The Saint And The Fiction Makers

1

An observer looking in on the Saint’s bedroom that night — as one was — would have thought he had nothing in mind but sleep. He came out of his bathroom magnificently arrayed in one of the dozen pairs of pyjamas contributed by Warlock to his wardrobe — a composite of sunsets, peacocks’ tails, and fireworks displays which only a man of icy nerves and considerable humour could have worn without flinching — and made a circuit of the room turning out all the lights. When only the single reading lamp on the bed’s headboard was left, he stretched, yawned, and gave the room a last glance.

There was a half-filled sheet of paper in the typewriter, and a table nearby was littered with more sheets of paper covered with scrawl and figures the sight of which must have gladdened Warlock’s heart if he had looked in on them via television before his retirement. It was just as well, for the sake of his gladdened heart, that he did not look at the papers more closely, since the figures were meaningless and the scrawl was largely illegible.

Except for the papers and some minor disarrangements of the furniture which further attested to Amos Klein’s and Amity Little’s labours on the Hermetico project, the room was as it had been in the morning... with two important exceptions. At nine that evening, as sunset had faded from the sky, a steel shutter, its movement preceded by an alarm bell reminiscent of those sounded on ships during the testing of watertight doors, had slid down over Simon’s window and clanked firmly into place with the authoritative sound of something that had come to stay until it was ready to leave. At the same time, as the Saint knew without seeing, windows all over the building were undergoing the same sealing process, as were the outer doors.

The presence of the tight steel shutter over the bedroom window was one of the two changes which had taken place since morning. The second was the fact that the door between Simon’s and Amity Little’s room was open. That was the result of no oversight on S.W.O.R.D.’s part, but of a convincing and passionate argument on Simon’s. He could not work, he insisted, without the presence of his friend and secretary, and he often did his best work in the middle of the night. While other men slept away their drab little lives, his brain would suddenly explode in a sparkling shower of ideas which cried out for immediate transplantation to paper. Without Amity on constant call he could not guarantee that such nocturnal eruptions would not dissipate into outer darkness, lost forever — and with them Warlock’s dreams of wealth and power.

Warlock, convinced by house telephone, had seen the logic of the argument and could think of no special danger in granting Simon’s request. Since there was no chance of escape anyway, what could be the harm in allowing the eccentric artist whatever companion he desired?

So Amity, her room already darkened, waited until Simon’s would be the same.

He gave a last yawn for the benefit of the television monitor, then drew the heavy curtains all around his bed and climbed into the tentlike shelter. Although the reading lamp inside the canopy was still on, he knew that from the point of view of the television eye the room was in total darkness. He had satisfied himself already that there was no lens in his bed, but there was a microphone in what appeared to be a coin-sized decorative grille in the base of the reading lamp.

In Simon’s pyjama shirt pocket were several Band-aids he had taken from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom — which was thoughtfully equipped with everything from cologne to Milk of Magnesia. He tore the backing off one of them, coughing as he did so. He had already prepared a thick pad of facial tissue, also supplied in the bathroom. Coughing several more times, he then let his breathing become deep and regular. Then, very slowly, he placed the pad of tissue over the microphone aperture and taped it into place with the Band-aid. A second piece of adhesive completed the seal, and that particular microphone was deaf.

Next, the Saint turned out the reading lamp, putting the room in total darkness, and left his bed. Wary of other microphones still active, he crept across the rug to his desk and felt for the small tape recorder he had left in one corner. All he had to do then was to cough to cover the sound of depressing the playback switch. The tape began to move. He could feel the turning of the spool. Then he heard the sound of his own breathing coming from the loudspeaker. A moment later he heard a cough and a restless rustling of cloth. It was a production he had carried out carefully during the afternoon while he and Amity had worked on the Hermetico project. The tape contained nothing for forty-five minutes except sounds of breathing and occasional coughing. By the time it fell silent the Saint and Amity — hopefully — would be miles away.

Simon went back to his canopied bed and waited in absolute blackness until he heard a movement of the curtains and Amity crawled in beside him.

“It’s me,” she whispered directly into his ear. “Surprise. Now let’s see if I can guess who ‘me’ is.”

“Rat. Just concentrate on getting us out of this padded cell.”

Simon made certain the curtains were drawn tightly. He turned on the reading light. Amity, fully dressed in mini-skirt, sweater, and low-heeled shoes, sat up self-consciously.

“Literature makes strange bedfellows,” he remarked. “Do you have the fingernail scissors?”

“Yes.”

Simon stood up on the mattress with the small pair of sharply pointed scissors in one hand. With the other hand he grasped the velvet roof of the canopy.

“Now turn out the light,” he whispered.

The following stage of the operation was carried out in silence. Simon worked the scissors through the cloth above him and slowly cut out a circle of the material roughly two feet in diameter. He handed the piece of cloth down to Amity, who held his legs to steady him during the next part of his work.

He had already ascertained during the afternoon that the ceiling was not the original, which probably had been plaster long cracked with age, but was modern plasterboard in two by two foot squares nailed directly to the beams.

“Are you sure,” he had said to Amity in the afternoon during one of their later dances, “that S.W.O.R.D. doesn’t have some sort of an alarm system rigged to the ceilings?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” she had answered rather emotionally. “Do you think I can read Warlock’s mind? Do you think I built the place or something?”

“In any of your books, was the ceiling rigged?” he had asked firmly.

“No, I never thought of that.”

“Not very bright.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Be grateful,” Simon had told her soothingly. “That little oversight may save our lives.”

Now, however, as he actually brought the point of the scissors into contact with one of the cracks between sections of plasterboard, he felt more hope than confidence. Could he be certain that Warlock would have followed Amos Klein’s works slavishly enough to include even the oversights in the construction of his headquarters? There was no guarantee that the first penetration of the scissors, or the first prying away of a section of plasterboard, would not result in a deafening and potentially deadly eruption of alarms and pounding feet in hallways all over the building.

Simon slipped the point of the scissors between the adjoining pieces of ceiling material until he felt the scissors press against the wooden beams to which the plasterboard was nailed. There was no alarm. Not breathing, but hearing the sound of his own breathing from the tape recorder, Simon cautiously moved the scissors to one side, using them as a lever to pry the board from the wooden beam. Instinctively he worked slowly, as if he thought he could slam the board back into place at the first sound of ringing bells and thereby avoid detection, even though he knew that one split second of alarm would guarantee catastrophe at this point.

Still, he worked slowly, and not only through an unreasoning desire to avoid an alarm which, if it existed, could not be avoided, but because of the necessity for silence. Three nails held the square of plasterboard to a beam on each of its sides, which meant that the Saint, with his tiny pair of scissors, had to work loose six nails without a squeak of metal in wood nor a rattle of the already loosened edges of the board against the beams. Envying the recorded ease with which his lungs had enjoyed their oxygen that afternoon, he breathed with silent caution and eased the nails from their seats in the wood.

The next to the last was stubborn. It had no intention of budging without a fight, and when it did it creaked from the hard wood with what sounded to Simon’s ears like the legendary shriek of a mandrake torn living from the earth.

