Prelude For War s-19

by Leslie Charteris

  The telephone was ringing again. He picked it up.

  "Hi, boss," said Mr Uniatz plaintively. "We got cut off."

  "We didn't," said the Saint tersely. "That was your old friend Claud Eustace Teal you were talking to."

  There was a long silence.

  "Did I hear what you said, boss?"

  "I hope so."

  "You mean he hears what I said about de goil?"

  "Yes."

  "But I ask him is he you and he says he is," complained Hoppy, as if appalled by this revelation of the depths of perfidy to which a human being could sink.

  Words rose to Simon's lips—short Anglo-Saxon words, colourful and expressive. But what was the use? Dull thud­ding noises reminiscent of an enraged crocodile lashing its tail in a wooden crate reached him through the walls. His time was short.

  "Never mind," he said. "It's done now. Let me talk to Patricia."

  "She ain't got back yet, boss. She goes out in de baby car just now to buy some more scotch, and she is out when dis happens."

  "When did it happen?"

  "Just two-t'ree minutes back, boss. It's like dis. I am taking lunch up to de wren, and when I go in she says 'Lookit, de rug is boining.' It is boining, at dat. I go out for de extinguisher and squoit it on de fire, and when I have been squoiting it for some time I see de broad has beat it."

  "I suppose you'd left the door open for her."

  "I dunno, boss," said Mr Uniatz aggrievedly. He seemed to feel that Lady Valerie had taken an unfair advantage of him. "Anyway, de door is open and she has hung it on de limb. I beat it downstairs and I hear a car going off outside, and when I open de door she is lamming out of here wit' your Daimler. So I call you up," said Mr Uniatz, conscientiously completing his narrative.

  Simon opened his cigarette case on the telephone table.

  "All right," he said crisply. "Now listen. Hell is going to pop over this party, and it's going to pop at you. You'd better get out from under. Stick around till Patricia gets back, and tell her what's happened. Then pile yourself and Orace into the pram and tell her to take you to the station. Buy tickets to Southampton and make enough fuss about it so they'll remember you at the booking office. Come out the other side of the station with the next crop of passengers, walk back to Brooklands, get out the old kite and fly over to Heston. Peter will be there waiting for you. Do just what he tells you. Have you got it?"

  "Ya mean we all do dis act?"

  "Yes. All three of you. Teal will trace your call as soon as he gets back into action, and Weybridge will be no place for any of you to be seen alive in. You can take the scotch with you, so you won't be hungry. Happy landings."

  "Okay, boss."

  Simon put his finger on the contact breaker.

  He lifted it again and lighted a cigarette while he dialled the number of Peter Quentin's apartment. The dull thud­ding behind him seemed louder and splintering noises were beginning to blend with it. The Saint blew smoke rings.

  "Peter? . . . Good boy. This is Simon. . . . Nothing, except that a small flock of balloons have gone up. . . . No, but they will. In other words, Claud Eustace was here this morning to sing his theme song, as we expected; and meanwhile our protegee has pulled the bung. Hoppy rang up to tell me about it, and Teal took the call."

  There was a pause while Peter assimilated this.

  "Which police station are you speaking from, old boy?" he inquired cautiously, at last.

  "None of them yet. But I expect they'll all be inviting me as soon as Teal gets out of the wardrobe where I've got him warming up at the moment. And they won't leave you out, either."

  "As soon as——"

  Peter's voice sounded faint and expiring.

  The Saint grinned.

  "Yes. Now listen, old son. Pat and Hoppy and Orace will be on their way to Heston with the Monospar at any moment. I've told them to pick you up there. Get on your way and don't leave any tracks behind you. You can take off at once and hop to Deauville; take the train to Paris, and I'll get in touch with you later at the Hotel Raphael."

  There was another pause.

  "That's all very well," said Peter, "but suppose I don't feel like going abroad?"

