The Saint And The Fiction Makers

1

“It’s called Hermetico,” Warlock said. “Have you heard of it?”

“No,” Simon lied.

He knew of the existence of the place, but until now he had taken no special interest in it. He relaxed in his chair as Warlock took charge of a small table draped with purple velvet which had been rolled over next to the long conference table. Out of the corner of his eye Simon noted the strained, attentive faces of the other men. Their tension made for interesting speculation. Had Warlock, who apparently had money in large supply, not only gained their loyalty by paying them plenty, but possibly by recruiting them from prisons whose wardens had viewed the men’s departure with surprise and alarm rather than that warm satisfaction which comes of seeing the regenerate and rehabilitated outlaw leave for a better life at the end of a fully served term? If that were the case, then well-justified fear, if not gratitude, would considerably enhance their devotion to S.W.O.R.D. and its leader.

“This is a model of Hermetico,” Warlock said.

Frug, the more skimpy but most intelligent-looking of Warlock’s minions, lifted the purple covering from the table, revealing a monolithic white building surrounded by fences.

“There’s not much to it, is there?” Simon remarked nonchalantly.

“It’s like an iceberg,” Warlock answered. “Only the least important part shows above the surface. Hermetico was formerly the Templedown Colliery in North Wales, and now...”

“You’ve had it moved down to your property for a fish pond,” the Saint interrupted pleasantly.

Warlock darted him a look which did not say much for Warlock’s sense of humour. Simon looked repentant.

“I just meant,” he explained, “that you seem to be able to work miracles, so I wouldn’t be surprised at anything you’ve done now.”

Warlock was somewhat appeased, though still suspicious.

“The Templedown Colliery,” he continued, “was bought by a private company who have converted it into an underground depository for hyper-valuables.”

“Hyper-valuables?” Simon asked innocently. “What are hyper-valuables?”

Warlock turned impatiently from his model.

“Hyper-valuables are... very valuable things. I got the word from one of your books.”

“Oh,” Simon said, embarrassed. “Well, even Homer nods.”

“For example, two of the Middle East countries store their gold reserves there.”

“One of them keeps its crown jewels there,” Frug volunteered.

Warlock nodded.

“And three of De Beer’s subsidiaries keep diamond stocks there,” he said.

“And Oppenheimer’s, too,” said Frug.

By now everybody in the room was looking at the white model building as if it itself were made of diamonds. Warlock reverently touched its domed roof.

“So you can see, Mr. Klein, that it’s a worthy target for your talents.”

Simon stood with his hands clasped behind him and looked down at the model treasure-house.

“There’s just one thing wrong for a start,” he said.

“What’s that?” Warlock asked.

“Where does Charles Lake come in? He’s my hero, remember? He’s supposed to keep people from doing things like this, not cheer them on while they steal some poor potentate’s family jewels.”

Warlock was not taken aback.

“I could not create Charles Lake even if I wanted to. One cannot create an individual, but one can create an organization. And having created this organization, and all the resources and equipment with which your imagination endowed it on paper, I can only be glad that there is no such person as a Charles Lake in the real world.” Warlock’s small mouth smiled faintly, a dark crevasse in the snowy hills of his face. “S.W.O.R.D. actually exists. Charles Lake does not. And there’s your answer, Mr. Klein. If you’re worried about the moral considerations, let’s discuss those later.”

“All right,” said Simon. He nodded towards the model. “Go ahead, please. I’m interested in the problem of cracking this place... just in theory, of course.”

Warlock gave him a delighted glance and put his hand once more on the white dome of the little building.

“The surface structure is bomb-proof. Conventional bombs, I mean. Only the subterranean levels are proof against atomic bombs, and it’s at those levels, far below the ground, that the valuables are stored.” Warlock’s stubby finger touched the fence which surrounded the building. “Twelve feet high, barbed, and every strand wired to the alarm system. Between the fence and the narrow walkway surrounding the building there’s an area crisscrossed with electromagnetic beams. If one of the beams is interrupted an alarm goes off and a buried mine explodes at the point at which the beam was broken.”

The Saint bent over the model.

“Sounds formidable enough,” he commented.

“The place is supposed to be absolutely theft-proof,” Warlock said proudly.

“Maybe we could start with something easy,” the Saint said. “Like the Bank of England.”

“I’m glad you’ve learned to say ‘we’ so quickly,” Warlock responded. “I can see that you find the project interesting.”

Simon had used the ‘we’ as an ocean fisherman uses bits of chopped fish to attract and put his prey off guard before he drops his hook. Having decided that his best strategy was to pretend to be tempted by Warlock’s proposition, he might as well stay on that tack. For the moment there was nothing to be gained by resisting, and there might be a great deal to be learned by ostensibly co-operating.

“It’s interesting,” he said. “And challenging.”

Warlock turned the table around, showing that the underground sections of Hermetico had also been incorporated into the model, extending below tabletop level. He removed half of the surface model, so that now a complete cross-section view of the Hermetico complex was visible — the low building at ground level, the narrow vertical shaft, and the spreading chambers, like the roots of a tree, at the bottom.

“In the surface building,” Warlock said, “are business offices, switchboard, and controls for the surface security complex.” His fingers followed the long shaft downwards. “Here, an elevator, of course, and near the lower mouth of the shaft, the central control room. There are grilles of steel bars at intervals throughout the storage area, each with a different locking system and automatic sealing device. In the event of an alarm, the whole storage area can be flooded. The whole thing is automated.”

Bishop, the constable of the night before, had been standing respectfully by.

“Not the friendliest place in the world,” he volunteered chattily.

Warlock gave him a chilling glance as Simon straightened up after a close inspection of the lower chambers.

“Automated?” he asked. “You mean there aren’t any guards?”

