Prelude For War

'Of course,' he said, without hesitation. 'It's quite safe.'

'That's good,' she said. 'You see, I'm afraid I've got to have it back at once. I'm awfully sorry to be such a nuisance, but it's frightfully important. I mean, could you bring it round right away? It's all frightfully thrilling, but I'll tell you all about it when you get here. Can you possibly manage it?'

'Easily,' he said. 'I was just looking for something useful to do.'

'You know where I live, don't you?'

'I should think so. I looked it up in the phone book as soon as I got back to town, and I've just been waiting for an invitation.'

'Well, you've got one now. And listen. Nobody must know you're coming to see me. I'll tell you why afterwards.'

'No one shall even guess where I've gone,' said the Saint, with his eyes on Patricia. 'I'll be over in ten minutes.'

'Thanks so much, darling,' she said. 'Do hurry.'

'I will.'

He laid the phone gently back on its bracket, and stood up. The dance of his blue eyes was as if he had been asleep all the evening and had just become awake. He had no more doubts or problems. All the dammed-up, in-turned energy with which he had been straining was crystallized suddenly into the clean sharp leap of action. He was smiling.

'Did you get that, souls?' he said.

'She wants to see you,' said Patricia. 'Am I supposed to get excited?'

'She wants more than that,' he said. 'She wants a cloakroom ticket which she gave me to keep for her—which she never gave me. She wants it at once; and nobody's to know where I've gone. And somebody was listening on the wire all the time to make sure she said all the right things. So I don't see how I can refuse the date.' The Saint's smile was dazzlingly seraphic. 'I told you something was bound to happen, and it's starting now!'

4

'Excuse me a minute while I get into my shooting clothes,' he said.

He vanished out of the nearest door; but the room had hardly had time to adapt itself to his disappearance when he was back again. The Saint could always make a profes­sional quick-change artist look like an elderly dowager dressing for a state ball, and when he was in a hurry he could do things with clothes that bordered on the miracu­lous. He came back in a gray lounge suit whose sober hue had no counterpart in the way he wore it, which was with all the peculiarly rakish elegance that was subtly infused into anything he put on. His fresh shift was buttoned and his tie was tied, and he was feeding a fully charged maga­zine into the butt of a shining Luger.

'You're not really going, are you?' asked Patricia hope­lessly.

She knew when she said it that it was a waste of words, and the scapegrace slant of his brows was sufficient answer.

'Of course not, darling,' he said. 'These are my new pajamas.'

'But you're doing just what they want you to do!'

'Maybe. But do they know that I know it? I don't think so. That phone call was as straightforward as a baby's prayer—to the guy who was checking up on it. Only Valerie knows that she never gave me a cloakroom ticket, and she knows I know it. She's on the spot in her own flat, and that was the only way she could tip me off and call for help. Do you want me to stay home and knit?'