  "Think how it would broaden your mind," said the Saint. "Don't be heroic, Peter. I'll be harder to catch on my own, and there's nothing for you to do here. I shan't be staying long myself. I've got a pretty sound idea that the last act of this 'ere thrilling mellerdrammer takes place in Paris, and I may want you there. I'll be seeing you."

  He rang off before Peter could answer again.

  The thundering in the next room was louder still; it could only be a matter of seconds now before the wardrobe door gave way. But the Saint stayed to refill his cigarette case before he went out and caught a descending lift that dropped him swiftly to the basement garage.

  He was debonair and unhurried as he stepped into the Hirondel and woke the engine; the fighting vitality that was lilting recklessly through every cell in his body found an outlet only in the sapphire alertness of his eyes and the dynamic economy of his movements and the ghost of an unrepentant smile that lurked in the corners of his mouth. . . . There was the same taxi parked by the curb at the top of the ramp, the same miniature sports car with the driver reading a newspaper spread over the wheel; this time Simon had no Sam Outrell in a following car to help him, but he was unconcerned. He shot past them and turned into Half Moon Street, heading north; in the mirror over the windshield he saw them coming after him. Simon worked his way into Park Lane, cruised up it until he saw a break of no more than half-a-dozen yards in the stream of traffic pounding down towards him, then he swung the wheel and sent the Hirondel screeching through the gap towards the pavement on the wrong side of the road. The cataract of vehicles swerved wildly out to avoid him, flowed on past him with curses and straining brakes, effectively barring the path of his pursuers. Simon bumped the curb, straight­ened up and crawled round the next corner into Mount Street. A couple of instants later he was whirling away with gathering speed, to zigzag round four more consecutive corners and obliterate the last clue to his direction in the rabbit warren of Mayfair.

  The tangle he had left behind him in Park Lane was still sorting itself out when he crossed Oxford Street and turned the Hirondel to the west.

  He felt sure that he knew what Lady Valerie's first move, would be now, and he felt almost as sure that London would be the place where she would make it. Both of the two most probable routes from Weybridge to London led through Putney, and he still had time to meet her there.

  He crossed Putney High Street more decorously than he had crossed Park Lane, and backed into a side turning from which he could watch the crawling flow of London-bound traffic and pull out to join it with the minimum of delay. The Hirondel stood there like a great glistening jewel, and not for the first time since he had chosen its flamboyant colour scheme the Saint wished that his tastes had been more conservative. That plutocratic equipage, which drew every eye back for a second look, would do nothing to simplify his problems. A policeman strolled by and studied it with deep interest for fifty slow-paced yards. Simon's heart was in his mouth, but the constable passed on without stopping. Doubtless the alarm which must even then have been circulating had not yet reached him. For ten minutes the Saint endured a strain that would have worn many hardened nerves to shreds; and coupled with it was the continual gnawing fear that his guess might after all have been wrong and Lady Valerie would not come that way. His tanned face gave no inkling of his thoughts, but when he saw the black Daimler glide past the end of his side road, with Lady Valerie at the wheel, looking straight ahead of her, it was as if a miracle had happened.

  The start of the Hirondel's engine was scarcely audible. Almost instantaneously he let in the clutch, and cut in to the line of traffic only two cars behind her. Intent and expres­sionless as a stalking leopard, the Saint drove on after her.

  4

  Her first stop was at the South Kensington post office. The Saint's eyes w
ent cold and brittle when he saw the Daimler slowing up: Exhibition Road was too wide and unfrequented for any car to be unnoticeable in it. Fortu­nately on that account he had let himself fall some distance behind her. He jammed on the brakes and whipped round into Imperial Institute Road, and felt that the gods had been kind to him when he saw that she crossed the sidewalk and entered the post office without looking round. Clearly it had not occurred to her that she could have been picked up by that time.

  He made a U turn in the side road and parked near the corner. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he got out and walked up towards the post-office entrance. It was a fool­hardy thing to do, but a theory was already taking solid form in his mind. He had used that trick himself. Mail any­thing you want to hide, addressed to yourself at a poste restante in any name you can think of: where could it be safer or harder to find?

