Prelude For War

'KENNET was a member of the Sons of France?' Simon repeated. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes. His mother was French, and he was brought up with French as a second language. He spoke it perfectly. I told you I'd been making inquiries. I've established the fact that he joined the Sons of France six months ago under the name of Jean de la Paix. Incidentally, he was also a member of the French Communist party.' Teal went on watching the Saint searchingly and with a glint of malice. 'I thought you'd have known that.'

The Saint blew a geometrically faultless smoke ring across the table. His face was tranquilly uncommunicative, relieved from blankness only by a faint inscrutable smile; but behind the mask his brain was running like a dynamo.

'I might have guessed,' he said.

'Did you?'

'I'm a good guesser. 'Jean de la Paix,' too—he had a sense of humour, after all. And guts. For a registered mem­ber of the French Communist party to join the Sons of France at all was guts, and he must have got further than just joining. That would only be another reason why he had to be cremated.'

'What was the first reason?'

Simon looked down at his fingernails.

'You want to know a good deal,' he said, and looked up again.

'Of course I do.'

'Well, so do I.' The Saint thought for a while, and made up his mind. 'All right, Claud. You asked for it, and you can have it. For about the first time in my life I'll be per­fectly frank with you. It 'd be worth while if it only meant that I could get on with my job without having to cope with all your suspicions and persecutions as well as my own troubles. But I don't suppose it 'll do any good, because as usual you probably won't believe me. . . . You see, Claud, the fact is that I don't know any more than you do.'

Teal's face darkened.

'I didn't come here to waste my time——'

'And I don't want you to waste mine. I told you you wouldn't believe me. But there it is. I don't know any more than you do. The only difference is that not being a police­man I haven't got so many great open spaces in my brain to start with, so I don't need to know so much.'

Mr Teal's spearmint, under the systematic massage of his molars, became in turn a sphere, an hourglass and some­thing like a short-handled frying pan.

'Go on,' he said lethargically. 'Make allowances for my stupidity, and tell me how much I know.'

'As you like. Let's start with Comrade Luker. As you know, he is the current top tycoon of the arms racket.'

'I suppose so.'

'Comrades Fairweather and Sangore are his stooges in a couple of British armaments firms which he controls.'

'I don't——'

'Call them what you like, and they're still his stooges. Between them, those three are running a combine that practically constitutes a monopoly of the arms industry in this country. Their only job is manufacturing engines and instru­ments and gadgets that kill people, and the only way they can make good money is in having a good demand for their products. I shall also ask you to grasp the idea that one customer's money will buy as much champagne and caviar as another's, whoever he wants to kill. But under the laws we suffer from there's nothing criminal in any of that— nothing that you could take any professional interest in. If a man gets drunk and kills somebody with his car, it's your job to put him in jail; but if he organizes the killing of several thousand people they make him an earl, and