“Shh!” said Amity.

Simon restricted his reaction to vivid mental images of Amity hanging by her thumbs from the ceiling of Warlock’s subterranean torture chamber. Silently he passed down the square of plasterboard, and his companion slipped it under the bed.

“Now,” he whispered, “up you go.”

He formed a stirrup with his hands in order to boost her through the hole in the ceiling. She steadied one of her feet there.

“Ready,” she whispered.

“Down!” Simon snapped.

“What?”

“Someone’s coming.”

Simon dropped Amity on to the bed without much regard for how she landed. The footsteps he had heard approaching in the corridor were at the door. There were four rapid knocks.

“Keep still,” Simon whispered to Amity. “Get your clothes off, and if anybody pokes his head in here try to keep his eyes on you and hope he doesn’t notice the hole in the ceiling.”

Amity’s protesting gasps were cut short as he rolled quickly from the bed, drawing the curtains behind him. Almost blind in the darkness, he managed to locate the tape recorder and slap down the ‘off’ button just as a gentle ping announced the unlocking of his room’s door. As it opened, he staggered bleary-eyed into the fan of bright light that came in from the hall.

“What is it?” he mumbled. “What’s happening?”

The ample form of Bishop presented itself on the threshold.

“I heard something squeak,” he said, half belligerently and half apologetically.

“And you woke me up to tell me that?” Simon cried, working himself rapidly into a temperamental rage. “Why didn’t you call your mother?”

Bishop would have stepped into the room if Simon had not blocked his way.

“I’m supposed to investigate anything strange,” he muttered.

He was doing his best to investigate, going on tiptoe from one foot to the other as he bobbed from side to side trying to see around the Saint’s shoulders.

“Well I’m here,” Simon shouted at him. “What more do you want? If you’d prefer total silence you’d better send me home or shut down your blasted listening post!”

There was a sound of running feet behind Bishop, and Warlock himself hove into view, puffing mightily. He was clutching a quilted red robe around him, and he had either lost or not taken time to put on one of his loose-fitting slippers.

“What’s wrong?” he called.

“I...” Bishop began, but Simon interrupted.

“Wrong?” he yelled. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong! These idiots of yours are harassing me to death.” He pointed at Bishop, almost prodding his nose. “Do you know what’s wrong with this one? He heard something squeak! Can you believe that?” Simon’s voice rose to a tremulous climax as he invoked Warlock’s incredulity. “Can you believe it? He heard something squeak!”

“What is this, Bishop?” Warlock asked. “I told you to call me only in an emergency.”

“I...” Bishop began. Then he paused, red-faced. “I heard this sort of loud squeak, and I reckoned...”

“He reckoned any excuse was enough to let him barge in here and wake me up in the middle of the night!” said the Saint. “And I absolutely cannot function without eight hours of uninterrupted sleep! I cannot!” He thumped his fist against his open palm. “I absolutely cannot.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Klein,” said Bishop, “but I distinctly heard...”

“A squeak,” Simon said.

“Is that all, Bishop?” Warlock asked sternly.

“It was a loud squeak,” Bishop said. He tried to see around the Saint into the room. “Maybe I’d better check the bed,” he said defensively.

“Oh, wonderful!” said Simon, carried to new heights of sarcasm by the obvious cretinism of Warlock’s staff. “Check the bed! Magnificent.” He flung out an inviting arm. “Please do. Please. I don’t know which of us will be most embarrassed, but if it’ll earn me a few hours’ rest, you’re more than welcome.”

“Bishop,” said Warlock, “go back to the monitoring room. I’ll speak to you later. In the meantime, do not disturb me or Mr. Klein unless you’re quite certain something is wrong.”

“Yes,” Simon called after Bishop. “Squeak or no squeak. As long as I’m cooped up here I’ll squeak all I please. I’ll stay up all night storming around the room shouting ‘SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK!’ at the top of my lungs if I feel like it!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Klein,” Warlock said. “People are a bit jumpy and over-eager, but I’ll try to prevent you from being bothered.”

“Thank you,” Simon said, and closed the door in his face.

This time he did not bother to restart the tape recorder. Instead he went straight to the bed and climbed between the curtains.

“Oh!” Amity choked.

“I can’t see a thing,” Simon assured her. “Get dressed again and let’s go.”

“I never got all the way,” she whispered.

He could hear her tugging something on as he stood up and relocated the hole in the ceiling.

“Well, that bit of modesty could have cost your life,” Simon told her. “It doesn’t matter now, though. Just hurry up.”

“For heaven’s sake, I’m doing my best!”

A moment later he had hoisted her through the bed’s canopy and the hole in the ceiling. Proceeding entirely by touch, he stretched his arms above his head and found one of the beams exposed by the removal of the plasterboard. He could reach just high enough to grasp the top of the beam with his fingers. Using the bed as a springboard, he pushed off with the tips of his toes and lifted himself up in one smooth motion so that his head and shoulders were above the beam. With a renewed swing of his body and perfectly co-ordinated pressure of his arm muscles, he brought his hips and legs up through the hole and came to rest seated on the beam.

“Are you all right?” Amity whispered. “I can’t see a thing.”

“I’m here,” Simon assured her. “Be sure you stay on the beams. You’ll drop right down through the ceiling otherwise.”

“It seems to have a kind of floor over this way,” she told him. “And I feel some wires I think.”

“Don’t touch anything. That drainpipe I saw this afternoon should be right opposite us. This way.”

“Can we have a light now?”

“Wait until we get over where the roof meets the floor.”

Simon worked his way gingerly from beam to beam, moving towards the front of the house. He could hear Amity coming along behind him.

“Can you feel the roof yet?” she whispered.

“Not yet.”

He had been reaching above his head frequently without making contact with anything but empty air. Almost immediately after Amity asked her question his fingers touched a slanting rafter. Between it and its neighbour, which the Saint quickly located, was a band of felt insulation. Above the insulation, he knew, were the tiles of the roof.

“Here we are,” he said. “Come up alongside, but don’t stand up straight or you’ll smash your head.”

“Shall I use my lighter now?”

“Yes, but try to keep the light from getting down into the bedroom.”

A second later Amity flicked her lighter and produced a tiny flame. Small as it was, in comparison with the total darkness of a moment before it seemed as bright as a miniature sun. The attic was compartmented. Undoubtedly some of the other areas contained their share of the building’s elaborate equipment. The section in which Simon and Amity found themselves was small and empty except for wiring.

“Now I’ll strip off some of this insulating material and you take the tiles when I hand them to you.”

He used the scissors to help tear away the felt. In the wavering flame he could see the overlapping tiles which formed the roof itself. He had to be careful not to send any of the tiles skittering down the roof to the ground. Luckily the pitch of the roof was shallow, a fact he had taken into account while evolving his plan in the afternoon. It was fairly simple to free one of the tiles and carefully push it out of place.

“Put the light out now,” he instructed Amity. “We don’t want some guard spotting that from out in the garden.”

