Simon leaned against a tree. His hand, groping in a hollow in the trunk, found a tiny switch. He took the lever lightly between his finger and thumb. He laughed, softly and lazily, and Teal faced round.
'What's the big idea?' he demanded again. 'I don't know what it is, but you're playing some funny game. What did you fetch me out here to tell me?'
'Nothing much,' answered the Saint slowly. 'I just thought--'
But what he thought was not destined to be known. For all at once there came a titanic roar of sound, that was nothing like the roar of the aeroplane's engine-a shattering detonation that rocked the ground under their feet and hurled them bodily backwards with the hurricane force of its breath.
'Good God!'
Teal's voice came faintly through the buzzing in the Saint's ears.
Simon was scrambling rockily to his feet.
'Something seems to have bust, old watermelon.'
'F-ZXKA,' Teal was muttering. 'F-ZXKA; F-ZXKA--'
'Ease up, old dear!' Simon took the detective by the shoulder. 'It's all over. Nothing to rave about.'
'I'm not raving,' snarled Teal. 'But I've got the number of that machine--'
He was starting off across the lawn, and the Saint followed. But there was nothing that they or anyone else could do, for Francis Lemuel's house was nothing but a great mound of rubble under a mushroom canopy of smoke and settling dust, through which the first tongues of flame were starting to lick up towards the dark clouds. And the aeroplane was dwindling into the mists towards the north.
Teal surveyed the ruin; and then he looked round at the crowd that was pattering up the road.
'You're arrested, Saint,' he said curtly; and Simon shrugged.
They drove to Tenterden in the Saint's car, and from there Teal put a call through to headquarters.
'F-ZXKA,' he said. 'Warn all stations and aerodromes. Take the crew, whatever excuse they try to put up, and hold them till I come.'
'That's the stuff,' said the Saint approvingly; and Teal was so far moved as to bare his teeth.
'This is where you get what's coming to you,' he said.
It was not Teal's fault that the prophecy was not fulfilled.
Simon drove him back to London with a police guard in the back of the car; and Teal was met almost on the doorstep of Scotland Yard with the news that the aeroplane had landed at Croydon. The prisoners, said the message, had put up a most audacious bluff; they were being sent to headquarters in a police car.
'Good!' said Teal grimly; and went through to Cannon Row Police Station to charge the Saint with wilful murder.
'That's what you've got to prove,' said the Saint, when the charge was read over to him. 'No-I won't trouble my solicitor. I shall be out in an hour.'
'In eight weeks you'll be dead,' said the detective.
He had recovered some of his old pose of agonized boredom; and half an hour later he needed it all, for the police car arrived from Croydon as the newspaper vans started to pour out of E.C. 4, with the printers' ink still damp on the first news of the outrage of Tenterden.
Two prisoners were hustled into Teal's office-a philosophical gentleman in flying overalls, and a very agitated gentleman with striped cashmere trousers and white spats showing under his leather coat.
'It is an atrrrrocity!' exploded the agitated gentleman. 'I vill complain myself to ze Prime Ministair! Imbecile! Your poliss, zey say I am arrrrest-zey insult me-zey mock zem-selves of vat I say-zey trreat me like I vas a crriminal-me! But you shall pay--'
'And who are you pretending to be?' asked Teal, lethargically unwrapping a fresh wafer of his favourite sweetmeat.
'Me? You do not know me? You do not know Boileau--'
Teal did not.
'Take that fungus off his face,' he ordered, 'and let's see what he really looks like.'
Two constables had to pinion the arms of a raving maniac while a third gave the agitated gentleman's beard a sharp tug. But the beard failed to part company with its foundations; and, on closer examination, it proved to be the genuine home-grown article.
Teal blinked as the agitated gentleman, released, danced in front of his desk, semaphoring with frantic arms.
'Nom d' un nom! You are not content viz insult me, you must attack me, you must pull me ze beard! Aaaaah!'
Words failed the man. He reeled against the desk, clawing at his temples.
Teal ran a finger round the inside of his collar, which seemed to have suddenly become tight.
Then the philosophical gentleman in overalls spoke.
' 'E 'as say true, m'sieu. 'E is M. Boileau, ze French Finance Minister, 'oo come ovair for confer--'
Teal signed to one of the constables.
'Better ring up the Embassy and see if someone can come over and identify him,' he said.
'Merde alors!' screamed the agitated gentleman. 'I vill not vait! I demand to be release!'
'I'm afraid you'll have to be identified, sir,' said Teal unhappily.
And identified M. Boileau was, in due course, by a semi-hysterical official from the Embassy; and Teal spent the most uncomfortable half-hour of his life trying to explain the mistake.
He was a limp wreck when the indignation meeting finally broke up; and the telephoned report of the explosives expert who had been sent down to Tenterden did not improve Teal's temper.
'It was a big aerial bomb-we've found some bits of the casing. We didn't find much of Lemuel. . . .'
'Could it have been fired by a timing device?'
'There's no trace of anything like that, sir. Of course, if there had been, it might have been blown to bits.'
'Could it have been fired electrically?'
'I haven't found any wires yet, sir. My men are still digging round the wreckage. On the other hand, sir, if it comes to that, it might have been fired by radio, and if it was radio we shan't find anything at all.'
Teal had his inspiration some hours too late.
'You'd better search the grounds,' he said, and gave exact instructions.
'Certainly, sir. But what about the aeroplane that went over?'
'That,' said Teal heavily, 'contained the French Minister of Finance, on his way to a reparations conference.'
'Well, it couldn't have been him,' said the expert sagely, and Teal felt like murder.
A few days later the Saint called on Stella Dornford. He had not seen her since the morning when he dropped her on his way to Jermyn Street, and she had not communicated with him in any way.
'You must think me a little rotter,' she said. 'It seems such a feeble excuse to say I've been too busy to think of anything--'
'I think it's the best excuse in the world,' said the Saint.
He pointed to the ring on her finger.
'When?'
'Ten days ago. I-I took your advice, you see. . . .'
Simon laughed.
' 'To those about to marry,' ' he quoted softly. 'Well, you must come round to a celebratory supper, and bring the Beloved. And Uncle Simon will tell you all about married life.'
'Why, are you married?'
He shook his head. For a moment the dancing blue eyes were quiet and wistful. And then the old mocking mirth came back to them.
'That's why I'll be able to tell you so much about it,' he said.
Presently the girl said: 'I've told Dick how much we owe you. I'll never forget it. I don't know how to thank you--'
The Saint smiled, and put his hands on her shoulders.
'Don't you?' he said.
