"What was it?" she asked at last, in a voice too even to be wholly natural.
"That was the Sons of France — Colonel Marteau's blue-shirt gang. You remember, they grew out of the breakup of the old Croix de Feu, only about ten times worse. They've been holding a midnight jamboree outside Paris, with torches and bonfires and flags and bands and everything. What we cut in on must have been the grand finale — Colonel Marteau's pep talk to the assembled cannon fodder."
He paused.
"First Russia, then Italy, then Germany, then Spain," he said soberly. "And now France is next. There, but for the grace of God, goes the next tin-pot dictator, on his way to make the world a little less fit to live in… There are almost enough of them now — marching mobs of idiots backwards and forwards and building guns and armies because they can't build anything else, and because it's the perfect solution to all economic problems so long as it lasts. How can you have peace and progress when fighting is the only gospel they've got to preach?… If you wanted to be pessimistic, you could feel that Nature had got the whole idea of progress licked from the start; because as soon as even the dumbest mass of people had just got educated. to the futility of modern warfare and the stupidity of patriotism, she could turn round and come back with some strutting monomaniac to sell the old stock all over again under a new trade mark and put the whole show back where it started from."
"But why?"
He shrugged.
"As far as the Sons of France are concerned, you could be pretty cynical if you wanted to. The present French socialist government is rather unpopular with some of our leading bloodsuckers because it's introducing a new set of laws on the same lines Roosevelt started in America, to take all the profit out of war by nationalizing all major industries directly it starts. The whole idea, of course, is too utterly communistic and disgusting for words. Hence the Sons of France. All this blood-and-fire business tonight was probably part of the graft to get the Socialists chucked out and leave honest businessmen safe to make their fortunes out of murder. It's a lovely idea." "Are they going to get away with it?" "Who is to stop it?" asked the Saint bitterly. And when he asked the question he could imagine no answer. But afterwards he would remember it. This was, as has been said, one of his precarious interludes of peace. Twice already in his lawless career he had helped to snatch away the threat of war and destruction from over the heads of an unsuspecting world, but this time the chance that the history of Europe could be altered by anything he did seemed too remote to be given thought. But in the same mood of grim clairvoyance into which the interruption had thrown him he gazed sombrely down the track of the headlights, still busy with his thoughts, and seeing the fulfilment of his half-spoken prophecy. He saw the streets swarming with arrogant strangely uniformed militia, the applauding headlines of a disciplined press, the new breed of sycophantic spies, the beginnings of fear, men who had once been free learning to look over their shoulders before they spoke their thoughts, neighbour betraying neighbour, the midnight arrests, the third degree, the secret tribunals, the fantastic confessions, the farcical trials, the concentration camps and firing squads. He saw the hysterical ranting of yet another neurotic megalomaniac adding itself to the rising clamour of the crazy discords of Europe, the coming generations reared to believe in terrorism at home and war abroad as the apotheosis of a heroic destiny, children marching with toy guns as soon as they could walk, merging easily into the long crawling lines of new legions more pitiless than Caesar's. He saw the peaceful countryside before him gouged into swamps and craters where torn flesh rotted faster than the scavenging rats could eat; the long red tongues of the guns licking upwards into the dark as they thundered their dreadful litany; the first rose-pink glow of fire, deepening to crimson as it leaped up, flickering, spreading its red aura fanwise across the sky until the black silhouettes of trees could be seen clearly stamped against it… until with an odd sense of shock, as if he were coming out of another dream, the Saint realized that that at least was no vision — that his eyes really were seeing the scarlet reflection of swelling flame beyond the distant trees.
He pointed.
"Look."
Patricia sat up.
"Anyone would say it was a fire," she said interestedly.
Simon Templar grinned. His own reverie was swept away as quickly as it had begun — for that moment.
"I'll bet it's a fire," he said. "And in this neck of the woods the chances are that the nearest fire brigade is miles away. We'd better drift along and look it over."
He would never forget that fire. It was the beginning of the adventure.
2
As his foot came down on the accelerator his hand found the lever that opened the cutout, and the whisper of the great car turned into a deep-throated roar. They were dragged against the back of the seat as it surged forward with a sudden terrific access of power, and the susurration of the tires on the roadway rose to a shrill whine. It was as if an idly roaming tiger had suddenly been stung to vicious life.
The Saint had begun to drive.
He had no gift of second sight to tell him what that fire was to mean; but just as a fire it was sufficient. It might be fun. And he was going there — in a hurry now. And in his mercurial philosophy that was enough. His eyes had narrowed and come to life with the zest of the moment, and a shadow of his last smile lingered half remembered on his lips… Half a mile further on a side road opened sharply to the right, leading in the direction of the red glow. As he approached it, the Saint shifted his foot from the accelerator to the brake and wrenched the wheel round; the rear wheels whipped round with a scream of skidding rubber, spun, bit at the road again, took hold, and catapulted the car forward again at right angles to its previous course as the Saint's toe returned to the accelerator.
"That's how these racing blokes do it," he explained.
Patricia lighted two cigarettes.
"What do they do when they want to turn quickly?" she inquired tranquilly.
The way Simon slanted one of the cigarettes between his lips was its own impudent answer. The vivid red stain in the sky was almost straight ahead of them now, growing so that it blotted out the stars, and they were rushing towards it down the narrow lane with the speed of a hurricane. They squealed round another bend, and once more the Saint jammed on the brakes. On their left was a half-timbered lodge beside broad iron gates that opened on to a curving drive.
"This should be it," said the Saint; and again the great car seemed to pivot on its locked front wheels to make the turn.
In another moment they had the acrid smell of burning wood sharp in their nostrils. They swept round a semicircular channel of trees, and in an instant they were caught full in the red glare as if they had been picked up by quivering floodlights. Simon let the Hirondel coast to a breathless standstill beside a broad close-cropped lawn and hitched himself up to sit on the back of the seat for a better view.
"It is a fire," he decided, with profound satisfaction.
It was. The whole lawn was lit up by it like a stage set, and a curtain of black smoke hung over it like a billowing curtain. The house was one of those old historic mansions whose lining of massive beams and mellowed panelling could be diagnosed at a glance, and it was going up like a pile of tinder. The fire seemed to have started on the ground floor, for huge gusts of flame were spouting from the open windows along the terrace and climbing like wind-ripped banners towards the roof, roaring with a boisterous glee that could be clearly heard even above the reduced splutter of the Hirondel's exhaust. The Saint drew at his cigarette and settled more firmly into his conviction that, judged by any pyrotechnical standards, it was a beaut.