Leslie Charteris - Prelude for War

Luker stepped forward.

"Surely, Mr Templar," he remarked urbanely, "you aren't going to leave me out of your interesting summary."

The Saint looked at him steadily.

"I can give you some news," he said. "That is, if you haven't heard it already. I spent the afternoon going to London to see if I could catch Ralph Windlay, the man Kennet lived with, before an accident happened to him. I'm sure you'll be cheered to know that everything went off without a hitch and he was already dead when I got there."

There was a dead silence.

And then Lady Valerie Woodchester was tugging unconsciously at the Saint's arm. Her full lips were quivering and there was an expression of dazed horror on her face.

"Not Ralph?" she was saying shakily. "No… no, he can't have been murdered, too!"

The Saint's eyes went to her with an instant's brief compassion.

"I'm afraid so," he said. "Even our coroner here couldn't make out it was an accident. He was shot right between the eyebrows, and his brains were all over the carpet."

"The use of the word 'too' is interesting." Luker's impassive voice came levelly through the stillness. "If Kennet was murdered, somebody killed him and then set fire to the house. Within a few minutes Mr Templar arrives on the scene. It is he who suggests foul play. Then Kennet's friend Windlay is murdered, and again Mr Templar is first on the scene; again it is he who discovers that there has been foul play. It certainly appears to be a coincidence to which the attention of the police should be called."

Simon's bleak gaze took him up.

"Or you might mention it to the Sons of France," he said.

It was a shot in the dark, but it hit a target somewhere. For the first time since he had known him, Simon saw Luker's graven mask slip for a fraction of a second. For that fleeting micron of time the Saint saw the stark soul of a man to whom murder meant nothing.

"I like this place," said Lady Valerie Woodchester, looking smugly around her. "It's one of the few places in London where civilized people can eat civilized food."

The Saint nodded. They had worked their way through three quarters of a menu selected with Simon Templar's own impeccable gastronomic artistry and served with the deference which waiters always instinctively gave him; and he had watched her personality expand and ripen like an exotic flower coming into bloom. Undoubtedly she did the setting no less justice than it did her. Her flawless shoulders and deliciously modelled head rose out of a plain but daringly cut evening gown like an orchid rising from a dark stem, with a startling loveliness that turned many envious eyes towards her; she knew it, and she was delighted, like a child who has been taken out on a special treat. A brighter sparkle had crept gradually into her eyes and a faint flush into her cheeks. It was fun, you felt, to be eating a good dinner, and to be in one of the best places among the best people, and to be with a man who was tall and dark and handsome and who could make waiters fuss about obsequiously. Her dazzling flow of gay, senseless prattle had given the Saint no need to make trivial conversation while they ate; but now he hardened his heart.

"Yes," he agreed. "The food is good and the atmosphere is right. Also a stitch in time saves embarrassing exposure, and the horse is the noblest of animals. Now you've earned your bread and butter, and you can stop entertaining me. Let's be serious for a minute. Have you seen any of our friends today?"

She didn't answer at once. She was looking down at her plate, drawing idle patterns with her fork. Her expression had become abstracted; her thoughts seemed to be very far away.

"Yes, I've seen them," she said vaguely.

"And how are they making out?"

She looked him suddenly straight in the eyes.

"You remember what Luker said at the Golden Fleece? Well, I suppose if I'd got any sense I'd think the same, seeing what a reputation you've got. I suppose you could have got into the house somehow and killed Johnny, and locked his bedroom door, and started the fire, and got out again, and then come back and pretended to try and rescue him. And then of course you could easily have gone to London and shot Ralph Windlay."

"Easily," said the Saint. "But you don't believe I did, do you? Or do you?"

"I suppose not," she said. "In a way, I wish you had."

She pushed away her plate, and he offered his cigarette case.

"Why do you wish I'd killed them? I didn't have any reason to."

"Well, it would have made everything so much easier. Of course I suppose they'd have had to hang you, but everybody knows you're a criminal so that would have been all right. But then you went and upset it all at the inquest, and you made it sound frightfully convincing to me whatever anybody else thought, only it didn't seem quite real then. I mean, you know, it was all rather like something out of a book. Blazing Mansion Mystery, and all that sort of thing. I was terribly sorry about it all in a way because I was quite fond of Johnny, but I wasn't going to be brokenhearted about it or anything like that. And then when Ralph was killed it wouldn't have made much difference, because he was a nice, well-meaning boy but I never thought very much of him. After all, life's too short for one to be getting brokenhearted all the time, isn't it, and I'm sure it gives you circles under your eyes."

"You were too close up against it then to realize it properly," said the Saint shrewdly. "Now you've got away from it, your nerves are going back on you. I'm afraid I sympathize with you. What you need is another drink."

She pushed her glass forward.

"That's exactly what I do need," she said.

He poured out the last of the wine, and she sipped it and put the glass down again.

"It's not really my nerves," she said, talking very quickly. "We modern girls have nerves of iron, you know, and we only swoon when we think a man needs a little encouragement. The point is, if I'd heard that Johnny had been killed in a railway accident I should have been terribly sorry whenever I thought about it, but I don't suppose I should have thought about it terribly often. You see, that would have been just one of those things that happen, and it would have been all over, and it wouldn't really have been anything to do with me."

"But you invited him down to Whiteways, and that makes it different."

She nodded feverishly.

"Of course, I told you that, didn't I?"

"The idea was that you were to get a fur coat if Johnny could be persuaded to keep his mouth shut," Simon pursued her ruthlessly. "He has been persuaded to keep his mouth shut. Do you get your fur coat?"

Her fingers tightened on the stem of her wineglass. Her face had gone very pale, but her eyes were burning.

"That's a filthy thing to say."

"Murder is a moderately filthy subject," answered the Saint brutally. "You can't play with it and keep your little girlie ribbons clean. Haven't you realized that yet?"

"Yes," she said.

She picked up her glass and drained it at one gulp. Then she sat back and laughed at him with a kind of brittle giddiness.

"Well?" he insisted.

"I'm a nice girl, aren't I?" she chattered. "I do the odd spot of gold digging here and there, and in my spare time I lure men to their deaths. What would the dear vicar say if he knew?"

"I expect he'd say plenty. But that doesn't seem to matter so much as what you say. Do you enjoy luring men to their deaths?"

"I love it!"

"Then of course you'll be wanting another job soon. Why don't you advertise? There must be plenty of openings if you can produce proof of previous experience."