The interior was cool and spacious, dimly lit in contrast with the sunlight outside by a couple of naked bulbs hung from the high ridge. Simon's first glance round was arrested by the grey bull-nosed shape of the Hawker pursuit plane at the far end of the shed. In another two or three hours he would have found it less easy to recognize, except by the long gleaming spouts of the machine guns braced forward from the pilot's cockpit, for another overalled man mounted on a folding ladder was even then engaged in painting out the wing cocardes with a layer of neutral grey dope. But the national markings on the empennage were still untouched — if the Saint had ever been tempted to wonder whether he had lost himself in a fantastic dream, the sight of those shining strips of colour was the last thing that was needed to show him that he was in touch with nothing more fantastic than astounding reality.
He fished out his case and selected another cigarette while he surveyed the other details of his surroundings. While he was in the air he had guessed that the field adjoining the one in which he had landed was the one where he had watched the Hawker ship land some hours ago, and a glimpse of other and wider doors outlined in cracks of light on the opposite wall of the barn was his confirmation. There was a stack of petrol cans in one corner, and a workbench and lathe in another. He saw the spare drums of ammunition which Renway had referred to under the workbench, and some curious pear-shaped objects stacked in a wooden rack beside it — in another moment he realized that they were bombs.
He indicated them with a slight movement of his thumb.
"For use on the rescue boats?" he queried; and Renway nodded.
Simon left the cigarette between his lips, but thoughtfully refrained from lighting it.
"Isn't it a bit risky?" he suggested. "I mean, having everything here where anybody might get in and see it?"
Renway's mouth widened slightly. If another muscle of his face had moved it might have been a smile, but the effect of the surrounding deadness of flesh was curiously horrible.
"I have two kinds of servants — those who are in my confidence, and those who are merely menials. With the first kind, there is no risk — although it was a pity that Enrique met with an accident…" He paused for a moment, with his faded eyes wandering inharmoniously over the Saint; and then he pointed to a big humming engine bedded down in the concrete floor on his right. "To the second kind, this is simply the building which houses our private electric light plant. The doors are kept locked, and there is no reason for them to pry further. And all of them are having a special holiday tomorrow."
He continued to watch the Saint satirically, as if aware that there was another risk which might have been mentioned; but Simon knew the answer to that one. The case of "samples" which his host had locked up in the library safe, so long as they remained there, must have constituted a reasonably sound security for the adventitious aviator's faithful service — from Renway's point of view. The Saint was acquiring a wholesome respect for the Treasury Poohba's criminal efficiency; and his blue eyes were rather quiet and metallic as he watched the two mechanics wheel his machine through a gate in the hedge and bring it through the broad sliding doors into the barn.
As they strolled back to the house again, Renway pulled out his watch.
"I shall have to attend to some business now," he said. "You'll be able to spend your time making the acquaintance of the other men who are helping me."
They entered the house by another door and went down a long dark low-ceilinged corridor which led into a large panelled room lighted by small leaded windows. Simon ducked his head automatically, but found that he could just stand upright under the black oak beams which crossed the ceiling. There was a billiard table in the centre with a strip of carpet laid round it, and an open brick fireplace at one side; but the room had the musty dampness of disuse.
"March House is rather an architectural scrap-heap," Renway explained impersonally. "You're in the oldest part of it now, which goes back to the fifteenth century. I discovered this quite by accident—"
"This" was a section of panelling, about five and a half feet by three, which sprang open on invisible hinges — Simon could not see exactly what the other did to open it. Renway fumbled in the dark aperture and switched on a light.
"I don't know where the passage originally went to," he said, as they groped their way down a flight of rickety wooden stairs. "At present it leads into the cellars. There used to be an ordinary entrance from a more modern part of the house, where the kitchen is now, but I had that bricked up."
At the foot of the stairway there was a narrow stone-flagged tunnel. Renway switched on another light and they went on, bent almost double in the cramped space. At intervals there was a rough wooden buttress to carry a weak section of the roof, but for the most part the upper curve of the burrow consisted of nothing but the natural chalk. Simon Templar, who had seen the inner workings of more secret doors, rooms, and passages than any other living man, had never managed to lose the first primitive schoolboy thrill of such subterranean accessories of adventure. He followed Renway with whole-hearted enthusiasm; but there was an equally whole-hearted vigilance about him nevertheless, for the thought had crossed his mind that Sir Hugo Renway might be even more clever and efficient than he had yet begun to believe, and he had no overpowering ambition to be suddenly pushed down a well am left there to contemplate the follies of over optimism until hunger and thirst put an end to contemplation.
After about fifteen yards Renway turned a right-angled corner and disappeared; and Simon crept up in his tracks with that knife-bladed vigilance honed to a razor edge. Rounding the corner, he found himself stepping out into a fairly large stone chamber illuminated by several electric bulbs. At the distant end there was a row of beds; a cheap square of carpet was laid out on the floor, and the room was sketchily furnished with a bare wooden table in the centre, a couple of washstands, and a heterogeneous selection of chairs. Four of the men in the room were congregated at one end of the table over a game of cards; the fifth was stitching a button on his coat; the sixth was reading a newspaper. They were all turned rigidly towards the end of the tunnel; and the Saint carefully set his hands on his hips — where one of them would be within handy diving range of his gun.
"Gentlemen," Renway's high-pitched B. B. C. voice was saying, "this is Mr. — er — Tombs, who is taking Enrique's place."
None of the flat fishlike eyes acknowledged the introduction by so much as a flicker.
Renway turned to the Saint.
"You must meet Mr. Petrowitz," he said; "Mr. Jeddy… Mr. Pargo…"
He ran through a list of names, indicating their owners with curt movements of his head; and Simon, looking them over, decided that they were the ugliest gang of cutthroats that even the most rabid Bolshevik could ever hope to find gathered together in a strategic position under the house of an English aristocrat.
His decision embodied something more than pure artistic comment. The sight of those staring immobile men added the last touch to his grim understanding that if Sir Hugo Renway was mad, he was a maniac with the cold logical resolution that was needed to carry out his insane scheme. His glance fell on the newspaper which the sixth man had put down. The black-type banner line across the top of the page leapt to his eye:
SAINT STEALS ARMED AEROPLANE
It reminded him that he had not yet inquired he name of his new employer. "Are you the Saint?" he asked. Renway's lids drooped. "Yes," he said.