Prelude For War

to the basement garage.

He was debonair and unhurried as he stepped into the Hirondel and woke the engine; the fighting vitality that was lilting recklessly through every cell in his body found an outlet only in the sapphire alertness of his eyes and the dynamic economy of his movements and the ghost of an unrepentant smile that lurked in the corners of his mouth. . . . There was the same taxi parked by the curb at the top of the ramp, the same miniature sports car with the driver reading a newspaper spread over the wheel; this time Simon had no Sam Outrell in a following car to help him, but he was unconcerned. He shot past them and turned into Half Moon Street, heading north; in the mirror over the windshield he saw them coming after him. Simon worked his way into Park Lane, cruised up it until he saw a break of no more than half-a-dozen yards in the stream of traffic pounding down towards him, then he swung the wheel and sent the Hirondel screeching through the gap towards the pavement on the wrong side of the road. The cataract of vehicles swerved wildly out to avoid him, flowed on past him with curses and straining brakes, effectively barring the path of his pursuers. Simon bumped the curb, straight­ened up and crawled round the next corner into Mount Street. A couple of instants later he was whirling away with gathering speed, to zigzag round four more consecutive corners and obliterate the last clue to his direction in the rabbit warren of Mayfair.

The tangle he had left behind him in Park Lane was still sorting itself out when he crossed Oxford Street and turned the Hirondel to the west.

He felt sure that he knew what Lady Valerie's first move, would be now, and he felt almost as sure that London would be the place where she would make it. Both of the two most probable routes from Weybridge to London led through Putney, and he still had time to meet her there.

He crossed Putney High Street more decorously than he had crossed Park Lane, and backed into a side turning from which he could watch the crawling flow of London-bound traffic and pull out to join it with the minimum of delay. The Hirondel stood there like a great glistening jewel, and not for the first time since he had chosen its flamboyant colour scheme the Saint wished that his tastes had been more conservative. That plutocratic equipage, which drew every eye back for a second look, would do nothing to simplify his problems. A policeman strolled by and studied it with deep interest for fifty slow-paced yards. Simon's heart was in his mouth, but the constable passed on without stopping. Doubtless the alarm which must even then have been circulating had not yet reached him. For ten minutes the Saint endured a strain that would have worn many hardened nerves to shreds; and coupled with it was the continual gnawing fear that his guess might after all have been wrong and Lady Valerie would not come that way. His tanned face gave no inkling of his thoughts, but when he saw the black Daimler glide past the end of his side road, with Lady Valerie at the wheel, looking straight ahead of her, it was as if a miracle had happened.

The start of the Hirondel's engine was scarcely audible. Almost instantaneously he let in the clutch, and cut in to the line of traffic only two cars behind her. Intent and expres­sionless as a stalking leopard, the Saint drove on after her.

4

Her first stop was at the South Kensington post office. The Saint's eyes went cold and brittle when he saw the Daimler slowing up: Exhibition Road was too wide and unfrequented for any car to be unnoticeable in it. Fortu­nately on that account he had let himself fall some distance behind her. He jammed on the brakes and whipped round into Imperial Institute Road, and felt that the gods had been kind to him when he saw that she crossed the sidewalk and entered the post office without looking round. Clearly it had not occurred to her that she could have been picked up by that time.

He made a U turn in the side road and parked near the corner. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he got out and walked up towards the post-office entrance. It was a fool­hardy thing to do, but a theory was already taking solid form in his mind. He had used that trick himself. Mail any­thing you want to hide, addressed to yourself at a poste restante in any name you can think of: where could it be safer or harder to find?

She came out so quickly