“I see,” said Patricia, but it was only as if a fog had eddied and parted capriciously, giving her a glimpse of something huge and terrifyingly inhuman looming through shifting veils of mist.
Simon Templar’s face was as dark and cold as graven copper.
“You know what I mean?” he said. “Kane Luker is probably the only serious rival that our old friend Rayt Marius ever had. And now that Angel Face is no longer with us, Luker stands alone—the king-pin of what somebody once called the Merchants of Death. It’s interesting to have met him, because I’ve often thought that we may have to liquidate him one day.”
The mists broke in Patricia’s mind, so that for an instant she could see with blinding clarity. It was as if the whole interruption of the fire had never happened, as if she was still sitting in the car as she had been before, listening to the sounds that came over the radio, without a break, just as she had been listening. Their primitive stridency beat in her brain again as if they had never ceased—the lusting clangour of trumpets, the machine-like prattle of the drums. Brass and drums. And men marching like lines of ants, their boots thudding like the tick-tock of some monstrous clock eating up time. Left, right, left. In time with the brass and drums. And in time, too, now, with the hammer and clang of flaring forges and the deep rolling reverberation of stupendous armouries pouring out the iron tools of war—
She looked at the Saint and was aware of him in the midst of all that, like a shining light, a bright sword, a clear note of music in the thunder of brute destruction, following his amazing destiny. But the thunder went on.
She tried to shut it out.
She said, almost desperately, “That fellow who was left—in there. Why did you ask if he was any relation of the MP?”
“It just occurred to me. And he was. That’s the funny part. Because unless my memory’s all cockeyed, he’s a flaming Red and a frightful thorn in the side of his respectable papa. He’s the one part of the picture that doesn’t fit in. Why should a really outstanding crop of old and young Diehards like that ask anyone like John Kennet down for a weekend?”
“He might have amused them.”
“Would you credit them with that much sense of humour?”
“I don’t know…But if it was a joke, they must be feeling pretty badly about it.” She shuddered. “I know it’s all over now, but I hope—hope they were right—that the smoke did put him out before the fire got to him.”
Simon’s cigarette reddened again for a long moment before he answered.
“If there’s one thing I’m sure of, I’m sure that the fire didn’t hurt him,” he said, and the way he said it stopped her breath for a moment.
The noise in her brain screamed up in an insane cacophony.
“You mean—”
“I mean—murder,” said the Saint.
CHAPTER TWO
HOW LADY VALERIE COMPLAINED ABOUT HEROES AND MR FAIRWEATHER DROPPED HIS HAT
1
“Seeing that time is flying,” said Peter Quentin, “and since you have to attend an inquest this morning, I suppose you could use some extra nourishment.”
“How right you are,” said the Saint. “Some people have no respect for anything. It’s a gloomy thought. Even when you’re dead, you’re liable to be lugged out of the morgue at the squeak of dawn to have your guts poked over by some revoltingly healthy jury of red-faced yokels.”
“I like getting you up early,” said Patricia. “It seems to lend a sort of ethereal delicacy to your ideas.”
Simon Templar grinned, and watched Peter nipping the caps from a row of bottles of Carlsberg. As a matter of fact it was nearly ten o’clock, and for half an hour after breakfast they had been sitting in the sun on the porch outside Peter’s dining-room. Two days had gone by since the fire, and it would have been hard to identify the supremely elegant Saint who sprawled in Peter’s most comfortable deck chair with the blistered smoke-blackened scarecrow who had arrived there in the small hours of a certain morning with his grim foreboding.
He took the tall glass that Peter handed him and eyed it appreciatively.
“And while we’re soothing our tender nerves with this ambrosia,” he said, “I suppose we’d better just run over what we’ve found out about these people who roast their weekend guests.”
