Prelude For War

repeated the man coldly. 'And put your hands up. And hurry up about it, before I give you some­thing.'

The Saint put his hands up and went in. But he went in with his shoulder blades sliding along the door, so that the other was momentarily cut off from it. Then the man had to turn his back to the doorway when he started to close the door, so as to keep Simon covered at the same time. And that was part of the clockwork of the Saint's preorgan­ized plan. Simon gave the signal with a gentle cough; and over the man's shoulder appeared the intent face of Peter Quentin, soundlessly, with a stiff rubber blackjack raised. There was a subdued clunk, and the man's eyes went com­ically glassy.

At that instant other things happened with the smooth timing of a well-rehearsed conjuring trick. The Saint's hands dropped like striking falcons on to the ape-faced man's gun, bent the wrist inwards towards the elbow, whipped the revolver out of the suddenly powerless fingers. Simultaneously Peter Quentin was moving aside, to be replaced by Hoppy Uniatz, whose massive paws closed on the man's throat in a gorilla grip faster than Peter himself could have put away his blackjack and taken the same hold. Meanwhile Peter slid round the man's side, received the revolver as Simon detached it and jammed the silencer into the man's ribs. It was all done with a glossy perfection of teamwork that would have dazed the eye of the beholder if there had been any beholder present, all within the space of a scant second; and then the Saint was talking into the man's ear.

'One whisper out of you, and they'll be able to thread you on a flagpole,' he said. Then he stepped back a few inches. 'Okay, Hoppy—let him breathe.'

The crushing grasp of Mr Uniatz fingers slackened just sufficiently to allow a saving infiltration of air. The deli­cately judged blow of the rubber blackjack had deadened the ape-faced man's brain for just long enough to allow the subsequent manoeuvres to take place without stunning him permanently. Now he stared at the Saint with squeezed-out eyes in which there was a pallor of voiceless fear.

'Talk very quietly,' said the Saint, in that ghostly into­nation which barely travelled a handbreadth beyond the ears of its intended audience. 'What was supposed to hap­pen next?'

'I was to take you in there—there's two chaps want to see you.'

Simon's glance had already covered the tiny hall. The three doors that opened off it were all closed; the ape-faced man had indicated the centre one.

'Good enough,' said the Saint. 'Let's carry on as if nothing had happened.'

He passed his own automatic to Peter, took away the silenced revolver, spilled the shells out into his palm and dropped them into Hoppy's pocket, then thrust the empty weapon back into the hand of its owner.

'Cover me with it and carry on,' he ordered. 'When we go in there, leave the door open. And remember this: my friends will be watching you from outside. If you breathe a word or bat an eyelid to let your reception committee know that everything isn't going according to plan, and any bother starts—you'll be the first dead hero of the evening.' The Saint's voice was as caressing as velvet, but it was as cold and unsentimental as a polar sea. 'Let's go.'

He turned his back and sauntered over to the middle door; and the ape-faced man, urged on by a last remem­brancing prod from the muzzle of the murderous gun which Mr Uniatz had by that time added to the displayed collec­tion of artillery, lurched helplessly after him.

Simon turned the handle and entered the room with his arms raised. On one side Lady Valerie Woodchester was roughly tied to a chair, and one of the two men there was bending over her with a hand clamped over her mouth. The other man stood on the opposite side of the room with a cigarette loosely held in one hand and a small automatic levelled in the other.

The Saint's eyes rambled interestedly over the scene.

'What ho, souls,' he drawled. 'And how are all the illegitimate sons of France tonight?' .