She obeyed, and Simon — since the first tile he had loosened would not fit through the hole its removal had created — reached up through the hole and laid the tile on the gentle slope of the roof. The second tile which he pulled free came easily through the hole. He brought it down and handed it to Amity, who set it aside on one of the beams which formed the floor of the attic.

In a matter of seconds, Simon had pulled loose and passed down several tiles and made a hole in the roof large enough for him and Amity to climb through.

“Oh, isn’t it beautiful?” she said in a hushed voice. “Sky, fresh air, stars... and freedom.”

She was kneeling beside Simon, looking up through the hole, in a kind of prayerful rapture.

“It is beautiful,” he said, “but I’m afraid this was only the easy part, for us. We’ll have to save our celebrating for the other side of that electrified fence.”

He climbed easily up on to the roof, sat next to the hole he had made in the tiles, and reached down to take Amity’s hands in order to help her follow him.

“Easy now,” he soothed her. “There’s nothing to it. Don’t flail around.”

Unfortunately, she did flail around. Instead of arriving beside the Saint in one simple movement, which was all that would have been necessary, she struggled like a cat trying to scale the side of a gravel heap. She ended up with her upper half on the roof and her legs kicking below. In her scrambling to go the rest of the way, she dislodged one of the tiles from the lower edge of the hole. With a loud clatter it rattled down the roof, bounced over the edge of the eaves, and a moment later clumped into the shrubbery below.

“Oh my,” said Amity, who was now lying flat on the roof next to Simon.

A dog had set up a vicious barking in front of the house. As the Saint prostrated himself alongside Amity, he could hear the voice of a man, apparently speaking to the dog. The glare of an electric light playing over the lower part of the building reflected above the eaves. Then the dog was quiet, there was some rustling in the shrubs, and the footsteps of the guard finally moved away. There was no more detectable light except from the starry sky.

“He must have decided it wasn’t anything,” Simon whispered.

He raised himself to a sitting position again and stretched his neck in order to see down into the yard below.

“Let’s hope,” Amity said. “What now?”

Simon pointed towards the darkness beyond the eaves.

“Follow that falling tile,” he said cheerily.

“I usually write in a helicopter at this point.” Amity said.

“I’m afraid you stacked the deck in the bad guys’ favour this time. The forces of sweetness and light are going to have to climb down the drainpipe. Just follow me. Hold on to the eaves, swing your legs down and catch the pipe, then climb down as fast as you can.”

2

It was as uncomplicated as Simon predicted. The descent was accomplished with a minimum of noise, and even Amity managed to creep through the shrubbery without attracting the keen ears of the watchdogs. From the corner of the house she and Simon could see both the garage and the front gate. A guard without a canine companion stood by the gate. Simon’s eyes followed the paved drive which led from the gate to the garage, where he had seen Frug washing the limousine that afternoon.

“You’re sure that guard has no way to shut down the electricity in the fence or to unlock the gate?” he asked Amity.

“I’m sure — if Warlock followed my books,” she answered. “Only Warlock can do that, from inside the house.”

“Let’s just hope he was as thorough when he designed that limousine. If I understand you, the auxiliary ignition switch is recessed under the steering column.”

“Right. Warlock almost got captured once when he lost the keys to the car, so he had the second switch installed. Only he is supposed to know about it.”

“Well, then, here goes. Flatten yourself against the garage door as soon as we get to it.”

The distance between house and garage was only a few paces. The guard at the gate did not notice the shadowy figures darting from the shelter of one wall to another.

“Now, something I just thought of,” Simon said. “Won’t these garage doors be wired into the alarm system?”

“Yes, but there’s a switch you can throw by pushing one of the bricks down here next to the ground.” Amity knelt down and felt the lower bricks beside the articulated metal door. “Yes. Here. This one moved when I pressed it. It gives me the most uncanny feeling. He’s thought of everything.”

“Including the extra ignition switch, I hope! Now, the guard may hear the door going again, so get ready for some fast action. I’ll see what I can do with this lock.”

“Maybe it’s not locked,” suggested Amity.

“It must be.”

But when Simon tried turning the handle his hand met no resistance. He and Amity each took one of the doors and swung them quietly outwards. In the deeper darkness of the garage’s interior glinted the black limousine, its nose towards the door.

“Too easy,” Simon whispered as they ran to either side of the big car. “Don’t tell me Mr. Warlock was good enough to leave the car open too.”

The limousine’s windows were up, but the doors were not locked.

“Don’t look gift horses in the mouth,” Amity said.

“Where’s that ignition switch?”

Their hands groped beneath the steering wheel. Suddenly light flared through the front window of the car.

“It’s the guard!” Amity cried, no longer bothering to hold her voice to a whisper. “He’s coming this way!”

Simon’s fingers found the small metal button beneath the steering column. The engine rumbled. Simon engaged the automatic shift and jammed the gas pedal to the floor. The wheels whined on the cement floor of the garage, propelling the giant limousine out along the drive like a shell from a cannon. The guard with the light was in the centre of the pavement. He dived for the grass. One of the patrol dogs came racing towards the car, barking wildly, its handler running behind it with a shotgun.

Those were Simon’s last impressions in the seconds it took the car to cover the ground between the garage and the wire mesh gate. He had already reached a speed of fifty miles an hour. He would have liked more, but the gate seemed to expand directly ahead of him in the car lights. The shotgun roared at almost point blank range, and the full charge spat harmlessly against the window just six inches from Amity’s cheek.

“Good glass,” Simon had time to say. “Hang on.”

The front of the car ripped into the wire fence, creating an explosion of sparks as the deadly electric current was shorted in a hundred places. Next came the crunching sound of splintering wood as the limousine hurtled through the second gate immediately beyond the first. It was free then, roaring out of the volcanic incandescence of its escape into a straight stretch of dark country road.

“Are we out?” Amity asked in a quavering voice.

She had thrown herself to the floor and covered her head with her hands.

“We’re out,” Simon said. “You can come up now.”

He slowed the limousine to a reasonable speed as Amity sat beside him. She pointed to the spider web of cracks and pockmarks made by the shotgun blast.

“Look.”

Her voice was weak.

“This thing is like a tank,” Simon said, patting the door affectionately. “Congratulations on furnishing it with bullet-proof glass.”

“Thanks, but I don’t even want to think about those books again, much less write any.” She turned to look out the back window. “There’s nobody after us yet.”

“I wonder where we are. Watch for road signs.”

Amity turned and sat back in the seat with a deep sigh. She lowered her window halfway so that she could see beyond the cracked glass.

“We’ve made it,” she said. “We’ve done the impossible, do you realize that? We’ve escaped from S.W.O.R.D.!”

Simon glanced into the dark rectangle of the rearview mirror.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Maybe?” whimpered Amity.

“I’d feel a lot better if the impossible had been a little more difficult.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake don’t worry about it! We’re out now. What can they do about it?”

Almost simultaneously with her last word, several things happened at once. The window she had lowered shot up with the force of a guillotine. The car engine died completely without so much as a splutter. There was a rapid series of clicks as the door locks automatically popped into closed positions.

“I wish you hadn’t asked that question,” Simon said to Amity.