“I might have known I should be let in for this,” Peter said moodily. “I ought to have known better than to ask you down. This was the most peaceful place in England before you came near it, but wherever you go something unpleasant happens.” He lifted his glass and drank. “However, as usual, I’ve been doing your dirty work. Our local gossip writer has been snooping and eavesdropping and will now present his report—such as it is.”
He returned to his chair and lighted a cigarette before he went on.
“As you know, the house that provided the fireworks was called Whiteways. The owner is Mr A. S. Fairweather, a gentleman of wealth who is highly respected in local circles. For fifteen years he warmed a seat in the House of Commons as Conservative MP for Hamborough, and for one year just before he retired he held the job of Secretary of State for War. His abilities must have impressed some people more than they impressed the other members of that Cabinet, because as soon as he retired he was offered a place on the board of the Norfelt Chemical Company, where he has sat ever since. He has a town house in Grosvenor Square, a Rolls-Royce, and he has recently subscribed five hundred pounds towards the restoration of our local parish church—which means that he either has, or has not, a ripe sense of humour.”
Down by the bottles, something stirred. It was something that looked rather like a reconstruction of the Piltdown Man might have looked if it had been first badly mauled with a sledgehammer and then encased in a brilliant check suit.
“I know a guy once what has a chemical factory,” announced Hoppy Uniatz, with the happy interest of a big-game hunter who hears the conversation veering round to the subject of big game. “He makes a kind of liquor. Just say de woid, an’ it’s rye or Boigundy wit’ all de labels an’ everyting.” A Thought appeared to strike him in a vital spot. “Say, maybe we got someting, boss. Maybe dis guy Fairwedder is in de same racket.”
The Saint sighed.
Between Simon and Peter there was the understanding of men who had fought shoulder to shoulder in many battles. Between Simon and Hoppy Uniatz there was no such bond, since Nature, by some unfortunate oversight, had neglected to provide Mr Uniatz with any more grey matter than was required for the elementary functions of eating, drinking, and handling firearms. He was at once the joy and despair of Simon’s life, but his dumb devotion to what he regarded as the positively supernatural genius of the Saint was so wistful that Simon had never had the heart to let him go.
“No, Hoppy,” he said. “That stuff only burns your throat. The Norfelt product burns you all over.”
“Chees,” said Mr Uniatz admiringly. “Where do ya get dis stuff?”
“It’s dropped from aeroplanes,” explained Peter. “In large containers weighing about six hundred pounds each.”
Mr Uniatz looked worried.
“But what happens when dey hit de ground?”
“They break,” said Peter. “That’s the whole idea. Think it over, Hoppy, while I go on with my gossip column.”
He refreshed himself again, and continued.
“Brigadier-General Sir Robert Sangore has stayed with Fairweather before. During his last visit he delivered a stirring address to the Church Lads’ Brigade, in which Comrade Fairweather takes a benevolent interest. He warned them particularly against Socialists, Communists, and Pacifists, and told them that the Great War was a glorious spree for everyone who fought in it. He graduated from Sandhurst in the year Dot, served all over the place, got into the War Office in 1917, and stayed there until 1930, when he retired to become a director of the Wolverhampton Ordnance Company. He is an officer, a gentleman, and a member of the Cavalry Club.”
“Lady Valerie Woodchester,” said Patricia, “is the spo
iled darling of London Society. She uses Mond’s Vanishing Cream, Kissabel Lipstick, and Charmante Skin Tonic. She goes to all the right places at all the right times, and she has her photograph in the Bystander every week. She has also stolen all my best clothes.”
“Don’t worry about that, darling,” said the Saint reassuringly. “I’ll take them off her.”
Pat made a face at him.
“That wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” she said calmly.
“The young hero who rescued Lady Valerie,” resumed Peter, when order had been restored, “is Captain Donald Knightley of the Dragoon Guards. He has a fine seat on a horse and a set of membership cards to all the best night clubs. That’s all I could find out about him…And that only leaves John Kennet, the man who didn’t fit in anywhere.”
