Prelude For War s-19

by Leslie Charteris

  But he was awake and vigilant for every minute of the drive, while the car whispered out of Putney and out on to the Portsmouth Road and down the long hill into Kingston. They went on to Hampton Court, and turned off over the bridge along the road by Hurst Park; in Walton they turned right again, and a few miles later they turned under a brick archway into what seemed like a dense wood. A few more turns, and the car swung into a circular drive and swept its headlights across the front of a big weather-tiled house set in a grove of tall pines and silver birches.

  They pulled up with a crunch of gravel, and Simon opened the door.

  "Here we are, darling," he said. "This is my nearest country seat. Thirty minutes from London if you don't worry about speed cops, and you might as well be in the middle of the New Forest. You'll like the air, too, it has oxygen in it."

  He picked up her valise and stepped out. As she got out after him she saw Patricia coming round the front of the car, pulling off her gloves, and her face went stony.

  The Saint waved a casual hand.

  "You remember Pat, don't you?" he murmured. "The girl with the wardrobe you liked so much. She'll chaperon you while you're here and see that you have most of the things you want. Come along up and I'll show you your quarters."

  He led the way into the house, handing over the valise to Orace, who was standing on the steps. Without saying a word Lady Valerie followed him up the broad oak stair­case.

  Upstairs, at the end of one wing, there was a self-contained suite consisting of sitting room, bedroom and bath­room. Simon indicated it all with a generous gesture.

  "You couldn't do better at the Carlton," he said. "The windows don't open and they're made of unbreakable glass, but it's all air-conditioned, so you'll be quite comfortable. And any time you get tired of the view, you've only got to tell me where that cloakroom ticket is and I'll take you straight back to London."

  Orace put down the valise and went out again with his peculiar strutting limp.

  Lady Valerie turned round in a quick circle and stood in front of the Saint. Her face was blazing.

  "You," she said incoherently. "You . . ."

  She took a swift step forward and struck at him with her open hand. His cheek stung with the slap. Instinctively he grasped her wrist and held it, but she struggled in his arms like a wildcat, wriggling and kicking at his shins.

  "Oh!" she sobbed. "I—I hate you!"

  "You break my heart," said the Saint. "I thought it was the dawn of love."

  She took a lot of holding: her slim body was strongly built and her muscles were in excellent condition. In the struggle her hair had become disordered, and her breath came quickly between parted lips that were too close to his for serenity.

  The Saint smiled and kissed her.

  She stopped struggling. Her breasts were tight against him; her lips were moist and desirous under his. One of her arms slid behind his neck.

  The kiss lasted for some time. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and moved her gently away.

  "I'm sorry about that," he said. "I didn't really mean to force my vile attentions on you, but you asked for it."

  "Did I?" she said.

  She turned away from him towards a mirror and began to pat her hair into place.

  "You are a cad, aren't you ?" she said.

  Her eyes, seen in the mirror, held the same baffling ex­pression that had puzzled him in the car; but now there was mockery with it. Her lips were stirred by a little smile of almost devilish satisfaction. She had a pleased air of feeling that she had done something very clever.

  "I think you're a dangerous woman," he said with pro­found conviction.

  She yawned delicately and rubbed her eyes like a sleepy kitten.

  "I don't know what you mean," she said. "Anyway, I'm too tired to argue. But you'll have to go on being nice to me now, won't you ? I mean, what would Patricia do if I told her?"

  "She'd write your name on the wall," said the Saint, "where we keep all the others. We're making a mural of them."

  "Would she? Well, don't forget that I know what you've done with Bravache and those other men. When they've been bumped off, or whatever you call it, I shan't want you to get hanged for it if I go on liking you."

  The Saint was grinning as he went out and locked the door. It was the first piece of unalloyed fun that had en­riched the day.