The car was rolling to a standstill on the unlighted road as its own lights were extinguished by whatever force had shut off the engine. Simon pumped the accelerator without result. Working the auxiliary ignition button which had originally started the car produced not even a click.

“What happened?” Amity gasped.

“You tell me,” said Simon. “You wrote the script.”

Amity, frowning, shook her head.

“There was never anything like this. Let’s get out of here. It looks like a crossroads up ahead...”

“I’m afraid you’ll find that impossible,” Simon said. “My door is sealed shut.”

“Oh, no! So is mine.”

Suddenly a red light began to glow in the centre of the instrument panel and a voice issued from the radio grille.

“This is Warlock speaking. This recording of my voice was activated by the same device which automatically trapped you and cut off the electrical system of the car. Your location will be easily traced by a tracking device which picks up a continuous signal broadcast from the car you have so foolishly stolen. I suggest that you make yourself comfortable. There is no way to escape, and very shortly several persons will arrive to take you in custody.”

“So Warlock isn’t completely unoriginal,” the Saint said when the recording fell silent.

“Oh, dear,” Amity said sheepishly.

“Oh, dear, what?” Simon asked.

“In a short story I wrote — before the first book — there was something... like this.”

“My compliments to your memory. What’s the trick for getting out?”

“No trick. It wasn’t important. It didn’t happen to important characters.”

“Well, we’re important characters, and I’ve no intention of sitting around here like a chicken in a box waiting for the butcher. Get your head out of the way, please. Maybe that shotgun weakened the glass.”

Simon swung his legs above the girl’s lap, braced his hands behind him, and gave the damaged window a double-footed kick which would have taken most car doors completely off their hinges. The thick window was completely unchanged.

“As I said, good glass,” he remarked ruefully. “I’ll try the back way.”

He climbed quickly over into the back seat and proceeded, in effect, to pull it apart.

“What are you doing?” Amity asked.

“Trying to get these cushions loose so we can get back into the boot.”

“Isn’t there anything between the seat and the boot?”

“Generally just some cloth, at least in places.”

“I didn’t know that,” Amity said.

“Good. If you had you’d have figured a way to keep us from getting out.”

Simon had pulled loose the back cushion, revealing a strip of black leatherette material. He ripped it aside. There was nothing else between him and the boot.

“Your lighter, please,” he said.

Amity leaned over from the front seat to hand it to him.

“Don’t blow us up.”

“That might be the fastest way out.”

He put his head and shoulders through the hole he had created and flicked on the lighter to illuminate the stark interior of the boot.

“Can you get through that little space?” Amity called after him.

“Yes. You follow. I’m going to pry open the lock with a screwdriver.”

The Saint snaked his way into the boot, took a screwdriver from the kit he had discovered beside the spare tyre, and with the lighter beside him commenced his attack on the lock of the boot lid. He had trouble making out Amity’s words.

“Simon...”

The Saint, having more important things to do than indulge in conversation, grunted and continued his work.

“Simon...”

He twisted his head so that he could speak over his shoulder.

“What is it?”

His answer came not from Amity Little but from the lock on which he had been working. Magically it moved, the boot lid swung upwards, and there, with pistols in their hands, stood Nero Jones and Simeon Monk.

“Come out, Mr. Klein, wherever you are...”

The singsong, triumphantly jolly voice belonged to Warlock, whose unmistakable silhouette came into view behind his cohorts.

“Get out,” said Nero Jones with less cordiality.

The Saint was no advocate of suicide disguised as daring. Had he been, his career would have ended not many weeks after it began. It is quite simple to get killed making rash attacks on armed criminals, and the Saint could see nothing heroic, much less very bright, in obviously foredoomed gestures. On the other hand, the precise calculation of risks was his speciality, and in this particular situation the odds favoured his survival in reasonably good health no matter what he did. As Amos Klein, he was simply too valuable to kill, or even to injure, so he could afford to take greater chances than if he had been up against a pair of trigger-happy gorillas with orders to shoot to kill.

“Give me a hand, would you?” he said resignedly. “I’m jammed in here.”

He was flat on his stomach in the boot of the car. He held out his left hand as his right hand, hidden by his body, closed around the cold solidity of an iron jack handle. Jones and Monk glanced back towards Warlock, who nodded. Monk stepped forward to help, while his comrade increased his vigilance.

“Thanks, dear old ape,” said the Saint, and as soon as Monk grasped his hand he yanked the huge man forward with all his strength.

Simeon Monk was only graceless but top-heavy. His great weight was off balance in the Saint’s favour to begin with, and he sprawled like a crashing tree head-first into the boot. With the same sudden movement that toppled Monk, Simon jerked himself forward and rolled from the boot to his feet on the ground. The jack handle simultaneously became a short range weapon of deadly efficiency. Before Nero Jones could so much as stagger back in the first eye-blink of surprise, Simon had hurled the metal bar at his midsection with a force that made the air whistle. Then came Jones’s explosive groan as he jack-knifed forward and stumbled writhing to the earth.

The whole manoeuvre had taken not much more time than the striking of a snake, even including the slamming of the boot lid down on the backs of Simeon Monk’s thighs. Above his howl came Warlock’s shrill voice.

“Stop, Mr. Klein!”

Simon had planned to improvise his dealings with Warlock. The man, no fighter, and deprived by his own ambitions of the freedom to use a weapon, should have been no match. So it was with a certain appalled shock that the Saint spun around to face his enemy and found himself looking into the barrel of a steadily outstretched pistol which Warlock aimed at his chest and, with what seemed an interminable movement of his trigger finger, fired.

But there was no sound of exploding gunpowder, and the stinging sensation Simon felt in the muscle between chest and left shoulder was not the burning, bone-shattering impact of a lead slug. He looked in surprise and saw an inch-long shaft of shiny metal protruding from his pyjama shirt where the pistol’s projectile had hit him. He groped for it, testing as he touched it for barbs that might tear his flesh if he tried to pull it out, and then numbing sleep seemed to shoot through his veins like a flood of icy ether deluging his whole body. The last thing he knew was impotent fury at this second triumph of Warlock’s drugs over his own body and will.

3

“Mr. Klein,” Warlock said quietly, “I see no reason to lecture you or waste time on elaborate threats. We understood one another before you attempted to escape. Everything will go forward just as we planned then, except that since I can no longer hope to trust you or depend on your willing co-operation, you will have to forfeit the position of leader and I will have to take command. Follow me, please.”

Simon and Amity Little, immediately after their return to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, had been brought to confront Warlock in the planning room where Simon had first met Warlock and his captains. The drug which had been used to subdue the Saint had been mild: he had awakened as he was being carried, his hands tied behind him, from the garage to the main building. Now he stood, his hands still tied, with Amity beside him, and listened to a grim Warlock flanked by a much grimmer Simeon Monk and Nero Jones.

“Go on,” Jones growled, pointing to a side door.

Warlock had already turned and was leading the way. Beyond the elegantly panelled conference room was a grey concrete stairwell leading down into the cellar. Simon and Amity followed Warlock past an open door of heavy metal, while their guards brought up the rear.

