Prelude For War

'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 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.'