Prelude for War (37 page)

“I can see wot’s
‘appened,” he proclaimed. “It’s as clear
as
daylight. It’s a gang. That’s wot it is. One of these gangs
which Mr Templar is always breakin’ up ‘as got it in for ‘im, and
they’re tryin’ to frame him for this kidnapping
which
he knows nothing about so as to get ‘im out o’ the
way
and leave ‘emselves free to get on with their dirty
work.
That’s wot it is.”

The sergeant did not seem
impressed.

“It isn’t because any threats ‘ave bin
made to you in case
you tell the truth, is
it, Lady Valerie?” he persisted, as if
hoping against hope. “Because if they ‘ave, I can tell you
that
while we’re here you need ‘ave no fear of any menaces,
no matter ooze——
”

“Of course not,”
said the girl. “Really, Sergeant, you’re very kind, and I’m sure you mean
well and all that sort of
thing, but this is getting
too ridiculous for words.”

“It’s a gang,”
repeated the constable confidently. “That’s
wot——
”

“Will you shut your
mouth?” said the sergeant crushingly
;
and when his subordinate had obeyed he looked rather
miserable
and lonely. “Wot the ‘ell,” he said, giving way
to forces stronger than official rank, “are we goin’ to do
about this ?”

There was a pause of
intense cogitation.

“Get ‘old of Scotland
Yard,” said the constable, “and tell
‘em
wot Lady Valerie says.”

“While we keep Mr
Templar in custody,” said the ser
geant,
seeing light.

“But you can’t!”
the girl said indignantly. “How can
you
lock Mr Templar up in your beastly prison for kidnapping me when I’m here to
prove that he hasn’t done
anything of the sort? I
mean, I’m the one who’s supposed
to have been kidnapped, so
I ought to have some say about
it. Who’s got any right to
say I’ve been kidnapped if I say
I haven’t?”

The sergeant wriggled
wretchedly inside his coat.

“I dunno, miss,”
he said. “But those are the instructions
we
‘ad from London.”

“I won’t hear of
it!” she said tearfully.

She sat down on the bed
beside the Saint and took hold
of his arm. Her lovely
brown eyes gazed at him with something like worship.

“Do you think we
ought to tell them, Simon ?” she said.

“Do you ?” he
replied, not knowing what she was talking
about,
but with an awful premonition.

“Yes.” She
flounced up and took hold of the sergeant’s
arm.
“You see,” she said, “Mr Templar and I are going to
be married.”

Simon Templar leaned back
on his elbows just a split
second before he would
have fallen back on them. His brain
whirred like a
clock preparing to strike.

The sergeant blinked.

The constable gulped, and
then his face opened in a
great joyful romantic
beam.

He said: “Wot?”

She said: “Yes. You
see, we only just fixed it up last night,
when
we found out we were in love. And—-and we didn’t
want
any publicity. I mean, you know what the newspapers
would
do with anything like that. So we thought we’d just
run
away. I suppose some of my friends have been trying
to
get hold of me, or something, and when they found I’d disappeared they thought
something frightful had happened
to me, and so they told
Scotland Yard and started all this
silly scare; but
there’s nothing in it really, and we’ve just
eloped,
and we’re going to get married as soon as we can
fix
it up, and you
can’t
arrest Mr Templar because that
would spoil everything and it ‘d be in all the papers and
we’d get all the limelight that we’re trying to get away
from. You do understand, don’t you ?”

The Saint lay completely
back and closed his eyes, because
he could think of
nothing else to do.

And she had the nerve to
sit down beside him and kiss
him.

And then the constable was
pumping his limp hand and
saying: “Well sir, may
I ‘ave the honour of being the first
to congratulate
you.”

“You may,
Reginald,” said the Saint feebly. “Indeed you
may. And for all I know, you may be the last.”

“Well, I dunno,”
said the sergeant, harping on his theme.
“I
suppose in that case all we can do is take a statement an’ let both of you
go.”

“I’ll take it
down,” said the constable.

He rummaged eagerly in
his pocket and pulled out sheets
of official foolscap. With
his tongue protruding, he wrote
laboriously at dictation.

” ‘My name is Lady
Valerie Woodchester.
…
I was
not kidnapped by Mr Simon Templar. I
am in love with him.
We have eloped together.
…
I eloped in secret because
we did not wish any fuss… .’ Will you sign your
name
‘ere, miss?”

Lady Valerie signed.

“Mr Templar ‘d better
sign it, too,” said the sergeant
gloomily.

The Saint drew a deep
breath, but he could say nothing.
He took the pen and
wrote his name with a steady hand.

The sergeant read over the
sheet, folded it, and put it
in his pocket.

“Well,” he said
despondently, “that’s all we can do. Will
you be stayin’ ‘ere for
some time, sir ?”

“No,” said the
Saint definitely. “We were only spending
a
few hours before we went on to Southampton to catch
a
boat.” He got up. “We’ll go out with you.”

They went out. The
constable carried Lady Valerie’s
tiny valise. Simon paid
the bill for her room at the desk.
They left the
hotel.