“Yes,” said the Saint thoughtfully. “The man who didn’t fit in. And he seems to have been the most important one of all.”
Patricia made a sharp restless movement.
“Are you sure?” she said, as if she was still fighting against conviction. “After all, if Fairweather has been in Parliament, he may have got friendly with Kennet’s father—”
“I wouldn’t argue. The old man may be a bit bothered about his aitches now and again, and he may still pretend that he belongs to the Labour Party, but he joined the National Government at the right time so of course all the Duchesses love him because they know his heart must be in the right place. If it had been the old man, it might have been all right. But it wasn’t. It was young Kennet. And young Kennet was a Pacifist, an anti-blood-sporter, an anti-Capitalist, an anti-Fascist, and the Lord knows what not, and he once said publicly that his father had proved to be the arch-Judas of the working classes. Well, there may be all sorts of harmless reasons why a fellow like that should have been invited to join that congregation of worshippers of the golden calf, but you must admit that he still looks like the ideal burnt-offering.”
There was a silence, in which the only interruption was the sound of Mr Uniatz cautiously uncorking his private bottle of Vat 69, while their thoughts went on.
Peter said, “Yes. But that isn’t evidence. You’ve been very mysterious all this time, but you must have something more definite than that.”
“I’ll give you four things,” said the Saint.
He stood up and leaned against one of the pillars of the porch facing them, very tall and dark and somehow deadly against the sunlit peace of the garden. Their eyes were drawn as if by a magnet.
“One: Kennet’s door was locked.”
Patricia stared at him.
“So you mentioned,” Peter said slowly. “But if everybody who locked a door—”
“I can only think of two kinds of people who’d lock their bedroom doors when they were staying in a private house,” said the Saint. “Frightened virgins and—frightened men.”
“Maybe he was expecting a call from Lady Valerie,” suggested Patricia half-heartedly.
“Maybe he was,” agreed the Saint patiently. “But if that made him lock his door, he must have been a very undiscriminating young man. And in any case, that’s only half of it. He not only locked his door, but he took the key out of the lock. Now, even assuming that anyone might lock a door, there’s only one reason for taking the key out of the lock. And that’s when you realise that an expert might be able to turn the key from the outside—in other words when you’re really thinking hard along the lines of a pretty determined attempt to get at you.”
“He might have been tight when he went to bed,” Peter pointed out. “That would account for almost any weird thing he did. And besides that, it might account for him not hearing the fire alarm.”
“It might,” said the Saint bluntly. “But while you’re at it, why don’t you think of the other possibility? Suppose he didn’t lock the door at all? Suppose somebody else did?”
They were silent again.
“Go on,” said Patricia.
Simon looked at her.
“Two: during all the time we were there, did you see any signs of a servant?”
“It might have been their night out.”
“Yes. And with a house that size, there must have been several of them. And Fairweather let them all go out together, on a Saturday night, when he had a house full of weekend visitors. And Valerie Woodchester cooked the dinner, and Lady Sangore washed the dishes. Why don’t we make up some more brilliant theories? Maybe the servants were all burnt in the fire too, only nobody thought of mentioning it.”
Peter sipped his beer abstractedly.
“What else?”
“Three: when we arrived, every door and window that I could see on the ground floor was wide open. Let me try and save your brains some of this fearful strain. Maybe that was because everybody who heard the alarm rushed out through a different window. Or maybe it was because they always went to bed with the ground-floor windows open so that if any burglars wanted to drop in they wouldn’t have to break the glass. Of course, that’s much more likely than that somebody wanted a good draught to make sure that the fire would burn up nice and fast.”
This time there was no comment.
“Point Four,” said the Saint quietly, “is only Luker. The man who ties Sangore and Fairweather together. And the man who perfectly represents the kind of bee that Kennet had in his bonnet…Do you really think I’m insane, or doesn’t it all seem like too many coincidences even to you?”