“Oh, I’m afraid there are, but not nearly as many as you might expect. They serve a caretaking purpose, primarily. The management of Hermetico apparently feel that their automatic mechanical devices are more than adequate to discourage any attempt at theft.”

“And so the battle was lost...” Simon murmured.

“What’s that?” Warlock asked.

“It’s that kind of feeling that loses battles,” Simon said.

Warlock cast jubilant glances at his staff.

“So you see a loophole already!” he exclaimed to the Saint. “You can do it!”

Simon managed to look blankly innocent.

“I?” he said. “I only meant that over-confidence can make the most perfect defences vulnerable.”

“Then you will find that weak point,” Warlock replied. “The basic idea came to me from your book, Volcano Seven, except there it was the Bank of England S.W.O.R.D. robbed.”

“Tried to rob,” Simon corrected him. “Charles Lake stopped them.”

“And of course that’s one of the beauties of having you on S.W.O.R.D.’s side, Mr. Klein!” Warlock crowed. “You’ll come up with an even better story this time, in which S.W.O.R.D. wins.”

Simon elaborated his blank innocence into confusion.

“Story?” he asked.

“Telling how S.W.O.R.D. ransacked Hermetico. How through brilliant thinking, they breached every defence, penetrated to the core of that invulnerable fortress, and left it bare!”

“I’m to do that,” Simon marvelled rather than asked. “That’s the literary project you sent me that fifty-thousand-pound retainer for.”

Warlock rubbed his hands gleefully. He was pacing up and down the rich carpet near the model of Hermetico. The pale faces of his henchmen followed his movements like the spectators of a tennis match.

“Of course,” he said. “But it’s much more than a literary project. Here’s your opportunity to live your art and bring your wildest dreams to reality.”

“Bring your wildest dreams to reality,” Simon said drily. “Mine were doing fine already.”

Warlock stopped his peregrinations.

“I think,” he said, “that we might continue this discussion in private. You’ve met your staff, so to speak, and I see no point in keeping them here, if you agree.”

“I see no point in it at all,” Simon said.

“Very well, gentlemen, you may go. Except, Frug, would you please leave us the Hermetico dossier?” Warlock turned to Simon. “This dossier Frug will give you contains complete details of Hermetico operations and layout, including blue-prints. Frug?”

Frug, who had been looking quite pleased with himself during most of the meeting, jerked slightly and demonstrated that the skin of a more or less living human being, however white it may be, can always turn a little whiter.

“I don’t have it,” he blurted. “I mean, it’s in my office. I’ll just be a minute.”

Frug sidled towards the doorway, but Warlock stopped him with a word. It was a softly spoken word, with all the gentle menace of an adder sliding towards its sleeping prey.

“Frug.”

“Yes,” Frug said. “Yes, sir?”

Warlock confronted him, the jowly face, blotched with anger, threatening the scrawny white one.

“I told you to bring it, Frug,” Warlock said quietly.

“I forgot. I...”

With an awkwardly prolonged movement whose implications Frug could clearly see, Warlock drew back his right arm and brought it across in a sweeping arc that smashed flat-handed on the side of Frug’s pointed face. The Saint, whose first reaction to Frug had been a strong but entirely impersonal impulse to pop him like an insect between the earth and the sole of his shoe, viewed the performance with gratification and interest. It interested him that Frug had not tried to avoid the blow he saw coming, and that after it knocked his head to one side with its force, Frug did not betray by so much of a glint in his narrow eyes the rage that he must feel. Warlock’s power, then, was built on a sound foundation. His organization was not going to fall apart just because it was new and based on a mad dream.

“S.W.O.R.D. cannot afford members who forget,” Warlock said. “Since this is your first error, we’ll overlook it. Take the dossier to Mr. Klein’s room after he has returned there.”

Warlock looked at his other men, who had not moved during Frug’s punishment.

“You gentlemen may go now. See that Mr. Klein has the typewriter and other materials.” Warlock, his face still mottled crimson as an aftermath of his outburst, turned to his captive author, and the corners of his small mouth curved smugly upwards in one of the most unsavoury smiles the Saint had ever seen on a human countenance. “Then be sure you don’t disturb him,” he concluded. “He’ll be a very busy fellow for the next few days.”

2

“And what if I refuse?” Simon asked when he and Warlock were alone in the oak-panelled planning room.

Warlock turned from the double doors which he had closed securely behind his departing staff. Simon was standing entirely at ease near the model of Hermetico. Warlock came towards him, stopped, raised his arms from his sides, and then dropped them with a heavy sigh.

“Why must you put me in an awkward position by asking such a question, Mr. Klein? Why must you be difficult when I’ve gone to such lengths to prove my competence and my real interest in your work?” He made a gesture that encompassed the whole building around him. “What greater compliment could an author have than that a man of science, a practical businessman—”

“A scholar and a gentleman?” queried the Saint.

Warlock ignored the interruption except to re-adjust his sentence. “—that I should want to bring your fiction to reality? What could be more exciting? The masses read your works and forget them. I want to bring your energies to bear on the material world, to make you the architect of great feats, conquests...”

Warlock had begun to pace the room, waving his arms and working himself into a literal lather. Simon interrupted him quietly.

“Yes, but what happens if I don’t want to do it?” he asked.

Warlock stopped and sighed more heavily than ever.

“Must you, Mr. Klein? Must we discuss such unpleasant possibilities? Can’t you feel yourself infected with the same excitement that moves me so profoundly?”

Simon put his hands in his pockets and walked slowly to the wall beneath one of the high windows.

“I can feel myself infected, all right, but I can also see myself locked up in one of Her Majesty’s free boarding houses if this scheme of yours falls through.”

Warlock, sensing a weakening of resistance, all but scampered to confront the Saint and eagerly grasped his arms.

“Not my scheme,” he said, his jowls aquiver, “your scheme! Don’t you see — I want you to want to do this. I have no desire to force you.”

