Prelude for War

1

Obeying an urgent and peremptory summons, Mr Algernon Sidney Fairweather, Brigadier-General Sir Robert Sangore and Lady Sangore, arrived at Luker's house a little before seven o'clock that evening. They were perturbed and nervous, and their emotions expressed themselves in various individual ways during the ten minutes that Luker kept them waiting in his study.

Nervousness made General Sangore, if possible, a little more military. He tugged at his moustache and frowned out fiercely from under bristling white eyebrows; his speech had a throaty brusqueness that made his every utterance sound like a severe official reprimand.

"Infernal nerve the feller has," he rumbled. "Ordering us about as if we hadn't anything else to do but wait on him. Harrumph! I had a good mind to tell him I was too busy to come."

Lady Sangore was very cold and superior. Her face, which had always borne a close resemblance to that of a horse, became even more superciliously equine. She sat in an even more primly upright attitude than her corsets normally obliged her to maintain, bulging her noble bosom like a pouter pigeon and tilting her nose back as if there were an unpleasant odour under it.

"Yes, you were busy," she said. "You were going to the club, weren't you? Much too busy to attend to business. Ha!" The word "ha" does not do justice to the snort of an irate dragon, but the limited phonetics of the English alphabet will produce nothing better. "You'd better stop being so busy and get your wits about you. Something must be seriously wrong or Mr Luker wouldn't have sent for you like this."

Fairweather twittered. He fidgeted with his hands and shuffled his feet and wriggled; there seemed to be an itch in his muscles that would not let him settle down.

"I don't like it," he moaned. "I don't like it at all. Luker is… Really, I can't understand him at all these days. His behaviour was most peculiar when I told him about the wire I had from Lady Valerie this afternoon. He didn't even sympathize at all with what I went through with that man Templar and that boorish detective. He asked me a few questions and took the wire and rushed off and left me alone in his drawing room, and I just sat there until he sent the butler to tell me to go away and wait till I heard from him."

"I can't think why men get so excited about that girl," said Lady Sangore disparagingly, stabbing her husband, with a basilisk eye.

The general cleared his throat.

"Really, Gwendolyn! You surely don't suspect—"

"I suspect nothing," said Lady Sangore freezingly. "I merely keep my eyes open. I know what men are."

She seemed to have made a unique anthropological discovery.

Fairweather leaned forward, glancing around him furtively as if he feared being overheard.

"There's something I–I must tell you before he comes," he said in a stage whisper. "We… I mean, there's good reason to suspect that Lady Valerie is working with that man Templar against our interests, and unless something is done at once the position may become serious."

"So that's what it is," said Lady Sangore magisterially. "And what's Mr Luker going to do about it? The girl ought to be whipped, that's what I've always said."

Fairweather dropped his voice even lower.

"Last night he — he practically told me he meant to have both of them murdered."

"Good God!" exclaimed General Sangore in a scandalized voice. "But that's ridiculous — absurd! Why, she belongs to one of the best families in England!" He glared about him indignantly. "It's that bounder Templar who's led her astray. He ought to be severely dealt with. Dammit, if I'd ever had him in my regiment…"

He broke off as Luker appeared in the doorway.

Luker stood there for a moment and looked at them one by one. He did not seem in the least disturbed. Perhaps a faint flicker of surprise crossed his face when he saw that Lady Sangore was present, but he made no comment. His dark, well-tailored suit fitted him like a cloth covering squeezed over a marble figure; he looked harder and stonier than ever, as though he would wear it out from the inside. His square rugged features had the insensitive strength of the same stone.

He moved deliberately across the room to his enormous desk, sat down in the swivel chair behind it and faced them with almost taunting expectancy. They looked at each other and avoided his eyes, subdued in spite of themselves into hoping that somebody else would give them a lead.

General Sangore was the first to let himself go.

"What's this story of Fairweather's that you're planning to murder Lady Valerie Woodchester?" he blurted out.

Luker inclined his head unimpressionably.

"So you have heard? That will save some explanations. Yes, it has become very necessary that she and Templar should be eliminated. That is why I sent for you this evening."

"Well, if you think we're going to take part in any damned murder plots, you're damned well mistaken," stated General Sangore hotly. "I never heard of such — such infernal impudence in my life!"

He glanced at his wife as if for approval. Lady Sangore's lips were tightly compressed; her eyes were glittering.

"That girl ought to be well whipped," she repeated.

Luker stroked his chin thoughtfully. His manner was mild and patient. He spoke in the calm and reasonable tone of a man who states facts that cannot be disputed.

"I fear that whipping would scarcely be sufficient," he remarked. "We are not playing schoolroom games. Let me remind you of the circumstances. All of you are aware, I believe, that the French patriots have planned a coup d'etat for tomorrow which if it is resisted may lead to a Fascist revolution."

His gaze passed questioningly over them and arrived last at Fairweather. Fairweather dithered.

"Yes… That is, I may have heard rumours of it. I know nothing about it officially."

"During this change of governments a number of people will quite definitely be killed," said Luker cold-bloodedly. "Would you call that a murder plot?"

"Of course not," boomed the general authoritatively. "That's quite a different matter. That's political. It's the same as war. Anyhow, as Fairweather says, we don't know anything about it — not officially."

"If the plot should fail, and if all the details should be discovered, I'm afraid we could not plead our official ignorance," Luker replied smoothly. "You see, before he was killed young Kennet gave certain papers to Lady Valerie. You know what was among them. She placed these documents, unread, in a cloakroom — from what has happened since it seems likely that they were at Paddington. If we could have recovered them it would have been all right; even if she had seen the one vital thing, I don't think she would have understood. I tried to make arrangements to deal with her and Templar last night, but those arrangements miscarried. Templar then appears to have kidnapped her. She escaped, returned to London and presumably recovered the papers from where she had left them. From the telegram Fairweather showed me I suspected she might have gone to Anford. I sent two men down in a fast car. They reported to me by telephone that she was at the Golden Fleece and that Templar had arrived soon after her."

"Probably they arranged to meet there," put in Lady Sangore. "I always knew she was a hussy. Whatever happens to her, she's brought it on herself."

"That thought will doubtless console her greatly," Luker observed. "However, Fairweather had meanwhile been stupid enough to show Lady Valerie's telegram to a detective who was with him when it arrived. Much later Scotland Yard apparently also guessed, or discovered, that she had taken a train to Anford. They must have telephoned the Anford police, because two officers arrived at the Golden Fleece and went upstairs. I don't know what Templar told them, and I don't think he can have said anything about the documents which by that time he must have read, because not long afterwards the officers came out with Templar and Lady Valerie, all apparently on the most friendly terms, and allowed them to get into a car and drive away. My men overtook them on the road, carrying out my orders to recover the papers, to capture Templar and Lady Valerie alive if possible and to hold them until I gave instructions how they were to be disposed of."

