds of times, and never meant a word of it."

The Saint stared at her. For a moment he was completely and irrevocably taken aback.

In that moment his first hasty estimate of her underwent a surprising reversal, although it made no difference to his belief in her innocence. But it gave him an insight into her mind which he had not been expecting. She might be featherbrained and spoiled, but she had something more in her head than he had credited her with. For the first time he found himself appreciating her.

"You win, darling," he said. The turn of his lips became impish. "Only I always mean it a little."

Then one of the side doors opened and he saw Lady Sangore surge out like a full-rigged ship putting out from harbour. Behind her, in a straggling flotilla, came Sir Robert, Kane Luker and Mr Fairweather. Fairweather, peering round, caught sight of a ruddy-faced walrus-moustached man who. looked like a builder's foreman dressed up in his Sunday suit, who got up from the bench where he had been sitting as the party emerged. They shook hands, and Fairweather spoke to him for a moment before he shepherded him into the office which they had just left and came puttering back to rejoin the wake of the fleet. Simon noted the incident as he watched the armada catch sight of Lady Valerie and set a course for her.

"My dear, I'm so sorry we've been such a long time," said Lady Sangore as she hove to. "All this bother only makes everything so much worse."

She conveyed the impression that a fire in which somebody was burnt to death would not be nearly so distressing if it were not for the subsequent inconvenience which she personally had to suffer.

"I hope you haven't been too bored, my dear," said Fairweather, puffing through into the foreground.

Lady Valerie smiled.

"Oh no," she said. "I've been very well looked after. You haven't forgotten the hero of the evening, have you?"

Fairweather blinked at the Saint.

"Of course — the gentleman who made that magnificent attempt to rescue poor old Kennet. I ought to have got in touch with you before, but — um — I'm sure you'll forgive us, everything has been so disorganized…" He shuffled his feet uneasily. "At any rate, it's a great relief to see that you don't look much the worse for your adventure."

The Saint smiled — and to anyone who knew him well, that smile would have seemed curiously like the smile on the face of a certain celebrated tiger.

He had been amazingly lucky. The return of Luker and Company had been delayed just long enough for him to coax out of Lady Valerie the whole incalculably important story which she had to tell; their reintroduction couldn't have been more desirably timed if he had arranged it himself. He could look for no more information, but he already had enough to keep his mind occupied for some time. Meanwhile, he could contribute something of his own which might add helpfully to the general embarrassment. He was only waiting for his chance.

"I come from a long line of salamanders," he said cheerfully. "Wasn't that Kennet's father I saw you speaking to just now?"

"Er — yes. I've known him for a long time, of course."

"This inquest isn't being heard in camera by any chance, is it?"

"Er — no. Why should it be?"

"It seems to involve rather a lot of private interviews."

"Urn." Fairweather looked even more uncomfortable. He seemed to inflate himself determinedly. "I fear I have never had any experience of these things. But of course it's the coroner's job to save as much of the court's time a possible."

Simon toyed gently with his cigarette.

"Lady Valerie and I were just talking it over," he said. "She seemed to have an idea that Kennet might have committed suicide."

"Suicide?" boomed General Sangore with gruff authority. "No, no, my dear fellow, that wouldn't do at all. We can't possibly have any sort of scandal. Think what it would mean to the poor chap's father. No. Accidental death is the verdict, eh?"

He spoke as if the matter were all arranged. Fairweather supported him.

"That's the only possible verdict," he said. "We've got to avoid any silly gossip. You know what these beastly newspapers are like — they'd give anything for the chance to make a sensation out of a case like this. Luckily the coroner is a sensible man. He won't stand any nonsense."

"Isn't that splendid?" said the Saint.

They all looked at him at once with a new intentness. The edge in his voice was as fine as a razor, but it cut through the threads of their complacency in a way that left them clammily suspended in an uncharted void. Before that, disarmed by his appearance and accent, they had taken him for granted as a slightly unusual member of a familiar species — their own species. Now they stared at him suspiciously, as they might have stared at an intruding foreigner.

"Are we to understand that you would disagree with that verdict, Mr Templar?" Luker inquired suavely.

He was the only one who had remained immune to that involuntary stiffening. But he had had a chance to measure the Saint before, when, for one intangible moment, they had crossed swords in the garden during the fire.

