After a while, following Pascal’s directions, he turned off the secondary D7 on to an even lesser road that wound up a range of rocky but still vine-clad foothills, and as they came over one of the lower rises he saw the smoke. It was curling into the sky from beyond a copse of tall cypress, halfway up the hillside about half a mile away.
“Looks like a fire,” he observed casually.
Pascal’s reaction was more dramatic.
“C’est la grange!”
“Does it belong to the château?” Simon asked, and already seemed to know the answer before the lad replied.
“It is where everything is stored ready for the récolte. They would not light a fire there!”
Before the final word was spoken the Saint was on his way. In a synchronized flow of movements he flicked the gear lever into third and pressed the accelerator towards the floor as the clutch bit. The big car awoke like a jungle cat, roared and catapulted itself forward.
If he had had any lingering doubt, the last trace of it had vanished. He knew now that all his premonitions had been right, and that he was irretrievably caught again in the web of Kismet.
3
Like a bolt from a crossbow the Hirondel sped towards its target. The lane snaked into a chicane of S bends, and the two students grabbed desperately at the side of the car as the Saint threw it into the corners with one hand juggling the steering wheel as the other changed gear with a smooth confidence that would have done credit to any Grand Prix professional. But then, the Saint could have qualified as one of those himself if he had not chosen a more hazardous way of life.
Just around the second curve, a horse-drawn cart suddenly appeared in front of him, barely fifteen yards ahead and taking up almost two thirds of the road. There was no time to stop and not enough room between the cart and the high sloping bank on the clearer side for the Hirondel to overtake.
A thin smile touched the Saint’s lips as he kept his foot on the accelerator and turned the wheel to the left. For an instant it seemed certain that they must plough into either the bank or the cart or both, but he had judged the angle of the slope and his own speed to perfection.
The Hirondel mounted the bank and seemed to hang poised in the air for the space of a heartbeat before the left rear wheel gripped and he could reverse the steering to bring the car parallel to the road. He caught a blurred glimpse of the drayman’s amazed expression, and then they were past and bumping back on to the solid tarmac of the lane in a shower of dust and small pebbles, safely in front of the equally startled horse.
“That’s how the stunt men do it in the movies,” he informed his ashen-faced passengers as he negotiated the next bend without slackening speed.
Pascal said nothing but continued to clutch at the door, his knees braced to absorb the impact he felt must come at any second. In the rear-view mirror, Jules looked as if he was about to be sick.
The lane had climbed enough by then to give them a sight of several buildings rising picturesquely beyond the screen of cypress. The smoke was thicker now, with the original light grey spiral streaked with ominous black.
“The track to the barn is beyond those posts,” Pascal said breathlessly, pointing to a narrow opening ahead.
The Saint nodded and heeled the car around between the white painted posts with an inch to spare on either wing.
The track ran diagonally across the sloping hillside to the copse where it was hidden by the trees before continuing towards the complex of other buildings. The surface was sun-cracked mud thinly covered by gravel-sized fragments of crushed boulders. It had been designed for horses and tractors rather than low-slung sports cars, and their progress was accompanied by the rattle of stones flung against the chassis like hail against a window. At any moment he expected to hear a roar as the exhaust was ripped away, but their luck held and they reached the trees without apparent harm.
What had looked like a thick copse from a distance turned out to be simply a double row of cypress planted close together to act as a windbreak to the north of the vineyard, and also to provide some shade for the workers between their spells of labour. Beyond the trees was a long low-roofed barn, its walls made from the hillside rocks and looking capable of withstanding a broadside of twenty-five-pounders. But the timbers of the roof were clearly more vulnerable. Already the far end was well alight, and the flames were licking greedily along the ridge and eaves. It could only be a matter of minutes before the whole roof would be ablaze.
A black Citröen was parked in front of the barn facing back down the track. Simon pulled the Hirondel to a protesting halt beside it. He vaulted out of the car and was sprinting towards the building even before the last piston had come to rest.
Two massive double doors comprised most of the end of the barn nearest to him, but he ignored them and ran towards the small service door that stood open halfway along the side.
As he approached two men ran out. The first was tall in a wide-lapelled pin-stripe suit with shoulders padded almost to the width of the doorway he had just emerged from. The second was a head shorter but huskier and wore a black leather zipper jacket and baggy black corduroys. They looked so much like the classical double act of a Hollywood B picture that the Saint felt the laughter rising within him. But he paid them the compliment of lengthening his stride, well aware that even cliche crooks can carry guns.
At the sight of the Saint racing towards them the two men looked uncertainly at each other, their expressions showing that they had not anticipated any trouble. As Simon reached them the big man lashed out at the place where the Saint’s head should have been. But the target was no longer there. The Saint ducked low, his left hand catching the man’s wrist as his right arm flashed between his legs. The man yelled in pain as the Saint’s arm jarred up into his crotch, and in the same fluid movement Simon rose out of his crouch and the man felt his feet lose contact with the ground as he was held in an excruciating parody of a fireman’s lift, before the Saint stepped out from under him and left the force of gravity to help the unlucky arsonist return to earth.
The Saint looked inquiringly at his leather-clad side-kick, but the latter turned and scooted towards the Citröen. Out of the corner of his eye, Simon saw Pascal make a grab for him and shouted: “Leave him. There’s an extinguisher in my car, get it.”
He pointed to a standpipe at the corner of the barn.
“And you should know where to find a hose. Tell Jules!”
Without waiting to watch his orders carried out, he plunged into the barn.
The open door had created an updraught that had pushed the eddying billows of smoke back up into the roof and the Saint was able to see the general layout and take stock of the situation. It was worse than he had feared.
The flames he had seen from the outside were nothing compared to those rapidly engulfing the triangles of beams supporting the roof. The far end of the barn where the fire had clearly been started was already an inferno, and an open loft stacked with wickerwork hoppers was beyond saving. Even as he watched he saw the plank floor sag and heard the timbers crack under the strain. Sparks from the beams had kindled half a dozen smaller fires among heaps of baskets by the walls, which in turn were igniting a line of wooden hand-carts.
A truck was parked in the centre of the building facing the double doors and he made his way towards it. The deeper he moved into the barn the denser the smoke became, and by the time he reached the lorry his eyes were running with water. He knelt down and sucked the fresher air nearer the floor into his lungs while he considered his next move.