There was a stricken silence while Luker's point forced itself home. This time Fairweather was the first to regain his voice.

"But — but — for goodness sake, Luker, really, you can't murder a girl!"

"Why not?" Luker inquired blandly.

Sangore appeared to grope in darkness for an answer.

"It… Well, dammit, man — it simply isn't done," he said feebly.

Luker laughed. There was nothing hearty about his laughter. It was a silent, terrifying performance, as if a stone image had quaked with unholy mockery.

"You gentlemen of England, with your pettifogging conventions and your arrogant righteousness and your old school ties; you whitewashed dummies," he sneered. "You don't care what dirty work is done so long as you don't have to know about it 'officially'; you don't care how many people are murdered so long as you can call it warfare, or dignify it with the adjective 'political.' You don't mind helping to start a civil war in France, in which it's quite certain that numbers of girls will be killed, do you?"

"I tell you that's different," stormed the general. "Why — why, we've had civil wars in England!"

He said it as if that fact proved that civil wars must be all right.

"Very well," Luker went on. "And you didn't object to murdering Kennet and Windlay, did you?"

Fairweather said hoarsely: "We had nothing to do with that. In fact, I told you—"

Lady Sangore's face looked flabby. The powder cracked on her cheeks as her mouth worked. She stammered: "You — you — I never knew—"

"No doubt, like the others, you attributed those deaths to divine intervention," said Luker sarcastically. "I'm sorry to disillusion you. I gave orders for Windlay to be killed. I strangled Kennet myself and started the fire under his room. Your husband and Fairweather knew I was going to do it; you yourself guessed. Therefore at this moment you are all of you already accessories to the crime of murder unless you at once communicate your knowledge to the police. Of course if you do that you may find it hard to explain your silence at the inquest, but the telephone is here on my desk if any of you would care to use it."

Nobody moved. None of them spoke. A paralysis of futility seemed to have taken hold of them, and Luker seemed to gloat over their strangulation. He gave them plenty of time to absorb the consciousness of their own moral impotence while his own rocklike impassivity seemed to deepen with his contempt.

"In that case, I take it that you wish me to continue," he proceeded at length. "My instructions were carried out in part. Templar and Lady Valerie have been captured. Their car was wrecked, and they were both stunned in the crash but otherwise not much harmed."

"Where are they now?" asked Fairweather limply. "Are they in London?"

Luker shook his head.

"No. My men rang up from Amesbury, asking for further orders. You see, while they recovered all Kennet's documents, the most important thing of all — the negative of a certain photograph — was not to be found, either in the car or on either of the captives. I therefore thought it advisable to question both of them about what had happened to it. You will understand that this may present some difficulties, since they may require — persuading. Meanwhile, they had to be kept in some safe place. Luckily I remembered that Bledford Manor was not far from Andover, which is not far from Amesbury. Knowing that the Manor was closed and the servants on holiday, I told my men to take them there."

Lady Sangore started to her feet as though she had been jabbed in the behind with a long needle.

"What?" she protested shrilly. "You sent them to my house? How dare you! How dare you!"

The general fought against suffocation. He made noises like an ancient car trying to start on a cold morning. His face was the colour of old bricks.

"Tchah!" he backfired. "Harrumph! By Gad, Luker, that's going a bit too far. It's monstrous. Tchah! I forbid it. I forbid it absolutely!"

"You can't forbid it," Luker said coolly. "It's done."

Fairweather pawed the air.

"This is nothing to do with us," he whined reproachfully. "You're the only one in that photograph. Really, Luker, I—"

"I quite understand," Luker said, with imperturbably measured venom. "This was an attractive business proposition for you so long as somebody else took all the risk, but' now that it isn't going so smoothly you'd like to wash your hands of it, the same as Sangore — of course from the highest motives and with the greatest regard for the honour of the regiment and the old school. I'm sorry that I can't make it so easy for you. In the past I have helped you to make your fortunes in return for nothing much more than the use of your honest British stupidity, which is so comforting to the public. Doubtless you thought that you were earning the just rewards of your own brilliance, but I assure you that I could have taken my pick from hundreds of distinguished imbeciles of your class. Now for the first time, in a small way, I really need your assistance. You should feel flattered. But in any event I intend to have it. And I can assure you that even if this particular photograph only refers to me, if I should be caught the subsequent investigation would certainly implicate yourselves."

He made the statement in a way that left them no doubt of how they might be implicated if the worst came to the worst. But they were too battered to fight back. His words moved like barbs among the balloons of their self-esteem. They stared at him, curiously deflated, trying to persuade themselves that they were not afraid…

Luker's square, powerful hands lay flat on the blotter in front of him, palm downwards, in a pattern that symbolically and physically and quite unconsciously expressed an instinct of command that held down all opposition. He went on speaking with relentless precision, and with a subtle but incombatable change of manner.

"You, my dear Algy, have certain connections which will enable you to approach the chief commissioner at Scotland Yard. You will use those connections to find out exactly what Templar told the police in Anford, and report to my secretary here as soon as you have the information. I don't think he can have told them anything important, but it will be safer to find out. You," — he turned to General and Lady Sangore — "will go down to Bledford Manor. Since the house is supposed to be shut up, some local policeman may notice that there are people there and become inquisitive. You must be there to reassure him. You need not see the prisoners if it will embarrass you. I myself am going to Paris tonight, and I have arranged for Templar and Lady Valerie to be taken there — it will be easier to question them and dispose of them later on the other side. But there may be a slight delay before they can be moved, and I want you at Bledford as soon as possible as a precaution. You had better leave at once."

He did not consider any further argument. As far as he I was concerned, there was no more arguing to be done. He simply issued his commands. As he finished he stood up, and before any of them could raise any more objections he had walked out of the room.

They sat still for some moments after he had gone, each knowing what was in the minds of the others, each trying to pretend that he alone was still dominant and unshaken.

Fairweather got up first. He pulled out a big old-fashioned gold watch and consulted it with a brave imitation of his old portly pomposity.

"Well," he said croakily, "I must be getting along. Got things to attend to,"

He bustled out, very quickly and busily.

The Sangores looked at each other. Then Lady Sangore spoke.

"It's all that little tart's fault," she said bitterly. "If she'd had any sense or decency at all we shouldn't be in all this trouble now. As for Luker, he ought to be kicked out of every club in London."

"I don't suppose he belongs to every club in London," said General Sangore dully.

His figure, usually so ramrod erect, was bowed and sagging; his shoulders drooped. Suddenly he looked very old and tired and pasty. He seemed bewildered, like a man lost in a chamber of unimaginable horrors; he seemed to be groping through the rusty machinery of his mind for one wheel that would turn to a task for which it had never been designed.