Simon's gaze sought him out with a sparkle of wicked sapphire.

"Simon Templar is the full name," he said deliberately. "While you were finding out who I was, you should have talked to one of the policemen. He could have refreshed your memory. When you've read about me in the papers, I've usually been called the Saint."

He might have dropped a bomb under their feet with a short fuse sizzling. There were times when the effects of revealing his identity gave him an indescribable delight, and this was one of them.

Lady Valerie Woodchester let out a little squeal. Lady Sangore's mouth opened and then closed like a trap. The general's florid face added a tint of bright magenta to its varied hues. Fairweather dropped his hat, and it settled on the floor with an ear-splitting ploff. Only Luker remained motionless, with his dark sunken eyes riveted on the Saint.

And the Saint went on smiling.

There was a general eddy towards the entrance of the courtroom, and a red-faced constable took up his position beside the doors and began to intone self-consciously from a tattered piece of paper.

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All manner of persons having anything to do at this court, before the king's coroner for this county, touching the death of John Kennet, draw near and give your attendance, and if anyone can give evidence on behalf of our sovereign lord the king, when, how, and by what means John Kennet came to his death, let him come forward and he shall be heard; and you good men of this county summoned to appear here this day to enquire for our sovereign lord the king, when, how, and by what means John Kennet came to his death, answer to your names as they shall be called, every man at first call, on the pains and penalties that may fall thereon. God save the king!"

4

The courtroom was not crowded, in perceptible contrast with the encouraging throng of gapers that Simon had seen outside, so that he knew at once that some steps must have been taken to discourage the influx of the vulgar mob. Those of the public who had been able to gain admittance were accommodated in rows of hard wooden chairs set across the room with an aisle down the centre. Simon located Peter and Patricia among them, but he took a seat by himself on the other side of the gangway. His eyes met Patricia's for a moment of elusive mockery and then went on to take in the rest of his bearings.

The first two rows on the right were occupied by the party from Whiteways, the Sangores, Luker, Fairweather and Lady Valerie, mingled with a few other people of the same obvious class who all seemed to know each other. They had an air of being apart from the remainder of the public, among them, but not of them, a small party of gentlefolk, self-contained and self-sufficient, only vaguely conscious that there were other people present.

The first two rows on the left had been reserved for the press, and there was not a vacant chair among them. In front of them, and at right angles to the general public, sat the coroner's jury, five good men of the county and two women. There was an attitude of respectful decorum about them, as if they had been in church. The Saint sized them up as being a representative panel of local shopkeepers. Only one of them was markedly different from the others — a little black-bearded scowling man who seemed to resent being in court at all.

The coroner was a well-fed, well-scrubbed looking man with close-cropped gray hair and a close-cropped gray moustache. He wore a dark suit, with a stiff white collar and a blue bow tie with small white spots on it. While the jury was being sworn, he shuffled over a small batch of papers on his table, which occupied the centre of a dais at the very end of the room.

When the jury were seated again, he cleared his throat noisily and addressed them.

"We are here to inquire into the circumstances attending the death of the late John Kennet. It is your duty to listen carefully to the evidence which will be put before you and to return a verdict in accordance with that evidence. The facts concerning which evidence will be given are as follows. On the night of the seventeenth, the house known as Whiteways, the property of Mr Fairweather, was burnt to the ground. Various people were in the house when the fire started, including Mr Fairweather himself, General Sir Robert Sangore and Lady Sangore, Mr Kane Luker, Lady Valerie Woodchester, Captain Donald Knightley and the deceased. All of them except Captain Knightley are in court today. They will tell you that after they had left the building they discovered that John Kennet was missing. An attempt to reach his room was unsuccessful owing to the rapid spread of the fire, and on the following day his charred remains were found in the wreckage of the house."

His manner was brusque and important; quite plainly, nobody could tell him anything about how to run an inquest, and equally plainly he regarded a jury as nothing but a necessary evil, to be kept firmly in its place.

"If you wish to do so you are entitled to view the body. Do you wish to view the body?" He paused perhaps long enough to take another breath, and said: "Very well, then. We shall proceed to hear evidence of how the body was found. Call the first witness."

The sergeant standing behind him consulted a list of names and called out: "Theodore Bream."

