Prelude For War

up a crumpled sheet of news­paper from the litter scattered over the floor. It was a French newspaper five days old, and a passage in it had been heavily marked out in blue pencil.

'Well, well, well,' he said. 'Listen, Claud. What do you make of this? 'We should like your readers to ask themselves where this criminal association calling itself the Sons of France obtains its funds and the store of arms which Colonel Marteau has so often boasted that he has hidden away for the day when they will be needed. And we ask our readers, how long will they tolerate the existence of this terrorist organization in their midst?' '

He picked up a second scrap of paper from the floor. Again there was a blue-pencilled paragraph.

' 'M. Roquambert, in a vitriolic speech to the Chamber of Deputies last night, urged on the government the neces­sity for a greatly increased expenditure on armaments. 'Are we,' he demanded, 'to suffer the Boche to batter once more on the gates of Paris?' ' ' Simon let the cuttings flutter out of his fingers. 'I seem to remember that Comrade Roquambert is one of the heads of the Sons of France,' he said. 'Doesn't that interest you?'

'What was wrong with that verdict?' Teal repeated.

The Saint looked at him, and for once there was no mockery in his eyes.

'I think it would be a good idea if you started investi­gating two murders instead of one,' he said.

 

 

4

 

Which was undoubtedly a highly effective and dramatic exit line, Simon reflected, as the Hirondel roared westwards again towards Anford; but how wise it had been was another matter. It had been rather a case of meeting trouble halfway and taking the first smack at it. In the course of his inquiries Teal would inevitably have discovered that Kennet had shared the flat with Windlay, and Simon knew only too well how the detective's mind would have worked on from there directly the inquest headlines hit the stands. The Saint had had no option about taking the bull by the horns, but he wondered now whether he might have achieved the same result without saying quite so much. Chief Inspec­tor Teal's officially hidebound intelligence might sift slowly, but it sifted with a dour and dogged thoroughness. Simon realized at the same time that if he had an adequate alibi for the period during which Windlay might have been killed, Luker and his satellites had an alibi that was abso­lutely identical—it gave him an insight into the efficiency of the machinery that he had tampered with which was distinctly sobering, and he had plenty to think about on the return journey.

Patricia was waiting for him when he stopped the car on Peter's drive. He picked her up and kissed her.

'You look good enough to eat,' he said. 'And that reminds me, I haven't had any lunch. Where are the troops?'

'Peter's keeping an eye on your menagerie,' she told him. 'I came back and sent Hoppy over to keep him com­pany. They're all at the Golden Fleece, and when Peter last phoned Hoppy was just starting on his second bottle of whiskey. Did you find Windlay?'

'I found him,' said the Saint stonily. 'But not soon enough.'

In the kitchen, over a plate of cold beef and a tankard of ale, he told her the story in curt dispassionate sentences that brought it all into her mind as vividly as though she had been there herself.

'It only means that we were right, darling,' he con­cluded. 'Kennet had something that was big enough to commit murder for. There wasn't any accidental-death hokum about Windlay. Somebody knocked on the door and gave him the works the minute he opened it. And the whole flat was torn into small pieces. It must have gone on while we were all footling about at that inquest acquiring beauti­ful alibis—these ungodly are professionals!'