2

"Once upon a time," said the Saint, "there was a walleyed wombat named Wilhelmina, who lived in a burrow in Tasmania and grieved resentfully over the fact that Nature had endowed her, like all females of the marsupial family, with an abdominal pouch or sac intended for the reception and protection of newborn marsupials. Since," however, the strabismic asymmetry of Wilhelmina's features had always deterred discriminating males of her species from making such advances to her as might have resulted in the production of young wombats, she was easily persuaded to regard this useful and ingenious organ as an indecent excrescence invented by the Creator in a lewd and absent-minded moment, and she soon became the leader of a strong movement among other unattractive wombats to suppress all references to it and to decry its use as sinful and reprehensible, and invariably wore a species of apron or sporran to conceal this obscene conformation of tissue from the world. Now it so happened that one night a purblind male wombat named Widgery, of dissolute habits…"

He was in the scullery of Bledford Manor with Lady Valerie Woodchester. They sat on the hard cold tile floor with their wrists and ankles bound with strong cord. A smear of blood had dried across Simon's face and in spite of his quiet satiric voice his head was aching savagely. Lady Valerie's face was very dirty and her hair was in wild disarray; she also had a headache, and she was in a poisonous temper.

"Oh, stop it!" she burst out jittery. "You've got me into a hell of a nice mess, haven't you? I suppose you enjoy this sort of thing, but I don't. Aren't you going to do something about it?"

"What would you like me to do?" he asked accommodatingly.

"What are they going to do with us?"

He shrugged.

"I'm not a thought reader. But you can use your imagination."

She brooded. Her lower lip was thrust out, her pencilled eyebrows drawn together in a vicious' scowl.

"The damned swine," she said. "I'd like to see them all die the most horrible deaths. I'd like to see them being burnt alive or something, and jeer at them… My God, I wish I had a cigarette… Doesn't it seem ages since we were having dinner at the Berkeley? Simon, do you think they're really going to kill us?"

"I expect their ideas are running more or less along those lines," he admitted. "But they haven't done it yet. What 'll you bet me we aren't dining at the Berkeley again tomorrow?"

"It's all very well for you to talk like that," she said. "It's your job. But I'm scared." She shivered. Her voice rose a trifle. "It's horrible! I don't want to die! I–I want to have a good time, and wear nice clothes, and — and… Oh, what's the good?" She stared at him sullenly in the dimming light. "I suppose you think that's frightful of me. If your girl friend was in my place I expect she'd think this was an awfully jolly party. I suppose she simply revels in being rolled over in cars, and knocked on the head, and mauled about and tied up and waiting to be killed, and all the rest of it. Well, all I can say is, I wish she was here instead of me."

The Saint chuckled. He was not particularly amused, but he didn't want her nerve to crack completely, and he knew that her breaking point was not very far away. "After all, you chose me for a husband, darling. I tried to discourage you, but you seemed to have made up your mind that you liked the life. Never mind. I'm pretty good at getting out of jams."

"Even if we do get out, I expect my hair will be snow white or something," she said miserably.

She blinked. Her eyes were very large and solemn; she looked very childish and pathetic. A pair of big bright tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

"I… I do hate this so much," she whispered. "And I'm so uncomfortable."

"All the same, you mustn't cry," he said. "The floor's damp enough already."

"It couldn't be any damper. So why shouldn't I cry? I can think of dozens of things I'd like to do, and crying's the only one of them I can do. So why shouldn't I?"

"Because it makes you look like an old hag."

She sniffed.

"Well, that's your fault," she said; but she stopped crying. She twisted her head down and hunched up one shoulder and wriggled comically, trying to dry the tears on her blouse. She drew a long shuddering sigh like a baby. She said: "All right, why don't you talk to me about something and take my mind off it? What were you getting so excited about when the car turned over?"

The Saint gazed past her, into one of the corners where the dusk was rapidly deepening. That memory had been the first to return to his mind when he painfully recovered consciousness, had haunted him ever since under the surface of his unconcern, embittering the knowledge of his own helplessness.

"The Reichstag," he said. "Remember the Reichstag. That's what Kennet wrote on that bit of paper, which he probably pinched from the headquarters of the Sons of France when he was a member. That's why he had to be cooled off. He knew one thing too much, among a lot of stuff that didn't matter, and if he'd lived that one thing might have wrecked the whole scheme."

"But what did he know?"

"Do you remember the Reichstag fire, in Berlin? That was the thing that started the Nazi tyranny in Germany. Of course the Nazis said that the Communists had done it; but a good many people have always believed that the Nazis arranged it themselves, to give themselves a grand excuse for what they went on to do afterwards. It seems pretty plain that the Sons of France have planned something on the same lines for tomorrow. That piece of paper was a list of various suitable occasions for a blowup of that sort which had been jotted down and discussed and eliminated for various reasons until just one was left — the opening of the Hostel of Memory at Neuilly by Comrade Chaulage. The scheme will be to have Comrade Chaulage assassinated during the proceedings. This of course will be the work of the Communists, like the Reichstag fire; and it will not only be proof of what desperate and disgusting people they are, but it will also be evidence of their contempt for the Heroes of France, which is always a very strong point with the Fascist gang. The Sons of France will claim the assassination as a crowning example of the incompetence of the present government to keep the Red bandits in check; so they will mobilize their forces, seize the government and proclaim a dictatorship. And there you are."

"You mean the Sons of France are going to kill Chaulage," she said, "and Luker and Algy and General Sangore know all about it."

"That was my guess. And I still like it."

She seemed a little disappointed, as if she had expected something more sensational than that. Her brief silence seemed to argue that after all there were millions of Frenchmen, and one more or less couldn't matter so much as that.

"I think I saw a picture of Chaulage in the paper once," she said, with almost polite indifference. "A funny little fat man who looks like a retired grocer."

"He is," said the Saint. "He also happens to be prime minister of France. And funny little fat Frenchmen who look like retired grocers often have ideas, particularly when they get to be prime ministers. Of course that would never be allowed in this country, but it happens there. And one of Comrade Chaulage's ideas is a bill to take all the private profit out of war, which is naturally very unpopular with Luker and Fairweather and Sangore and the directors of the Siebel Factory. So that makes Comrade Chaulage a doubly suitable victim. And when the Sons of France seize power his bill will be firmly forgotten, people will march about and wave flags, bigger and better armaments will be the cry, the people will be told to be proud of going without butter to pay for bombs and the people who sell the bombs will be very happy. Hitler and Marteau will scream insults at each other across the frontier like a couple of fishwives, and pretty soon everything will be lined up for a nice bloody war. Some millions of men, women and children will be burned, scalded, blistered, gassed, shot, blown up and starved to death, and the arms ring will sit back on its foul fat haunches and rake in the profits on a turnover of about five thousand pounds per corpse, according to the statistics of the last world war."

"Would that photograph have something to do with it, too?"