A man who looked rather like a retired carthorse lumbered up on to the dais, sweating profusely, and took the oath. The coroner leaned back in his chair and looked him over like a schoolmaster inspecting a new pupil.

"You are the captain of the Anford Fire Brigade?"

"Yessir."

"On the morning of the eighteenth you examined the ruins of Whiteways."

"Yessir."

"What did you find?"

"In the ruins of the library, among a lot of daybree, I found the body of the deceased."

"Did you find anything else?"

"Yessir. I found bits of a burned-up bedstead — coil springs and suchlike."

"What deductions did you make from the position of the body and the burned fragments of the bedstead?"

"Well, sir, I come to the conclusion that they'd dropped through the ceiling from one of the rooms above."

The coroner rubbed his chin.

"I see. You came to the conclusion that the bed, with the deceased in it, had dropped through the ceiling from one of the rooms above the library when the floor collapsed in the fire."

"Yessir."

"That seems quite plain. Did you find anything to suggest what might have been the cause of the fire?"

"No sir. It might've bin anything. The place was burned out so bad there wasn't enough left to show how it started."

The coroner turned to the jury.

"Have you any questions to ask this witness?"

Hardly giving them any time to answer, he turned again to the sergeant.

"Next witness, please."

"Algernon Sidney Fairweather."

Fairweather went up on to the platform and took the oath. The coroner's manner became less peremptory. He clearly regarded it as a pleasant relief to be able to examine a witness of his own class.

"You are the owner of Whiteways, Mr Fairweather?"

"I am."

"The deceased was a guest in your house on the night of the seventeenth?"

"He was."

"Which room was he occupying?"

"The end bedroom in the west wing, directly above the library."

"So that in the event of the collapse of the floor of his room, his bed would fall through into the library?"

"It would."

The coroner glanced at the jury triumphantly, as much as to say: "There you are, you see." Then he turned back to Fairweather even more deferentially.

"Would you give us your account of what occurred on the night of the fire, Mr Fairweather?"

Fairweather clasped his hands in front of him, frowning seriously with the expression of a man who is carefully and conscientiously marshalling his memories.

"We had dinner a little early that night — at about seven o'clock — because Captain Knightley and Lady Valerie were going to the cinema. They left immediately after dinner, and shortly afterwards Lady Sangore went to her room to write some letters. The rest of us sat and talked in the library until about half-past ten, when Kennet went to bed. That was the last time any of us saw him. At about a quarter past eleven Captain Knightley and Lady Valerie returned, and I should think we stayed up for not more than another quarter of an hour. Then we all went to bed.

"Some time later — I should imagine it was about half-past twelve — I was awakened by the clanging of the fire alarms. I put on a pair of trousers and left my room. At once it became obvious to me that the fire was serious. There was a great deal of smoke on the stairs, and from the sound of the flames and the light they gave I could see that the fire must have taken a firm hold on the ground floor.

"You must understand that I had just been suddenly woken up, and I was somewhat bewildered. As I hesitated, I saw Captain Knightley come along the passage carrying Lady Valerie. Then I heard General Sangore's voice outside shouting 'Hurry up and get out, everybody!' I started to follow Captain Knightley, and I was halfway down the stairs when I met Mr Luker coming up. He said 'Oh, that's all right — I was afraid you hadn't heard. The others are all out.' "

"And then?"

"I ran out into the garden with him. That's about all I can remember. It all happened so quickly that my recollections are a trifle hazy. I still don't know how we came to forget Kennet until it was too late, but I can only imagine that in the excitement Mr Luker and myself mutually misunderstood each other to have accounted for the people we had not seen. It was a tragic mistake which has haunted me ever since."

The coroner wagged his head sympathetically, as if he could feel everything that Fairweather must have suffered.

"I'm sure that we all appreciate your feelings," he said. He turned the papers on his table, and went on, as though apologizing for bringing back any more painful memories: "Have you any idea as to how the fire could have started?"

"None. It may have been a faulty piece of electric wiring, or a cigarette end carelessly dropped somewhere. It must have been something like that."

"Thank you, Mr Fairweather," said the coroner. "Next witness, please."

There was an interruption. Before the sergeant could call out the next name the little black-bearded juryman opened his mouth.

" 'Arf a mo," he said. "I've got some questions I'd like to ask."

The coroner stared at him as though he had been guilty of some indecency. He seemed to find it extraordinary that a member of the jury should wish to ask a question.