“Then I’m free to go whenever I feel like it?”

Warlock loosened his grip and started to speak, then was silent. He paced away, then paced back, started to speak again, and ended up beside the Hermetico model. His hand touched the white-domed top of the surface building. He stared down at it as if it were a crystal ball in which he could see visions.

“Mr. Klein,” he said softly, “when I was a lad, I was a dreamer. I read more than most because at that time I suffered from an illness that kept me from taking part in outdoor games like the other boys. My mind was full of adventures, and explorations, and the lives of great men. I imagined myself with Alexander in Persia, with Drake on the Spanish Main, and with Livingstone in Africa, but I wasn’t content just to imagine. I wanted to live those adventures.”

He paused, his hand slipping from the model on the tabletop. Simon stood without moving. He wanted to do nothing that might discourage his captor from going on with his personal confessions.

“I remember a curious kind of incident,” Warlock continued. “It illustrates what I mean. One night I was playing on the carpet with some lead soldiers my father had brought me. I asked him — my father — to play with me, and actually I was very surprised when he did, but he got down on his knees and we spent a long time arranging the soldiers on opposing sides. We had cannon and cavalry and infantry, and we made hills of blankets and cushions, and walls of books, and rivers and trees of paper and such... and when it was all done it looked quite impressive, the two armies ready for attack, poised on the hills and in the woods, ready to fire, ready to charge. And my father said, ‘Well, now, that’s fine,’ and got up and began to read his paper again. And I began crying, and he looked down and said, ‘Now, good heavens, what’s the matter? Didn’t I play with you?’ And I went on blubbering and said, ‘But they don’t do anything. They don’t move.’ It was strange. Warlock shook his head. “I don’t even know why it upset me so much. I cried as if my heart was broken.”

Simon felt more embarrassed than enlightened by the story. He merely shrugged slightly and allowed Warlock a new span of encouraging silence.

“The point is, Mr. Klein, that it is very difficult and rare to find opportunities for heroism and grand actions these days. I went to work for the research branch of an electronics firm after I’d finished at the university. That, at least, seemed an opportunity to explore new fields, if only in the mind. But the whole endeavour was smothered under a great weight of bureaucracy and practical necessity and professional jealousy.” Warlock folded his hands behind him and began to pace again. “I decided to launch out on my own. Frankly, I stole. I falsified requisitions and forged signatures. I had very little money, but over months I managed to build up a quite respectable laboratory in my cottage outside town. And then, before I was even certain what direction I’d take, two wonderful things happened to me: I discovered your books and I inherited this estate and four hundred thousand pounds.”

Simon acknowledged Amos Klein’s admiration of the sum.

“I’m flattered that you’d even include my books in the same sentence,” he said.

Warlock was so engrossed in his own words that he did not even glance at the Saint.

“Your books,” he said, “and others like them, are the healthy dreams of a sick humanity. People are stifled by an age in which aggressive instincts are held up to shame and scorn, when the invisible powers of money rule everything, when machines and taxes and collectivist politics destroy initiative and offer no challenge to self-development! Only in books like yours can they find a breath of fresh air and a glimpse of a way of life in which men use themselves to the full.”

“Hear, hear!” Simon applauded. “And you’re going to solve the problem by robbing safe deposits?”

Even though the Saint’s tone was kept carefully free of heavy sarcasm, anger flared across Warlock’s face like a sudden bruise.

“I’m sorry you don’t understand me!” he snapped. “It isn’t often I would bare my feelings to anyone, but I thought that you, of all people, would...”

Warlock bogged down.

“Sympathize?” the Saint offered. This time he spoke in a more friendly way than before, projecting an Amos Klein who was intrigued and tempted but torn by distrust and fear which he desperately wanted to hide. “Maybe I do sympathize, more than you know, but with four hundred thousand quid in the bank, why do you want to steal?”

“I chose to regard that inheritance merely as starting capital. It is, as the Americans say, peanuts — compared with the wealth of men like Onassis, Hughes, or Getty. I intend to have as much as they have — and more. I don’t care what I invest in this first operation: it will be returned hundreds of times. And those millions in turn will finance still greater operations. I see no limit to what may be mine one day. And you can be my partner.”

“Fine,” said the Saint. “But can you blame me for being cautious? After all, I’ve been gassed, kidnapped, and now told I’m to devise a way of pulling off the most spectacular and dangerous robbery in history. Am I supposed to feel perfectly calm?”

Warlock began to exude hopefulness again as he and Simon faced one another over the model of Hermetico.

“But I’ve apologized for kidnapping you,” he said, as if he sincerely believed that ought to be enough for anybody. “And there’s the fifty thousand pounds — just as an advance on the Hermetico profits — and there’s fine food, and people to wait on you hand and foot, and every comfort, and Galaxy Rose, and—”

Simon held up his hand.

“Nobody could complain about the accommodations,” he said. “Especially not about Galaxy Rose. But no matter how pleasant it all is, I’m bothered by the nagging feeling that I’m a prisoner. When do I get to spend some of that fifty thousand? If I agreed to co-operate with you on this project, am I and my... associate free to come and go as we please?”

Warlock shook his head apologetically.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Klein, that that must wait until I can be quite sure of your loyalty — or until you are as deeply compromised as the rest of us.”

“Which is just a polite way of saying that I am a prisoner?”

“If you agree to stay here voluntarily, then you needn’t think of yourself as a prisoner.”

“And if I don’t agree?”

Warlock struggled not to lose his temper completely over this new relapse.

“If you insist on being difficult, on pushing me into that position, the answer is that you have no choice. You are going to work with me as I planned. You’ve supplied me, if it comes to the worst, with too many gruesome methods of torture to make refusal even thinkable, particularly since I’d let Nero and Monk practise on the girl before they started on you. I think they’d hardly be warmed up before you’d be begging them to let her go and give you a typewriter and paper.”