"That's probably the most damning evidence of all. It seems to me that there's only one thing it can possibly mean. The half-witted-looking warrior on the right — you remember him? — he must be the martyr who's going to do the job. Some poor crazy fanatic they've got hold of who's been sold on the idea of how glorious it would be to give his life for| the Cause; or else some ordinary moron who doesn't even know or care what it's all about. It must be that, or the photograph doesn't mean anything. God knows how Kennet managed to take it — we never shall. He risked his life when he did it, and the risk caught up with him in the end; but it's still a photograph that might make history. It would probably swing all except Marteau's most fanatical sympathizers against him if it was published; under any government that Marteau wasn't running it could send Luker to the guillotine…"

He went on talking not because he wanted to, but to give her the distraction she had asked for. It grew darker and darker until he could no longer see her at all. The time dragged on, and presently he had nothing new to say. Her own contributions were only short, strained, apathetic sentences which left all the burden of talking to him.

Presently he heard her stirring in an abrupt restless way which warned him that the sedative was losing its effect. He was silent.

She shuffled again, coming closer, until her shoulder touched his. He could feel her trembling. It would have helped if he could have held her. But his wrists were bound so tightly that his hands were already numb; long ago he had tried every trick he knew to release himself, but the knots had been too scientifically tied, and anything with which he might have cut himself free had been taken from him while he was unconscious.

Because there was nothing else he could do, he kissed her, more gently than he had ever done before. For a while she gave herself up hungrily to the kiss; and then she dragged her lips desperately away.

"Oh hell," she sobbed. "I always thought it'd be so marvellous if you ever did that, and now it just makes everything worse."

"I know," he said. "It must be dreadful to feel so safe."

Then she giggled a little hysterically, and presently her head drooped on his shoulder and they were quiet for a long time. He sat very still, trying to strengthen and comfort her with his own calm, and the truth is that his thoughts were very far away.

In the kitchen two men sat smoking moodily. The plate on the kitchen table between them was piled high with ash and the ends of stubbed-out cigarettes.

One of them was Pietri. He was not coloured in tasteful stripes any more, but a certain raw redness combined with an unusually clean appearance about his face testified to the labour with which they had been removed. The shaven baldness of his head was concealed by a loud tweed cap which he refused to take off. The other man was quite young, with close-cropped fair hair and a prematurely hardened face. In his coat lapel he wore the button badge of the British Nazis.

He yawned, and said in the desultory way in which their conversation had been conducted for some hours: "You know, it's a funny thing, but I never thought I'd have the job of putting the Saint out of action. In a way, I used to admire that fellow a bit at one time. Of course I knew he was a crook, but he always seemed a pretty sound chap at heart. When I read about him in the papers, I used to think he'd be worth having in the British Nazis. Of course he deserves what's coming to him, but I'm sort of glad I haven't got to give it to him myself."

Pietri yawned more coarsely. He had no political leanings: he simply did what he was paid to do. To him the British Nazis were nothing but a gang of half-hearted amateur hooligans who got into scraps with the police and the populace without the incentive of making money out of it, which proved that they must be barmy.

"You're new to this sort of thing, ain't you?" he said pityingly.

"Oh, I don't know," said the other touchily. "I've beaten up plenty of bastards in my time." He paused reminiscently. "I was in a stunt last Sunday, when we broke up a Communist meeting in Battersea Park. We gave them a revolution all right. There was an old rabbi on the platform with long white hair and white whiskers, and he was having a hell of a good time telling all the bloody Reds a lot of lies about Hitler. He's having a good time in the hospital now. I got him a beauty, smack in the mouth, and knocked his false teeth out and broke his jaw." He sat up, cocking his ears. "Hullo — this must be Bravache at last."

He got up and went out of the kitchen and across the hall. His feelings were mixed: they were compounded partly of pride, partly of a sort of uneasy awe. He was a picked man, chosen because the leaders of the movement knew that his loyalty and efficiency could be absolutely relied on; he was one of the first to be entrusted with the business of liquidating an enemy. In future he would probably be detailed again for similar deadly errands. He was one of the storm troops, the striking force of the movement, and their duty was to be merciless. As he opened the front door, the young British Nazi saw himself being very strong and merciless, a figure of iron. It made him feel pretty good.

A two-seater sports car had drawn up beside the black Packard that was parked in the drive, and Bravache was already stumping up the steps. Dumaire followed him. Their faces, like Pietri's, looked scoured and tender; and they also kept their hats on. Bravache raised his hand perfunctorily as the British Nazi came to attention and gave a full Fascist salute.

"The prisoners?" he said curtly.

"This way, Major."

The young British Nazi led the way briskly through the kitchen, opened the scullery door and switched on the light. Lady Valerie stirred and gave a little moan as the sudden blaze stabbed her eyes. Bravache bowed to her with punctilious mockery, his lips parting in the unhumorous wolfish smile that Simon remembered.

"Much as I regret to disturb you, mademoiselle, your presence is required at the headquarters of the Sons of France."

Dumaire came past him and kicked Simon savagely in the ribs. Then he bent over, grinning like a rat, and lightly touched the dried bloodstains on Simon's cheeks.

"Blood is a better colouring than paint," he said.

He closed his fist and hit Simon twice in the face.

"Bleed, pig," he said. "I like the colour of your blood."

"It is red, at any rate," said the Saint unflinchingly. "Yours would be yellow."

Dumaire kicked him again; and then Bravache pushed him aside.

"Enough of that," he said. "We have no time to waste now. But there will be plenty of time later. And then I shall enjoy a little conversation with Mr Templar myself. We have several things to talk over."

"You must let me give you the address of my barber," said the Saint affably.

Bravache did not strike him or make any movement. His cold fishy eyes simply rested on the Saint unwinkingly, while his teeth glistened between his back-drawn lips. And in the duration of that glance Simon knew that all the mercy he could expect from Bravache was more to be feared than any vengeance that Dumaire could conceive.

Then Bravache turned and flicked his fingers at the British Nazi and Dumaire, and at Pietri who had followed him to the door.

"Bring them out," he ordered briefly. "We must be going."

He went back to the hall, and as he arrived there he saw; a door move. He went over to it and pushed it wide, and found General Sangore standing just inside the library beyond it, like an eavesdropper caught at the keyhole, with a large glass of whiskey clutched in one hand.

"My apologies for troubling you, General," Bravache said with staccato geniality in which there was the faint echo of a sneer. "But I'm afraid we shall need you to guide us to the place where our aeroplane is to meet us. I was told to ask for 'the long meadow' — Mr Luker said you would know it. He also said that you wished to avoid being seen by the prisoners. That will be easily arranged. They will be in the back of the Packard, and if you put on a hat and turn up your coat collar they will not recognize you in the darkness. Personally I should call it a needless precaution. By this time tomorrow the Saint and all his associates will be beyond causing you any anxiety."

"All?" Sangore repeated stupidly.

He gulped at his drink. He still seemed to be in the same daze that he had been in when he left Luker's house. For perhaps the first time in twenty years the rich cerise and magenta tints of his complexion looked gray and faded.

