Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint s-4 Page 17

  Marius turned again at the sound of his voice.

  "And this is the last of you—you scum!" The sentence began as calmly as anything else that the giant had said, but the end of it was shrill and strident. "You have heard. You thought you had beaten me, and now you know that you have failed. Take that with you to your death! You fool! You have dared to make your puny efforts against me—me—Rayt Marius!"

  The giant stood at his full height, his gargantuan chest thrown out, his colossal fists raised and quivering.

  "You! You have dared to do that—you dog!"

  "Quate," said the Saint affably.

  And even as he spoke he braced himself for the blow that he could not possibly escape this time; and yet the impossible thing happened. With a frightful effort Marius mastered his fury for the last time; his fists unclenched, and his hands fell slowly to his sides.

  "Pah! But I should flatter you by losing my temper with you." Again the hideous face was a mask, and the thin, high-pitched voice was as smooth and suave as ever. "I should not like you to think that I was so interested in you, my dear Templar. Once you kicked me; once, when I was in your hands, you threatened me with torture; but I am not annoyed. I do not lose my temper with the mosquito who bites me. I simply kill the mos­quito."

  2

  A severed strand of rope slipped down the Saint's wrist, and he gathered it in cautiously. Already the cords were loosening. And the Saint smiled.

  "Really," he murmured, "that's awfully ruthless of you. But then, you strong, silent men are like that. . . . And are we all classified as mosquitos for this event?"

  Marius spread out his hands.

  "Your friend Conway, personally, is entirely unimportant," he said. "If only he had been wise enough to confine his adventurous instincts to activities which were within the limits of his in­telligence—" He broke off with a shrug. "However, he has elected to follow you into meddling with my affairs."

  "And Lessing?"

  "He also has interfered. Only at your in­stigation, it is true; but the result is the same."

  The Saint continued to smile gently.

  "I get you, Tiny Tim. And he also will have an unfortunate accident?"

  "It will be most unfortunate." Marius drew leisurely at his cigar before proceeding. "Let me tell you the story as far as it is known. You and your gang kidnapped Sir Isaac—for some reason unknown—and killed his servants when they attempted to resist you. You brought him out to Saltham—again for some reason unkown. You drove past this house on to the cliff road, and there—still for some reason unknown—your car plunged over the precipice. And if you were not killed by the fall, you were certainly burned to death in the fire which followed. . . . Those are the bare facts—but the theories which will be put forward to account for them should make most interesting reading."

  "I see," said the Saint very gently. "And now will you give us the low-down on the tragedy, honey-bunch? I mean, I'm the main squeeze in this blinkin' tear ——"

  "I do not understand all your expressions. If you mean that you would like to know how the accident will be arranged, I shall be delighted to explain the processes as they take place. We are just about to begin."

  He put down his cigar regretfully, and turned to the rope expert.

  "Prosser, you will find a car at the lodge gates. You will drive it out to the cliff road, and then drive it over the edge of the cliff. Endeavour not to drive yourself over with it. After this, you will return to the garage, take three or four tins of petrol, and carry them down the cliff path. You will go along the shore until you come to the wreckage of the car, and wait for me there."

  The Saint leaned even more lazily against the wall. And the cords had fallen away from his wrists. He had just managed to turn his hand and catch them as they fell.

  "I may be wrong," he remarked earnestly, as the door closed behind Mr. Prosser, "but I think you're marvellous. How do you do it, Angel Face?"

  "We will now have you gagged," said Marius unemotionally. "Ludwig, fetch some cloths."

  Stifling a cavernous yawn, the German roused himself from the corner and went out.

  And the Saint's smile could never have been more angelic.

  The miracle! ... He could scarcely believe it. And it was a copper-bottomed wow. It was too utterly superfluously superlative for words. . . . But the blowed-in-the-glass, brass-bound, seventy-five-point-three-five-over-proof fact was that the odds had been cut down by half.

  Quite casually, the Saint made sure of his angles.