The little juryman returned his stare defiantly. He had the air of Ajax defying the lightning.

"And what is your question?" asked the coroner, in a supercilious patronizing tone.

"Didn't the witness 'ave no servants?"

"Er — several," Fairweather said mildly. "But I had given them all leave to attend a dance in Reading, and they did not get back until the fire was practically over. The only one left was my chauffeur, who lives in the lodge, about three hundred yards away from the main building."

"Didn't nobody try to put the fire out?"

"It was hardly possible. It spread too rapidly, and we had nothing to tackle it with."

"Thank you," said the coroner. "Next witness, please."

He contrived to be mildly apologetic and contemptuously crushing at the same time. He seemed to apologize to Fairweather for the trouble and distress he had been caused in answering two altogether ridiculous and irrelevant questions, and simultaneously to point out the little juryman as a pest and a nuisance who would be well advised to shut up and behave himself.

"Kane Luker," called the sergeant.

Luker gave his evidence in a quiet precise voice. He had been sitting up reading when he heard the fire alarm. He left his room and went downstairs, where he discovered that the fire appeared to have started in the library, but it was already too fierce for him to be able to get near it. He opened the front door, and while he was doing so Sir Robert and Lady Sangore came downstairs. He told them to get outside and shout up at the bedroom windows. He started to go down to the lodge to telephone for the fire brigade. He met the chauffeur on the way and sent him back to make the call, and himself returned to the house. As he reached it, Knightley carried Lady Valerie out. He went in and started to climb the stairs, where he met Fairweather. He was sure that everyone must have heard the alarms.

"I said 'Do you know if the others are all out?' and I thought he gave some affirmative answer. It's only since then that I've realized that he must have missed my first words and thought that I said 'The others are all out.' But I agree with him that it will be hard for us to forgive ourselves for the tragic results of our misunderstanding."

"I don't think that any blame can be attached to you," observed the coroner benignly. "All of us have made similar mistakes even in normal circumstances, and in a moment of excitement like that they are still more understandable. The tragic results of the mistake were due to a combination of causes for which you and Mr Fairweather can scarcely be held responsible."

He turned pointedly and challengingly towards the jury.

"Any questions?" he barked.

He seemed to be daring them to ask any questions.

"Yus," said the black-bearded little man.

The coroner discovered him again with fresh evidence of distaste. His brows drew together ominously, as if it had just occurred to him to wonder who had been responsible for including such an impossible person in the quorum, and as if he were making a mental note to issue a severe reprimand to the party concerned. He tapped impatiently on the table with his finger tips.

"Well?"

"I suppose you all 'ad wine with your dinner, and when you went into the libry you 'ad more drinks," said the little juryman. " 'Ow many drinks did you 'ave and 'ow many did Mr Kennet 'ave?"

Luker shrugged.

"Some of us had a little wine with dinner, certainly; and after dinner there was whiskey and soda in the library. I can't say exactly how much we had, but it was certainly a very moderate amount."

"Kennet wasn't drunk, was 'e?"

"Certainly not."

"Then why didn't 'e 'ear the alarm?"

Luker looked appealingly at the coroner, who said: "That is hardly a question which the witness can be expected to answer."

He looked at the jury as if inviting them to dissociate themselves from their one discreditable member; and the foreman, a smeary individual with a lock of hair plastered down over his forehead, said ingratiatingly: "He might 've been a heavy sleeper."

"From the evidence, that seems to be the only reasonable explanation," said the coroner firmly. "Thank you, Mr Luker."

General Sangore and his wife briefly corroborated what had been told before. They had been wakened by the fire alarms, they left the house, and it was not until later that they realized that Kennet was missing. Lady Valerie gave evidence of being rescued by Captain Knightley and of being the first to notice that Kennet was not outside. The chauffeur gave evidence of having met Luker on the drive and of having gone back to call the fire brigade. He had had a lot of difficulty in getting through, and consequently had been detained too long to see much of what went on at the house.

None of these witnesses were questioned. The black-bearded juryman, temporarily discouraged, had relapsed into frustrated scowling.

The coroner shuffled his papers again with an air of returning equanimity. No doubt he was feeling that he had now got the situation well in hand.

"Next witness, please."

"Simon Templar," called the sergeant.