Bravache nodded, drawing his gloves up tighter on his hands. His swaggering erectness, the cold confident glitter of his eyes, the cruel curl of his lips, were personal characteristics which he wore like the accoutrements of a uniform, the insignia of a new breed of soldier compared with whom Sir Robert Sangore even at his most militaristic was a puffing anachronism.

"Yes. We have been able to find out from Scotland Yard that the Sureté have traced Mr Quentin, Miss Holm and two others of his gang to the Hotel Raphael, in Paris. Unfortunately Scotland Yard now have no charges on which to ask for their arrest. But the delay is only temporary. Within a few hours the Sons of France will be giving their own orders to the Sureté."

Simon Templar heard most of the speech as Pietri and the British Nazi were dragging him roughly through the hall and out to the waiting car; and it rang in his ears like a jeering refrain through the short drive and the longer wait which followed. As he was dragged out of the car again and thrown into the big cabin monoplane which swooped out of the dark to land by the light of the Packard's headlamps he could still hear it. It was the bitterest torment that he had to bear. He had not only lost his fight and condemned Lady Valerie to the penalties of his own defeat, but Patricia and Peter and Hoppy and Orace were included in the price of his failure.

3

Simon could not guess exactly how long they flew, but since he knew approximately where they were going the time was of no great importance. He lay awkwardly in the space, behind the two bucket seats in which Bravache and Dumaire were sitting behind the pilot, where they had dumped him with no regard for his comfort, and Lady Valerie was huddled partly beside him and partly on his legs. They seemed to be sprawled all over each other, and it was impossible for them to move. The girl did not try to speak any more, but at intervals he felt the violent shudders that ran through her.

At last the roar of the engine ceased and there was only the soft whirr of their wings gliding through the wind. After a while the engine snarled again in a couple of short bursts; then they hit the ground with a slight bump, settled, and trundled joltingly along with a creaking of undercarriage springs and the throaty drone of the engine turning at low speed. Then even that stopped. They were in France.

Men in a uniform of black riding breeches and shirts of horizon blue swarmed round the machine. Bravache and Dumaire got out; Simon and Lady Valerie were dragged out ungently after them. They felt the cool night air on their faces and had a brief glimpse of stars and a dim line of poplars somewhere in the distance; there was no sign of the lights or buildings of a regular airport. Then bandages were tied over their eyes and hands fumbled with the ropes on their ankles. With their legs freed, they were hustled away and pushed into another waiting car.

The drive that followed lasted about half an hour before the car stopped again. There was the sound of other footsteps round it, a brief mutter of voices. Then the Saint and Lady Valerie were hauled out again. Two men seized the Saint, one of them holding each of his arms. A voice said: "Allez!" Simon was shoved on. He tripped over a step, marched for some distance in devious directions over a stone or tiled floor, then he was halted. There was a pause, and he heard a faint click. They went on.

From the manner in which his guides huddled close to him, and from the dank cold smell of the air, they seemed to pass into a fairly narrow underground passage. Several footsteps rang and reverberated hollowly in the confined space.

The passage led steeply downwards then levelled off. Simon counted his steps. After twenty paces they turned sharply, and the passage seemed to widen. Thirty paces beyond the turn they stopped again, and there was a peculiar knocking and a brief delay while another door was opened. Simon was led through it, marched a few more paces, turned round a number of times and halted once more. The men who were holding his arms released him. He heard the same manoeuvres being repeated after him, and guessed that Valerie's steps were among them. There were other movements, and the almost inaudible swish of a heavy door being silently closed. The air seemed warmer, but there was the same damp tang in it. Then the blindfold was taken off his eyes, and he could look about him.

He seemed to be in a spacious underground cellar. It must have been part of a very old building, for even the warmth of an electric fire built into one wall could not altogether dissipate the damp chill which pervaded it. A large tricolour hung on the wall facing him, above a long table behind which stood three plain wooden chairs, the only furniture there was. There were various doors in all four walls, with nothing about them by which he could identify the one through which he had been brought in. He had been turned round enough while he was blindfolded to lose his bearings completely.

Valerie was beside him, and the four uniformed Sons of France who had formed their escort were drawn up on either side of them and behind them.

Bravache was there also. He emphasized his own importance by stopping to very deliberately draw off his gloves before he strolled across to one of the doors that opened off the room where they were. He knocked, turned the handle, and clicked his heels in the doorway as he raised his arm in salute.

"Les prisonniers, mon commandant."

"Trиs bien," answered a voice from the room beyond; and even in those two words the Saint recognized the harsh strident tones that he had heard on the radio in his car — at least a hundred and fifty years ago.

Bravache turned away from the door and clicked his heels again.

"Garde а vous!" he barked.

The escort sprang to attention, but without taking their hands from the butts of their revolvers.

Out of the room, striding past the stiffly drawn up figure of Bravache, came a tall gray-haired man of about fifty-five. He wore the same uniform as the escort, except that there was a double row of coloured ribbons on his breast and his blue shirt had six gold bars on each shoulder. No Frenchman would have needed any introduction to him. That long narrow face with the low forehead and the black piercing eyes and the chin that stuck out like the toe of a boot had been caricatured by a score of artists who tomorrow might be wishing that their talents had been otherwise employed. It was Colonel Raoul Marteau, prospective dictator of France.

And after him came Kane Luker.

Luker glanced at the prisoners without expression, as if he had never seen them before, while Marteau ceremoniously returned the escort's salute. He followed the commandant as he went on to take one of- the chairs behind the long table; and the Saint's old dauntlessly irreverent smile touched his bruised lips.

"You know," he remarked to Valerie, "if Luker only had a barrel organ he'd still be a bloated capitalist. An ordinary organ-grinder thinks himself lucky if he's just got one monkey."

Marteau glanced at Luker inquiringly. Apparently he did not speak English. Translating for him, Luker looked almost amused. And Simon realized that to try and bait Kane Luker was not even worth the waste of breath. He was that uncommon type of man for whom abuse or insolence simply had no meaning: they were inane puerilities, incapable of making the slightest difference to any material issue, therefore not worth the loss of an atom of composure.

Marteau was different. His eyes burned darker, and he rasped an order through thin tense lips; and the escort on Simon's right turned and struck him brutally in the face, and returned woodenly to attention.

The force of the blow staggered the Saint back a pace before he recovered his balance; and the girl gasped and whimpered: "You bloody swine!" The blood boiled in Simon's veins, and his cords cut into his wrists against the fierce strain that tautened his muscles; but it was not the blow that hurt him so much as the humiliation of knowing that any courage he could show would only whet the sadistic contempt of these shining crusaders who made a fetish of their own courage. Yet he kept his face set in its mask of indomitable derision, while his mind said pitilessly: "Presently it 'll be over, but they'll never be able to say that they made me crawl."

