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Authors: Leslie Charteris
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thought.
T feel mean this morning. How about a … a blue tie with purple spots?’
‘Immediately, master,’ said Galaxy.
A moment later she returned from the wardrobe with a blue tie infected with spots so gorgeously purple as to make a grape turn raisin with envy. Simon sighed and knotted it around his neck.
‘Okay, Friday, you win. Let’s get on to the confrontation.’
Galaxy Rose held Simon’s jacket for him, and led him to the door of his room. Her hand caught his wrist as he started to turn the burnished steel knob.
‘You should know better than that,’ she said. ‘Or do you like the sound of loud bells?’
The Saint’s memory ranged back over the Charles Lake adventures he had read.
‘Electronic locks,’ he said, ‘controlled from a central station. But don’t tell me you have the fingerprint scanning device.’
‘Of course we do.’
Simon was impressed.
‘But it doesn’t really exist,’ he argued. ‘I just made it up.’
‘It exists now,’ Galaxy told him. ‘Warlock says that one of the beauties of your imagination is that the things you come up with almost always really would work, if only somebody took the trouble to make them.’
She pointed to a small, faintly glowing translucent disc set into the wall beside the door handle. She pressed her thumb against it for two seconds, while supposedly (Simon was not entirely convinced that the system was genuine) a photo-electric cell scanned the thumbprint and transmitted its pattern to the memory bank of a central computer which made its recognition and signalled approval by electrically unlocking the door.
‘Warlock is very thorough,’ said the Saint.
There was a light ping as the lock was disengaged. He turned the handle without producing a fusillade of alarm bells, and Galaxy Rose preceded him into the hallway.
‘This way to the stairs,’ she said.
The hall, simply carpeted and devoid of furnishings, had none of the luxury-hotel quality that had characterized the Saint’s room. Except for the carpet, it reminded him of the spotlessly clean and purely utilitarian companionway of a ship. He could imagine the exotic gadgets which might reside behind some of the metal panels in the white walls. And the circular grids in the ceiling probably protected more interesting devices than mere electric light bulbs. There were numbered doors at intervals on either side of the corridor; all were closed.
Simon, still a little dazed by the sheer implausibility of everything that had happened to him, was somewhat like a man in a dream who is telling himself that he’s only dreaming and that he must wake up. He wanted to maintain his scepticism, to remind himself that the statements he had heard made about this building and its occupants were too far-fetched to believe. Yet he had been given evidence that the claims had at least some foundation to them. For the time being he could only go along with the gag, keep himself ready for anything, and hope that his future experiences with the Secret World Organization for Retribution and Destruction would be even a fraction as pleasant as his room, his breakfast, and Galaxy Rose.
The corridor opened on to the landing of a wide staircase which led down to a large living room furnished eighteenth-century style, enriched with armour, landscape paintings, and neo-classic sculpture. The room was in no way particularly different from the main reception room of any other English country mansion, except for one thing: he had the unsettling experience of deja vu, as if he knew the place intimately and yet at the same time knew that he had never been there. Then he realized the reason for the sensation: the room had been described in Amos Klein’s books, and the designer of the room in which Simon now stood had gone to great pains to duplicate every detail.
Galaxy was watching her charge’s reactions, half-smiling at his bemusement.
‘Something wrong?’ she asked.
‘No. It’s just that everything’s
T feel mean this morning. How about a … a blue tie with purple spots?’
‘Immediately, master,’ said Galaxy.
A moment later she returned from the wardrobe with a blue tie infected with spots so gorgeously purple as to make a grape turn raisin with envy. Simon sighed and knotted it around his neck.
‘Okay, Friday, you win. Let’s get on to the confrontation.’
Galaxy Rose held Simon’s jacket for him, and led him to the door of his room. Her hand caught his wrist as he started to turn the burnished steel knob.
‘You should know better than that,’ she said. ‘Or do you like the sound of loud bells?’
The Saint’s memory ranged back over the Charles Lake adventures he had read.
‘Electronic locks,’ he said, ‘controlled from a central station. But don’t tell me you have the fingerprint scanning device.’
‘Of course we do.’
Simon was impressed.
‘But it doesn’t really exist,’ he argued. ‘I just made it up.’
‘It exists now,’ Galaxy told him. ‘Warlock says that one of the beauties of your imagination is that the things you come up with almost always really would work, if only somebody took the trouble to make them.’
She pointed to a small, faintly glowing translucent disc set into the wall beside the door handle. She pressed her thumb against it for two seconds, while supposedly (Simon was not entirely convinced that the system was genuine) a photo-electric cell scanned the thumbprint and transmitted its pattern to the memory bank of a central computer which made its recognition and signalled approval by electrically unlocking the door.
‘Warlock is very thorough,’ said the Saint.
There was a light ping as the lock was disengaged. He turned the handle without producing a fusillade of alarm bells, and Galaxy Rose preceded him into the hallway.
‘This way to the stairs,’ she said.
The hall, simply carpeted and devoid of furnishings, had none of the luxury-hotel quality that had characterized the Saint’s room. Except for the carpet, it reminded him of the spotlessly clean and purely utilitarian companionway of a ship. He could imagine the exotic gadgets which might reside behind some of the metal panels in the white walls. And the circular grids in the ceiling probably protected more interesting devices than mere electric light bulbs. There were numbered doors at intervals on either side of the corridor; all were closed.
Simon, still a little dazed by the sheer implausibility of everything that had happened to him, was somewhat like a man in a dream who is telling himself that he’s only dreaming and that he must wake up. He wanted to maintain his scepticism, to remind himself that the statements he had heard made about this building and its occupants were too far-fetched to believe. Yet he had been given evidence that the claims had at least some foundation to them. For the time being he could only go along with the gag, keep himself ready for anything, and hope that his future experiences with the Secret World Organization for Retribution and Destruction would be even a fraction as pleasant as his room, his breakfast, and Galaxy Rose.
The corridor opened on to the landing of a wide staircase which led down to a large living room furnished eighteenth-century style, enriched with armour, landscape paintings, and neo-classic sculpture. The room was in no way particularly different from the main reception room of any other English country mansion, except for one thing: he had the unsettling experience of deja vu, as if he knew the place intimately and yet at the same time knew that he had never been there. Then he realized the reason for the sensation: the room had been described in Amos Klein’s books, and the designer of the room in which Simon now stood had gone to great pains to duplicate every detail.
Galaxy was watching her charge’s reactions, half-smiling at his bemusement.
‘Something wrong?’ she asked.
‘No. It’s just that everything’s
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