Prelude For War

'I shall take personal steps,' he announced majestically, 'to see that your heroism is suitably recognized.'

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 catastrophes 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 halfway 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 notebook. '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 M.P. by any chance, would he?'

'His son, I believe, sir, from what I've heard in the vil­lage. Staying with Mr Fairweather for the week end. 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 cliff?'