Ignoring him after that swift and callous retaliation, Marteau had turned to Bravache.

"They have been searched?" he was asking in French.

"Oui, mon commandant."

"Did you find the photograph?"

"Only a print, mon commandant."

Marteau nodded and sat back with a rudimentary but sufficient gesture towards Luker; and Luker sat forward.

He clasped his hands on the table in front of him and said quietly, with his eyes fixed passionlessly on the Saint: "Mr Templar, among the papers which you secured from Lady Valerie there was a photograph and the negative of that photograph. Where is the negative?"

There was a short silence.

"Go on," said the Saint encouragingly.

"That is all I want you to tell me."

"But you haven't finished yet. Don't you know the formula? You have to describe all the hideous things that'll happen if I don't tell you, and make my blood run cold. The audience expects the thrill."

Luker's expressionlessness did not change. He answered in the same passionless voice.

"A number of hideous things may happen to you in due course, Mr Templar. But for the present I am not concerned with them. I know quite well that you have a temperament which would probably resist interrogation for a long time; and at the moment time is precious. We shall therefore start with Lady Valerie, whose powers of resistance are certainly less than yours. The Sons of France have an excellent treatment for obstinacy. Unless we are given the information we require, Lady Valerie will be tied up over there" — Luker pointed with one hand — "and flogged until we do get it."

The Saint's eyes travelled in the direction indicated by Luker's hand. In the wall to which Luker was pointing there were two iron rings, a yard apart, cemented into the stone about seven feet from the ground. The wall around them was stained a different colour from the rest; and in spite of his jest the Saint felt as if cold fingers crept up his spine.

Lady Valerie looked in the same direction, and her breath caught in her throat.

"But I don't know," she cried out quiveringly. "I don't know what happened to the negative. Simon, I don't know what you did with it!"

"That's true," said the Saint, in a voice of terrible sincerity. "Leave her out of it. She doesn't know. She couldn't tell you, even if you flogged her to death."

He might as well have appealed to a graven image. Luker was not even interested.

"In that case I hope that your natural chivalry will induce you to spare her any unnecessary suffering," he said. "You will of course be allowed to watch the proceedings, so that your sympathies may be fully aroused. A word from you at any time will save her any further — discomfort." He brought his hands together again with an air of finality. "Since I understand that you were proposing to marry Lady Valerie, your affection for her should not encourage you to hesitate."

Simon looked at the girl. She stared back at him, her eyes wide with terrified entreaty.

"Oh, Simon, must I be flogged?" she said faintly.

Her face was white and terror-stricken; her lips trembled so that the words would hardly come out. And yet in a queer way it was plain that she was only asking him to tell her, whatever he might say.

The Saint felt that everything inside him was cold and stiff, as if the rigour of death had already touched him. somehow he kept all weakness out of his face.

He spoke to Marteau in French.

"Monsieur le Commandant, I ask nothing for myself. But you have ideals, and you would wish to be called a gentleman. Will you be proud to record the torture of a helpless girl as the glorious beginning of the revolution in which you believe?"

Marteau's face flushed, but the arrogant unyielding lines deepened around his mouth.

"The individual, monsieur, is of no more importance than an ant compared with the destiny of France." His dark eyes glowed with a mystic light. "Tomorrow — today — we make history, and France takes her rightful place among the nations of Europe. I can give way to no sentimental reluctance to do anything that may be necessary to safeguard the trust which is in my hands. Those who are not with us are our enemies." The glow faded from his eyes, leaving only the hard lines still shifting about his mouth. "As a man, I confess that I should prefer to spare Mademoiselle; but that responsibility is yours. As a leader, with the destiny of France in my care, my own course cannot falter."

"I see," said the Saint softly. "And if I told you what you want to know, I suppose we should be murdered just the same, only without the trimmings."

Marteau's face grew colder and more distant.

"I should like you to understand, monsieur, that the Sons of France do not commit murder. Although your guilt is perfectly evident, you will receive a fair trial by court-martial; naturally, if you are found guilty, you must expect to suffer the due penalty."

"Exactly." Luker spoke in English and the old ironical gleam was back in his eyes. "You'll get a fair trial by court-martial, and you'll be shot immediately afterwards. The day after tomorrow we shall probably start court-martialling traitors in batches of twenty. I'll try to arrange for you both to be in the first batch. But you must agree that that will be far preferable to the same inevitable result with the preliminary addition of what I think you called the trimmings."

"Of course," said the Saint. "You're so generous that it brings a lump into my throat."

But his smile was very tight and cold.

His shoulders ached with a weary hopelessness. No one except himself, not even Luker, could guess what dregs of defeat he had to taste. Death he could have met carelessly: he had lived with it at his elbow for so long that it was almost a friend. He had fenced and bantered with it, and lightheartedly made rendezvous and broken them, but never without the calm knowledge that the day must come, however distant, when they would have to sit down together and talk business. Death with trimmings, even, would not have made him cringe; he had faced that, too, and other men had gone through it, men many of them forgotten and nameless now, who had endured their brief futile agony that was swept away and obliterated like a ripple in the long river of time. But here he was not alone. He had to sentence the girl in the acceptance of his own fate.

And there was nothing to give it even a plausible ultimate glory. They died, anyway. And if he died, and let the girl die, without speaking under any torture, it achieved no more than just that. It was not a question of keeping the photograph safe for what might be done with it. There would be no one left to do anything with it, after Patricia and the others had been rounded up in the morning. And even if they escaped, there would be nothing to be done. The negative would remain where it was hidden, in his fountain pen, and would probably be destroyed along with his body and the clothes he was wearing; or at the best someone would appropriate it, and the most likely person to appropriate it was one of the Sons of France, and even if he found it it would alter nothing. If the Saint was silent and it was never found, it would only mean that Luker and Marteau would be worried about it for some time, but nothing would happen, and their anxieties would ease with every day that went by, and soon they would be too strong to care. How could he condemn the girl to that extra unspeakable ugliness of death for no better reason than to leave Luker and Marteau with a little unnecessary trepidation, and to give his pride the boast that they had never been able to make him talk?

But the bitterness of surrender fought against letting him speak.

He saw Luker watching him steadily, and knew that the other was following almost every step in his inevitable thoughts. Luker's eyes were hardening with the cold certainty of triumph.

"Perhaps you would like to discuss it with your fiancee, Mr Templar," he said. "I shall arrange for you to be given five minutes alone. I'm sure that that will be sufficient for you to reach the only conclusion that two sensible people can come to."

4

They were in a tiny box of a cell furnished with a small wooden table, a wooden chair and a wooden cot with a straw paillasse; all the articles of furniture were securely bolted to the floor. It smelt sour and musty. A faint dismal light came through an iron grille over the door which seemed to be the only means of ventilation.

Valerie dropped limply on to the cot and leaned back against the wall in an attitude of supreme weariness.

