Prelude For War

with well-authenticated samples of certain notable iniquities. It was all very interesting and highly scandalous, but it would cause no revolutions. Such exposes had been made before, but they had never done more than superficially ruffle the apathy of the great dumb popu­lace which might have risen up in its wrath and destroyed them. And under the laws made by governments themselves financially interested and practically concerned in the suc­cess of the racket, if not actually subsidized by it, there were not even grounds for a criminal prosecution. It was only the kind of oft-repeated indictment that caused a tem­porary furore, during which the racketeers simply laid low and waited for nature to take its course and the birth of sextuplets in Kalamazoo to repossess the front pages of an indifferent press.

The latter part of the dossier was devoted to the Sons of France considered as part of a sales-promotion campaign backed by Luther and his associates. There was an educa­tive outline of the machinery of the organization, some eye-opening copies of secret orders issued to members, speci­mens of its propaganda and declared objectives, in the usual Fascist jargon—'to eradicate Communism, Pacifism, and all such Jewish-inspired undermining of the heroic spirit of France. ... To institute state control, for the benefit of  the people, over literature, art, motion pictures, radio and  all  other means  of disseminating culture. ... To build up the military, naval and air strength of France so that French honour may be prepared to answer the insolence of the Hun.' There was good evidence of financial support given to the organization by Luker and certain directors of the Fabrique Siebel des Armes de Guerre—but that, as Simon had pointed out to Teal, was probably not an offence under the law. There were a number of detailed records mostly made up from newspaper cuttings of certain rather revolting  acts  of  violence   and  terrorism  committed  by alleged members of the Sons of France, but there was no evidence by which Luker and his associates could have been brought to book as their direct instigators. Certainly there was enough material to have brought down on Luker's head the moral indignation of the whole world, if the world had had any moral sense; but in the way of legal evidence of recognized crimes there wasn't enough to get him as much punishment as he would have earned by driving his car down Piccadilly at thirty-five miles an hour.

The last page of all was a sheet torn from a cheap memo­randum block, on which someone seemed to have made a note of three functions or events, with their dates. The first and last were so heavily scored out as to be practically unde­cipherable, but the middle one was left plain and untouched in the centre of a frame of doodling arabesques such as a man draws on a pad during a conference. It read:

25 aout:    Ouverture de I'Hospice de Memoire,

a Neuilly, par M. Chaulage.

Fastened to it with a detachable clip was a photograph of three men, one of whom was Luker, apparently talking in an office. And in the bottom corner of the memorandum sheet was pencilled in a different hand, so quick and careless as to require a clairvoyant to read it:

Remember the R———?

The last word eluded even the Saint's powers of divina­tion. And that was all there was.

 

3

Simon Templar lighted another cigarette with the dis­passionate detachment of a machine. He was more cold and grim than the girl had ever seen him, or had ever realized that he could be. He looked up at her with blue eyes that bit with the intolerable glittering cold of interstellar space.

'Come here,' he said.

No power of mind that she could conceive could have disobeyed him.

She came over, in spite of herself, like a mindless robot. He took her hand and drew her down on to the bed beside him.

'Is this all there ever was in this package?'

'I—I think so.'

'Have you taken anything out ?'

'No.'