"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."