  At 4 A.M. that morning a young policeman on his beat noticed a suspicious cluster of shapes in a doorway in Grosvenor Square. He flashed his light on them and saw that they were the bodies of three men, with adhesive tape over their mouths and their hands fastened somehow be­hind them, sprawled against the door in grotesque atti­tudes. They were stripped to the waist and horrid red stains were smeared across their torsos.

  Blood! . . . The young policeman's heart skipped a beat. In a confused vision he saw himself gaining fame and promotion for unravelling a sensational murder mystery, becoming in rapid succession an inspector, a superintendent, and a chief commissioner.

  He ran up the steps, and as he did so he became aware of a pungent odour that seemed oddly familiar. Then one of the bodies moved painfully and he saw that they were not dead. Their bulging eyes blinked at his light and strange nasal grunts came from them. And as he bent over them he discovered the reason for the red stains that had taken his breath away, and at the same time located the source of that hauntingly familiar perfume. It was paint. From brow to waist they were painted in zebra stripes of gaudy red and blue, with equal strips of their own white skins show­ing in between to complete the pattern. The decorative scheme had even been carried over the tops of their heads, which had been shaved for the purpose to the smoothness of billiard balls.

  Hanging over them, on the door handle, was a card in­scribed with hand-printed letters:

  THESE ANIMALS ARE

  THE PROPERTY OF

  MR KANE LUKER

  ———————

  PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH

  4

  Simon Templar was having breakfast in Cornwall House when a call on the telephone from the watchful Sam Outrell at his post in the lobby heralded the arrival of Chief In­spector Claud Eustace Teal a few seconds before the door­bell sounded under his pudgy finger.

  Simon went to the door himself. The visitation was no surprise to him—as a matter of fact, he had been fatalisti­cally expecting it for some hours. But he allowed his eye­brows to go up in genial surprise when the opening door re­vealed Teal's freshly laundered face like a harvest moon under a squarely planted bowler hat.

  "Hail to thee, blithe spirit," he greeted the detective breezily. "I was wondering where you'd been hiding all these days. Come in and tell me all the news."

  Teal came in like an advancing tank. There was an aura of portentous somnolence about him, as if he found the whole world so boring that it was hardly worth while to keep awake. Simon knew the signs like the geography of his own home. When Chief Inspector Teal looked as if he might easily fall asleep in a standing position at any mo­ment it meant that he had something more than usually heavy weighing on his mind; and on this particular morning it was not insuperably difficult for the Saint to guess what that load was. But his manner was seraphically conscience free as he steered the detective into the living room.

  "Have some breakfast," he suggested convivially.

  "I had my breakfast at breakfast time," Teal said with dignity.

  He stood rather stiffly and sluggishly, holding his sedate black derby over his navel.

  Simon lifted his shoulders in regret.

  "There are times when you have an almost suburban smugness," he said deploringly. "Never mind. You'll ex­cuse me if I go on with mine, won't you? Sit down, Claud. Take off your boots and make yourself at home. Why should these little things come between us?"

  Teal sank heavily into a chair.

  "I suppose you were up late last night," he said ponder­ously. "Is that why you're having breakfast so late this morning?"

  "I don't know." The
Saint punctured his second egg. "That wouldn't be a bad excuse; but why should I make excuses?" The Saint waved his fork oratorically. "One of the many troubles of this cockeyed age is the glorification of false virtues. The bank clerk gets up early because he has to. And consequently dozens of fortunate people who don't need to get up early drag themselves out of bed at insanitary hours because it makes them feel as virtuous as a bank clerk. Instead of aspiring towards freedom and emancipation, we make a virtue of assuming unnecessary restrictions. A man spends his life working to the position where he doesn't have to get to the office at nine o'clock, and then he boasts that he still gets up at seven-thirty every morning. Well, then, what was he working for? Why didn't he save his energy and remain a clerk? You might build an indictment of all our accepted values on that. Poor men nibble a crust of bread because that's all they've got, and millionaires go on a diet of dry crusts and soda water——"

  "What were you doing last night?" asked the detective implacably.

  Simon looked shocked.

