Prelude for War Read Free

by it like a
stage set, and a curtain of black smoke hung
over it like a billowing curtain. The house was one of those old historic
mansions whose lining of massive beams
and mellowed panelling could be diagnosed at a glance, and it was going
up like a pile of tinder. The fire seemed to
have started on the ground floor, for
huge gusts of flame were spouting from the
open windows along the terrace and climbing like wind- ripped banners towards the roof, roaring with a
boisterous glee that could be clearly heard even above the reduced splutter of the Hirondel’s exhaust. The Saint drew
at his cigarette and settled more
firmly into his conviction that, judged
by any pyrotechnical standards, it was a beaut.
    Figures in a grotesque
assortment of deshabille were running across the lawn
with the erratic scurrying wildness of flushed rabbits.
    “At least they all
seem to have got out,” said the Saint.
    He switched off the engine
and hitched his legs over the side of the car. Some of
the scurrying figures, attracted per haps like moths by
the new blaze of the headlights, had started to run
towards them. The first to arrive was a young
man who carried a girl over his shoulder. He was large
and blond and impressively moustached, and he wore blue-and-green
striped pajamas. He dumped the girl on the ground
at the Saint’s feet, rather like a retriever bringing in
a bird, and stood over her for a moment breathing heavily.
    “By Jove,” he
said. “Oh, by Jove! … Steady on, Val, old
thing. It’s all right now. You’re quite safe.”
    He put out a hand to
restrain her as she tried to get up, but with a quick movement she wriggled
away from him and found her feet. She was
dark and slender, but not so slender that
the transparent nightgown which was her only covering lacked fascinating contours to cling to. The
chiffon had slipped aside to bare one
white shoulder and her curly hair was in a wild disarray, but even the
thoroughly petulant spoiled-child
expression that pouted her face could not dis guise its amazing beauty.
    “All right, all
right,” she said impatiently. “You’ve res cued
me now, and I’m very much obliged. But for heaven’s sake
stop pawing me and find me something to wear.”
    She seemed to regard the
fire as an event arranged by a malicious fate solely for
her own inconvenience. The young man looked somewhat
startled.
    “Damn it,
Valerie,” he said in an injured tone, “do you realize ——”
    “Of course she
does,” said the Saint soothingly. “She knows
you’re a little hero. She’s just being practical. And while
we’re being practical, do you happen to know whether anybody
else is left in the house?”
    The young man turned. He
looked at Simon rather blankly, as if taken aback
at being interrupted so uncere moniously.
    “Eh? What?” he
said. “I dunno. I fetched Valerie out.”
    From the way he said it,
one gathered that nobody mat tered except Valerie.
    Simon patted him on the
back.
    “Yes, we know,”
he said kindly. “We saw you. You’re a
hero. We’ll give you a diploma. But just the same, wouldn’t
it be a good idea to round up the others and make sure
that nobody’s missing?”
    Again the young man looked
blank and rather resentful. His expression indicated
that having done his good deed for the day by rescuing
Valerie, he expected to be set apart on a pedestal
instead of being ordered about. But there was something
about the Saint’s cool assumption of command that
eliminated argument.
    “Oh, certainly. I see
what you mean.”
    He moved reluctantly away,
and presently people came straggling in from different parts of the lawn and
gathered together near Simon’s car. There was a
tall red-faced man with a white moustache and the
stereotyped chutney-and-scotch complexion of a professional soldier, a dour
large- bosomed woman in a flannel dressing gown who could have belonged to nobody else, an excited little fat man
who came chattering pompously, the
guardsmanly youth who had