“And most discouraging,” the Saint added.
Warlock shot him a warning look.
“Discouraging?” Thomas asked.
“To anyone idiotic enough to attempt a robbery,” the Saint said suavely.
“Quite so,” Thomas said.
The guardians of the keys took them through another two grilles, and then they entered the vault itself. It was a long chamber containing rows of stacked metal boxes almost as high as a man’s head. The place was the size of a small auditorium. A hissing torrent of fresh air gushed from an inlet grille at the far end of the huge room. The Saint’s eyes immediately fell on that grille, and he immediately knew that if Hermetico had a chink in its armour, the ventilating system must be it. He had studied the plans and the model of the place already without finding any other weakness in the defences, and he had become convinced that only the ventilation ducts offered any chance at all. Now he was more sure than ever that his conviction had been correct.
Two guards with submachine guns slung over their shoulders had appeared from among the metal storage boxes. They nodded pleasantly but kept their distance.
“You may think our precautions have been carried to the point of the ridiculous, gentlemen,” Thomas said, “but I think you’ll also agree that there’s no safer place on earth for valuables than this.”
“I am more zan sateesfied,” said Warlock.
“Indubitably,” said the Saint. “Just one more question, please. How do you know that my associate and myself are not imposters?”
Warlock’s flinch could have been detected only by someone who was looking for it. Thomas merely shrugged.
“I suppose it’s quite possible for people to gain access under false pretences, but as I said, it’s obvious they could do no harm. We allow only two visitors below the surface at any one time, and what could they do against our precautions?”
“Quite,” the Saint agreed.
Thomas took them back to the elevator.
“Besides, I think nothing could be a better guarantee against attempted thefts than to let potential thieves see our set-up here,” he said with a confident smile. “Don’t you agree?”
“Absolutement,” said Warlock.
At the entrance of the elevator they underwent a second swift and perfunctory search — apparently in case they had managed to slip a bar of bullion under their shirts — and then returned to the surface. A minute later they were standing outside the Hermetico building at the foot of the concrete lane which led across the grass to the main gate. The brisk wind whipped their clothes and gave Simon an excuse to hold his Homburg close against his body as his fingers worked the note he had written out of the lining. He wedged the bit of paper securely in the inner band so that its upper part would be visible to anybody picking up the hat.
“Any questions, gentlemen?” Thomas asked.
“We are quite satisfied,” the Saint said.
He allowed Thomas and Warlock to go slightly ahead of him to the lane, intending to drop the hat in the shadows of the entranceway of the building. He would have left the note behind simply by dropping it in a corridor or the elevator if his every move had not been constantly under the eyes of either a guard or Thomas himself, not to mention the wary Warlock.
The dropping of the hat would be a risky last chance. If it was seen immediately, Simon could retrieve it himself. If Warlock noticed later that it was missing, Simon could feign innocence: he would have no idea where it was. If Warlock sent back to Hermetico for it, the note would (hopefully) have been found, and according to its instructions the personnel at Hermetico would return the Homburg to S.W.O.R.D.’s messenger with no hint that it had served as Simon Templar’s private postal service. If the note had not been found by Hermetico, and S.W.O.R.D.’s people found it when retrieving the hat — which was quite unlikely — Warlock’s already strong distrust would just have to become a little stronger.
Simon could not lose the hat as near the threshold as he would have liked because the guard delayed closing the door. By the time there were no eyes on the Saint, Warlock and Thomas were already entering the path to the main gate, and the Saint had to stay not far behind them. He tossed the hat behind him, hoping it would skid along the cement and lodge next to the building near the door.
The Saint had chosen his moment as well as he could. If the results of his manoeuvre were far from what he expected, it was probably because the gods who take an interest in such things were in a playful mood. The wind suddenly gusted violently, caught the hat in mid-air, and tossed it above Simon’s head. When he saw where it was going, which was certainly not where he had intended, he could only grab for it and shout with a certain tinge of genuine anguish, “My hat!”
Warlock and Thomas turned in time to see the Homburg flip in the wind as it arched above Simon’s reach. Suddenly there was an outburst of alarm bells, klaxons, and sirens, wild and earsplitting enough to have alerted a whole city.
“Oh, no!” Thomas exclaimed.
Warlock looked panic-stricken and Simon tried to look distressed as the hat, to the cacophonous accompaniment its flight had set off, dropped towards the forbidden strip of green grass.
Before it touched the ground there was the bright flash and sharp roar of an explosion. The hat, along with several square yards of turf, disappeared, and all that was left was a shallow blackened crater.
“Oh, dear!” cried Thomas.
The alarm system was still howling and hooting and clanging away. Thomas dashed for the telephone box at the main gate and shouted into it. A few seconds later the alarms stopped. In the meantime, two guards with drawn guns had hurried out of the building and were confusedly trying to decide exactly what was wrong.
“It’s all right,” Thomas told them. “An accident. This gentleman’s hat blew into the green strip.”
Warlock was struggling to preserve some semblance of calm and a French accent.
“Eez... eez... eez eet...” he stammered.
“I am so sorry!” Simon exclaimed in apologetic alarm. “What is happening?”
Thomas was beginning to breathe normally. He tried to smile.
“We have a radar scanner,” he said. “It warns against something like a helicopter raid. Anything moving above the height of the fence sets off the alarm... excluding birds, of course. It’s programmed not to react to them.”
“But ze explosion?” Warlock asked.
“We don’t tell people, but this whole green area is crisscrossed by hundreds of invisible infra-red beams. A break in any one of them causes the mine directly below it to explode.”
“Wonderful!” Simon said. “I’m sorry, though, that I could have caused...”
Thomas waved away the apology but made it obvious that he wished to shepherd his visitors out of the gate as soon as possible.
“Think nothing of it,” he said. “I only hope that we’ll be hearing from you again in due course.”
“I zink we can guarantee eet,” Warlock assured him. “Zank you very moch.”
“Indeed yes,” Simon said. “Thank you.”
In the limousine Frug, who had been reading a movie magazine which was now face down on the front seat beside him, was sitting bolt upright.
“I thought you’d had it!” he said in a hushed voice.
“I just had a little accident,” Simon said. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”
“Not very funny, Mr. Klein!” snapped Warlock. “What happened exactly?”
“My hat blew away,” Simon said casually.
Both men were in the back seat of the limousine. Frug turned it around and started for the main road.
“All that because of a hat?” he asked in an awed voice.