“It’s the S.W.O.R.D. laboratory!” Amity gasped. “It really is!”

Confronted suddenly with a huge underground chamber gleaming with electronic equipment, she sounded more amazed than frightened. Warlock’s pride began to get the upper hand over his chagrin at the attempted escape.

“Reproduced exactly,” he said. “It’s all just as you described it, Mr. Klein... all the marvellous devices created in your fertile brain.”

Simon bowed slightly.

“My fertile brain is flattered.”

“I’m sorry my reason for bringing you down here has to be what it is,” Warlock continued. “If we had managed through mutual co-operation to keep our relationship on a more friendly basis, the purpose of this little tour would have been much happier for all of us.” He shrugged. “As it is, I hope it will be — what shall we call it? — educational.”

Warlock left the group at the doorway and walked across the room. Along the walls were panels thick with switches, dials, and vari-coloured lights. One section seemed to involve a radar screen; another resembled a chemical laboratory, with retorts, tubes, and bottles. There were a number of fancifully shaped devices which resembled nothing Simon had ever seen before, and there were, unfortunately, several others which he recognized only too easily. Those latter, which would have been recalled shudderingly by any Charles Lake fan, were specifically intended for the torment and eventual destruction of human beings. One was basically electrical, one used acids in gruesomely imaginative ways, while the third, which promised a particularly messy result, operated on plain old-fashioned mechanical principles.

“How does it feel to see your brain children right here in front of you, Mr. Klein?” Warlock asked.

Simon looked at Amity Little before answering.

“It makes me feel like a depraved bloodthirsty maniac,” he said. “Anybody who could think up things like that deserves the acid needles.”

Warlock smiled.

“I’m glad you can still laugh at yourself, Mr. Klein. Luckily for you, our organization can’t get along without your mind. Miss Little, come over here, please.”

Amity didn’t move. Warlock was standing beside a table supported by a single thick ceramic pedestal. Its surface was formed of a massive steel slab larger than an ordinary door. There was a pair of metal clasps anchored by short chains at either end of the slab.

“Come on, Miss Little.”

Amity stared in wide-eyed panic at Simon. Aside from his natural desire not to see her hurt, the Saint knew that under threat of torture she couldn’t be expected to keep her identity as the real and indispensable Amos Klein a secret.

“Wait a minute, Warlock,” he said. “There’s no need for any rough stuff. I’ll work with you. I don’t have any choice.”

“No, you don’t have any choice,” Warlock replied. “And here are my conditions: that you come up with a detailed and workable plan for robbing Hermetico within forty-eight hours. Naturally, that time limit doesn’t allow for any more escape attempts.”

“Naturally,” Simon said. “But it’s still not long enough. I can’t do it.”

“You can, and you will. Otherwise Miss Little goes on this table — and your own future won’t be any brighter.”

The Saint became thoughtful.

“If I could see Hermetico, it might be possible.”

“See it in person?” Warlock asked.

“Yes.”

“Considering your behaviour tonight, that’s an almost laughable proposition. Besides, you have the model.”

“And the plans,” put in Nero Jones.

“It’s not enough,” Simon argued. “I wouldn’t even write a book based on that kind of secondhand information, much less plan a real job. I always visit any place I’m writing about, and if you’ll remember the Bank of England scheme you’ve based this Hermetico thing on, there were several visits necessary.”

Warlock rubbed his jowls meditatively.

“It’s true,” he said, “there were visits in the book. I believe in sticking to the book, but...”

“It’s necessary,” Simon insisted. “I’d have told you that this afternoon if I hadn’t been planning to escape tonight.”

“So now you’ll just try to escape if we take you to look at Hermetico.”

“You want your prisoner’s word of honour?” asked the Saint.

Warlock returned his slightly mocking look with a cynical smile.

“I’m afraid in this day and age most of us have learned not to put much faith in honour. I put much more faith in the fact that if you are at Hermetico, Miss Little will be a hostage here. And how would you propose we get into the place for our tour of inspection?”

“The same way it was done in the book: impersonating foreign diplomats who are considering making some large and mysterious deposit in the vaults. We’ll show up pretending our secretary had made all the arrangements in advance... or better still you could actually make the arrangements. Then we’d be sure of getting in.”

“I’m impatient,” Warlock said. “We’ll just go there and act confused and indignant when they’re not expecting us — just as it happened in your book.”

“But can you come up with some authentic-looking identification papers?”

“Of course. S.W.O.R.D. can arrange anything. The papers will be ready in time for us to make the visit this morning before noon.”

“This morning?” Simon asked.

“It’s 2 a.m. now, Mr. Klein. You’ve kept us up late.”

“Then shall we get some sleep?” suggested the Saint.

“Not before I impress you with what will happen if you try to escape again. Miss Little, over here.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Simon began.

He stepped forward, but Monk caught his arm with all the gentle finesse of the pincers of a giant crane clamping down on a boulder.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” Warlock said. “This will only be an edifying demonstration.”

Nero Jones stepped up beside Amity and nodded towards the metal slab. Amity cast a pleading glance over her shoulder at the Saint.

“It’s all right,” he told her, hoping his words were true. “He’s got no reason to do anything to you.”

“Right,” Warlock oozed.

He welcomed Amity with the unpleasant smile of a charlatan coaxing a reluctant subject on to the stage for a demonstration of hypnotism.

“Get on the table,” Jones said bluntly.

“You — you shouldn’t be doing this to me!” she said.

Simon admired her for not already having told them she was the real Amos Klein. He was prepared to tell the truth himself at the first sign that she was in danger.

“What are you up to, Warlock?” he asked. “I’ve told you I’ll co-operate.”

“Just a warning. Nobody gets hurt.”

Amity submitted then. At Warlock’s direction, she lay back on the steel table, keeping her frightened eyes on the Saint’s as if even that contact with him gave her comfort.

“If you hurt her, Warlock...”

The Saint did not need to finish his threat. The cold, hard edge of his voice said enough. Warlock, however, did not react with any sign of uneasiness. He was like an infant fumbling eagerly with a new plaything as he pushed shut the metal rings around the girl’s wrists and ankles. Amity lay spread-eagled, the short chains giving her almost no room for movement. She raised her head and looked along the length of her body to be sure that Simon was still there. He gave her an encouraging nod, which was all the help he could manage under the circumstances.

Warlock went to a control panel which sloped down from the wall at waist level a few yards from the steel slab.

“This invention of mine has several uses,” he said. “Some wouldn’t be understood easily by anyone without scientific training. The particular use it will be put to if you double-cross us, Mr. Klein, can be understood by anybody.”

Warlock pushed several buttons, and from the ceiling above the steel table something resembling a giant X-ray apparatus lowered itself with a soft hum and came to a standstill five feet above Amity’s body. Its thick glass lens was like the huge protuberant eye of some Cyclopean monster from another world. The eye was surrounded by a cluster of dull black cones whose lower, smaller ends were open, pointing down at Amity.

“Are you trying to scare her to death?” Simon demanded.

