His eyes swept it desperately from top to bottom. And as he looked at it, two pink fingers of flame curled out from underneath it. The floor of the room was already taking fire.
But those little jagged fangs of flame meant that there was a small space between the bottom of the door and the floorboards. If he could push the key through so that it fell on the floor inside, he might be able to fish it out through the gap under the door. He whipped out his penknife and probed at the keyhole.
At the first attempt, the blade slipped right through the hole without encountering any resistance. The Saint bent down and brought his eye close to the aperture. There was enough firelight inside the room for him to be able to see the whole outline of the keyhole. And there was no key in it.
For one dizzy second his brain whirled. And then his lips thinned out, and a red glint came into his eyes that owed nothing to the reflections of the fire.
Again he fought his way incredibly through the hellish barrier of flame that shut off the end of the corridor. The charred boards gave ominously under his feet, but he hardly noticed it. He had remembered noticing something through the suffocating murk on the landing. As he beat out his smouldering clothes again he located it—a huge medieval battle-axe suspended from two hooks on the wall at the top of the stairs. He measured the distance and jumped, snatching eagerly. The axe came away, bringing the two hooks with it, and a shower of plaster fell on his face and half-blinded him.
That shower of grit probably saved his life. He slumped against the wall, trying to clear his streaming eyes, and that brief setback cheated Death for the hundredth time in its long duel with the Saint’s guardian angel. For even as he straightened up again with the axe in his hands, about twenty feet of the passage plunged downwards with a heart-stopping crash in a swirl of flame, leaving nothing but a gaping chasm through which fire roared up in a fiendish fountain that sent him staggering back before its intolerable heat. The last chance of reaching that locked room was gone.
A great weariness fell on the Saint like a heavy blanket pressing him down. There was nothing more he could do.
He dropped the battle-axe and stumbled falteringly down the blazing stairs. There was no more battle now to keep him going. It was sheer blind automatism rather than any conscious effort on his part that guided him through another inferno to come reeling out through the front door, an amazing tatterdemalion outcast from the jaws of hell, to fall on his hands and knees on the terrace outside. In a dim faraway manner he was aware of hands raising him; of a remembered voice, low and musical, close to his ear.
“I know you like warm climates, boy, but couldn’t you have got along with a trip to Africa?”
He smiled. Between him and Patricia there was no need for the things that other people would have had to say. They spoke their own language. Grimy, dishevelled, with his clothes blackened and singed and his eyes bloodshot and his body smarting from a dozen minor burns, the Saint smiled at her with all his old incomparable impudence.
“I was trying to economise,” he said. “And now I shall probably catch my death of cold.”
Already the cold night air, flowing like nectar into his parched lungs, was beginning to revive him, and in a few minutes his superb resilience would do the rest. He reviewed his injuries more systematically, and realised that comparatively speaking he was almost miraculously unscathed. The thing that had come nearest to downing him was the smoke and fumes of the fire, and the effects of that were dispersing themselves like magic now that he could breathe again without feeling as if he were inhaling molten ash.
He cocked an eye at the stolid country policeman who was holding his other arm.
“Do you have to be quite so professional, Reginald?” he murmured. “It makes me feel nervous.”
The constable’s hold relaxed reassuringly.
“I’d get along and see the doctor, sir, if I was you. He’s in the lodge now with Lady Sangore.”
“Is that the old trout’s name? And I’ll bet her husband is at least a General.” The Saint was starting to get his bearings, and his legs began to feel as if they belonged to him again. He searched for a cigarette. “Thanks, but Lady Sangore can have him. I’d rather have a drink. I wonder if we could get any cooperation from the owner of this jolly little bonfire?”
“You mean Mr Fairweather, sir? That’s him, coming along now.”
While Simon had been inside the house, a number of other people had arrived on the scene, and another policeman and a sergeant were loudly ordering them to stand back. Paying no attention to this whatever, they swarmed excitedly round the Saint, all talking at once and completely frustrating the fat little Mr Fairweather, who seemed as if he was trying to make a speech. The voice of the General rose above the confused jabber like a foghorn.
