Prelude for War Read Online Free PDF Page A

thoughtfully.
    The sergeant nodded
sagely, no doubt squandering a moment on the satisfactory
vision of his own name in the headlines. Then he
returned to business.
    “I’d better just have
your name and address, sir, in case you’re wanted for
the inquest.”
    Simon felt in his pocket,
produced a card, scribbled on it and handed it over.
    “That’s where I’ll be
staying for the next few days.” He started to move
on, and then turned back. “By the way,
who was that other fellow—the bloke who looks as if he’d been chopped out of a
small piece of cliff?”
    “You mean Mr Luker,
sir? He often comes down and stays with Mr Fairweather.
He’s a financier, or something like that, I believe.”
    “A financier, is
he?” said the Saint slowly. “What fun!”
    He walked on and climbed
into the car with a new load of tangled thoughts. The
engine started with a low whirr, and they drove back along
the drive and slid round the corner into the road.
    Presently the Saint said,
inconsequentially: “Next time I go to a fire I’m
going to wear some old clothes.”
    “You’re better off
than I am,” said Patricia. “You’ve got some
other things left. Lady Sangore and Valerie Woodchester between them have just about wrecked my suitcases. Lady
Sangore practically told me that all my undies were immoral,
but it didn’t stop her helping herself to all she wanted.
You know the sort. A pillar of the British Empire and
underpays her maids.”
    “I know,” said
the Saint feelingly. “What about the Woodchester girl ?”
    “Lady Valerie Woodchester, to be exact. All I know about
her is that she picked all my most expensive things and
didn’t miss once.”
    “Did either of them
tell you how the fire started?”
    She shook her head.
    “They didn’t know.
It’s an old house, but it had modern automatic fire alarms. All they could tell
me was that the alarms went off and everyone came tumbling out of bed. There seems to have been a good deal of confusion. Lady Sangore put the whole thing down to the Communists— but then if she drops a stitch when she’s knitting, she puts it down to the Communists. Valerie Woodchester was very peeved because the young Guardsman insisted on rescuing her without giving her time to put on a dressing gown. That’s all I got out of her.”
    “Did you talk to
anyone else ?”
    “Well, that man you
were talking to—— ”
    “Luker?”
    “Yes. He said he
thought it must have been a short cir cuit in the
lighting system. But I couldn’t pay much attention while
you were in there. You know. I was too busy worry ing
about whether you were enjoying yourself.”
    The Saint chuckled
absently.
    “It was a bit dull at
times,” he said.
    He drove on slowly. His
smile faded, and a faint ridge of concentration formed
between his brows. It was an in significant betrayal of
what was going on in his mind, for the truth was that
he was thinking harder than he had done for
a long time.
    Patricia watched him
without interrupting. She had that rare gift in a
woman, the ability to leave a man to his si lence,
and she knew that the Saint would talk when he was ready.
But there was nothing to stop her own thoughts. He had told her nothing; but in
a puzzled, bewildered way she knew that he had something
startling to tell. The Saint on the trail of trouble had
something vivid and dynamic and transfiguring about him, as
unmistakable as the quivering transformation of a hunting
dog that has caught a new hot scent. Patricia knew all
the signs. But now, with no idea of the reason for them,
they gave her the eerie feeling of watching a dog
bristling before an apparently empty room.
    “Which only shows you
that you never know,” said the Saint presently, as
if she should have known everything.
    She knew that she would
have to draw him out warily.
    “They didn’t seem to
be a very brilliant crowd,” she said. “I
didn’t seem to be able to get much more sense out of them
than you could.”
    “I was afraid