“You have quite an argument,” Simon admitted grimly.

Now he seemed to accept the fact that resistance was useless. With acceptance, he could show a renewal of his former ironical good humour.

“I think it would be a pity, though,” Warlock said, “if you made both of us feel you’d had to be forced into this. How much better if we could co-operate freely! Think it over, and as you begin work I’m sure you’ll feel more and more that I’ve done you a favour. The antagonisms will disappear as your enthusiasm for the project grows. I promise you.”

As he spoke, he attempted to put his arm around Simon’s shoulder and escort him to the door like an experienced businessman reassuring a nervous young subordinate. Since Warlock’s proximity gave him the creeps, Simon managed to elude the embrace and face Warlock between the long table and the oak door.

“Incidentally,” he said, “as long as we’re going to be brothers in burglary, what’s your real name?”

The other man looked at him strangely.

“Warlock,” he said, as if answering the obvious.

“I mean the name your mother gave you,” Simon said.

“A man’s identity is a precious thing,” Warlock said. “Don’t tamper with it.”

“No tampering intended,” the Saint said quickly. “Do you prefer Warlock or Mr. Warlock?”

Warlock raised his hand and pointed a trembling finger. His voice rose to a shrill pitch.

“Mr. Klein, I warn you! People must take me seriously! I insist that people take me seriously!”

“I do take you seriously,” Simon assured him. “I take you so seriously that I’m going to start racking my brains to conjure up so much trouble for Hermetico that the board of directors will wish they’d used that mine for nothing more important than curing cheese.”

Warlock had an astonishing facility for changing moods.

“I knew,” he said benevolently, “that you would soon see it my way.”

He was grinning broadly as he led Simon to the door.

“We’ll be keeping in touch, I suppose,” said the Saint.

“Of course. Whatever assistance you require — a computer, technical help, my knowledge as a scientist — you have only to ask. You can dial number one on your phone and get me, or you can speak to Galaxy. She’ll always be nearby.”

“That’ll brighten the coffee breaks.”

Warlock hesitated before opening the door. He was all expansive bonhomie again.

“Mr. Klein,” he said, “don’t tell your... secretary about the torture. There’s no reason to upset her.”

“Of course not,” Simon said solemnly. “You’re very considerate.”

“Personally,” Warlock said confidentially, “I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Not personally. But did Napoleon ever personally shoot an enemy? I’ve often wondered. But the important thing is that he knew how to use people who didn’t mind shooting.”

3

When the Saint returned to his room, ushered by a silent Simeon Monk, he immediately heard a knock on the door beyond which Amity Little had purportedly been sleeping when he had been taken downstairs for his conference in the planning room.

“Thanks a lot, Sim,” he said to the well-tailored gorilla who stood in the corridor as if waiting for some new command to make its tortuous way through his brain. “Why don’t you go out in the garden and practise throwing yourself on electrified barbed wire? You could come in very handy when we storm Hermetico.”

The Saint then closed that door of his room, leaving the bulk staring with dim perception from beneath the great bony shelf of his forehead. The knocking on the second door continued.

“Coming!” he called cheerily. “I’m so popular I can’t keep up.”

He crossed the huge sunny room and turned the handle. From somewhere nearby came the harsh clanging of an alarm bell.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that!” Galaxy Rose cried from the other side of the door. “You should have said ‘come in’ and let me do it with my thumb.”

“Well, go ahead and do it.”

The alarm ceased, there was a gentle ping, and the door opened. Beside Galaxy stood Amity Little. Her short hair was freshly done and her elegant figure was dazzlingly displayed in a blue-flowered summer dress. She was smiling as happily as if her life had never been disrupted and was purring along completely on schedule.

“Amos!” she said. “How are you?”

“Fine, now that I see how you are.”

The two girls came into his room. Amity did a slow-motion twirl to take in the decor and at the same time show off her dress.

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “You really rate! What a gorgeous pad!”

Simon had to fight back a smile at Amity’s skilled transformation into just the sort of light-headed butterfly who might have been with Amos Klein on the night of his kidnapping.

“That’s the reward of brain and fame,” he said. “You should have been a writer.”

“And you should have been a diplomat,” she responded sweetly.

“You’re treating her all right, aren’t you?” he asked Galaxy.

Galaxy was like some ideal robot, indistinguishable from a real human female, but lacking the human disadvantage of jealousy.

“I’m doing my best,” she said, beaming at Amity like an old school chum.

“I’ve had the most super bath,” Amity chirped. “Soap jets all around! Coloured water with perfume and bubbles! And look at this dress.”

“I’ve already looked,” Simon said. “Come on in, Galaxy, and close the door. Let’s make it a party.”

“Thank you, master.”

“Amos Klein!” Amity exclaimed. “Do you make her call you that?”

“I don’t make her, I allow her, and unlike some women she appreciates a privilege when she has one.” Simon caught Amity’s eyes during his next words. “And what does she call you?”

“She calls me Amity Little, nuthead, because that’s my name. They saw it on my driver’s licence before I woke up. Where have you been and what have you been doing — or having done to you?”

“I’ve just returned from my investiture as commander-in-chief of S.W.O.R.D. It’s coronation day. Isn’t somebody going to break a bottle of champagne over me?”

“I’ll coronate you with a floor lamp,” Amity said. “What are you babbling about?”

“Didn’t Galaxy tell you anything?”

Galaxy shook her head.

“I’m not allowed to tell things,” she said dutifully. “Only that you were all right and wouldn’t be hurt. You mentioned champagne? Would you like some? It’s in the cooler right here.”

“Perfect,” Simon said. “Bollinger, please, for three, and then would you order up some pheasant for lunch? On second thought, caviar first, and then pheasant.”

Galaxy seemed happiest when taking orders.