  The Bowery Boy was exactly on his right; Marius, by the desk, was half left.

  And Marius was still speaking.

  "We take you to the top of the cliffs—bound, so that you cannot struggle, and gagged, so that you cannot cry out—and we throw you over. At the bottom we are ready to remove the ropes and the gags. We place you beside the car; the petrol is poured over you; a match. , . . And there is a most unfortunate accident. . . ."

  The Saint looked around.

  Instinctively Roger Conway had drawn closer to the girl. Ever afterwards the Saint treasured that glimpse of Roger Conway, erect and defiant, with fearless eyes.

  "And if the fall doesn't kill us?" said Roger distinctly.

  "It will be even more unfortunate," said Marius. "But for any one of you to be found with a bullet wound would spoil the effect of the ac­cident. Naturally, you will see my point. ..."

  There were other memories of that moment that the Saint would never forget. The silence of the girl, for instance, and the way Lessing's breath suddenly came with a choking sob. And the stolid disinterestedness of the Bowery Boy. And Lessing's sudden throaty babble of words. "Good God — Marius — you can't do a thing like that! You can't — you can't ——"

  And Roger's quiet voice again, cutting through the babble like the slash of a sabre.

  "Are we really stuck this time, Saint?"

  "We are not," said the Saint.

  He said it so gently that for a few seconds no one could have realized that there was a significant stone-cold deliberateness, infinitely too significant and stone-cold for bluff, about that very gen­tleness. And for those few seconds Lessing's hysterical incoherent babble went on, and the clock whirred to strike the hour. . . .

  And then Marius took a step forward.

  "Explain!"

  There was something akin to fear in the venomous crack of that one word, so that even Lessing's impotent blubbering died in his throat; and the Saint laughed.

  "The reason is in my pocket," he said softly. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Angel Face, my beautiful, but it's too late now ——"

  In a flash the giant was beside him, fumbling with his coat.

  "So! You will still be humorous. But perhaps, after all, you will not be thrown down the cliff before your car is set on fire ——''

  "The inside breast pocket, darlingest," mur­mured the Saint very softly.

  And he turned a little.

  He could see the bulge in the giant's pocket, where Roger's captured automatic had dragged the coat out of shape. And for a moment the giant's body cut off most of the Saint from the Bowery Boy's field of vision. And Marius was intent upon the Saint's breast pocket. . . .

  Simon's left hand leaped to its mark as swiftly and lightly as the hand of any professional pickpocket could have done. . . .

  "Don't move an inch, Angel Face!"

  The Saint's voice rang out suddenly like the crack of a whip—a voice of murderous menace, with a tang of tempered steel. And the automatic that backed it up was rammed into the giant's ribs with a savagery that made even Rayt Marius wince.

  "Not one inch—not half an inch, Angel Face," repeated that voice of tensile tungsten. "That's the idea. . . . And now talk quickly to Lingrove— quickly! He can't get a bead on me, and he's wondering what to do. Tell him! Tell him to drop his gun!"

  Marius's lips parted in a dreadful grin.

  And the Saint's voice rapped again through the stillness.

  "I'll cou
nt three. You die on the three. One!" The giant was looking into Simon's eyes, and they were eyes emptied of all laughter. Eyes of frozen ultramarine, drained of the last trace of human pity. . . . And Marius answered in a whisper.

  "Drop your gun, Lingrove."

  The reply came in a muffled thud on the carpet; but not for an instant did those inexorable eyes cease to bore into the giant's brain.

  "Is it down, Roger?" crisped the Saint, and Conway spoke the single necessary word.

  "Yes."

  "Right. Get over in that corner by the telephone, Lingrove." The Saint, with the tail of his eye, could see the Bowery Boy pass behind the giant's shoulder; and the way was clear. "Get over and join him, Angel Face. ..."

  Marius stepped slowly back; and the Saint slid silently along the wall until he was beside the door. And the door opened.

  As it opened it hid the Saint; and the German came right into the room. And then Simon closed the door gently, and had his back to it when the man whipped round and saw him.

