"Yes, I checked up on her," said Peter Quentin, sipping his whisky and soda. "She lives in Welbeck Street, and she runs one of those ultra dress shops in Bond Street. You know the kind of thing — an enormous window with nothing in it but a chromium-plated whatnot with one evening wrap hanging on it and no price tickets."
"It all fits in," said the Saint soberly. "That load of dresses and whoosits that we knocked off a fortnight ago — that's where they would have gone. She probably took a trip to Paris herself and spent a gorgeous week getting them together. What about Lasser?"
"Nothing that isn't public property anyway. But I found out from Lloyd's that he's the owner of a 300-ton steam yacht called the Valkyrie. He's also the owner of a house on Gad Cliff, and if you look at the map you'll see that it overlooks Brandy Bay. It's supposed to have been unoccupied and left in charge of a caretaker for about a couple of years, but we don't have to take the caretaker too seriously."
Peter Quentin had been a rather serious young man since the Saint had told him the complete story over the telephone that morning, and curiously enough he had refrained from making any of the obvious gibes which Simon had been fully prepared for. He had arrived late in the afternoon after what clearly could not have been an idle morning.
The Saint moved up and down the long living room of the Old Barn for a moment with the silent restlessness and pent-up energy of a caged tiger.
"I've been going over all that we had from Pargo," he said, "and all the things we'd been trying to get sorted out before. And it all seems so simple now that it almost makes you howl."
Peter didn't interrupt him; and the Saint took another turn round the room and went on:
"What we've been up against all the time was that there seemed to be three separate gangs without any connecting link. There was one gang that brought the stuff across the Channel in some sort of ship. The stuff was brought ashore in small boats and handed over to the shore gang, and none of 'em ever saw the ship that brought it in daylight. The ship always had her lights out, and they could never even find out the first thing about her. Pargo was one of the shore gang, and I'm beginning to think now that he ought to have known where the stuff was stored; but probably he was holding out on us to get as much money as he could. Anyway all the rest he knew was that the shore gang drove trucks to London and parked them wherever they'd been told to and went away, and somebody else came along later and picked up the truck and took it wherever it was going. That, presumably, was the third gang — the distributing gang. And none of the three gangs met anywhere except at the top, which we couldn't get near."
"Unless they all met at the same top."
"Of course I had been thinking of that. But there was no actual proof that it was the same top; and in any case we didn't know where the top was. The point is that every lead petered out as soon as it started to get interesting. It was the perfect setup — three separate outfits doing separate shares in the same job, and none of 'em making any contact with the others except in places that were practically leak-proof. And now they all blow up together."
"Off the same fuse," commented Peter economically.
The Saint nodded.
"That's what it means. The top is the same — right the way through. This steamboat of Lasser's — the Valkyrie — brings the stuff over the Channel. That's a cinch. A private yacht can go anywhere and no questions asked. He could keep her in Southampton Water, push off for a week-end cruise, say he was going to Torquay or anywhere, scoot over the Channel and pick up his cargo. There's probably a fourth gang on the other side, which just collects contraband for some smugglers unknown. And it's only about seventy miles straight across from Cherbourg to Brandy Bay. The Valkyrie comes back and sends the stuff ashore and steams back to Southampton Water, and nobody knows where she's been or bothers to ask… There's a coastguard station at Worbarrow Head and another one on the far side of Kimmeridge Bay; but Brandy Bay is hidden from both of 'em, and coast guarding is pretty much of a dead letter these days."
"And the shore gang picks it up—"
"Under the same orders. It wouldn't be too hard for Lasser to organize that. And then it goes out to the great unsuspecting public, nicely mixed up with any amount of genuine duty-paid legitimate liquor through the central warehouses of Lasser's Wine Stores, Limited — who don't know where it came from, any of the guys who handle it, but just take it as part of the day's work. What's that advertising line of theirs? 'Butlers to the Nation.' It's not a bad line either, from the experience I've had of butlers."
Peter lowered the level in his glass an inch further.
"Apart from what goes rustling around the limbs of the aristocracy from the salons of Brenda et Cie," he remarked.
"Apart from that," Simon agreed unemotionally. "But it all works out so beautifully that we ought to have been on to it months ago."