“I’m trying to scare you,” Warlock said. “I want you to have a vivid idea of exactly what will happen if you do anything to cause us trouble.”

He moved a short lever on the sloping panel and the device which had been centred directly over Amity’s body moved horizontally down the length of the table towards her feet until it was aimed at the bare surface of the slab between her ankles.

“I’ve combined multiple laser beams with ultra-sonic sound,” Warlock went on. “The cones surrounding the laser produce the sound. In combination, focussed sound and light rays are capable of fantastic things. My friend here has great possibilities as a weapon.” Warlock stroked the instrument panel as if it were a pet cat. “Of course the many ways it could incapacitate and destroy a human being are hypothetical... as yet. Nero, give me one of your shoes and start the accelerator.”

The pale-eyed man squinted at Warlock for an instant and then grudgingly took off one of his stylishly pointed black shoes and handed it to him. As Jones then went to a second central panel, Warlock placed the shoe on the steel table between Amity Little’s ankles.

“This will only be a demonstration. Don’t be alarmed. Nero, please...”

There was a throbbing sound from the ceiling, and the device above Amity began to whine with rising pitch. Warlock fiddled with some control knobs.

“First you’ll see an effect of the ultra-sonic beams, and then the laser,” he said excitedly, raising his voice in order to be heard. “In real use, the table could be slowly raised in temperature until it reached a red glow. Now I’m directing all the energy only at Nero’s shoe.”

“Couldn’t you let me up from here?” Amity called to him over the increasing sound of the machine.

Warlock, his eyes gleaming, ignored her.

“The accelerator, Nero.”

Jones manipulated a larger lever, and the sound from the ceiling rose to a high-pitched scream that made the Saint’s skull feel in danger of shattering.

“Now!” Warlock cried.

He plunged his finger down on a button, and there was a sound like lightning splitting the air before the deep roar of thunder. The shiny black shoe disintegrated into a heap of something like dark ash.

“The molecular bonds have been destroyed by the sound waves,” shouted Warlock. “Now the multi-laser beam!”

As the turbine-like whine associated with the ultra-sonic sound abruptly faded, there was a new, throbbing noise that surged rapidly to a climax. The lights in the cellar dimmed to a candle-glow as the power apparently was sapped by the laser apparatus.

“The power of light!” Warlock exulted as he bent to press a new button. “The death ray!”

A brilliant red beam materialized between the Cyclops eye above Amity and the remains of the shoe on the table between her legs. The leather flashed like magnesium and was gone.

Within a few seconds the cellar lights were normal and all sounds had stopped coming from the machinery. The Saint saw Amity’s body, which had been stiff with terror, relax as she heaved a great sigh. Warlock was laughing, all but bouncing up and down with glee. Simon looked at him with blue eyes that might have been taken from the heart of an iceberg.

“I didn’t mind you so much when I could think of you as some kind of an overgrown child playing with his overgrown toys,” he said in a low steady voice. “But it’s a different thing when you start playing with people I like.”

Warlock was still openly intoxicated with the power of his invention. His face was red and refulgent with perspiration. His jowls quivered with nervous excitement.

“Luckily your likes and dislikes aren’t of much concern to me any more, Mr. Klein,” he shrilled. He pulled a lever and the rings which had held Amity’s wrists and ankles flew open. “But your talents are very important. So go get some rest. You have two days to show us the way into Hermetico.”

4

The morning was crisp and clear. Frug, in dark jacket and shiny-brimmed cap, looked as if he might have been a chauffeur all his life. The big limousine, too, looked as if it never had done duty for anything less than a general or ambassador. Its marred window had been replaced, and it bore no trace of its use in the Saint’s abortive escape during the night. A small Swiss flag fluttered above one fender as Frug’s gloved hands steered the big machine into a drive marked PRIVATE — HERMETICO.

The Saint and Warlock sat in the spacious rear seat of the limousine. They were smartly dressed in dark suits. Warlock had gone so far as to affect pinstriped trousers and a white carnation in his lapel. Twin Homburgs lay on both men’s knees. They wore calfskin gloves.

“You make a perfect gnome of Zurich, Mr. W,” said Simon, “but I feel like a nitwit. Is this really the way you think diplomats dress when they go out on business before lunch?”

Warlock accepted the dig in silence. The private drive led uphill across a stony, treeless field. Ahead were fences and the low concrete dome of Hermetico’s surface structure.

“You do need me,” the Saint continued amiably. “Apparently your small persistent brain has been nourished on nothing but comic books and grade B movies. We’ll be lucky to get out of this escapade with our lives, much less with any information about this fortress.”

“Don’t make any false moves and everything will be all right,” Warlock said. “You know what’ll happen to Miss Little if you try anything smart.”

Simon looked at his companion with a despairing shake of his head.

“Even your dialogue’s hopelessly corny,” he said. “It’s not only out of date — it’s absolutely pre-war. James Cagney would feel completely at home with you.”

“Be quiet,” said Warlock.

Frug had pulled the limousine directly up to the main gate, ignoring instructions to park in a paved lot to the right where several dozen cars stood in rows.

“Oh, well,” Simon said, settling back against the luxurious upholstery, “if we fail, we can always become a music hall comedy team.”

“We won’t fail,” Warlock replied. “Frug, blow the horn.”

Frug blew the horn twice, and then the trio in the car waited. Immediately in front of the limousine’s nose was a triple-layer steel mesh gate reinforced with diagonal rods. On one side of the gate, like a guardhouse defending the smaller pedestrian entrance, which was also sealed with its own gate, was a windowless concrete kiosk about the height of a man. A sign on the larger gate said NO ADMITTANCE TO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS. Several other signs bore smaller print.

“The horn again, Frug.”

Simon was immediately impressed with the apparent absence of all life on the other side of the wire fence, but within half a minute Frug’s honking had brought a blue-uniformed guard out of the central building and along the cement walk to the gate. There was a pistol in a holster at his hip.

“Go speak to him,” Warlock told Frug. “Just as we planned — tell him we’re expected.”

Frug got out of the car and spoke to the guard through the gate. There was a good deal of gesturing and pointing. The guard pointed to the concrete kiosk. Frug pointed at the building. The guard pointed to the kiosk again. Frug pointed at the limousine. The guard gestured over his own shoulder at the building. Frug threw up his hands and strode back to the car. He put his head in the window.

“The guard says we’ve got to have passes to put in a slot in that concrete thing.”

“I know that, you idiot!” Warlock said nervously. “Did you tell him we have an appointment?”

“Right, but he says people with appointments get cards to put in the slot.”

“Tell him we didn’t know about the cards,” Simon suggested. “Tell him we’ve just flown into this country without publicity, and that we understood our intermediary would have made an appointment.”

“Our what?” asked Frug.

“Intermediary,” Simon repeated. “Tell him somebody was supposed to have made the appointment for us earlier this morning. Ask if we can speak to the manager.”

“Whatever you say.”

Frug went back to the gate, and a moment later the guard nodded and took a telephone from a box on the pole at the edge of the cement walk.

“He’s calling,” Frug told the Saint and Warlock.

