The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots (18 page)

“I suppose you’re planning to say
that
when you speak to
the press?” he said.

Anne Liskard, who was returning down the
aisle, produced
a sarcastic chuckle.

“Don’t be silly. Tom knows as well as
anybody that honesty
has its own season.”

“At least I know when I’m lying and when
I’m not—
though we call it being diplomatic, not lying. At least
when
you know a man’s self-interest is clearly tied with his own
survival
and his possessions and his people, you know where
you stand with him.
To me, the most potentially destructive
man of all is the one
who really
believes
his motives are
based on universal
ideals instead of what he’d call more selfish
loyalties. Show me a
man who claims he bases his actions on
the principle that
all power is evil, and that human want and inequality can be done away with,
and that the world can be persuaded and legislated into eternal peace and
brotherhood,
and I’ll show you a man who’s either a liar or a fool…
and most likely a very unstable and dangerous fool at that.”

Anne Liskard sighed.

“The philosopher king,” she
muttered.

Simon, who had found it more interesting to
listen than to
intrude his own thoughts, extended his hand to Liskard.

“I’ll just say thank you,” he said.
“I’d better get off with
the rest of the common people. But I’d like
to wish you luck.”

“You aren’t leaving us to that mob, are
you?” Anne Liskard
asked tauntingly.

“Mr Templar has already saved my life
once today,” the
Prime Minister said. “I can’t ask him to
do it again. But I
can ask him to dinner with us. Tomorrow night, Mr
Templar?
It won’t be terribly elaborate, which means it may be a
little
more
bearable than most of these diplomatic things.”

“Please do!” Anne Liskard begged, with more sincerity
than show. “You have no idea what a relief it would be to
have a real person at the table along with all
those marionettes.”

“We might even be able to furnish you
with some of that
excitement
you’re so famous for enjoying. There could be
other
attempts against my life here in London.”

At that moment, the last thing that Simon
wanted was
any further exciting involvement in international
politics, and
he might have refused the Prime Minister’s invitation if
he
had had time to give it thought; but the last of the non-
political
passengers were descending the ramp from the door
of the plane, and he
hoped to make his exit as an anonymous
member of the herd.
Newspapers would be hawking the
story of the Nagawiland assassination attempt all over the
city by now, and reporters would be baying like a
pack of
hounds after any detail of
the story and any personality in
volved—and
particularly any personality already as fabled as
the Saint. His chance of avoiding recognition was
slim now,
but it would be totally nil
within another minute.

“Thank you very much,” he said hastily. “I’d be
honored
to come, even without any gunfire
to liven up the evening. But
now I’d
better get out of here.”

“Come with us if you like,” the
Prime Minister said. “I’d
certainly be delighted to introduce you to
the press and pub
licly thank you for saving my life.”

“I’m afraid that being blinded by
flashbulbs and answering
silly questions in a freezing rain isn’t my
idea of a rewarding
experience,” the Saint said. “I’d be much more
grateful for
dinner tomorrow.”

Liskard grinned.

“Entirely understandable. We’ll see you
at Nagawi House
tomorrow
evening. Eight o’clock.”

“Fine.”

Simon shook hands with Anne Liskard, who
apparently had
forgiven him for not prostrating himself in helpless
worship
after her first attentions and was showing signs of becoming
hot-eyed
and clinging again.

“It was very exciting to meet you,”
she said.

“I haven’t been bored for a minute
myself,” Simon told her.
“Good night, and thank you.”

As he hurried through the curtains toward the
plane’s exit,
he
heard Thomas Liskard’s deep voice behind him.

“And now … out into the arena and the
lions.”

4

The violent night of the Prime Minister of
Nagawiland’s
arrival at London Airport is a matter of history. The
Saint
learned the full story of Liskard’s unofficial welcome to London by the
forces of righteousness the next morning in the
newspapers.

Apparently the demonstrators blocking traffic
outside the
terminal had been more than mildly chagrined that a
would-be
assassin had failed to kill Prime Minister Liskard in
Nagawiland
and had resolved to set things right by killing him
themselves.
They had not succeeded, although a window of
the limousine carrying him had been
cracked by a thrown
brick and spattered with
broken eggs. Foreign Minister Stew
art
had been spat upon, and Deputy Prime Minister Todd had been struck by a placard
bearing the vague but un
deniably
optimistic sentiment, “FREEDOM AND EQUAL
ITY FOR ALL PEOPLE!”

The Saint was surprised and gratified to read
that Liskard’s secretary, young Lockhart, had pushed a demonstrator to the
ground who had been trying to kick the Prime Minister as he
left the
terminal building, and had also torn in half a color
fully if obscenely
illustrated poster which read “AFRICAN
PEOPLE’S UNION WILL
TIE KILLER LISKARD’S
HANDS WITH HIS OWN ENTRAILS!”

