The Saint looked at him steadily.
"I can give you some news," he said. "That is, if you haven't heard it already. I spent the afternoon going to London to see if I could catch Ralph Windlay, the man Kennet lived with, before an accident happened to him. I'm sure you'll be cheered to know that everything went off without a hitch and he was already dead when I got there."
There was a dead silence.
And then Lady Valerie Woodchester was tugging unconsciously at the Saint's arm. Her full lips were quivering and there was an expression of dazed horror on her face.
"Not Ralph?" she was saying shakily. "No… no, he can't have been murdered, too!"
The Saint's eyes went to her with an instant's brief compassion.
"I'm afraid so," he said. "Even our coroner here couldn't make out it was an accident. He was shot right between the eyebrows, and his brains were all over the carpet."
"The use of the word 'too' is interesting." Luker's impassive voice came levelly through the stillness. "If Kennet was murdered, somebody killed him and then set fire to the house. Within a few minutes Mr Templar arrives on the scene. It is he who suggests foul play. Then Kennet's friend Windlay is murdered, and again Mr Templar is first on the scene; again it is he who discovers that there has been foul play. It certainly appears to be a coincidence to which the attention of the police should be called."
Simon's bleak gaze took him up.
"Or you might mention it to the Sons of France," he said.