Simon steered the cortege
along the street to the side
turning where he had parked the Daimler. If
Lady Valerie was surprised to see it she gave no sign. He opened the
near-side door and ushered her in with ceremonial
courtesy.
Just then he was too full
of thoughts for words. He went
round
the car and got into the driving seat.

The constable leaned in at
the window.

“Good-bye, sir,”
he said jovially. “And I ‘opes all your
troubles
are little ones.”

“So do I,” said
the Saint, from the bottom of his heart,
and
let in the clutch.

The sergeant and the
constable stood and watched him
go
.
Simon saw them
receding in the driving mirror. The
sergeant looked
vaguely frustrated, as if he still thought he ought to have done something else
even though he
couldn’t think of anything else he
could have done. The constable looked as if he wished he had had a handful of
confetti in his pocket.

Simon drove out of town and
took the cross-country road
that led towards Amesbury.
His emotions were approxi
mately those of a shell
that has just been fired out of a gun.
He
had been shot into space with one terrific explosion, and
now he was sailing along with the fateful knowledge that
there was another almighty bang waiting at the other end
of the journey. The old proverbial voyagings between fry
ing pans and
fires seemed like comparatively pale and peace
ful transitions to him. He drove very carefully, as if the
car had been made out of glass.

Lady Valerie snuggled up
against him.

“Are you happy,
darling?” she said.

“Beloved,” said
the Saint chokily, “I’m so happy that
I
could wring your neck.”

“Don’t you appreciate
what I’ve done for you?”

“Every bit of
it,” he said, with superhuman moderation.
“So
much so that if I’d had the least idea what was in your
mind——
”

“Where shall we go
for our honeymoon?”

Simon nursed the car round
a corner like an old lady
wheeling her
granddaughter’s pram.

“Listen,” he
said, “I don’t particularly care where you
go
for our honeymoon so long as it’s no place where I’m
going.
If you have any sense, which is getting more-doubtful
every
minute, you’ll travel like smoke for the next few days
and put the biggest
distance you can between yourself and
London;
and you won’t send your friends any picture post-
cards on the way to let them know where you are.”

Her lips trembled
slightly.

“I see,” she
said. “You … you’ve had all you want
from
me, and now you just want to get rid of me. Well,
I’ve
been too clever for you this time. I’m not going to be
got
rid of.”

“Do you want to die
young?” demanded the Saint exasperatedly
.
“Don’t you see that I’m going to be much too
busy
to look after you ? For Pete’s sake, have a little sense.
I’ll let you off at Southampton, where there are lots of
boats going to nice places like New Zealand and so forth.”

“And what are you
going to do after you’ve ditched me ?”
she
asked sulkily. “I suppose you’ll go dashing back to your
blonde girl friend and tell her how clever you are.”

“I don’t have to tell
her,” said the Saint. “She knows.”

“Well, you’re not as
clever as all that,” flared the girl
in
open mutiny. “You heard what I told those two policemen. You didn’t deny
it then—anything was all right with
you so long as it
helped you to get away. You—you signed
your
name to it. And I
won’t
be ditched. If you try to get rid of me now
I—I’ll sue you for breach of promise!”

Simon steadied himself.
Now that the impending thunderstorm had broken, exactly as he had been nerving
him
self for it, he almost felt better.

“No jury would give
you a farthing damages, sweet
heart,” he said.
“As a matter of fact, they’d probably give
me
a reward for letting you out of an agreement to marry
me.”

“Oh, would they? Well,
we’ll see. It’s all very well for
you to go around
breaking thousands of hearts and pushing
around
all the women you meet like a little Hitler bossing his tame dummies in the
Reichstag——
”

The car rocked with a
force that flung her away from
him.

The Saint straightened it
up again anyhow. He let go
the wheel and thumped his
fists on it like a lunatic.

He yodelled. His face was
transfigured.

“My God,” he
yelled, “how did you think of it? Of
course
that’s what it was. That’s the answer. The Reich
stag!”

She gaped at him, rubbing a
bruised elbow where it had
hit the door in that wild
swerve.

“What’s the
matter?” she asked blankly. “Have you
gone
pots or something?”

“The Reichstag!”
he whooped deliriously. “Don’t you
see?
That’s what Kennet wrote on that bit of paper.
R
EMEMBER
THE
R
EICHSTAG
!”

He was so dazed with
understanding that he had not
noticed a big black
Packard which had crept up behind
them, was hardly
aware when it pulled out in the narrow
road
and raced level with the crawling Daimler. Almost unconsciously he swung in to
let it pass.

Lady Valerie looked back
over her shoulder and sud
denly screamed. With a
quick panicky movement she turned
and grabbed at the
steering wheel and twisted it sharply. From the overtaking car came the crisp
high-pitched crack
of a gun, and the windscreen splintered
in front of Simon’s
eyes. Then the Daimler lurched madly
as its near-side
wheels slithered and plunged into a
gully at the side of the
road. The bank that rose up
from there to the bordering hedge seemed to loom directly ahead. Simon felt
himself
hurled forward helplessly in his seat; the steering
wheel
struck him a violent blow in the chest and knocked the
wind
out of him; then he rose into the air as if deprived
of
weight. Something struck him a fearful blow on the top
of the head. Bright lights whirled dizzily before his
eyes
and faded into a blackening mist of unconsciousness.