“Right, master! Did you say for three?”

“Of course. You may be only a slave, but in these democratic days you’re allowed to eat with the master.”

Galaxy hurried to a cabinet which concealed a small refrigerator while Amity folded her arms and stared at Simon.

“Well, really, Amos, what’s got into you?”

“Fifty thousand pounds for starters, and the grand panjandrumship of S.W.O.R.D., not to mention the challenge of a bold adventure unequalled in modern times.”

“You’ve either gone off your rocker or been reading your own movie reviews,” said Amity. “While your concubines are preparing your feast, try to settle down and tell me what in the world is going on!”

Simon told her in terms which bordered on the enthusiastic, and as his narrative developed she managed to betray nothing except awed amazement.

“And this fellow who calls himself Warlock has actually created S.W.O.R.D., gadgets and all?” she asked unbelievingly.

“So he tells me, and so far I have no reason to doubt his word. Apparently he’s some sort of electronic genius, and I think we’ll be amazed when we find out just how far he has gone.” Simon paused to glance around the room. “I assume he can hear me, by the way, because if he has duplicated S.W.O.R.D. this room will have more bugs than a Bowery hop-house.”

“And pictures,” Amity added. “There’ll be a man somewhere monitoring every move you make by closed-circuit television.”

“More like monitoring every move Galaxy makes,” Simon said.

He sat down in an armchair and settled his legs comfortably on a marble-topped table as Galaxy performed one of her undulatory transits, bringing Bollinger, caviar, and newly polished glasses. Simon opened the champagne and poured.

“To success,” he said.

“Cheers,” Amity said drily, as Galaxy echoed the Saint’s words.

When they had drunk, Simon lifted his glass and scanned the upper walls and ceiling.

“And here’s to all our friends out there in television land. Prepare to have your tapes censored, boys. I always throw an intimate little orgy to celebrate the beginning of a new book.”

Galaxy giggled and tilted up her glass. She was on a leather ottoman near Simon’s feet. Amity, who was in a neighbouring chair, showed subtle but perceptible signs of a less cheerful and co-operative disposition. She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes in the typical way of women who feel that their duty in life is to be ballast for the incorrigible silliness of men.

“And this book,” she said. “It’s to be the plan for cracking this big underground vault?”

“Exactly.”

There was a rapping at the hall door.

“Come in,” Simon called, “but don’t forget to use your thumb.”

Bishop, the bruised mock policeman, and Nero Jones, the semi-albino with the pale eyes of death, came in carrying the Hermetico model between them.

“Perfect timing, boys. Just put it over there by the window. Amity, I’d like you to meet two of my assistants, Mr. Bishop and Mr.—”

“Nero Jones,” Amity said, completely awed. “It’s fantastic! I’d recognize both of you anywhere, just from reading the books.”

“Warlock’s going to love you,” Simon said.

“Miss Little,” Bishop said politely.

Nero Jones merely inclined his head, then both men made several more trips to the hall, from which they brought an electric typewriter, a small tape recorder, several reams of paper, and a large assortment of such minor items as pencils, rubbers, and paper clips.

“Warlock says if there’s anything else you need, just let us know.”

“I won’t hesitate.”

Nero Jones handed Simon a sizeable book bound in black leather.

“The Hermetico dossier,” he said. “And you left your money downstairs.”

In his other hand he was carrying the attaché case with which Simon had been presented in the planning room. Jones set it on the floor.

“Thanks very much,” the Saint said. “I don’t have much to spend it on at the moment, but I might as well keep it around to cheer me up when the going gets tough.”

Jones gave him a sour look and followed Bishop into the corridor. When they were gone, and the door was closed, Simon swung his feet to the floor, sat forward in his chair, and looked thoughtfully at the typewriter on its desk near the window.

“So,” he said, “what it amounts to is this: either I come up with a scheme to knock over Hermetico, or little Amity gets herself taken slowly apart in S.W.O.R.D.’s torture chamber.”

Amity, who had gone to inspect the Hermetico model, suddenly spun around and stared.

“Who?” she squealed. “Me?”

“Yes, darling. If I don’t perform, you’ll have the honour of being the first person to try out some of those devilish machines in the basement.”

Amity swallowed and pointed feebly at the floor.

“You mean... they really are... down there?”

“I haven’t seen them, but I’m willing to take Warlock’s word. I’ll bet you another bottle of Bollinger that they’re all down there, just as they were described with such grim and loving precision in the Charles Lake books.” Simon sprawled back in his chair and regarded Amity’s face with mildly sadistic satisfaction. “Don’t you wish I didn’t have such an active imagination?” he asked. “Or at least, not such a perverted, fiendish one?”

Amity clenched her fists and looked at the ceiling for some sign of a divine power which would keep her from murdering the Saint.

“Well, what are we going to do?” she finally asked. “I mean, I can’t help it if there are twenty dozen people listening and watching: I’d like to know what we’re going to do.”

Simon got almost lazily to his feet and strolled to the window.

“As the one who got us into this with his writing, I suppose it is up to me to get us out,” he said. “All I can offer at the moment is what I said before. We’ll make this Hermetico deal a big success, everybody’ll be happy and rich, and nobody will get tortured.”

Amity gawked at him, put her hands to her pretty head as if making certain it was still there, and turned around to appeal to the wall.

“But this is insane!’

“I wouldn’t use that word around here too freely,” Simon told her. “Let’s refer to it as — visionary.”

“More champagne?” Galaxy interrupted.

She had remained on the ottoman hugging her knees as she followed the conversation. Evidently she had occasionally refilled her glass from the bottle, too. The bottle was empty, and Galaxy showed definite symptoms of non-emptiness.

“No more for you,” Simon said. “Master seems to have someone else to convince. Get him another bottle to lubricate his style and then run along and see how lunch is coming. I might be needing you later, and I don’t want you paralysed.”

