"Don't mention it," he said graciously. "It's been a pleasure. You must call me again any time you want a helping hand."
He got up restlessly, poured himself out a drink and sat down again.
"Don't you think you'd better tell me what it's all about?" he said abruptly. "I could live through an explanation of this cloakroom-ticket gag."
"Oh, that," she said. She trimmed the end of her cigarette. "Well, you see, they thought I'd got a cloakroom ticket they wanted, so they came to look for it. That's all."
"It isn't anything like all," he said bluntly. "Why go on holding out on me? You've got something they want — probably some papers that Kennet gave you. You parked them in a cloakroom somewhere, and these birds knew it and wanted the ticket. Or do you want me to believe that they went to all this trouble simply to get a receipt for Luker's hat?"
She frowned at her knees, and then she shrugged.
"I suppose there's no reason why you shouldn't know, since you've guessed already," she said. "As a matter of fact, I have got some papers. I thought Algy might like to know, so I just mentioned it to him casually on the telephone tonight."
"Meaning what I was talking to you about at the Berkeley."
"What was that?"
"Blackmail."
"I don't understand."
"Don't make me tired. You were trying to sell him those papers."
"After all," she said, "a girl has to live."
"How long do you think you'd have lived tonight if it hadn't been for me?"
She hesitated.
"How was I to know Algy would do anything like this?" she said sulkily. "I told him I'd put the papers in a cloakroom and I wasn't sure where they were. He rang me up later on, just before the monkey-man got here, and offered me ten thousand pounds if I'd bring them round to him right away, but I thought they might be worth more than that, so I pretended I still couldn't remember what I'd done with them. Of course I know where they are really."
The Saint's lips tightened.
"You poor little fly-brained moron," he exploded uncontrollably. "What makes you think you can cut in on a game like this? Haven't you had your lesson yet? You know what happened to Kennet and Windlay. You know what happened to you tonight. You heard what Bravache said. If I hadn't had everything organized, you were booked to go down the drain with me — plus any specialized unpleasantnesses that your boy friend Dumaire could think of. Is that your idea of a good time?"
She shuddered almost imperceptibly.
"I know, that wasn't very nice. I never was one of those heroines who don't think life is worth living unless bullets are whizzing past their ears and ships sinking under them and houses crashing in ruins about their heads and all that sort of thing. Personally I'm all for a life of selfish self-indulgence, and I don't care who knows it. If I could get a decent offer for those papers, I'd take it like a shot and skip off to Bermuda or somewhere and enjoy it. The trouble is, I don't know what they're worth. What do you think?"
She looked at him with limpid brown eyes big with artlessness.
"I'll give you a shilling for them," he said.
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of selling them to you," she said innocently. "What I was thinking was that if I went to a fairly decent pub tonight — the Carlton, for instance, where I should be perfectly safe — and then I rang up Algy and told him he could have the papers for fifteen thousand pounds, he'd most likely do something about it. I mean, after what's happened tonight, he ought to consider himself damned lucky to get them for fifteen thousand. Don't you think so?"
"Very lucky," said the Saint, with fine-drawn patience. "Where are these papers at the moment?"
She smiled.
"They're in a cloakroom all right. I've got the ticket somewhere, only I forget exactly where. But I expect I'll remember all right when I have to."
"I expect you will," he said coldly. "Even if somebody like Dumaire has to help you."
Suddenly he got up and went over to her and took both her hands. The coldness fell out of his voice.
"Valerie, why don't you stop being an idiot and let me get into the firing line?"
She looked at him speculatively for a while, for quite a long while. Her hands were small and soft. He kept still, and heard a taxi rattle past the end of the street. But she shook her head.
"I'd like to," she said sadly. "Especially after what you've done for me tonight — although if it comes to that, I expect you simply love dashing about rescuing people and doing your little hero act, so perhaps you ought to be a bit grateful to me for giving you such a good chance to do your stuff. And after all, if I just handed over the papers to you, that wouldn't do much good, would it? Of course, if you wanted to buy them—"
"To hell with buying them! Haven't you found out yet that there are some things in life that you can't measure in money? Haven't you realized that this is one of them? I don't know what there is in those papers — maybe you don't know either. But you must know that things like you've seen tonight don't get organized over scraps of paper with noughts and crosses on them — that men like Bravache and Fairweather and Luker don't take to systematic murder to stop anybody reading their old love letters. These men are big. Anything that keeps them as busy as this is big. Ana I know what kind of bigness they deal in. The only way they can make what they call big money, the only way they can touch the power and glory that their perverted egos crave for, is in helping and schooling nations to slaughter and destroy. What hellish graft is at the back of this show called the Sons of France I don't know; but I can guess plenty of it. However it works, the only object it can have is to turn one more country aside from civilization so that the market can be kept right for the men who sell guns and gas. Or else Luker wouldn't be in it. And he must know that there's an odds-on chance of bringing it off, or else he still wouldn't be in it. This may be the last cog in a machine that will wipe out twenty million lives, and you might have the knowledge that would break it up before it gets going. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
She stood up slowly. And she freed her hands. "I think I'll be getting along now," she said, and her voice was quite steady in spite of the reluctance in it. "It's been a lovely party, but even the best of good times have to come to an end, and I need some sleep. Do you think you could move those men out of the bedroom while I put on some clothes?"
Simon looked at her.
The fire that had gone into his appeal was a glowing; ingot within him. It was a coiled spring that would drive him until it ran down, without regard for sentiment or obstacles. It was a power transformer for the ethereal vibrations of destiny. Earlier in the evening, the atmosphere of the Berkeley had defeated him; but this was not the Berkeley. He knew that there was only one solution, and there was too much at stake for him to hesitate. He was amazed at his own madness; and yet he was utterly calm, utterly resolute.
He nodded.
"Oh yes," he said. "I was going to move them anyway. I didn't think you'd want to keep them for domestic pets."
He went over and opened the bedroom door.
"Bring out the zoo," he said.
He stood there while the captives filed out, followed by Peter and Hoppy, and waited until the door had closed again behind the girl. For a few seconds he paced up and down the small room, intent on his own thoughts. Then he picked up the telephone and dialled the number of his apartment in Cornwall House.