“A fine effort, young man. A splendid effort, by Gad! But you shouldn’t have tried it.”
“Tell the band to strike up a tune,” said the Saint shortly. “Did anybody find a ladder?”
With his strength rapidly coming back, he still fought against admitting defeat. His face was hard and set, and the blue in his eyes was icy as he glanced over the group.
“A ladder wouldn’t be much use now,” said a quiet voice. “The flames are pouring out of his window. There isn’t a hope.”
It was the square-jawed man who spoke, and again it seemed to Simon that there was a faint sneer in his dark eyes.
The Saint’s eyes turned back to the house, and as if to confirm what the other had said, there came from the blaze a tremendous rumbling rending sound. Slowly, with massive deliberation, the roof began to bend inwards, sagging in the middle. Faster and faster it sagged, and then, with a shattering grinding roar like an avalanche, it crumpled up and vanished. A great shower of golden sparks shot upwards and fell in a brilliant rain over the lawns and garden.
“You see?” said the square man. “You did everything you could. But it’s lucky you turned back when you did. If you had reached his room, the chances are that you’d never have got back.”
Simon’s eyes slanted slowly back to the heavy-set powerful face.
It was true that there was nothing more that he could do. But now, for the first time since the beginning of those last mad minutes, he could stop to think. And his mind went back to the chaotic questions that had swept through it for one vertiginous instant back there in the searing stench of the fire.
“But I did reach his room,” he answered deliberately. “Only I couldn’t get in. The door was locked. And the key wasn’t in it.”
“Really?”
The other’s face expressed perfunctory concern. But his eyes no longer held their glimmer of cold amusement. They stared hard at Simon with a cool analytical steadiness, as if weighing him up, estimating his qualities, and methodically tabulating the information for future reference.
And once more that queer tingle of suspicion groped its way through the Saint’s brain. Only this time it was more than a vague formless hunch. He knew now, beyond any shadow of doubt, with an uncanny certainty, that he was on the threshold of something which his inborn flair for the strange twists of adventure was physically incapable of leaving unexplored. And an electric ripple of sheer delight brought every fibre of his being to ecstatic life. His interlude of peace was over.
“Really,” he affirmed flatly.
“Then perhaps you were even luckier than you realise,” said the square man smoothly. If he meant to give the words any extra significance, he did it so subtly that there was no single syllable on which an accusation could have been pinned. In point of time it had only lasted for a moment, that silent and apparently unimportant exchange of glances, and after it there was nothing to show that a challenge had been thrown down and taken up. “If we can offer you what hospitality we have left—I’m sure Mr Fairweather—”
The Saint shook his head.
“Thanks,” he said, “but I haven’t got far to go, and I’ve got a suitcase in the car.”
“Then I hope we s
hall be seeing more of you.” The square man turned. I suppose we should get along to the lodge, Sir Robert. We can’t be any more use here.”
“Harrumph,” said the General. “Er…yes. A splendid effort, young man. Splendid. Ought to have a medal. Harrumph.”
He allowed himself to be led away, rumbling.
Mr Fairweather grasped the Saint’s hand and pumped it vigorously up and down. He had recovered what must have been his normal tremendous dignity, and now he was also able to make himself heard.
“I shall take personal steps,” he announced majestically, “to see that your heroism is suitably recognised.”
He stalked off after the others, without stopping to inquire the Saint’s name and address.
Clanging importantly, the first fire-engine swept up the gravel drive and came to a standstill in front of the terrace.
4
“I’m glad they got here in time to water the flowers,” Simon observed rather bitterly.
He was wondering how much difference it might have made if they had arrived early enough to get a ladder to the window of that locked room. But the nearest town of any size was Anford, about seven miles away, and the possibility that they could have arrived much sooner was purely theoretical. From the moment a fire like that took hold, the house was inevitably doomed.
