Prelude For War

'What did they talk about?'

She spread out her hands in a vague gesture.

'Politics—you know, stupid things. And he used to talk about a thing called the Ring, and Mr Luker, and General Sangore, and even his own father, and say the beastliest things about them. And there were newspapers, and factories, and some people called the Sons of France——'

The Saint was suddenly very rigid.

'What was that again?'

'The Sons of France—or something like that. I don't know what it was all about and I don't care. I know he used to say that he was going to upset everything in a few weeks and make things uncomfortable for everybody, and I used to tell him not to be so damned selfish, because after all what's the point in upsetting everybody? Live and let live is my motto, and I wouldn't interfere with other people's private affairs if they'll leave mine alone.'

The Saint put another cigarette between his lips and steadied his hands round his lighter.

'Have you any idea what he was going to do that was going to upset everybody so much?' he asked.

The girl shrugged her slim shoulders.

'I don't know. He had a lot of papers that he was going to publish and prove something. And just a week or two ago he was frightfully excited about some photographs that he'd got hold of. I don't know what they were, but both he and Windlay were frightfully worked up about it. But what does it matter, anyway?' 

3

Simon Templar filled his lungs with smoke and let it out again in a trailing streamer that flowed with the unbroken evenness of a deep river. The shock that had brought him to conscious immobility had passed, letting the tenseness ebb out of his muscles to leave his natural lazy imperturba­bility apparently unchanged. But under his effortless and unruffled poise his brain was thrumming like an intoxicated dynamo.

He had fished for clues and he had brought them up in a pail. It didn't matter for the moment how they fitted together. Luker and the Arms Ring; Sangore, formerly of the War Office, how a director of the Wolverhampton Ord­nance Company; Fairweather, sometime secretary of state for war, now on the board of Norfelt Chemicals; Kennet the pacifist, the groping crusader. Papers, exposes, photographs. And the Sons of France. Whichever way you spilled them, they fell into some sort of pattern. The drums he had heard such a short while ago thundered in the Saint's temples; the blaring brass shrieked in his ears. He felt as if he were standing on the brink of a breathless precipice, watching the boiling of a hideously parturient abyss. The keen clear zenithal winds of destiny fanned through his hair.

He was conscious, in a curiously distant way, that the girl was still talking.

'I never used to listen very hard—I was too busy trying to think of ways to stop them. If I hadn't stopped them, they'd have gone on all night. So when I'd had enough of politics I'd say something like 'Let's go to the Berkeley and have a drink,' and then they'd both start talking about the snobbishness of big hotels and how bad drink was for me; and I didn't mind that nearly so much, because I quite like talking about hotels and drink.'

The Saint brought himself back to her with a deliberate effort. He could think afterwards; now, precious time was flying, and the inquest was already late. He could have no more than a few seconds to take advantage of what Provi­dence had thrown into his lap.

He said: 'But if Kennet hated Luker and Sangore so much, what made him come down here for the week end ?'

'I did. I thought that if he could come down here and see what they were really like, he might have given up his stupid ideas. And I knew they were going to offer him an awfully good job. Algy told me so.'

'Who?'

'Algy. Algy