“So that’s what he’s doing,” said the Saint with bland sarcasm.

A moment later, a tall stoop-shouldered man in a grey business suit came hurriedly out of the central building and headed down the walk. Simon and Warlock stepped from the car, settled their Homburgs on their heads, and went to meet him at the gate.

“My name is Thomas,” the man in the grey suit said to them through the triple-layer wire mesh. “I’m the assistant manager.”

There followed a lengthy interchange full of urgency, apology, and explanation. Assistant manager Thomas did not seem to doubt the identity or truthfulness of his visitors, particularly when he was given to understand that they represented a group of potential customers. They had only half a day, they said, on their way from Zurich to New York, and it would indeed be a tragedy if the stickiness of some minor bureaucratic cog interfered with a deal which — if they found Hermetico suitable to their purposes — might involve the storage of millions of pounds. They showed their credentials with the explanation that their mission must remain, for the moment, entirely confidential. They wished only to see how Hermetico facilities compared with those of its competitors. If security was as foolproof as it was reputed to be, then there could scarcely be any danger in a pair of prospective customers having a look at the premises.

The word ‘competitors’ had a visibly stimulating effect on Mr. Thomas. As soon as Simon and Warlock, as Messrs. Dubray and Challons, had rested their case, he hastened to assure them that Hermetico had no competitors.

“There’s no other place in the world like this one, gentlemen, as you’ll see for yourselves. Of course we’re delighted for prospective customers to look over the premises.” Thomas reached inside his jacket and produced two red plastic cards the size of ordinary playing cards. “Each of you put one of these in the slot there on the gate control station, then come right in.”

The Saint and Warlock in turn inserted their cards in the thin mouth of the concrete kiosk, which flashed a pair of green eyes and whistled. The whistle, as printed instructions on the device explained, signalled the opening of the pedestrian gate for one person only. Automatic sensing devices would sound an alarm if two or more persons per whistle attempted to enter.

“No human guards?” Warlock asked when he and Simon had joined Thomas on the inner side of the gate. “Ezz eet poh-ssible?”

Warlock was attempting a kind of amateur play-actor’s stage French accent which affected the Saint’s sensitive ear like a chorus of laryngitic parrots singing in Japanese. He was amazed that Mr. Thomas did not immediately cry ‘fake’ and conjure up a troupe of police officers.

“It’s quite possible,” Thomas replied to Warlock’s question, once he had made out the words. “Automated electronic devices can’t be bribed, never sleep, never drink, and can’t make mistakes. We’re a thousand times safer here with our automated security system than we’d ever be surrounded by guards with machine guns. For example, I must warn you immediately not to leave this concrete path that runs from the gate to the building... Not that you’d very likely be tempted to hurdle the fence anyway.”

Thomas was referring to a waist-high barrier of aluminium rails which lined the concrete walk on either side. The walk was like the single bridge crossing the moat between a fortress’s outer defensive walls and its central structure. The moat in Hermetico’s case was a thirty-foot-deep band of grass surrounding the building. The moat of grass was heavily decorated with red-lettered signs shouting Danger! Do Not Leave Paved Lanes! The only paved lane Simon could see in addition to the one on which he was walking seemed to make a circuit of the Hermetico building directly outside the building’s walls. That circular walk, forming the inner limit of the grass moat, was also separated from the grass by a waist-high fence of aluminium rails.

“That must be a very high quality of grass you have,” Simon said, indicating the heavily protected green strip. (His own faked accent was considerably more subtle than Warlock’s.) “I have never seen such zeal for preventing people to walk on the lawn.”

Thomas chuckled as he led them to the building.

“The zeal isn’t to protect the grass,” he said. “It’s to protect the people who might walk on it.”

“Wot ezz hoppen?” said Warlock.

Thomas looked puzzled.

“My associate is not gifted in languages,” the Saint said apologetically. “He means to ask what takes place if one walks on the grass?”

Thomas, smiling slyly, shook his head.

“I’m afraid that has to be our secret,” he said. “If you knew, however, you’d agree already that our vaults are absolutely theft-proof. Come inside, please.”

A small plainly furnished antechamber was the first stop inside the building. There was a second use of red plastic cards, and then Thomas took his guests down a corridor to an elevator. Beside it was a guardroom with a glass observation window on the corridor.

“Lister,” Thomas said to the uniformed man inside, “I’m taking these gentlemen down.”

“Yes, sir,” came Lister’s voice through a grating. “Come in, please.”

Lister unlocked the guardroom door from the inside and Thomas stepped forward to enter it. Warlock started to follow, but Thomas shook his head and pointed to a sign.

“Only I go in here,” he explained. His voice continued to come to them through the grating after he was in the guardroom and the door was locked behind him. “It’s one of our precautions. Once I’m in here, you see, I’m protected from the hall by bullet-proof glass. If by some chance you should have forced yourselves in here and been secretly holding me at gun point — as happens in so many films — you would have been found out by the guard now, since he’s not allowed to release the elevator until I’ve had this chance to prove my freedom... and your innocence.”

A moment later Thomas, joined by two uniformed guards whom he referred to as ‘Duty Key Men’, emerged from the guardroom and took Simon and Warlock down the elevator.

“This is the only shaft,” Thomas explained as they travelled downwards. “All the others have been filled in. This is the only means of getting below — three hundred feet beneath the surface. Now, gentlemen, would you please slip these badges on to your lapels. They’ll prevent alarms from sounding. Without the badges, an intruder would never get four feet without detection. Immediately on leaving the elevator I’ll have to ask you to submit to a search. If you object, all I can do is give you a look through a grille.”

“Oh, no objection,” Simon said quickly. “Your precautions are most impressive.”

Thank you. We’re very proud of them.”

Warlock merely grunted.

“This will be a brief stop, and you’ll soon see the vaults,” said Thomas.

The elevator’s doors slid open, revealing a narrow chamber whose only other exit was a six-foot-high grille of heavy bars.

“Before we can leave here, the search,” Thomas said apologetically.

The two guards carried out the frisking with tact and thoroughness. Messrs. Dubray and Challons accepted the operation with good-natured and innocent calm. Having expected such a search, they had carried nothing with them that could arouse any suspicion — with one significant exception. The Saint, before leaving S.W.O.R.D. headquarters — as he had come to think of Warlock’s house — had written a short note which, if read by Hermetico’s personnel, would not only have aroused suspicion but would have given Warlock’s whole scheme away. The note was concealed under the lining inside Simon’s Homburg. He hoped to find a means of leaving the message behind, in Hermetico, but in such a way that it would not be read until he and Warlock were outside the gates. For Amity’s sake, Simon could not do anything which would result in his and Warlock’s detention. He would have to leave the note, if possible, as he was going out of the building. He was not terribly optimistic, for that matter, that he would find a means of leaving it at all.

“Now,” said Thomas, when the search was completed, “we can have a look at the vaults.”

The two Duty Key Men brought chains from their pockets on which were fastened several elaborately shaped pieces of metal that only distantly resembled orthodox keys. One of the guards inserted his key at the top of the grille while the other inserted his at the bottom.

