Leslie Charteris - Prelude for War

For a long moment she went on staring at him, and there was something in her face that he could not understand.

Then her muscles relaxed and she sank limply back.

"I think you're an unspeakable cad," she said.

"I am," said the Saint cheerfully. "And I fairly wallow in it."

Her mouth moved slightly, so that by the dim light of passing street lamps it almost looked for one fleeting moment as though she were trying to stifle a smile. He reached over to crush his cigarette in the ash tray so as to glance at her more closely, but she moved further away from him, and the expression on her face was surly and disdainful. He lay back and stretched out his legs and appeared to go to sleep.

But he was awake and vigilant for every minute of the drive, while the car whispered out of Putney and out on to the Portsmouth Road and down the long hill into Kingston. They went on to Hampton Court, and turned off over the bridge along the road by Hurst Park; in Walton they turned right again, and a few miles later they turned under a brick archway into what seemed like a dense wood. A few more turns, and the car swung into a circular drive and swept its headlights across the front of a big weather-tiled house set in a grove of tall pines and silver birches.

They pulled up with a crunch of gravel, and Simon opened the door.

"Here we are, darling," he said. "This is my nearest country seat. Thirty minutes from London if you don't worry about speed cops, and you might as well be in the middle of the New Forest. You'll like the air, too, it has oxygen in it."

He picked up her valise and stepped out. As she got out after him she saw Patricia coming round the front of the car, pulling off her gloves, and her face went stony.

The Saint waved a casual hand.

"You remember Pat, don't you?" he murmured. "The girl with the wardrobe you liked so much. She'll chaperon you while you're here and see that you have most of the things you want. Come along up and I'll show you your quarters."

He led the way into the house, handing over the valise to Orace, who was standing on the steps. Without saying a word Lady Valerie followed him up the broad oak staircase.

Upstairs, at the end of one wing, there was a self-contained suite consisting of sitting room, bedroom and bathroom. Simon indicated it all with a generous gesture.

"You couldn't do better at the Carlton," he said. "The windows don't open and they're made of unbreakable glass, but it's all air-conditioned, so you'll be quite comfortable. And any time you get tired of the view, you've only got to tell me where that cloakroom ticket is and I'll take you straight back to London."

Orace put down the valise and went out again with his peculiar strutting limp.

Lady Valerie turned round in a quick circle and stood in front of the Saint. Her face was blazing.

"You," she said incoherently. "You…"

She took a swift step forward and struck at him with her open hand. His cheek stung with the slap. Instinctively he grasped her wrist and held it, but she struggled in his arms like a wildcat, wriggling and kicking at his shins.

"Oh!" she sobbed. "I–I hate you!"

"You break my heart," said the Saint. "I thought it was the dawn of love."

She took a lot of holding: her slim body was strongly built and her muscles were in excellent condition. In the struggle her hair had become disordered, and her breath came quickly between parted lips that were too close to his for serenity.

The Saint smiled and kissed her.

She stopped struggling. Her breasts were tight against him; her lips were moist and desirous under his. One of her arms slid behind his neck.

The kiss lasted for some time. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and moved her gently away.

"I'm sorry about that," he said. "I didn't really mean to force my vile attentions on you, but you asked for it."

"Did I?" she said.

She turned away from him towards a mirror and began to pat her hair into place.

"You are a cad, aren't you?" she said.

Her eyes, seen in the mirror, held the same baffling expression that had puzzled him in the car; but now there was mockery with it. Her lips were stirred by a little smile of almost devilish satisfaction. She had a pleased air of feeling that she had done something very clever.

"I think you're a dangerous woman," he said with profound conviction.

She yawned delicately and rubbed her eyes like a sleepy kitten.

"I don't know what you mean," she said. "Anyway, I'm too tired to argue. But you'll have to go on being nice to me now, won't you? I mean, what would Patricia do if I told her?"

"She'd write your name on the wall," said the Saint, "where we keep all the others. We're making a mural of them."

"Would she? Well, don't forget that I know what you've done with Bravache and those other men. When they've been bumped off, or whatever you call it, I shan't want you to get hanged for it if I go on liking you."

The Saint was grinning as he went out and locked the door. It was the first piece of unalloyed fun that had enriched the day.

At 4 A.M. that morning a young policeman on his beat noticed a suspicious cluster of shapes in a doorway in Grosvenor Square. He flashed his light on them and saw that they were the bodies of three men, with adhesive tape over their mouths and their hands fastened somehow behind them, sprawled against the door in grotesque attitudes. They were stripped to the waist and horrid red stains were smeared across their torsos.

Blood!… The young policeman's heart skipped a beat. In a confused vision he saw himself gaining fame and promotion for unravelling a sensational murder mystery, becoming in rapid succession an inspector, a superintendent, and a chief commissioner.

He ran up the steps, and as he did so he became aware of a pungent odour that seemed oddly familiar. Then one of the bodies moved painfully and he saw that they were not dead. Their bulging eyes blinked at his light and strange nasal grunts came from them. And as he bent over them he discovered the reason for the red stains that had taken his breath away, and at the same time located the source of that hauntingly familiar perfume. It was paint. From brow to waist they were painted in zebra stripes of gaudy red and blue, with equal strips of their own white skins showing in between to complete the pattern. The decorative scheme had even been carried over the tops of their heads, which had been shaved for the purpose to the smoothness of billiard balls.

Hanging over them, on the door handle, was a card inscribed with hand-printed letters:

Simon Templar was having breakfast in Cornwall House when a call on the telephone from the watchful Sam Outrell at his post in the lobby heralded the arrival of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal a few seconds before the doorbell sounded under his pudgy finger.

Simon went to the door himself. The visitation was no surprise to him — as a matter of fact, he had been fatalistically expecting it for some hours. But he allowed his eyebrows to go up in genial surprise when the opening door revealed Teal's freshly laundered face like a harvest moon under a squarely planted bowler hat.

"Hail to thee, blithe spirit," he greeted the detective breezily. "I was wondering where you'd been hiding all these days. Come in and tell me all the news."

Teal came in like an advancing tank. There was an aura of portentous somnolence about him, as if he found the whole world so boring that it was hardly worth while to keep awake. Simon knew the signs like the geography of his own home. When Chief Inspector Teal looked as if he might easily fall asleep in a standing position at any moment it meant that he had something more than usually heavy weighing on his mind; and on this particular morning it was not insuperably difficult for the Saint to guess what that load was. But his manner was seraphically conscience free as he steered the detective into the living room.