  She came out so quickly that he was almost caught. He turned in a flash and stood with his back to her, taking out his cigarette case and deliberating lengthily over his selection of a cigarette. Reflected in the polished inside of the case, he saw her cross the pavement again, still without looking round, and get back into the car.

  But he had been wrong. As she came out she was putting an envelope into her bag, but it was only a small one— obviously too small and thin to contain such a dossier as Kennet must have given her.

  His brain leaped to encompass this reversal. Her cloak­room story must have been true, then: she had simply given herself double cover, mailing the ticket to herself at the poste restante. His imagination bridged the gaps like a bolt of lightning. Without even turning his head to check his observations, without letting himself indulge a further instant's vacillation, he started back towards his own car.

  And in the middle of the next stride he stopped again as if he had run into an invisible wall.

  Where he had left the Hirondel there was now another car drawn up alongside it—a lean, drab, unobtrusive car that hid its speedy lines under a veneer of studiously sombre cellulose, a car which to the Saint's cognizant eye carried the banners of the mobile police as plainly as the sails on a full-rigged ship, even before he saw the blue-uniformed man at the wheel and the other blue-uniformed man who had got out to examine the Hirondel at close quarters. The dragnet was out, and this was the privileged one out of the hundreds of patrol cars that must even then have been scouring the city for him that had located its gaudy quarry. If he had waited in the car they would have caught him.

  But his guardian angel was still with him. They must have arrived only a moment ago, and they were still too wrapped up in the discovery of the Hirondel to have started looking round for the driver.

  The Saint had spun round as soon as he saw them. He was between two fires now, but Valerie Woodchester was the less formidable. He whipped out a handkerchief and held it over the lower part of his face as he started up the road again. The Daimler was pulling out from the curb, moving on towards Kensington Gardens. On the opposite side of the road a taxi had pulled up to discharge its freight. Simon walked over towards it with long space-devouring strides that gave a deceptive impression of having no haste behind them. He climbed into the offside door as the passenger paid his fare.

  "Go up towards the Park," he said. "And step on it."

  The taxi swung round in an obedient semicircle and rat­tled north. As it came round the curve the Saint took a last look at the corner where he had so nearly met disaster. The blue-uniformed man who had got out of the police car was putting his hand on the Hirondel's radiator. He took it away quickly and said something to his companion, and then they both started to look round; but by that time their chance of immortal fame had slipped through their fingers. The Saint buried himself in the corner of the seat, and his cab bowled away on the second lap of the chase.

  The policeman at the top of the road was stopping the north-and-south traffic, and the taxi had caught up to within a few yards of the Daimler's petrol tank when he lowered his arm. The driver slackened speed and half turned.

  "Where to, sir?"

  "Keep going." The Saint sat forward. "You see this Daimler just ahead of you?"

  "Yessir."

  "There's two quid for you on top of the fare if you can keep behind it."

  You may have wondered what happens in real life when the pursuing sleuth leaps into a cab and yells "Follow that car!" The answer is that the driver says "Wot car?" After this has been made clear, if it can be made clear in time to be of any use, he simply follows. He has nothing better to do, anyhow.

  Whether he can follow adequately or not is another mat­ter. Simon suffered a short interval of tenterhooked anxiety before he was assured that his guardian angel, still zealously concentrating on its job, had sent him a taxi that was capa­ble of keeping up with most ordinary cars in traffic and a driver with enough cupidity to kick it along in a way that showed that he regarded a two-pound tip as something to be seriously worked for. The whim of a traffic light or a point-duty policeman might still defeat him, but nothing else would.

  Simon sat back and relaxed a little.