“Two keys have to be used simultaneously,” Thomas said. “That way, no one man can ever get through a single door.”

The grille swung open and the party went through. To the left was a metal door with a small square of glass in the centre.

“That’s the master security control room,” Thomas explained. “There are sensing devices and alarms all over Hermetico. They’re co-ordinated here. So are the defensive devices. For example, gas can be pumped through the ventilating system, knocking out intruders in a few seconds. The vault itself can be completely flooded.”

“Fantastique,” Warlock said gravely.

“And most discouraging,” the Saint added.

Warlock shot him a warning look.

“Discouraging?” Thomas asked.

“To anyone idiotic enough to attempt a robbery,” the Saint said suavely.

“Quite so,” Thomas said.

The guardians of the keys took them through another two grilles, and then they entered the vault itself. It was a long chamber containing rows of stacked metal boxes almost as high as a man’s head. The place was the size of a small auditorium. A hissing torrent of fresh air gushed from an inlet grille at the far end of the huge room. The Saint’s eyes immediately fell on that grille, and he immediately knew that if Hermetico had a chink in its armour, the ventilating system must be it. He had studied the plans and the model of the place already without finding any other weakness in the defences, and he had become convinced that only the ventilation ducts offered any chance at all. Now he was more sure than ever that his conviction had been correct.

Two guards with submachine guns slung over their shoulders had appeared from among the metal storage boxes. They nodded pleasantly but kept their distance.

“You may think our precautions have been carried to the point of the ridiculous, gentlemen,” Thomas said, “but I think you’ll also agree that there’s no safer place on earth for valuables than this.”

“I am more zan sateesfied,” said Warlock.

“Indubitably,” said the Saint. “Just one more question, please. How do you know that my associate and myself are not imposters?”

Warlock’s flinch could have been detected only by someone who was looking for it. Thomas merely shrugged.

“I suppose it’s quite possible for people to gain access under false pretences, but as I said, it’s obvious they could do no harm. We allow only two visitors below the surface at any one time, and what could they do against our precautions?”

“Quite,” the Saint agreed.

Thomas took them back to the elevator.

“Besides, I think nothing could be a better guarantee against attempted thefts than to let potential thieves see our set-up here,” he said with a confident smile. “Don’t you agree?”

“Absolutement,” said Warlock.

At the entrance of the elevator they underwent a second swift and perfunctory search — apparently in case they had managed to slip a bar of bullion under their shirts — and then returned to the surface. A minute later they were standing outside the Hermetico building at the foot of the concrete lane which led across the grass to the main gate. The brisk wind whipped their clothes and gave Simon an excuse to hold his Homburg close against his body as his fingers worked the note he had written out of the lining. He wedged the bit of paper securely in the inner band so that its upper part would be visible to anybody picking up the hat.

“Any questions, gentlemen?” Thomas asked.

“We are quite satisfied,” the Saint said.

He allowed Thomas and Warlock to go slightly ahead of him to the lane, intending to drop the hat in the shadows of the entranceway of the building. He would have left the note behind simply by dropping it in a corridor or the elevator if his every move had not been constantly under the eyes of either a guard or Thomas himself, not to mention the wary Warlock.

The dropping of the hat would be a risky last chance. If it was seen immediately, Simon could retrieve it himself. If Warlock noticed later that it was missing, Simon could feign innocence: he would have no idea where it was. If Warlock sent back to Hermetico for it, the note would (hopefully) have been found, and according to its instructions the personnel at Hermetico would return the Homburg to S.W.O.R.D.’s messenger with no hint that it had served as Simon Templar’s private postal service. If the note had not been found by Hermetico, and S.W.O.R.D.’s people found it when retrieving the hat — which was quite unlikely — Warlock’s already strong distrust would just have to become a little stronger.

Simon could not lose the hat as near the threshold as he would have liked because the guard delayed closing the door. By the time there were no eyes on the Saint, Warlock and Thomas were already entering the path to the main gate, and the Saint had to stay not far behind them. He tossed the hat behind him, hoping it would skid along the cement and lodge next to the building near the door.

The Saint had chosen his moment as well as he could. If the results of his manoeuvre were far from what he expected, it was probably because the gods who take an interest in such things were in a playful mood. The wind suddenly gusted violently, caught the hat in mid-air, and tossed it above Simon’s head. When he saw where it was going, which was certainly not where he had intended, he could only grab for it and shout with a certain tinge of genuine anguish, “My hat!”

Warlock and Thomas turned in time to see the Homburg flip in the wind as it arched above Simon’s reach. Suddenly there was an outburst of alarm bells, klaxons, and sirens, wild and earsplitting enough to have alerted a whole city.

“Oh, no!” Thomas exclaimed.

Warlock looked panic-stricken and Simon tried to look distressed as the hat, to the cacophonous accompaniment its flight had set off, dropped towards the forbidden strip of green grass.

Before it touched the ground there was the bright flash and sharp roar of an explosion. The hat, along with several square yards of turf, disappeared, and all that was left was a shallow blackened crater.

“Oh, dear!” cried Thomas.

The alarm system was still howling and hooting and clanging away. Thomas dashed for the telephone box at the main gate and shouted into it. A few seconds later the alarms stopped. In the meantime, two guards with drawn guns had hurried out of the building and were confusedly trying to decide exactly what was wrong.

“It’s all right,” Thomas told them. “An accident. This gentleman’s hat blew into the green strip.”

Warlock was struggling to preserve some semblance of calm and a French accent.

“Eez... eez... eez eet...” he stammered.

“I am so sorry!” Simon exclaimed in apologetic alarm. “What is happening?”

Thomas was beginning to breathe normally. He tried to smile.

“We have a radar scanner,” he said. “It warns against something like a helicopter raid. Anything moving above the height of the fence sets off the alarm... excluding birds, of course. It’s programmed not to react to them.”

“But ze explosion?” Warlock asked.

“We don’t tell people, but this whole green area is crisscrossed by hundreds of invisible infra-red beams. A break in any one of them causes the mine directly below it to explode.”

“Wonderful!” Simon said. “I’m sorry, though, that I could have caused...”

Thomas waved away the apology but made it obvious that he wished to shepherd his visitors out of the gate as soon as possible.

“Think nothing of it,” he said. “I only hope that we’ll be hearing from you again in due course.”

“I zink we can guarantee eet,” Warlock assured him. “Zank you very moch.”

“Indeed yes,” Simon said. “Thank you.”

In the limousine Frug, who had been reading a movie magazine which was now face down on the front seat beside him, was sitting bolt upright.

“I thought you’d had it!” he said in a hushed voice.

“I just had a little accident,” Simon said. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”

“Not very funny, Mr. Klein!” snapped Warlock. “What happened exactly?”

“My hat blew away,” Simon said casually.

Both men were in the back seat of the limousine. Frug turned it around and started for the main road.

“All that because of a hat?” he asked in an awed voice.

“Because of a hat,” the Saint repeated. “And if that can happen on an innocent visit, think what it will be like when you try to break in...”