  "Really, Claud! Have you no discretion? Or have you by any chance become a gossip writer?"

  "I just want to know where you were last night," Teal said immovably. "I know you've got one of your usual alibis, but I'd like to hear it. And then perhaps you'll tell me why you did it."

  "Did what?"

  "You know what I'm talking about."

  "I wish I did. It sounds so intriguing."

  "What were you doing last night?"

  Simon buttered a slice of toast.

  "So far as I recollect, I spent a classically blameless evening. An archbishop could have followed in my footsteps without getting a single speck of mud on his reverend gaiters. Preceded by massed choirs in white surplices, and marshalled by a fatigue party from the Salvation Army——"

  "Let me tell you some of the things you did," Teal inter­rupted stolidly. "You dined at the Berkeley with Lady Valerie Woodchester. She left at about half-past ten, and you went to the Cafe Royal. You got back here towards twelve-fifteen, and at five minutes past one you went out again. Your friends Quentin and Uniatz were with you, and you were careful to see that you weren't followed. At twenty-five minutes past two Miss Holm left here in another of your cars, and she was also very careful to see that she wasn't followed. At four-thirty this morning you came in alone. I want to know what you were doing between one-five and four-thirty."

  "What a man you are, Claud!" said the Saint with ad­miration. "Nothing is hidden from you. Your house must be full of little birds."

  "It's my business to know what people like you are doing."

  "You know," said the Saint in an injured tone, "I believe you must have been having me watched. I don't call that very friendly of you. Have you lost your old faith in me ?"

  "What were you doing between one-five and four-thirty this morning?" Teal repeated tigerishly.

  The Saint stirred his coffee with an air of shy discomfort.

  "I really didn't want you to know about that," he con­fessed. "You see, much as I love you, you're always the pro­fessional policeman, and you have to take such a morbidly legal view of things. The fact is, Peter and Hoppy and I decided that we didn't feel tired so we pushed off to a little club we wot of where they haven't any respect for the licensing laws, and we stayed there hardening our arteries and talking to loose women until nearly dawn."

  "What's the name of this club?"

  "That's just what I can't tell you, Claud. You see my point. If you knew where it was you'd feel you had to do something about closing it down, because any place in London where one might have a good time always has to be closed down. And that would be a pity, because it's quite a cheery little spot now, and these places always become so dismal when they get infested with disguised policemen snooping about for evidence and leaving the smell of Lifebuoy soap in their wake——"

  "All right," Teal said with frightful restraint. "That's your story. And now suppose you tell me about those men you painted red, white and blue and left outside Luker's house."

  The Saint put down his coffee cup. He wore the incredu­lous and appalled expression of a Presbyterian elder who has been accused of operating an illicit still.

  "Painted?" he said hollowly.

  "Yes."

  "Red, white and blue?"

  "Yes."

  "Outside Luker's house?"

  "Yes."

  "Who were these men?"

  "You know as well as I do. Their names are Bravache, Pietri and Dumaire."

  The Saint shook his head with great concern.

  "Somebody must have been pulling your leg, Claud," he said. "I simply can't imagine myself doing a thing like that, even after a night at the place where I was. Did anybody see me paint them and leave them outside Luker's house? Do they say I painted them?"

  Mr Teal unwrapped a springboard of spearmint with wearily deliberate fingers, as if he were undressing himself for bed after a hard day. He had already spent a bad hour in dire anticipation of this interview and his forebodings had not been disappointed. But he had to go through with it. For an hour he had been preparing himself, wrestling with his soul, facing in prospect all the gibes and banter and infuriating mockery that he knew he would have to endure, drilling himself to the fulfilment of the vow that he would be calm, that he would be rocklike and masterful, that for this one lone historic occasion he would not let the Saint get under his skin and cut the suspenders of his self-control, as the Saint had done with fateful facility so often in the past; and the soul of Claud Eustace Teal had emerged tried and tempered from the annealing fires. Or nearly. He would triumph in the ordeal even though blood oozed from his pores.

