Prelude For War

don't have to do it yourselves. That's how you felt about getting rid of Kennet. Now it's Templar and Lady Valerie. Well, they've got to be murdered, haven't they?'

Fairweather wriggled, as if his clothes were full of ants. His face was glistening with sweat.

'I——Really, I don't——'

'I expect you think I'm excessively vulgar,' Luker con­tinued mercilessly. 'I've got such a shockingly crude way of putting things, haven't I? I suppose you felt just the same when I offered you a place on the board of Norfelt Chemicals in return for certain items of business when you were secretary of state for war. That's quite all right, my dear fellow. Go home and hare a nice cup of tea and forget about it. There's no need for me to tell you to keep your mouth shut, is there? I know you're a worm, and you know you're a worm, but we won't let anybody else know you're a worm.'

Fairweather gobbled.

'Really, Luker,' he spluttered indignantly, 'I—I——'

'Oh, go away,' said Luker. 'I've got work to do.'

He spoke without impatience; if his voice carried any particular inflection, it was one of good-humoured tolerance. But there was no further argument. Fairweather went.

Luker remained sitting at the great carved desk after he had gone. Fairweather's emotional antics had made no impression on him at all. He had no illusions about his associates. He had long been familiar with the partiality that politicians, generals and captains of industry have for squirming out of uncomfortable situations, with an air of being profoundly shocked by what has happened, and leav­ing somebody else to face the music. But that failing had its own compensation for him. Once started, the more dras­tic the measures he had to take, the stronger became his hold on them and the more blindly they would have to support him in whatever he did, as his safety became the more necessary to their own safety. The problems that he was considering were purely practical. He sat there, idly turning his fountain pen between his strong square fingers, until he had thought enough; and then he picked up the telephone and began to issue terse, incisive orders.

3

'Did you have a nice dinner?' asked Patricia Holm. 'And how was the new candidate for your harem?'

Simon Templar peeled off his coat, unbuttoned his shirt to the waist and deposited himself at a restful angle on the chesterfield under the open windows. Through the curtains came the ceaseless grind of Piccadilly traffic and a stir of sultry air tainted with petrol fumes and grime, too thick and listless to be properly termed a breeze; but in spite of that the spacious apartment in Cornwall House which was the Saint's London headquarters attained an atmo­sphere of comparative peace and freshness.

'There are mugs of all kinds, but there are very special and superlative mugs who do their mugging in London; and we are it,' he said gloomily. 'I had a beautiful dinner, thanks. The truites au bleu were magnificent, and the pigeons truffes in aspic were a dream. The candidate was looking her best, which is pretty good. She went home early. Since then I've been drowning my sorrows at the Cafe Royal.'

Patricia contemplated him discerningly.

'The dinner was beautiful, and the candidate was look­ing her best, and she went home early,' she repeated. 'What was the matter with her?'

'She wanted her beauty sleep,' said the Saint. 'After you with that barley water, Hoppy.'

He stretched out a long arm and retrieved the bottle of scotch from Mr Uniatz' jealous grasp.

'What Hoppy needs is compressed whiskey, so he could get a bottle into a wineglass,' he commented.

'Was it your scintillating conversation that made her yawn?' inquired Peter Quentin. 'Or did she have the wrong kind of ideas about what sort of sleep would be good for her beauty?'

Simon splashed soda into his glass and drank medi­tatively.