"Alone at last," she said. And then: "My God, I'm tired."

"You must be," said the Saint. "Why don't you go to sleep?"

She smiled weakly.

"With a man in my room? What would the dear vicar say?"

"Probably the same thing that the Bishop said to the actress."

"What was that?"

" 'It is a far far bedder thing—' "

"'—I do now than I have ever done,'" she said; and then her voice broke. She said huskily: "Simon… will it hurt dreadfully?"

The Saint's mouth felt dry, but the palms of his hands were wet. He knew exactly how cruelly shrewd Luker had been in giving them those few minutes to think. If he had had any doubts before, he could not have kept them long.

The only thing left to discover was what else might be done with the postponement.

He went over and sat down on the end of the cot, beside her, and against the wall. The wall was of naked bricks, roughly laid, and age had mouldered the mortar in many of the courses and neglect had let it crumble away. He felt the surface behind him with his numbed finger tips. It seemed to be harsh and abrasive…

"Does dying frighten you very much?" he asked gently.

Her head was tilted back against the wall and her eyes were half closed.

"I don't know… Yes, I'd always be terrified. But I don't think I'd mind so much just being shot. This… being flogged — to death — it makes me go sort of shuddery deep inside. I want to scream and howl and weep with terror, and I can't… I'm afraid I'd never have been any good to you, Simon. I suppose your girl friend would go to it with a brave smile and her head held high and all that sort of thing, but I can't. I'm afraid I'm going to disgrace you horribly before it's over…"

He was rubbing his bound wrists against the brickwork behind him, tentatively at first, then with a more determined concentration. He could feel the dragging resistance against each movement, could hear the slurred grating sounds that it produced. He bent his head towards her until his lips were almost touching her ear.

"Listen," he whispered. "You're not going to be flogged. We can prevent that, at least. But you heard what Luker said. Whatever else happens, we're booked for the firing squad within the next couple of days. So we have to be shot, anyway. Personally I'd rather be shot on the run, and at least give them a fight for their money. I'm going to try to make a getaway. I don't suppose it'll make a damn bit of difference, but I'm going to try it."

She looked at him, quickly, as if all her muscles had stiffened. And then they relaxed again.

"Of course — you couldn't take me with you," she said wistfully. "I'd only be in the way."

It was hard to keep the rope pressed firmly enough against the brick and at the same time keep his flesh away. There seemed to be more protruding bones in his hands and wrists than he had ever dreamed of, and his skin was much less tough than the rope. Fierce twinges of rasping agony stabbed up his arms, but he could not allow himself to heed them.

He said: "If you feel the same way that I do, and you'd like to take a chance, we'll have a shot at it together."

She had begun to stare at the curious rhythmic twitching of his shoulders.

"What are you doing?"

The sweat was standing out in beads on his forehead although she could not see that; and his teeth were clamped together in stubborn endurance of the torture that he was inflicting on himself while he tore the flesh off his bones as he fought to fray off the strands of hemp that tied his hands. But his heart was blazing with a savage exaltation that partly deadened pain.

He said through his clenched teeth and rigid lips: "Never mind. We haven't got much longer. When they fetch us out again, I'm going to try to break loose. You give way to all your impulses — scream your head off, and fight as hard as you can to break away. Anything to keep their attention occupied. Leave the rest to me. I expect all we'll get will be two bellyfulls of bullets, but I may be able, to kill Luker and Marteau first."

She was quite still for a moment, and then she said in a strange strained voice: "Okay. I'll do everything I can."

He laid his face against hers as she leaned towards him, and went on sawing his wrists against the wall in a grim fury of torment. He spoke only once more.

"I'm sorry about this, Valerie," he said. "We might have had such a lot of fun."

Five minutes was no time at all. It seemed to be only a few moments before the big iron key rattled in the lock and the door opened again.

Bravache bowed in the doorway, his teeth shining in the set sneering grin that sat so naturally on his cold haughty face.

"You are ready?" he inquired.

It was a second or two before Lady Valerie got up.

The Saint rose to his feet after her. For all that he had suffered, the cords still held his wrists. But he had his strength, saved and stored up through all the hours when it had been useless to struggle: he had always had the strength of two or three ordinary men, and at this time when he had need of it all for one supreme effort his own will might make it greater. If only that was enough… Now that the last sands were trickling away he was conscious of a curious inward peace, a great stillness, an utter carelessness in which his nerves were like threads of ice.

He let the girl go first, and followed her back into the big barren room from which they had been taken.

Luker and Marteau still sat at the long table under the flag. Marteau was drawing nervous figures on the bare wood with a stub of pencil, but Luker was outwardly untouched by anxiety. Simon and Valerie were marched up in front of the table, and the escort of Sons of France re-formed around them; and Luker looked up at them with nothing but confidence on his square stony features.

"Have you made up your minds?"

"Yes," answered the Saint.

"Well?"

"We made up our minds," said the Saint unhurriedly,"that besides the barrel organ you might do well with ice cream as a side line."

Luker's expression did not change. It only became glassy and lifeless, as if it had been frozen into place.

He moved one of his hands less than two inches.

"Tie up the girl," he ordered in French; and the two nearest Sons of France grabbed Valerie by the arms.

Perhaps she was only acting. Or perhaps her nerve really broke then; perhaps her brain in the stupidity of terror had never quite grasped what the Saint had said while they were alone. But she fought wildly, crazily, even with her hands tied behind her back, bucking and staggering against them as they tried to drag her over to the iron rings in the wall, kicking out madly so that they cursed her until the third Son of France had to go over and help them. And that left only one on guard beside the Saint — the one who had slammed his fist into Simon's face only a little while before.

"You can't do this to me!" she was shrieking deliriously. "You can't… you filthy brutes… you can't…!"

Perhaps she was only acting. But the shrill shaky intensity of her voice stabbed through the Saint's brain with a rending reminder of how real it might have been.

He had half turned to watch her; and as he stood still no one was paying much attention to him. But in that volcanic immobility his arms hardened like iron columns, strained across the fulcrum of his back like twisted bars of tempered steel. The muscles writhed and swelled over his back and shoulders, leapt up in knotted strands like leathery hawsers from his shoulders down to his raw and bleeding wrists; a convulsion of superhuman power swept over his torso like the shock of an earthquake. And the ropes that held his hands together, weakened by the loss of the strands that he had been able to rub away in the few minutes that had been given him, were not strong enough to stand against it. There was a faint snap as the fibres parted; and his arms sprang apart with the jerk of unleashed tension. He was free.

Free but unarmed — for the few instants in which an unarmed man might move.

The guard beside him must have sensed the eruption that had taken place at his elbow; or perhaps his ears caught the thin crack of separating cords — too late. He began to turn; and that was his last conscious movement, the last flash of awareness in his little world.