The policeman who had been holding his arm had moved off during the conversation, and the other spectators were simply standing around and gaping in the dumb bovine way in which spectators of catastrophe usually stand and gape.
Simon touched Patricia’s arm.
“We might as well be floating along,” he said. “The excitement seems to be over, and it’s past our bedtime.”
They had got half-way to the car when the police sergeant overtook them.
“Excuse me, sir.”
“You are forgiven,” said the Saint liberally. “What have you done?”
“How did you happen to be here, sir?”
“Me? I just happened to see the fire from the main road, so I beetled over to have a look at it.”
“I see.” The sergeant wrote busily in his note-book. “Anything else, sir?”
The Saint’s hesitation was imperceptible. Undoubtedly there had been various things else, but it would have been very complicated to go into them. And when Simon Templar had got the scent of mystery in his nostrils, the last thing he wanted was to have the police blundering along the same keen trail—at least not before he had given a good deal of thought to the pros and cons.
“No,” he said innocently. “Except that this bloke Kennet seemed to be still in the house, so I just had a dart at fishing him out. He wouldn’t be any relation of the MP by any chance, would he?”
“His son, I believe, sir, from what I’ve heard in the village. Staying with Mr Fairweather for the weekend. He must have been suffocated in his sleep, pore devil—let’s hope ’e was, anyway. It’ll cause a bit of a stir, all right.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said the Saint thoughtfully.
The sergeant nodded sagely, no doubt squandering a moment on the satisfactory vision of his own name in the headlines. Then he returned to business.
“I’d better just have your name and address, sir, in case you’re wanted for the inquest.”
Simon felt in his pocket, produced a card, scribbled on it, and handed it over.
“That’s where I’ll be staying for the next few days.” He started to move on, and then turned back. “By the way, who was that other fellow—the bloke who looks as if he’d been chopped out of a small piece of cuff?”
“You mean Mr Luker, sir?” He often comes down and stays with Mr Fairweather. He’s a financier, or something like that, I believe.”
“A financier, is he?” said the Saint slowly. “What fun!”
He walked on and climbed into the car with a new load of tangled thoughts. The engine started with a low whirr, and they drove back along the drive and slid round the corner into the road.
Presently the Saint said, inconsequentially, “Next time I go to a fire I’m going to wear some old clothes.”
“You’re better off than I am,” said Patricia. “You’ve got some other things left. Lady Sangore and Valerie Woodchester between them have just about wrecked my suitcases. Lady Sangore practically told me that all my undies were immoral, but it didn’t stop her helping herself to all she wanted. You know the sort. A pillar of the British Empire, and underpays her maids.”
“I know,” said the Saint feelingly. “What about the Woodchester girl?”
“Lady Valerie Woodchester, to be exact. All I know about her is that she picked all my most expensive things and didn’t miss once.”
“Did either of them tell you how the fire started?”
She shook her head.
“They didn’t know. It’s an old house, but it had modern automatic fire alarms. All they could tell me was that the alarms went off and everyone came tumbling out of bed. There seems to have been a good deal of confusion. Lady Sangore put the whole thing down to the Communists—but then, if she drops a stitch when she’s knitting, she puts it down to the Communists. Valerie Woodchester was very peeved because the young Guardsman insisted on rescuing her without giving her time to put on a dressing gown. That’s all I got out of her.”
“Did you talk to anyone else?”
“Well, that man you were talking to—”
“Luker?”
“Yes. He said he thought it must have been a short circuit in the lighting system. But I couldn’t pay much attention while you were in there. You know. I was too busy worrying about whether you were enjoying yourself.”
The Saint chuckled absently.
“It was a bit dull at times,” he said.
He drove on slowly. His smile faded, and a faint ridge of concentration formed between his brows. It was an insignificant betrayal of what was going on in his mind, for the truth was that he was thinking harder than he had done for a long time.