She gave him an unsteady but dazzling smile, set another bottle of Bollinger from the refrigerator on the table, and waved at him from the hall door.

“Good luck,” she cooed. “Just call me when you want a change.”

“Thanks. And thanks for everything else, too. You’ve made my first day here absolute paradise.”

When he and Amity were alone, she stood uncomfortably by the Hermetico model and looked at him with eyes that seemed bright with suppressed fury.

“I’d like to know just how she accomplished that,” she said.

“What?” Simon asked.

“Paradise.”

“Just a figure of speech. There’s no such place on earth — but there is such a place as Hades, right here, unless you and I get to work.”

He went quickly over to the phonograph which he had seen nested behind one of the wall panels beside the refrigerator. It slid out into the room for convenient use. Behind another sliding panel was an assortment of records.

“There,” said Simon. “Pick out the loudest, swingingest thing you can find.”

Amity obeyed, casting him a doleful look as he opened the second bottle of champagne and filled two fresh glasses.

“I thought you were going to work,” she said.

“This is the way I go to work. You know that. I get my best ideas when I’m dancing — sort of like the Africans leaping themselves into a frenzy before the battle.”

Suddenly, as Amity lowered the phonograph needle onto the record, the room was overwhelmed with a deafening roar of drums, grunts, twangings, metallic thwonks, and other primitive sounds.

“African enough for you?” she asked grimly.

“More than enough.”

He gave her champagne, and then he took her into his arms and they began to dance. Simon, while he was pleased with the tumultuous quality of the music for its value as voice-camouflaging noise, did not match its pace with his dancing. He moved rhythmically but slowly, holding Amity close to him, his lips near her ear.

“They can’t hear us now,” he whispered. “You’re doing fine. That was a convincing display of jealousy you put on a minute ago. Nobody would ever guess we met for the first time last night.”

“I’m glad you approve,” she said acidly. “I must be a born actress.” She tilted her head back so that her eyes could meet his. “Really, Simon, what are we going to do? Are you really planning to co-operate with this maniac?”

The conversation continued in undertones, Simon trying to move his lips as little as a ventriloquist.

“He’s as mad as a hatter, of course. But that doesn’t make him a joke. Far from it. We’ve got to take him as seriously as he takes himself. Don’t argue. We may not be able to talk long. We’ll try to get out of here tonight. What are some of the things you invented to keep prisoners from escaping from headquarters?”

“Do you think this idiot playing Warlock really built them?”

“Very probably. There’s an electrified steel fence all around the grounds, right?”

“Yes,” she said, “and guards with dogs. In fact, take a look right now.”

Simon led her past the open window. Across the green sweep of the lawn walked a hefty man in boots and jacket, a shotgun under his arm, a pair of Dobermanns snuffing at his heels.

“Perfect to the last detail,” Amity muttered.

“This is the most eerie thing I’ve ever been through.”

“Let’s concentrate on getting through it. What else besides the dogs? As I remember, the outer doors and windows are shuttered by a photo-electric device when it gets dark.”

“Yes. And anyhow, unless we can find the television eyes and black them out, they can see anything we start to do as soon as we start it.”

“You’ll think of something,” Simon said confidently. “After all, you’re the genius they were really after. You invented S.W.O.R.D. and this house. Now invent a way to get out.”

“I did, almost. For a character named Ansel Adams.”

“I forget what happened,” said the Saint.

Amity dropped her hand gloomily on to his shoulder.

“He got electrocuted.”

4

After lunch with Amity Little in his room, the Saint put a new record on the phonograph and turned the volume up full blast.

“Dance?” he asked Amity, offering her his open arms.

“Simon,” she sighed, not moving from her chair, “it’s not that I don’t like dancing with you, or that I don’t think you’re the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen — but we’ve been at it for an hour.”

Simon took both her hands and lifted her gently to her feet.

“You’ll find it very beneficial,” he said. “Stimulates circulation of the blood, helps digestion of pheasant, and infuriates Warlock.”

They were dancing again now, Amity sagging and Simon bearing most of the weight of both their bodies.

“Infuriating Warlock isn’t my idea of the smartest thing in the world,” she whispered. “But after all, I’m only the one he’ll torture to death, so why should I complain?”

“Exactly,” Simon said cheerfully. “I want him good and worried. He’s already invested more in Amos Klein than it costs to buy a winning football team. He could finish you off and it wouldn’t make much difference, but if I just sat through your gruesome demise without cracking, he’d be in a real pickle. He’ll do just about anything to appease me.”

“You forget one minor point,” Amity said. “I’m Amos Klein. If it comes to my gruesome demise, you can be sure Warlock’s going to hear about that, too!”

“That won’t be necessary,” Simon assured her. “And he probably wouldn’t believe you anyway. My idea at the moment is just to get him all upset so he’ll come storming in here in a perfect mood for the line I want to toss him.”

“How long do you expect that to take?” Amity asked with heartfelt weariness.

“Oh, Warlock has a low boiling point. Another hour or two, maybe.”

Amity groaned softly and rested her forehead against Simon’s bronzed lean cheek. He breathed the sweet scent of her hair and swayed with her slowly around the big, richly furnished room. There was a timelessness about the place, and it was not just the timelessness of imprisonment. It was almost as if the man who called himself Warlock had through the very power of his longing, actually succeeded in creating a world in which reality was frozen into the eternity of fiction — a world in a shimmering bubble exempt from the laws of time, the dreamy world of a boy reading away a summer’s afternoon.

The only change was the imperceptible shifting of sunlight on the green lawn, and the gradual lengthening of the shadows of oaks and pines. The intervals between the slow recurrent passing of the watchman with his gun and dogs, like a precise and silent constellation, might have been minutes and might have been years.

“Amos,” Amity whispered, “in Earthquake Four Charles Lake escaped from a castle.”