"I should have been," said Peter, "if you hadn't got in the way. And now it's all so simple. You keep on chasing the shore gang and finding bodies on the doorstep while I sit out on Gad Cliff with a telescope every night catching pneumonia and watching for the smuggling gang, and Hoppy puts on some lipstick and ankles up and down Bond Street looking for chiffon brassieres with bottles of whisky in them. I don't know what happens about this fourth gang you've invented on the French side, but I suppose you can always find somebody else to keep track of them." Peter drank deeply and looked around for a refill. "As you said just now it's so childishly simple that it almost makes you howl."
The Saint regarded him pityingly.
"I've always approved of these birds who want to strangle imbecile children at birth," he said. "And now I think I shall send them a donation. You ineffable fathead — what do these assorted gangs amount to? It doesn't matter if there are four of them or forty. They're only stooges, like poor old Pargo. Knock the kingpin out, and they all fall apart. Take one man in, and they all go for the same ride. All we want is Lasser, and we can call it a day."
"Just like poor old Pargo," said Peter, sotto voce. He looked up from manipulating the siphon. "What happened to him, by the way?"
"We took him down to Lymington and borrowed a boat while the tide was going out. If he ever gets washed up again anywhere he'll be another headache for Chief Inspector Teal; but we had to do something with him."
"Probably that's one reason why he was left here," said Peter intelligently.
Simon was kindling the latest cigarette in a chain that had already filled an ash tray. He saw that it was burning evenly and crushed the preceding fag end into the heap of wreckage.
"That was one obvious motive — bodies being troublesome things to get rid of," he said. "The other, of course, was pour encourager les autres. I've been expecting some more direct encouragement all day, but it hasn't materialized yet. I don't suppose it'll be long now, though."
Mr Uniatz, who had been silent for a long time except for intermittent glugging noises produced by the bottle beside him, stirred himself abruptly and consulted his watch with the earnest air of a martyr who realizes that he is next in line for the lions. His intrusion after such a long absence seemed so portentous that both Peter and the Saint turned towards him with what must have been a disconcerting expectancy. Mr Uniatz blinked at them with his nightmare features creased in the grooves of noble self-abnegation.
"Boss," he said, with some embarrassment, "what's de next train to London?"
"Train?" said the Saint blankly.
"Yes, boss. I t'ought you an' Mr Quentin'd be busy, so ya wouldn't wanta drive me dere, an' dey ain't no udder car—"
The Saint studied him anxiously.
"You aren't feeling ill or anything, are you?" he asked. "But you don't have to worry about the ungodly giving us some more encouragement. Peter and I will hold your hand if there's any rough stuff."
"Encouragement?" repeated Mr Uniatz foggily. He shook his head, as one who was suddenly confronted with a hopelessly outlandish twist of thought. "I dunno, boss… But ya said I gotta go to Bond Street an' look for braseers wit' bottles in dem. Dat's okay wit' me," said Mr Uniatz, squaring his shoulders heroically, "but if any a dese dames t'ink I'm gettin' fresh—"
Simon readjusted himself hastily to the pace of a less volatile intellect.
"That's all right, Hoppy," he said reassuringly. "We're putting that idea on the shelf for the moment. You just stick around with us and keep your Betsy ready."
Mr Uniatz's eyes lighted tentatively with the dawn of hope.
"You mean I don't gotta go to London?"
"No."
"Or—"
"No."
Hoppy drew a deep breath.
"Chees, boss," he said, speaking from the heart, "dat's great!"
His bottle glugged again expressively.
"We haven't any other ideas," Peter explained dis-hearteningly, "but that doesn't matter."
The Saint's eyes mocked him with dancing pin points of silent laughter. During that day the Saint's cold anger of the night before seemed to have worn off, although the inexorable pith of it was still perceptible in the fine-drawn core of steel that seemed to underlie his outward languor. But now it was masked by something more vital: the mad gay recklessness that came around him like a mantle of sunlight when the hunt was up and the fanfares of adventure were sounding out in the open.
"You're wrong," he said. "We've got a much better idea. I had a telegram this afternoon — it was phoned through from Lyndhurst just before you arrived. I've been saving it up for you." He picked up the scrap of paper on which he had scribbled the message down. "It says: 'Your car will be at the Broken Sword in Tyneham at nine-fifteen tonight.' It isn't signed, and anyhow it wouldn't have mattered much who signed it. It didn't originate from any of these assorted gangs we've been talking about — otherwise why be so very accurate about the time? It means that the master mind is taking a hand, just as I prophesied last night, and whatever happens he won't be far away. It's bait of course; and we're going to bite!"