He started to reach for the revolver in its holster on his hip. But another hand was there before his, a hand of lean sinewy fingers that whipped the weapon away from under his belated groping. An ear-splitting detonation crashed out between the cellar walls, and a shattering blow tore through his chest and gave him only one instant's anguish…

Simon Templar turned square to the room as the man folded down to his feet with an odd slowness. The barrel of his revolver swerved over the others in a measured quadrant.

"Any of you can have what your friend got," he said generously. "You've only got to ask."

None of them asked. For that brief precarious spell they were incapable of any movement. But he knew that every passing second was against him. He spoke to the girl, his voice razor edged and brittle.

"Valerie, come over here — behind me. And keep well out of the line of fire."

She started towards him, staying close against the walls. He didn't watch her. His eyes were darting like wasps over the six men that he had to deal with, probing with nerve-racked alertness for the point where the fight would start. The three remaining members of the escort grouped fairly close together where they had been struggling with the girl. Bravache, further away, with a skeletal grin pinned and forgotten on his face. Colonel Marteau, white lipped and rigid. Luker, heavy and petrified, but with his brain still working behind unblinking eyes.

And in his mind the Saint did ruthless arithmetic. Six men. And unless he was holding a five-chambered gun he should have five shots left. Even if he could drop one man stone cold with every single shot, that would still leave one armed man against him at the end. Even if no other Son of France elsewhere in the building had heard his first shot and would be coming in at any moment to investigate… It couldn't be much longer now before other heads made the same calculation. Whatever happened, if they called for a showdown, he couldn't win. The only choice he had left was where he should place his shots — while he had time to choose.

And yet he didn't want to take that suicidal vengeance while there was still even a spider thread of hope.

He said to the room at large: "Which is the way out of here?"

Nobody had time to answer, even if anyone had decided to.

Colonel Marteau stood up.

"Anyone who tells him," he stated harshly, "is a coward and a traitor."

"Will you set the example?" asked the Saint silkily. "Or would you rather be a dead hero?"

"I shall not tell you."

Simon knew that he had lost an infinitesimal point, but his face gave it no acknowledgment. The steel hardened in his eyes.

"Maybe we can change your mind for you," he said, without a flicker of apprehension in his voice. "Valerie, slip round behind these guys and bring me their guns."

He did not hear any movement.

"Go on," he rapped.

"But how can I?"

"If you try it, I think you'll be able to twist your hands round enough."

But he had lost another point. Those few words between them must only make plainer the ultimate hopelessness of his position. And with every point lost the score was creeping up against him with frightful speed. He would fight every inch of the way with the stubbornness of despair, but he knew in his heart that the battle could only end one way. If he could have made one of the men tell him the way out at once, they might have made a dash for it with a faint sporting chance of shooting their way through; but that had always been a far-fetched hope. They would never be made to talk so easily. And every delay was on their side. Sooner or later their confidence would return. It could only be a matter of seconds now. It was already returning. Sooner or later, with the eyes of his commandant upon him and his brain swimming with dreams of glory, one Son of France would screw up his nerve to the crucial fatal heroism that would point the way to a swift inevitable ending…

Valerie had moved round on the Saint's left. She was beside the nearest Son of France, twisting her hands round to reach the revolver in his holster.

Simon's eyes raked the man's face. Was this the one who would first find the courage to take his chance? If not, with two guns instead of one in the Saint's hands, the odds might be altered again. Or would it be one of the others? Other faces loomed on the outskirts of the Saint's vision. Which of them had the courage to call for a showdown? And then a door opened stealthily on the Saint's right. He saw the movement out of the corner of his eye at the same time as the soft sound reached his ears; and irresistibly he turned partly towards it. The muzzle of his revolver turned with him. He saw a tall scrawny figure, a vacant idiot's face lighted by pale maniacal eyes, and knew at once where he had seen it before. It was the face and figure of the killer in Kennet's photograph; and it had an automatic clutched in one bony hand.

And at that moment Lady Valerie cried out, and the Saint knew what must have happened in the fractional instant while his vigilance was drawn away. He fired before he turned.

He knew that his shot scored, but he could not be certain where. A glimpse of the killer sagging in the middle flashed across his retina as he whirled to the left. Then he could see only the scene that was waiting for him there.

The Son of France whose gun Lady Valerie was trying to take had seized his chance while he had it, and made a grab at her, trying to throw her in front of him to shield his body. But her backward start had momentarily marred the completion of his manoeuvre, and there was about twelve inches of space between them. Through those twelve inches the Saint sent a bullet smashing into the man's breastbone, so that he staggered and let go and drooped back until the wall kept him from falling. But by that time, in the grace that they had been given, four other guns were out. Every gun except Luker's — if Luker had a gun. And the Saint knew that he could never silence them all.

Quite coolly and deliberately he levelled his sights between Luker's eyes. Other gun muzzles were settling upon him, other eyes crisping behind the sights, other fingers tightening on triggers; but he seemed to have all the time in the world. Perhaps he had all the time in eternity… But whatever happened he must make no more mistakes. This was the last thing that he could do. His body was braced against the shock of lead that must soon be ploughing from four directions through his flesh and bone; but none of that must stir his aim by as much as a summer breeze. Not until he had placed exactly where he wanted them the two shots that had to stand as the last witnesses to everything to which he had given his tempestuous life… He did not feel any doubt or any fear.

He squeezed the trigger, and the revolver jumped in his hand. A round black mark appeared in Luker's forehead, and while Simon looked at it the rim of it turned red.

And then the room seemed to be full of thunder.

The Saint felt nothing. He wondered, in a nightmarishly detached sort of way, whether he had actually been hit or not. But he was able to turn and align his sights without a quiver on their next target.

And that was when he really felt that something must have snapped in his brain. For Colonel Marteau was not even looking at him. He was standing stiffly upright, a strangely drawn and bloodless expression on his face, his right arm down at his side and the muzzle of his gun resting laxly on the table. And somewhere a little further off Bravache seemed to be sliding down the wall, like a lay figure whose knee joints have given way. And there was a blue-shirted figure squirming on the floor and making queer moaning noises. And another pair of blue-sleeved arms raised high in the air. And another door open, and grim-visaged armed men swarming in, men in plain clothes, men in the uniforms of gendarmes and agents de police and the black helmets of the Gardes Mobiles. And among them all two men who could only have been the ghosts of Peter Quentin and Hoppy Uniatz, with automatics smoking in their hands. And another man, short and dapperly dressed, with a blue chin and curled moustaches and bright black eyes, who seemed to be armed only with a cigarette in an amber holder, who strode up between them and bowed to the Saint with old-fashioned elegance.

"Monsieur Templar," he said, "I only regret that your message reached me too late to save you this inconvenience."

The Saint had no idea what he was talking about; but he could never have allowed the prefect of police of Paris to outdo him in courtesy.

"My dear Monsieur Senappe," he said, "really, it's been no trouble at all."