  He had a brief breathing spell now in which to synopsize his thoughts on the recent visit from Comrade Fairweather which had dragged on to such a disastrous denouement. He was sure that the denouement had been no part of Fairweather's design. Fairweather, caught unprepared by Teal's presence and the things that had been going on when he arrived, had simply been improvising from start to finish—exactly as Simon's counterattack had been impro­vised. What he had really meant to say when he came to Cornwall House had not even been hinted at. But Simon was sure that he knew what had been left unsaid. By that time Bravache and his satellites must have reported to headquarters, and all the ungodly must have known that their plans had done more than go agley. Fairweather would not have been sent to threaten—he was not the type. He had been sent to try diplomacy, possibly the kind in which the balance of power is a bank balance, perhaps more probably the kind which is meant to lead one party to that apocryphal place known to American gangdom as the Spot. Either way, it was a token of the ungodly's increas­ing interest which gave the Saint a a stimulating feeling of approaching climax. He wished he could have heard what Fairweather really meant to say; but life was full of those unfinished symphonies. . . .

  They had slipped through the Park meanwhile and left it at Lancaster Gate. The Daimler threaded through to Eastbourne Terrace and parked there; the Saint's taxi driver, taking his instructions literally, stopped behind it. But luckily there is no vehicle on the streets of London so unlikely to draw attention to itself even by the weirdest manoeuvres as a taxi. Valerie Woodchester did not even look at it twice. She crossed the road and hurried away, heading for the gaunt grimy monstrosity known to long-suffering railway travellers as Paddington Station.

  Simon unpacked himself from the depths of the cab into which he had instinctively retreated. He hopped out and poured two pound notes and some silver into the driver's palm.

  "Thanks, Rupert," he said. "Pull down the street a little way and stick around for a bit—I may want you again."

  He scooted on after Lady Valerie. She was out of sight when he rounded the next corner after her, but the station was the only place she could have been going into. He even knew what part of the station she would make for.

  He stood inside the first entrance he came to and let his eyes probe around the gloom of the interior. It was so long since he had travelled by rail that he had almost forgotten the gruesome efficiency with which London rail­way terminals prepare the arriving voyager for the discom­forts of his coming journey. The station, proudly ignoring the march of civilization, had not changed in a single mater­ial detail since he last saw it, any more than it had proba­bly changed since the days when trains were preceded by a herald waving a red flag. There were the same dingy sky­lights overhead, opaque with accumulated grime; the same naked soot-blackened girders; the same stark soot-blackened walls splashed with lurid posters proclaiming the virtues of Bovril and the br
acing breezes of Weston-super-Mare; the same filthily blackened floors patterned with zigzag trails of moisture where some plodding porter had passed by with a rusty watering can on a futile mission of dampening down the underfoot layers of dirt; the same bleak "refreshment" rooms with cold black marble counters and buzzing flies and unimaginative ham sandwiches in glass cases like museum specimens; the same faint but pervading smell of stale soot, stale humanity, and (for no apparent reason) stale horses. Somewhere in that gritty grisly monument to the civic enterprise of twentieth-century London he knew he would find Lady Valerie Woodchester; and presently he saw her, looking amazingly trim and clean among the sweat­ing mobs of holiday-departing trippers, coming away from the direction of the checkroom. And now she carried a bulky manila envelope in one hand.

  Simon ducked rapidly into a waiting room that looked like the anteroom of a morgue; but she went straight to the ticket office selling tickets for the Reading and Bristol line. He saw her turn away with a ticket and walk briskly back towards one of the departure platforms.

  The Saint beelined for the window she had just left, but before he could reach it a large boiled-pink woman with two bug-eyed children clinging to her skirts was there in front of him. She was one of those women from whom no booking office ever seems to be free, who combine with the afflictions of acute myopia and deafness the habit of keeping their money in the uttermost depths of a series of inter­communicating bags and purses. Simon stood behind her and fumed on the verge of homicidal frenzy while she argued with the booking clerk and peered and fumbled with placid deliberation through the interminable succession of Chinese boxes in the last of which her portable funds were lovingly enshrined. A line of other prospective passengers began to form behind him. Unaware that the world was standing still and waiting for her, the woman began to count her change and reopen her collection of private puz­zles to stow it lovingly away, while she went on to cross-examine the clerk about the freshness of the milk in the dining car on the train to Torquay. Meanwhile Lady Val­erie had disappeared.