  "No," he said. "Nobody saw you do it. The men don't say it was you. They say they don't know who it was. But I know it was you!"

  "Do you ?" At that moment the Saint was as sleek as a seal. "What makes you think so?"

  "I know it because Luker was one of the guests at that country-house fire that you were meddling in, where John Kennet was killed; and I should think of you in connection with anything that happened to Luker now. Besides that, two of these men are Frenchmen. When I saw you at that place where Ralph Windlay was murdered, you read me two cuttings from French newspapers and talked about some­thing called the Sons of France. Red, white and blue are the French national colours. Painting those men like that and leaving them outside Luker's doorstep is just the sort of thing I'd expect of you. There's one connecting link all the way through, and you're it!"

  Simon regarded him like a spot on the carpet.

  "And that's your evidence, is it?"

  Teal swallowed, but he nodded stubbornly.

  "That's it."

  "That's the collection of barefaced balderdash that's supposed to authorize you to take me into custody and lug me off to Vine Street. That's the immortal excretion of the best brains of Scotland Yard. Or have I misjudged you, Claud ? Have you taken a pill and woken up to find you've got a genius for publicity? You'll certainly get a bale of it over this. Let's go on with it. What will the charge be? Wait a minute, I can see it all—'That he did feloniously and with malice aforethought assault the complainants with an unlawful instrument, to wit, a paintbrush——' "

  "Did I say that ?" asked Mr Teal.

  It was quite a moment for Mr Teal. For the first time that he could remember he stopped the Saint short.

  The Saint looked at him in wary surmise. A hundred disjointed ideas rocketed through his head, but they all arrived by devious paths at the same mark. And that was something compared with which a seven-headed dragon pirouetting on its tail would have been a perfectly common­place phenomenon.

  "Do you mean," he said foggily, "that you didn't come here to arrest me?"

  "You ought to know enough about the law to know that I can't do anything if these men won't make a complaint."

  Simon felt a trifle lightheaded.

  "You didn't come here to congratulate me by any chance?"

  "No."

  "And you didn't co
me here for breakfast."

  "No."

  "Well, what the devil did you come for?"

  "I thought you might like to tell me something about it," Teal said woodenly. "What is all this about, and what has Luker got to do with it?"

  The Saint reached for a cigarette.

  "Quite apart from the fact that I don't see why I should be supposed to know, haven't you thought of asking him ?"

  "I have asked him. He said he'd never seen these men before; and they say they've never heard of him."

  The Saint lighted his cigarette. He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs under the table.

  "Then it certainly does look very mysterious," he said, but his blue eyes were quiet and searching.

  Chief Inspector Teal turned his venerable bowler on his blue-serge knees. He had got his spearmint nicely into con­dition now—a plastic nugget, malleable and yet resistant, still flavorous, crisp without being crumbly, glutinous with­out adhesion, obedient to the capricious patterning of his mobile tongue working in conjunction with the clockwork reciprocation of his teeth, polymorphous, ductile. It was a great comfort to him. He would have been lost without it. What he had to do was not easy.

  "I know," he said. "That's why I came to see you. I thought you might be able to give me a lead."

  The Saint stared at him for several moments in a silence of gull-winged eyebrows and wide absorbent eyes, while that cataclysmic statement sank through the diverse layers of his comprehension.

  "Well, I will be a cynocephalic mandrill scratching my blue bottom on the ramparts of Timbuctoo," he said finally. "Or am I one already? I thought I'd seen every kind and sample of human nerve in my time, but this is the last immortal syllable. You treat me as a suspicious character; you habitually accuse me of every crime that's committed in England that you're too thickheaded to solve; you threaten me three times a week with penal servitude and bodily violence; you persecute me at every conceivable opportunity; you disturb my slumbers and hound me at my own breakfast table; and then you have the unmitigated gall to sit there, with your great waistcoat full of stomach, and ask me to help you!"