Lockhart’s exploit of course received top
billing in the news
papers, which featured photographs of him in action
along
with such captions as,
“Police state Gestapo in London? Liskard’s
burly bodyguard attacks demonstrator.”
Other photo
graphs
highlighted injuries suffered by the pickets, and showed
policemen
engaged in the sadistic activity of dragging them out of the public
thoroughfare. “Spokesmen” seriously ques
tioned whether
representatives of a regime like Liskard’s,
which deliberately
stirred up such commotions, should be al
lowed to set foot on
English soil or not.

The afternoon papers headlined the news that
Lockhart—
who was no more burly than he was a bodyguard—had been
“disciplined”
by Prime Minister Liskard and sent back to Nagawiland. Simon, as sorry as he
was to hear about that, understood the political necessity of Liskard’s action.
Without
the support of the English majority, Liskard’s mission would
be doomed.
The vicious demonstrations against him had cer
tainly increased his
popularity, while Lockhart’s behavior—es
pecially as it was reported
in distorted form by the left-wing
press—was just the kind of thing that
could ruin Liskard
completely. His position was so precarious that he and
his
associates
would have to be a dozen times more virtuous,
more
polite, more modest, more unblemished in general than
ordinary men to stand even a small chance of
being judged
the moral superiors of the most debased inmates of Her
Majesty’s prisons. If Liskard could pull that
somewhat superhuman feat off successfully, the stability of his country might
be preserved.

And that, Simon thought, was exactly what
Liskard’s po
litical enemies would be most anxious to prevent. If
Liskard
managed to get through his stay in England without some
thing more
deeply damaging to his cause than riots or rifle
bullets aimed in his
direction, it would be a miracle of such
magnitude that the
Saint would not thereafter have been at
all surprised to see
the monumental stone lions of Trafalgar
Square get up off
their perches, yawn, and stroll away toward
Piccadilly Circus.

Simon enjoyed his whimsical thought about
lions as he was leaving Upper Berkeley Mews and setting out by taxi for the
Prime
Minister’s dinner in Hampstead. He had spent the day
doing those necessary
and temporarily novel-seeming ordinary
things which people do just after
returning from a long trip.

Now he was ready to relax, and attending a formal dinner
with a lot of stuffed tuxedoes was not his idea of
relaxation.
There was only one
compensating factor. As dull as the
dinner
might be, it would bring him in close contact with the
most important political situation developing in
London at
that time. There was some
interest and a little excitement in
that.
But more to the Saint’s taste was the prospect of keep
ing up a contact with a worthy man whose very
continued
existence from hour to
hour was something of a marvel, and
who
was bound to become the target of the most advanced
forms of defamation and general nastiness that
his enemies could contrive.

The Saint did not like plotters against
worthy men. He had
devoted considerable energy in his lifetime to bringing
the
activities of such plotters to abrupt and often violent ends.
The fact
that their ends often coincided with a transfer of
material assets from
their coffers to the Saint’s numerous
bank accounts was no denial of the
fact that he gained great
spiritual satisfaction just from doing them
in. And if he could
help Thomas Liskard, if only by appearing at a dinner, he
was delighted to do it.

Nagawi House was a fairly modest
establishment, as resi
dences maintained by governments on foreign
soil go, but it
was
set back on spacious grounds, and its restrained brick
lines were a tribute to neo-classicism. Fortunately its genera
tions-dead architect had thought not only of
beauty but also
of practicality,
having included a high brick wall which helped
keep out the thieves of his own time and the picket lines of
the twentieth century.

They were there, a hundred shaggy-bearded
worshippers of
dirt, despisers of achievement and work, fearers of all
things
strong and superior, proclaimers of an opiate called universal love.
They were the bacteria of anarchy, and they were gath
ered in motley force
outside the gates of Nagawi House.

“Hold your nose, sir, we’re going
through,” the taxi driver
said over his shoulder.

The cab pushed through the lane held open by
hard-pressed
police, and several dozen voices on either side
screeched ob
scenities. Inside the gates, along the crescent drive,
the lawn
was free of wild-eyed humanity. Hoarfrost glittered on
the
grass in the light of lamps which stood on either side of the
doorway.
The doorman greeted Simon and ushered him into
the entrance hall,
where his identity was checked before he
was admitted to the
main reception room. There he took his
place in the line-up
of dignitaries shuffling toward Thomas
Liskard and his wife.

“Simon, I’m so glad you came,” Anne
Liskard said
smoothly.

For the first time the Saint understood why—aside from
the woman’s silvery beauty, which was dazzlingly
set off by
diamonds and a pure white
shoulderless evening dress-
Thomas
Liskard had been able to fit her in with his political
career. If she was drunk, she was concealing it
gracefully. Her smile was warm and dignified, and her handshake completely
decorous. Apparently she was ambitious enough or
decent
enough to control her
weaknesses in public. If Simon had not
seen her in more intimate action
the day before he would
never have guessed
that such shattering drives were fighting
beneath her entirely attractive surface.

“It’s nice to see you again,” the
Saint answered, no less
suavely. “I’m sorry you had that trouble
with the pickets yesterday.”

Now he could see that her smile was a little
too fixed and
imperturbable to be genuine.