Patricia watched him without interrupting. She had that rare gift in a woman, the ability to leave a man to his silence, and she knew that the Saint would talk when he was ready. But there was nothing to stop her own thoughts. He had told her nothing, but in a puzzled bewildered way she knew that he had something startling to tell. The Saint when on the trail of trouble had something vivid and dynamic and transfiguring about him, as unmistakable as the quivering transformation of a hunting dog that has caught a new hot scent. Patricia knew all the signs. But now, with no idea of the reason for them, they gave her the eerie feeling of watching a dog bristling before an apparently empty room.
“Which only shows you that you never know,” said the Saint presently, as if she should have known everything.
She knew that she would have to draw him out warily.
“They didn’t seem to be a very brilliant crowd,” she said. “I didn’t seem to be able to get much more sense out of them than you could.”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t,” he admitted. “Oh, no, they’re not brilliant. But very respectable. In fact, just about what you’d expect to find at a place like that at the weekend. Lady Sangore, the typical army officer’s wife, with her husband the typical army officer. Lady Valerie Woodchester, the bright young Society floozie, of the fearfully county huntin’-shootin’-an’-fishin’ Woodchesters. Captain Whoosis of the Buffoon Guards, her dashing male equivalent, probably a nephew or something like that of old Sangore’s, invited down to make an eligible partner for Lady Valerie. Comrade Fairweather, the nebulous sort of modern country squire, probably Something in the City in his spare time, and one of the bedrocks of the Conservative Party. A perfectly representative collection of English ladies and gentlemen of what we humorously call the Upper Classes. We can find out a bit more about them tomorrow—Peter’s been living here long enough now to be able to dig up some extra dirt from the village, if he doesn’t know it already. But I don’t think we’ll get anything sensational. People like that live in an even deeper rut tha
n the fellow who goes to an office every morning, although they’d have a stroke if you told them. If only they hadn’t invited Comrade Luker…”
“Who is he?”
Simon drew another cigarette to a bright glow from the stump of the last.
“If he’s a financier, as the policeman said, and if he’s the bloke I’m thinking of, I’ve heard of him. Which is more than most people have done. He moves in a mysterious way.”
“Where does he move?”
“In the most distinguished international circles. He hobnobs with Foreign Secretaries and ambassadors and Prime Ministers, and calls dictators by their first names. But you never read about him in the newspapers, and there are never any photographers around when he pays his calls. They must like him just because he’s such a charming guy. Of course, he’s one of the biggest shareholders in the Stelling Steel Works in Germany, and the Siebel Arms Factory in France, and the Wolverhampton Ordnance Company in England, but you couldn’t be so nasty as to think that that had anything to do with it. After all, he plays no favourites. In the last Spanish revolution, the rebels were mowing down Loyalists with Stelling machine-guns just as busily as the Government was bopping the rebels with Siebels. It was just about the same in the war between Bolivia and Paraguay, except that the Wolverhampton Ordnance Company was in on that as well—on both sides.”
The knot around Patricia’s heart seemed to tighten.
“Just one of Nature’s altruists,” she said mechanically.
“Oh, yes,” said the Saint, with a kind of deadly and distant cheerfulness. “You couldn’t say he was anything but impartial. For instance, he’s one of the directors of the Voix Populaire, a French newspaper that spends most of its time howling about the menace of the Italo-German Fascist entente, and at the same time he’s part owner of the Deutscher Unterricht, which lets off periodical blasts about the French threat to German recovery…At home, of course, he’s a staunch patriot. He’s one of the most generous subscribers to the Imperial Defence Society, which spends its time proclaiming that Britain must have bigger and better armaments to protect herself against all the European enemies of peace. In fact, the IDS takes a lot of credit for the latest fifteen-hundred-million-pound rearmament programme which our taxes are now paying for. And naturally it’s just an unavoidable coincidence that the Wolverhampton Ordnance Company is now working night and day to carry out its Government contracts.”
The Saint Plays with Fire (The Saint Series) Page 3