"The prisoners?" he said curtly.
"This way, Major."
The young British Nazi led the way briskly through the kitchen, opened the scullery door and switched on the light. Lady Valerie stirred and gave a little moan as the sudden blaze stabbed her eyes. Bravache bowed to her with punctilious mockery, his lips parting in the unhumorous wolfish smile that Simon remembered.
"Much as I regret to disturb you, mademoiselle, your presence is required at the headquarters of the Sons of France."
Dumaire came past him and kicked Simon savagely in the ribs. Then he bent over, grinning like a rat, and lightly touched the dried bloodstains on Simon's cheeks.
"Blood is a better colouring than paint," he said.
He closed his fist and hit Simon twice in the face.
"Bleed, pig," he said. "I like the colour of your blood."
"It is red, at any rate," said the Saint unflinchingly. "Yours would be yellow."
Dumaire kicked him again; and then Bravache pushed him aside.
"Enough of that," he said. "We have no time to waste now. But there will be plenty of time later. And then I shall enjoy a little conversation with Mr Templar myself. We have several things to talk over."
"You must let me give you the address of my barber," said the Saint affably.
Bravache did not strike him or make any movement. His cold fishy eyes simply rested on the Saint unwinkingly, while his teeth glistened between his back-drawn lips. And in the duration of that glance Simon knew that all the mercy he could expect from Bravache was more to be feared than any vengeance that Dumaire could conceive.
Then Bravache turned and flicked his fingers at the British Nazi and Dumaire, and at Pietri who had followed him to the door.
"Bring them out," he ordered briefly. "We must be going."
He went back to the hall, and as he arrived there he saw; a door move. He went over to it and pushed it wide, and found General Sangore standing just inside the library beyond it, like an eavesdropper caught at the keyhole, with a large glass of whiskey clutched in one hand.
"My apologies for troubling you, General," Bravache said with staccato geniality in which there was the faint echo of a sneer. "But I'm afraid we shall need you to guide us to the place where our aeroplane is to meet us. I was told to ask for 'the long meadow' — Mr Luker said you would know it. He also said that you wished to avoid being seen by the prisoners. That will be easily arranged. They will be in the back of the Packard, and if you put on a hat and turn up your coat collar they will not recognize you in the darkness. Personally I should call it a needless precaution. By this time tomorrow the Saint and all his associates will be beyond causing you any anxiety."
"All?" Sangore repeated stupidly.
He gulped at his drink. He still seemed to be in the same daze that he had been in when he left Luker's house. For perhaps the first time in twenty years the rich cerise and magenta tints of his complexion looked gray and faded.
Bravache nodded, drawing his gloves up tighter on his hands. His swaggering erectness, the cold confident glitter of his eyes, the cruel curl of his lips, were personal characteristics which he wore like the accoutrements of a uniform, the insignia of a new breed of soldier compared with whom Sir Robert Sangore even at his most militaristic was a puffing anachronism.
"Yes. We have been able to find out from Scotland Yard that the Sureté have traced Mr Quentin, Miss Holm and two others of his gang to the Hotel Raphael, in Paris. Unfortunately Scotland Yard now have no charges on which to ask for their arrest. But the delay is only temporary. Within a few hours the Sons of France will be giving their own orders to the Sureté."
Simon Templar heard most of the speech as Pietri and the British Nazi were dragging him roughly through the hall and out to the waiting car; and it rang in his ears like a jeering refrain through the short drive and the longer wait which followed. As he was dragged out of the car again and thrown into the big cabin monoplane which swooped out of the dark to land by the light of the Packard's headlamps he could still hear it. It was the bitterest torment that he had to bear. He had not only lost his fight and condemned Lady Valerie to the penalties of his own defeat, but Patricia and Peter and Hoppy and Orace were included in the price of his failure.
3
Simon could not guess exactly how long they flew, but since he knew approximately where they were going the time was of no great importance. He lay awkwardly in the space, behind the two bucket seats in which Bravache and Dumaire were sitting behind the pilot, where they had dumped him with no regard for his comfort, and Lady Valerie was huddled partly beside him and partly on his legs. They seemed to be sprawled all over each other, and it was impossible for them to move. The girl did not try to speak any more, but at intervals he felt the violent shudders that ran through her.
At last the roar of the engine ceased and there was only the soft whirr of their wings gliding through the wind. After a while the engine snarled again in a couple of short bursts; then they hit the ground with a slight bump, settled, and trundled joltingly along with a creaking of undercarriage springs and the throaty drone of the engine turning at low speed. Then even that stopped. They were in France.
Men in a uniform of black riding breeches and shirts of horizon blue swarmed round the machine. Bravache and Dumaire got out; Simon and Lady Valerie were dragged out ungently after them. They felt the cool night air on their faces and had a brief glimpse of stars and a dim line of poplars somewhere in the distance; there was no sign of the lights or buildings of a regular airport. Then bandages were tied over their eyes and hands fumbled with the ropes on their ankles. With their legs freed, they were hustled away and pushed into another waiting car.
The drive that followed lasted about half an hour before the car stopped again. There was the sound of other footsteps round it, a brief mutter of voices. Then the Saint and Lady Valerie were hauled out again. Two men seized the Saint, one of them holding each of his arms. A voice said: "Allez!" Simon was shoved on. He tripped over a step, marched for some distance in devious directions over a stone or tiled floor, then he was halted. There was a pause, and he heard a faint click. They went on.
From the manner in which his guides huddled close to him, and from the dank cold smell of the air, they seemed to pass into a fairly narrow underground passage. Several footsteps rang and reverberated hollowly in the confined space.
The passage led steeply downwards then levelled off. Simon counted his steps. After twenty paces they turned sharply, and the passage seemed to widen. Thirty paces beyond the turn they stopped again, and there was a peculiar knocking and a brief delay while another door was opened. Simon was led through it, marched a few more paces, turned round a number of times and halted once more. The men who were holding his arms released him. He heard the same manoeuvres being repeated after him, and guessed that Valerie's steps were among them. There were other movements, and the almost inaudible swish of a heavy door being silently closed. The air seemed warmer, but there was the same damp tang in it. Then the blindfold was taken off his eyes, and he could look about him.
He seemed to be in a spacious underground cellar. It must have been part of a very old building, for even the warmth of an electric fire built into one wall could not altogether dissipate the damp chill which pervaded it. A large tricolour hung on the wall facing him, above a long table behind which stood three plain wooden chairs, the only furniture there was. There were various doors in all four walls, with nothing about them by which he could identify the one through which he had been brought in. He had been turned round enough while he was blindfolded to lose his bearings completely.