They didn’t answer. Incredulity, a traditional habit of mind, even in spite of the years that they had spent in wild pursuit of the fantastic visions that signposted the Saint’s iconoclastic path, struggled desperately against the implications of belief. It would have been so much easier, so much more soothing, to let suspicion be lulled away by the uncritical rationalisations of ingrained convention, when to accept what the Saint argued meant—something so ominous and horrible that the mind instinctively recoiled from dwelling on it…But it seemed as if the unclouded sunlight darkened behind the Saint’s tall disturbing figure while the echoes of his last words ran on through their protesting brains.
Mr Uniatz removed the neck of the bottle from his mouth with a faint squuck. The intermediate stages of the conversation had left as dim a blur on his consciousness as a discourse on the Quantum Theory would have left on an infants’ class in arithmetic, but he had been told to think something over and he had been bravely obeying orders, even though thinking was an activity which always gave him a dull pain behind the eyes.
“Boss,” he said, in a sudden wild bulge of inspiration. “I got it. It’s some temperance outfit.”
Simon blinked at him. There were occasions when the strange processes that went on inside the skull of Mr Uniatz were too occult even for him.
“What is?” he asked fearfully.
“De guys in de aeroplanes.”
Simon clutched his head.
“What guys?”
“De guys,” explained Mr Uniatz proudly, “who break de bottles of liquor.”
2
The inquest was to be held at the Assembly Rooms in Anford, a largish building which served at various times for dances, whist drives, auctions, and a meeting-place for the Boy Scouts. When Simon arrived a small crowd had already started to gather, and three or four policemen were on duty to keep them back. Among the policemen Simon recognised the constable who had taken his arm on the night of the fire. He strolled across to him.
“Hullo, Reginald,” he murmured. “What’s new?”
“Oh, it’s you, sir.” The policeman lowered his voice confidentially. “Well, it all seems quite simple now. The pore devil never left ’is bed—’e come down, bed and all, right through into the libry. Shocking sight ’e was, too. But there, he couldn’t’ve felt nothing. He must’ve bin spiflicated by the smoke before ever the fire reached ’im.” He went on looking at the Saint with a certain amount of awe. “I didn’t know ’oo you was till after you’d gorn, sir,” he said apologetically.
“I’m sorry,” said the Saint gravely.
“But you can still arrest me if you want to, so there’s no harm done.”
“Arrest you?” repeated the policeman. “Wot—me?” A beaming grin split his face almost in half. “Why, I’ve read everythink they ever printed about you, and fair larfed myself sick sometimes, the way you put it over on those Smart Alecs at Scotland Yard. But I never thought I’d ’ave the pleasure of meeting you and not know it—though I did wonder ’ow you knew my name the other night.”
“Your name?” said the Saint faintly.
“Yes, sir. Reginald. That was pretty good, that was. But I suppose you’ve got pretty near the ’ole police force of the country taped, haven’t you?”
The Saint swallowed. He searched unavailingly for an adequate reply.
Fortunately his anguished efforts were cut short by the blessed advent of two large cars that rolled up to the steps at the entrance of the building, and a spontaneous movement of the crowd drew the policeman back to his job. The Saint took out his cigarette case with a feeling of precarious relief, and watched the cars disgorge the dignified shapes of Luker, Fairweather, Sir Robert and Lady Sangore, and Lady Valerie Woodchester.
“It must be wonderful to be famous,” remarked Peter Quentin reverently.
“Get yourself some reflected glory,” said the Saint. “Take Pat inside—I’m going to float around a bit.”
He waited while they disappeared, and presently followed them in. Immediately inside the entrance was a fair-sized hall in which a number of people were standing about, conversing in cathedral mutters. There were single doors on each side, and a double pair facing the entrance which opened into the main room where the inquest was to take place. Near these farther doors Lady Valerie was standing alone, waiting, rather impatiently tapping the ground with one trim-shod foot. Simon went over to her.
The Saint Plays with Fire (The Saint Series) Page 4