“How?”

“By balloon. He jumped off the tower and floated right away.”

“Where did he get the balloon?” Simon asked without any great enthusiasm.

“It was rolled up inside his umbrella. He filled it with gas from his cigarette lighter.”

“Filled it with gas from his cigarette lighter,” Simon repeated, non-committally.

“Yes. It was a special kind of gas.”

“Otherwise known as hot air from the author.”

Amity accepted the comment with a sigh and snuggled closer to the Saint.

“Who cares about escaping anyway?” she said. “It’s nice here.”

“Remember the converted plastic press in S.W.O.R.D.’s basement?” he murmured in her ear. “Turns a human being into something like a burnt waffle.”

Amity straightened up and looked at him disgustedly in the face.

“Oh, Simon, did you have to remind me of that?” she snapped.

“The name is Amos,” he said quietly.

“Oh!” With a horrified look, Amity buried her face between his shoulder and neck. “Do you think they heard?”

“No. The music was loud. But...”

The Saint’s words were broken off by the sudden opening of the hall door and the violent entrance into the room of a lividly agitated Warlock. The propensity of the subsurface of his large face to coagulate into blotches of purple and white was in full sway, making him seem at the point of fracturing into small varicoloured pieces like a dropped jigsaw puzzle. His wattles quivered as he stalked heavily across the room and snatched the tone arm from the phonograph record.

“I demand an explanation!” he stormed.

As the Saint stood unflinchingly, Amity clinging aghast to his arm, Warlock lifted the record and went through the dramatic gesture of smashing it against the corner of the phonograph. Unfortunately for Warlock’s dignity, the record was made of unbreakable plastic and merely bounced unharmed from the impact. At last, after considerable strain, he managed to bend the disc with both hands until it broke. He flung the halves to the floor.

“I think you owe us an explanation,” the Saint said coolly. “Are we to take it you aren’t a music lover?”

Warlock pointed a trembling finger at him.

“You should take me seriously, Mr. Klein! You’ve been dancing! Why?”

Simon shrugged.

“I like dancing.”

Warlock clenched his teeth and clasped his fingers as if trying to hold himself together. He paced towards the window and took a deep breath. Glancing towards the open door, Simon saw that it was guarded by Monk and Nero Jones. When Warlock spoke again, it was in an unsteady but more subdued voice.

“Mr. Klein, do you remember what S.W.O.R.D. did to the police sergeant in Sunburst Five?”

Amity clapped a hand to her mouth and burst out with a horrified, “Oh, no!”

Warlock, pleased to discover such a responsive member in his audience, turned to speak directly to her.

“The equipment is fully operational in the cellar. The tubes can be filled with acid in one minute.”

“You wouldn’t!” Amity gasped.

“Oh, but I would,” replied Warlock. His voice had become almost a purr. He addressed Simon. “Your lovely young friend may live to regret your devilish imagination.”

Simon shook his head with mournful calm, regarding his chubby antagonist as a patient teacher might regard a disappointing pupil.

“Warlock, I’m ashamed of you,” he said quietly.

Warlock was startled.

“Ashamed?” he said.

The Saint’s lugubrious expression would have wilted a whole vase of freshly cut flowers.

“You’re out of character,” he lamented. “In my books you were evil, of course, but you were also intelligent and sensitive.”

“So?” Warlock asked.

“So now you’re acting like a mentally deficient water buffalo.”

The purple splotches which disfigured Warlock’s face diffused into a uniform scarlet coating. His mouth opened and produced a questioning exhalation.

“Have you any idea,” Simon continued, “how difficult it is to be a writer? Surely a man of your aesthetic sensibilities must realize that it’s not a simple matter of ordering up a lot of pre-cut ideas and hammering them together like a man building a dog-house.”

Warlock watched, somewhat abashed, as Simon turned towards the window with a martyred sigh, closed his eyes, and pressed the thumb and forefinger of his left hand on either side of his nose just below the bridge.

“It’s a constant struggle,” he went on. “Or maybe struggle isn’t the best word, since inspiration is something that can’t be forced. It’s like... fishing. You settle yourself down, you drop in your hook, and you hope.” Simon confronted Warlock directly again. “Do you really think it’s as easy as saying after Monday comes Tuesday?”

Warlock contorted his little mouth in embarrassment.

“Well, I... I don’t think I have ever underestimated your genius,” he said hesitantly.

“Yet you expect me to work while I’m a prisoner?” The Saint changed his stance so that only Amity could see his face as he gave her an encouraging wink. “It’s like... expecting a plant to blossom without sunlight or water.”

Amity joined in.

“It’s like... locking up your goose without food or water and expecting it to lay golden eggs.”

Simon flinched only slightly at the simile as Warlock turned up his palms in flustered appeal.

“You have all the food you need,” he said helplessly. “You have everything a man could want.”

“Except freedom,” said Simon quickly.

Amity was shaking her head at Warlock.

“You really don’t understand the artist’s soul, do you?” she said. “Do you think you can stifle him... cage him up like an animal?”

“And expect me to create?” Simon joined in.

“Ridiculous!” snorted Amity.

Warlock made mute gestures which clearly were a plea for silence.

“Mr. Klein, you make me ashamed,” he said, when he was finally given a chance. “I had no intention, I assure you, of stifling you. On the other hand, under the circumstances, I couldn’t possibly allow you to leave these grounds at this point. And please don’t think I’m so naive as to believe you need the run of the entire British Isles before your inspiration can blossom.”

Warlock made an expressive motion of his plump hand which symbolized the flowering of Amos Klein’s orchid-like imagination.

“How about the grounds, then,” Amity suggested. “You could let us out of the house, at least. I’m sure that would help, wouldn’t it, Amos?”

“I suppose,” said the Saint, who was sulking near the wall.

