Leslie Charteris - Prelude for War

"My dear, I'm so sorry we've been such a long time," said Lady Sangore as she hove to. "All this bother only makes everything so much worse."

She conveyed the impression that a fire in which somebody was burnt to death would not be nearly so distressing if it were not for the subsequent inconvenience which she personally had to suffer.

"I hope you haven't been too bored, my dear," said Fairweather, puffing through into the foreground.

Lady Valerie smiled.

"Oh no," she said. "I've been very well looked after. You haven't forgotten the hero of the evening, have you?"

Fairweather blinked at the Saint.

"Of course — the gentleman who made that magnificent attempt to rescue poor old Kennet. I ought to have got in touch with you before, but — um — I'm sure you'll forgive us, everything has been so disorganized…" He shuffled his feet uneasily. "At any rate, it's a great relief to see that you don't look much the worse for your adventure."

The Saint smiled — and to anyone who knew him well, that smile would have seemed curiously like the smile on the face of a certain celebrated tiger.

He had been amazingly lucky. The return of Luker and Company had been delayed just long enough for him to coax out of Lady Valerie the whole incalculably important story which she had to tell; their reintroduction couldn't have been more desirably timed if he had arranged it himself. He could look for no more information, but he already had enough to keep his mind occupied for some time. Meanwhile, he could contribute something of his own which might add helpfully to the general embarrassment. He was only waiting for his chance.

"I come from a long line of salamanders," he said cheerfully. "Wasn't that Kennet's father I saw you speaking to just now?"

"Er — yes. I've known him for a long time, of course."

"This inquest isn't being heard in camera by any chance, is it?"

"Er — no. Why should it be?"

"It seems to involve rather a lot of private interviews."

"Urn." Fairweather looked even more uncomfortable. He seemed to inflate himself determinedly. "I fear I have never had any experience of these things. But of course it's the coroner's job to save as much of the court's time a possible."

Simon toyed gently with his cigarette.

"Lady Valerie and I were just talking it over," he said. "She seemed to have an idea that Kennet might have committed suicide."

"Suicide?" boomed General Sangore with gruff authority. "No, no, my dear fellow, that wouldn't do at all. We can't possibly have any sort of scandal. Think what it would mean to the poor chap's father. No. Accidental death is the verdict, eh?"

He spoke as if the matter were all arranged. Fairweather supported him.

"That's the only possible verdict," he said. "We've got to avoid any silly gossip. You know what these beastly newspapers are like — they'd give anything for the chance to make a sensation out of a case like this. Luckily the coroner is a sensible man. He won't stand any nonsense."

"Isn't that splendid?" said the Saint.

They all looked at him at once with a new intentness. The edge in his voice was as fine as a razor, but it cut through the threads of their complacency in a way that left them clammily suspended in an uncharted void. Before that, disarmed by his appearance and accent, they had taken him for granted as a slightly unusual member of a familiar species — their own species. Now they stared at him suspiciously, as they might have stared at an intruding foreigner.

"Are we to understand that you would disagree with that verdict, Mr Templar?" Luker inquired suavely.

He was the only one who had remained immune to that involuntary stiffening. But he had had a chance to measure the Saint before, when, for one intangible moment, they had crossed swords in the garden during the fire.

Simon's gaze sought him out with a sparkle of wicked sapphire.

"Simon Templar is the full name," he said deliberately. "While you were finding out who I was, you should have talked to one of the policemen. He could have refreshed your memory. When you've read about me in the papers, I've usually been called the Saint."

He might have dropped a bomb under their feet with a short fuse sizzling. There were times when the effects of revealing his identity gave him an indescribable delight, and this was one of them.

Lady Valerie Woodchester let out a little squeal. Lady Sangore's mouth opened and then closed like a trap. The general's florid face added a tint of bright magenta to its varied hues. Fairweather dropped his hat, and it settled on the floor with an ear-splitting ploff. Only Luker remained motionless, with his dark sunken eyes riveted on the Saint.

And the Saint went on smiling.

There was a general eddy towards the entrance of the courtroom, and a red-faced constable took up his position beside the doors and began to intone self-consciously from a tattered piece of paper.

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All manner of persons having anything to do at this court, before the king's coroner for this county, touching the death of John Kennet, draw near and give your attendance, and if anyone can give evidence on behalf of our sovereign lord the king, when, how, and by what means John Kennet came to his death, let him come forward and he shall be heard; and you good men of this county summoned to appear here this day to enquire for our sovereign lord the king, when, how, and by what means John Kennet came to his death, answer to your names as they shall be called, every man at first call, on the pains and penalties that may fall thereon. God save the king!"

The courtroom was not crowded, in perceptible contrast with the encouraging throng of gapers that Simon had seen outside, so that he knew at once that some steps must have been taken to discourage the influx of the vulgar mob. Those of the public who had been able to gain admittance were accommodated in rows of hard wooden chairs set across the room with an aisle down the centre. Simon located Peter and Patricia among them, but he took a seat by himself on the other side of the gangway. His eyes met Patricia's for a moment of elusive mockery and then went on to take in the rest of his bearings.

The first two rows on the right were occupied by the party from Whiteways, the Sangores, Luker, Fairweather and Lady Valerie, mingled with a few other people of the same obvious class who all seemed to know each other. They had an air of being apart from the remainder of the public, among them, but not of them, a small party of gentlefolk, self-contained and self-sufficient, only vaguely conscious that there were other people present.

The first two rows on the left had been reserved for the press, and there was not a vacant chair among them. In front of them, and at right angles to the general public, sat the coroner's jury, five good men of the county and two women. There was an attitude of respectful decorum about them, as if they had been in church. The Saint sized them up as being a representative panel of local shopkeepers. Only one of them was markedly different from the others — a little black-bearded scowling man who seemed to resent being in court at all.

The coroner was a well-fed, well-scrubbed looking man with close-cropped gray hair and a close-cropped gray moustache. He wore a dark suit, with a stiff white collar and a blue bow tie with small white spots on it. While the jury was being sworn, he shuffled over a small batch of papers on his table, which occupied the centre of a dais at the very end of the room.

When the jury were seated again, he cleared his throat noisily and addressed them.

"We are here to inquire into the circumstances attending the death of the late John Kennet. It is your duty to listen carefully to the evidence which will be put before you and to return a verdict in accordance with that evidence. The facts concerning which evidence will be given are as follows. On the night of the seventeenth, the house known as Whiteways, the property of Mr Fairweather, was burnt to the ground. Various people were in the house when the fire started, including Mr Fairweather himself, General Sir Robert Sangore and Lady Sangore, Mr Kane Luker, Lady Valerie Woodchester, Captain Donald Knightley and the deceased. All of them except Captain Knightley are in court today. They will tell you that after they had left the building they discovered that John Kennet was missing. An attempt to reach his room was unsuccessful owing to the rapid spread of the fire, and on the following day his charred remains were found in the wreckage of the house."