Prelude For War

a tightly rolled umbrella with a gold handle. He looked exactly as if a Rolls Royce had just brought him away from an important board meeting.

The Saint inspected him with sober admiration mingled with cordial surprise; and neither of those expressions con­veyed one per cent of what was really going on in his mind.

'Algy,' he said softly, 'what have I done to deserve the honour of seeing you darken my proletarian doors?'

'I ... er—— Um!' said Mr Fairweather, as if he had not made up his mind what else to say. Teal interposed himself between them. 'I was just about to take Mr Templar under arrest,' he explained grimly.

'You were—— Um! Were you? May I ask what the charge was, Inspector?'

'I suspect him of being concerned in kidnapping Lady Valerie Woodchester.'

Fairweather started.

'Lady——' He swallowed. 'Kidnapped? But——'

'Lady Valerie Woodchester has disappeared, and her apartment has been ransacked,' Teal said solidly. 'I'm glad you came here, sir. You may be able to give me some information. You knew her well, I believe?'

'Er—yes, I suppose I knew her quite well.'

'Did she ever say anything to make you think that she was afraid of anyone—that she considered herself in any sort of danger?'

Fairweather hesitated. He glanced nervously at the Saint.

'She did mention once that she was frightened of Mr Templar,' he affirmed reluctantly. 'But I'm afraid I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. The idea seemed so—— But you surely don't think that anything serious has really happened to her?'

'I know damn well that something has happened to her—I don't know how serious it is.' Teal turned on the Saint like a congealed cyclone. 'That's what you'd better tell me! I might have known you couldn't be trusted to tell the truth for two minutes together. But you've told me too much already. You told me that Lady Valerie had some­thing you wanted. Now she's disappeared, and her place has been ransacked. Ralph Windlay was murdered, and his flat was ransaked. In both places someone was looking for something, and from what you've told me the most likely person is you!'

The Saint signed.

'Of course,' he said patiently. 'That's what they call Deduction. That's what they teach you at the Police Col­lege. I'm looking for something, and therefore everyone who is looking for something is me.'

Teal set his teeth. The suspicions which had been held in check at the beginning of the interview were flooding back on him with the overwhelming turbulence of a typhoon. In all fairness to Mr Teal it must be admitted that there was some justification for his biassed viewpoint. Mr Teal could make allowances for coincidence up to a point; but the swift succession of places and people where and to whom violent things had happened in close proximity to Simon Templar's presence on the scene was a little too much for him. And there was the curdling memory of many other similar coincidences to accelerate the acid fermentation of Mr Teal's misanthropic conclusions. The congenital run­away tendencies of his spleen were aggravated by the recol­lection of his own recent guilelessness.

'Lady Valerie didn't stay with you very long last night,' he rapped. 'Why did she leave you so early?'

'She was tired,' said the Saint.

'Had you quarrelled with her?'

'Bitterly. I may be old fashioned, Claud, but one thing I will not allow anybody to do is to be rude about my friends. They may have figures like sacks of dough and faces like giant tomatoes, but beauty is only skin deep and kind