Lemuel watched them go, gripping the table for support. Presently, through the French windows, he saw them strolling across the lawn, side by side. The air was now full of the drone of the bee, but he did not notice it.
He stumbled mechanically towards the side table where bottle and glasses were set out, but the bottle was nearly empty. Savagely he jabbed at the bell and waited an impatient half-minute; but no one answered. Cursing, he staggered to the door and opened it.
"Fitch!" he bawled.
Still there was no answer. The house was as silent as a tomb. Trembling with terror of he knew not what, Lemuel reeled down the hall and flung open the door of the servants' quarters. There was no one in sight.
On the table, he saw an orange envelope with a buff slip beside it. Impelled by an unaccountable premonition, he picked up the form and read: Come at once. I want you.
Ellen.
Fitch was already on his way to Rye. The Saint was thorough.
As Lemuel crumpled the telegram with furious hands, the bee seemed to be roaring directly over his head.
Simon Templar gazed thoughtfully at the sky.
"Cloudy," he remarked thoughtfully. "The weather forecasts said it would be cloudy to-day, and for once they're right."
Teal looked back over his shoulder.
"That aëroplane's flying pretty low," he said.
"Owing to cloud," said the Saint; and the detective glanced at him quickly.
"What's the big idea, Saint?" he demanded.
Simon smiled.
"I've been getting rather tired of answering that question lately," he said.
They had reached a clump of trees at the edge of the wide lawn, a couple of hundred yards away from the house; and here the Saint stopped. Both the men turned.
The aëroplane was certainly low-it was flying under five hundred feet, and the racket of its engine was deafening.
"I know your habits," said Teal sourly. "If you weren't here with me, Saint, I'd be inclined to think you were up there- getting ready to do some illegal bombing practice." He was watching the aëroplane with screwed-up eyes, while he took a fresh purchase on his gum; and then he added suddenly: "Do any of the other guys in your gang fly?"
"There ain't no gang," said the Saint, "and you ought to know it. They broke up long ago."
"I wouldn't put it above you to have recruited another," said Teal.
Simon leaned against a tree. His hand, groping in a hollow in the trunk, found a tiny switch. He took the lever lightly between his finger and thumb. He laughed, softly and lazily, and Teal faced round.
"What's the big idea?" he demanded again. "I don't know what it is, but you're playing some funny game. What did you fetch me out here to tell me?"
"Nothing much," answered the Saint slowly. "I just thought--"
But what he thought was not destined to be known. For all at once there came a titanic roar of sound, that was nothing like the roar of the aëroplane's engine-a shattering detonation that rocked the ground under their feet and hurled them bodily backwards with the hurricane force of its breath.
"Good God!"
Teal's voice came faintly through the buzzing in the Saint's ears.
Simon was scrambling rockily to his feet.
"Something seems to have bust, old watermelon."
"F-ZXKA," Teal was muttering. "F-ZXKA; F-ZXKA--"
"Ease up, old dear!" Simon took the detective by the shoulder. "It's all over. Nothing to rave about."
"I'm not raving," snarled Teal. "But I've got the number of that machine--"
He was starting off across the lawn, and the Saint followed. But there was nothing that they or anyone else could do, for Francis Lemuel's house was nothing but a great mound of rubble under a mushroom canopy of smoke and settling dust, through which the first tongues of flame were starting to lick up towards the dark clouds. And the aëroplane was dwindling into the mists towards the north.
Teal surveyed the ruin; and then he looked round at the crowd that was pattering up the road.
"You're arrested, Saint," he said curtly; and Simon shrugged.
They drove to Tenterden in the Saint's car, and from there Teal put a call through to headquarters.
"F-ZXKA," he said. "Warn all stations and aërodromes. Take the crew, whatever excuse they try to put up, and hold them till I come."
"That's the stuff," said the Saint approvingly; and Teal was so far moved as to bare his teeth.
"This is where you get what's coming to you," he said.
It was not Teal's fault that the prophecy was not fulfilled.
Simon drove him back to London with a police guard in the back of the car; and Teal was met almost on the doorstep of Scotland Yard with the news that the aëroplane had landed at Croydon. The prisoners, said the message, had put up a most audacious bluff; they were being sent to headquarters in a police car.
"Good!" said Teal grimly; and went through to Cannon Row Police Station to charge the Saint with wilful murder.
"That's what you've got to prove," said the Saint, when the charge was read over to him. "No-I won't trouble my solicitor. I shall be out in an hour."
"In eight weeks you'll be dead," said the detective.
He had recovered some of his old pose of agonized boredom; and half an hour later he needed it all, for the police car arrived from Croydon as the newspaper vans started to pour out of E.C. 4, with the printers' ink still damp on the first news of the outrage of Tenterden.
Two prisoners were hustled into Teal's office-a philosophical gentleman in flying overalls, and a very agitated gentleman with striped cashmere trousers and white spats showing under his leather coat.
"It is an atrrrrocity!" exploded the agitated gentleman. "I vill complain myself to ze Prime Ministair! Imbecile! Your poliss, zey say I am arrrrest-zey insult me-zey mock zem-selves of vat I say-zey trreat me like I vas a crriminal-me! But you shall pay--"
"And who are you pretending to be?" asked Teal, lethargically unwrapping a fresh wafer of his favourite sweetmeat.
"Me? You do not know me? You do not know Boileau--"
Teal did not.
"Take that fungus off his face," he ordered, "and let's see what he really looks like."
Two constables had to pinion the arms of a raving maniac while a third gave the agitated gentleman's beard a sharp tug. But the beard failed to part company with its foundations; and, on closer examination, it proved to be the genuine home-grown article.
Teal blinked as the agitated gentleman, released, danced in front of his desk, semaphoring with frantic arms.
"Nom d' un nom! You are not content viz insult me, you must attack me, you must pull me ze beard! Aaaaah!"
Words failed the man. He reeled against the desk, clawing at his temples.
Teal ran a finger round the inside of his collar, which seemed to have suddenly become tight.
Then the philosophical gentleman in overalls spoke.
" 'E 'as say true, m'sieu. 'E is M. Boileau, ze French Finance Minister, 'oo come ovair for confer--"
Teal signed to one of the constables.
"Better ring up the Embassy and see if someone can come over and identify him," he said.
"Merde alors!" screamed the agitated gentleman. "I vill not vait! I demand to be release!"
"I'm afraid you'll have to be identified, sir," said Teal unhappily.
And identified M. Boileau was, in due course, by a semi-hysterical official from the Embassy; and Teal spent the most uncomfortable half-hour of his life trying to explain the mistake.
He was a limp wreck when the indignation meeting finally broke up; and the telephoned report of the explosives expert who had been sent down to Tenterden did not improve Teal's temper.
"It was a big aërial bomb-we've found some bits of the casing. We didn't find much of Lemuel. . . ."