“It’s better than nothing,” Amity insisted. “May we go out in the garden then?”

Warlock nodded reluctantly.

“Very well. Mr. Klein may go out. Galaxy will go along to keep you company.”

“What about me?” Amity asked.

“I’m sorry, Miss Little,” Warlock replied, looking more sly than sorry. “I can’t have you both out of the house at once. Just a simple precaution. And anyway, it’s not the health of your imagination that we’re concerned about, is it?”

Warlock smiled as Amity flung herself down furiously in a chair and glared at the rug. Simon patted her on the shoulder as he went by on his way to the open door.

“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “Creativity deserves a few privileges, after all.”

Ten minutes later the Saint was strolling across the lawn which until then he had seen only from the window of his room. Beside him strolled Galaxy Rose, instructed by Warlock to keep silent so as not to disturb Amos Klein’s priceless meditations. She dutifully kept the slow pace, staying a half step behind, glancing frequently at the Saint’s face as if she expected it to glow a brilliant green when some striking idea popped into his head.

As for Simon, his thoughts were at least as active as Galaxy was capable of imagining, but directed towards an entirely different object than cracking into Hermetico. The Saint’s particular interest at the moment was not breaking into anything, but breaking out of Warlock’s private fortress.

“Is that the only fence?” he asked.

He had stopped at the edge of the expanse of grass which sloped down from one side of the large stone house. Beyond the lawn was a hedge of rose bushes, and beyond them a border of evergreens which fringed the property all round. Through the needles of the trees Simon could see the tall chain-link steel fence topped with barbed wire. Beyond the steel fence, preventing it being seen from outside the property, was an antique and respectable stone wall of the sort that men used to surround their private patch of the planet with before such selfish impulses became an offence to the state and an invitation to annihilation by tax collectors — who unlike less subtle thieves are hindered neither by walls nor locks and doors.

“If you think I’m going to say anything that might help you get out of here, you’re wrong,” Galaxy said loudly.

The Saint glanced around him at the white and yellow roses, the trees, and the grass.

“So they’ve got microphones even out here,” he mused.

Galaxy snapped her eyes at him almost angrily.

“It wouldn’t matter whether they did or not,” she said. “I wouldn’t help you escape because I’m as anxious as everybody else for this to work out all right.”

His hands in his pockets, the Saint continued his leisurely circuit of the lawn.

“That’s right,” he said. “Warlock promised you half a million for this Hermetico caper, didn’t he?”

Galaxy stared at him with surprise and suspicion.

“How did you know?”

“You forget,” Simon replied. “I wrote the books. Warlock may be a brilliant organizer, but he’s no original thinker. Everything he’s done up to now has been based on what he’s read.”

“You’re not telling me anything.”

“Okay, tough girl, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“About what?” she asked.

“About what happens in the new book.”

“The one you’re supposedly writing?”

“Yes.”

Galaxy compressed her lips as if trying to control her voice.

“Well,” she said irritably, “what happens?”

“You never get the half million. Warlock double-crosses you.”

Galaxy looked lost for a moment, then exasperated.

“Don’t waste your breath,” she said. “I’ve seen that movie twenty times.”

“Which movie is that?” Simon asked guilelessly.

“The one where the hero turns the bad characters against one another by making them think they’re planning to double-cross one another. I’m not that dumb.”

“At least you’re smart enough to see who the hero is,” Simon rejoined.

He and the girl continued their walk. His probings had convinced him that however eager she was to please him, she had no discernible intention of risking her neck or her promised half million pounds by overstepping the limits which Warlock had imposed.

“Why can’t you be happy?” she asked in a softer and more persuasive voice than she had used for the past several minutes. “Why fight it? Write a happy ending for everybody.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Simon said, but he was not particularly listening.

His eye had just picked out the window of his room, whose location he had carefully pinpointed before he left it. There was nothing remarkable about it. It was just like all the other windows in the front of the house. But there was a much more humble feature of architecture near it which the Saint found completely fascinating: a fat black drainpipe running vertically from beneath the eaves above his window to the ground thirty feet below. That venerable relic of twentieth-century plumbing’s adolescence would ordinarily have been of no interest whatsoever to anybody, but to the Saint it was the closest thing he had yet seen to a flaw in Warlock’s comfortable prison.

He pretended to have noticed nothing, and turned his attention to the front drive, which led from a double garage beside the house to a locked wire gate inside the older wooden one of the stone wall. One side of the garage was open, and outside it Frug was washing an immense black limousine of the kind sported by embassies and departments of foreign affairs. Frug self-consciously attended to his work and avoided watching the Saint and Galaxy.

“Is the gate electrified too?” Simon asked his companion.

“If you know so much, you must know that,” she said archly.

“It’s electrified,” said the Saint. He nodded towards the limousine. “And that hearse over there — it’s from Hurricane Eight, I assume.”

“Right. It’s got everything just the way you described it.”

“Amazing. I’d like a ride in it.”

Galaxy smiled.

“I’m sure you would — but you’d have a lot better chance of taking one if you’d get down to work instead of worrying about escaping.”

Simon shook his head and sighed as he turned towards the front entrance of the house.

“That’s a woman for you — always brimming with practical suggestions. Work brings freedom, does it? I’m afraid I’ve got to admit it: Warlock has me stymied. I can’t do much but play along and hope it all works out for the best.”

Galaxy hugged his arm and snuggled close to him.

“You’ll be glad,” she assured him. “It is best this way.”

Simon’s secret thoughts found expression only in another brief glance at the black drainpipe which ran from roof to ground. Then, behind the glass of one of the ground floor windows, he glimpsed the face of Warlock peering out at him, like a warning personified.

“You can be sure,” he murmured, “I’ll try to make everything work out for the best.”

“For me too?” Galaxy insisted.

“For you especially,” Simon said, as earnestly as he could.