“I don’t hear anything,” Amity Little said.
“I have rather exceptional hearing,” the Saint said. “Let’s have a look out of the front windows.”
She led him through the house to one of the heavily draped windows in the dining room.
“You mean that car?” she whispered, listening. “I hear them turning around in my drive all the time. I’m at the end of the lane, so it’s the natural place.”
Simon had edged a curtain aside enough to peer out.
“Do they often have blue lights flashing?” he inquired.
“Oh!”
Amity looked as a man in uniform stepped from the car and came up the walk. A moment later he knocked at the front door.
“Somebody must have reported the shots,” Simon said.
A fat-faced stocky constable stood on the steps when Amity opened the door.
“Good evening, ma’am, sir,” he said pleasantly. “P.C. Jarvis, Burnham police.”
“Yes?”
“We’ve something peculiar come up,” said the man. “The Inspector asked me to request that you please come down to the station.”
“What for, at an hour like this?” Simon asked. “Does he want someone to sing him to sleep?”
“There’s reason to believe that some kind of attack might be made on this house.”
“What reason?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. I’m only following orders. It seems there’s some funny things going on, and I wouldn’t want to alarm you, but the Inspector says it’s for your own protection.”
Simon and Amity exchanged glances, and the Saint’s eyes darted back to a ring he had noticed on the officer’s left hand. It was a large golden ring ornately carved in Florentine style.
“That’s very kind of the Inspector,” he said to the policeman. “If we’re in danger, maybe you’d better come inside so we can shut the door.”
Constable Jarvis held back, protesting that he was not sure of any such great or immediate danger, but the Saint, with fingers very much like steel clamps not yet exerting a tenth of their potential pressure, took the man’s arm and urged him into the hall with firm friendliness. Amity closed the door and bolted it.
“Can we offer you a drink?” she asked.
“Not on duty, ma’am. Thanks just the same.” The policeman looked rather longingly over his shoulder at the locked door. “It’d be best if you could just come along now, so the Inspector can explain everything to you himself.”
“Is Charlie Huggins with you?” Simon asked. “No, sir.”
“Too bad. I’d like to see old Charlie. Will he be at the station if we come down?”
“Huggins?” the policeman asked.
The Saint became openly suspicious.
“Constable Huggins,” he said.
Constable Jarvis broke into a broad grin.
“Oh, Huggins! Of course. He’s not on duty this evening, but I’ll give him your regards tomorrow.”
“That’s very good of you. Please do it... as soon as you wake up.”
On the words ‘wake up’ the Saint’s fist blurred into the tender flab of the other’s jaw like an upswung sledgehammer. Without even a groan the man dropped to the floor.
Amity was aghast.
“What are you doing?” she squeaked.
“The ring’s suspicious enough on a country constable, but I know for a fact there’s no such person as Charlie Huggins here, because Charlie Huggins is a bartender friend of mine in Chelsea.”
“So who’s this?” Amity asked, pointing at the limp plump form on the floor.
“Warlock?” Simon asked.
“Oh, that’s really too much!”
“I agree. And there may have been somebody with him in that car, so let’s take the other way out and see what we can see. Our friend here will be happy to rest till we get back.”
They went back to the writing room, turned off the lights, and Simon parted the curtains to peek out of the french windows. A very tall, very brawny figure in a uniform and cap similar to the one worn by P.C. Jarvis appeared in the light of the quarter moon.
“It’s a little crowded out here,” he murmured. “Let’s take the front way after all.”
“What was it?” Amity asked as he towed her through the hall.
“He looked a bit like one of Dr. Frankenstein’s play toys. I’m afraid we may as well admit to ourselves that your ivory tower is under attack, and that we’re at least temporarily on the defensive. Here’s your gun back, but let’s not start killing people unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Amity Little gave a low moan. “Killing people?”
Simon’s hand was on the front door lock preparatory to opening it.
“It shouldn’t bother you,” he said. “You killed at least thirty in your last book, and you came pretty close to bumping me off tonight, so let’s not get emotional. Show you’re a real man, Amos! Let’s make a dash for my car.”
He took the girl’s hand in his and ran silently across the grass. The police car, which appeared to be empty, was only partly blocking the driveway. His first concern was to get Amity to safety, to protect her from capture; with that accomplished, he could go to work on the group which was taking such an extraordinary interest in her literary career. The drastic measures to find her, the elaborate impersonation of police complete with official car, not to mention the offer of fifty thousand pounds, all postulated an organization and capital resources beyond the capacity of mere cranks. And that being the case, it was doubtful that shooting it out with a pair of bogus cops on the spot would be likely to settle anything, although it might rid the world of two of its less attractive inhabitants.
“Get in,” Simon whispered.
Amity obeyed as he opened the driver’s side of his car. She scrambled past the steering wheel to make room for him. As he turned the key in the ignition, the front door of Amity’s cottage opened and the bulk of the second imitation policeman was outlined against the dim light inside, having evidently discovered the broken french windows and taken advantage of them to enter and come through. Simon slammed the gear lever into reverse and stepped on the gas to send the car screeching into the road.
But then a curious thing happend. Even as the engine took hold and the car started back, he lost all interest in driving. He felt a sort of cool and queer-smelling breeze in his face, and had just enough ability for analytical thought left in his consciousness to tell him that some somnific gas must be coming through the heater vents.
“Simon...”
It was Amity mumbling his name groggily as she slumped down into her seat, her head flopping over against his arm. But the arm was as heavy as iron, and more debilitating even than that was the nonchalance with which his spirit insisted on treating the whole event, no matter how desperately a small and helpless part of his mind told him he ought to resist.
He could no more avoid losing consciousness than a stone could have floated on the sea whose surf hissed in his ears. As greater and greater depths of unawareness came between him and the surface world of light and sound, he caught a last rippling glimpse of forms — the faces of men looking down at him, like white grinning masks bobbing above the dark cloth of uniforms, cloth like night sky, where constellations of silver buttons bloomed like stars.
3
Simon Templar thought he had been dreaming about a play taking place in a setting as vast as a football stadium; on the stage more and more people entered, some actors and some not actors, until reality was so confused with make-believe that the whole scene was in milling chaos...
And then, as brighter light sifted into his eyes, the Saint saw the stage become smaller, like the plush little private theatre of some eighteenth-century nobleman, and its intimate red velvet curtains had parted, and there was a beautiful young woman waiting to greet the audience.