  "Du bist me eine Blume," murmured the Saint cordially, and a glimmer of the old lazy laughter was trickling back into his voice. "Incidentally, I'll bet you haven't jumped like that for years. Never mind. It's very good for the liver. . . . And now would you mind joining your boss over in the corner, sweet Ludwig? And if you're a very good boy, perhaps I'll let you go to sleep. . . .'

  3

  "GOOD OLD SAINT!"

  The commendation was wrung spontaneously from Roger Conway's lips; and Simon Templar grinned.

  "Hustle along this way, son," he remarked, "and we'll have you loose in two flaps of a cow's pendulum. Then you can be making merry with that spare coil of hawser while I carry on with the good work ——Jump!"

  The last word detonated in the end of the speech like the fulmination of a charge of high explosive at the tail of a length of fuse. And Roger jumped— no living man could have failed to obey that trumpet-tongued command.

  A fraction of a second later he saw—or rather heard—the reason for it.

  As he crossed the room he had carelessly come between the Saint and Marius. And, as he jumped, ducking instinctively, something flew past the back of his neck, so close that the wind of it stirred his hair, and crashed into the wall where the Saint had been standing. Where the Saint had been standing; but Simon was a yard away by then. . . .

  As Roger straightened up he saw the Saint's automatic swinging round to check the rush that followed. And then he saw the telephone lying at the Saint's feet.

  "Naughty,'' said the Saint reproachfully.

  "Why didn't you shoot the swine?" snapped Roger, with reasonable irritation; but Simon only laughed.

  "Because I want him, sonny boy. Because it wouldn't amuse me to bounce him like that. It's too easy. I want our Angel Face for a fight. . . . And how I want him!"

  Roger's hands were free, but he stood staring at the Saint helplessly.

  He said suddenly, foolishly: "Saint—what do you mean? You couldn't possibly ——"

  "I'm going to have a damned good try. Shooting is good—for some people. But there are others that you want to get at with your bare hands. ..."

  Very gently Simon spoke—very, very gently. And Roger gazed in silent wonder at the bleak steel in the blue eyes, and the supple poise of the wide limber shoulders, and the splendid lines of that reckless fighting face; and he could not find anything to say.

  And then the Saint laughed again.

  "But there are other things to attend to first. Grab that rope and do your stuff, old dear—and mind you do it well. And leave that iron on the floor for a moment—we don't want anyone to infringe our patent in that pickpocket trick."

  A moment later he was cutting the ropes away from Sonia Delmar's wrists. Lessing came next; and Lessing was as silent during the operation as the girl had been, but for an obviously different reason. He was shaking like a leaf; and, after one comprehensive glance at him, Simon turned again to the girl.

  "How d'you feel, lass?" he asked; and she smiled.

  "All right, "she said.

  "Just pick up that gun, would you? . . . D'you think you could use it?"

  She weighed the Bowery Boy's automatic thoughtfully in her hand.

  "I guess I could, Simon."

  "That's great!" Belle was back in the Saint's sleeve, and he put out his free hand and drew her towards him. "Now, park yourself right over here, sweetheart, so that they can't rush you. Have you got them covered?"

  "Sure."

  "Attababy. And don't take your pretty eyes off the beggars till Roger's finished his job. Ike, you flop into that chair and faint in your own time. If you come blithering into the line of fire it'll be your funeral. . . . Sonia, d'you feel really happy?"

  "Why?"

  "Could you be a real hold-up wizard for five or ten minutes, all on your ownsome?"

  She nodded slowly.

  "I'd do my best, big boy."

  "Then take this other gat as well." He pressed it into her hand. "I'm leaving you to it, old dear— I've got to see a man about a sort of dog, and it's blamed urgent. But I'll be right back. If you have the least sign of trouble let fly. The only thing I ask is that you don't kill Angel Face—not fatally, that is .... S'long!"

  He waved a cheery hand, and was gone—before Roger, who had been late in divining his intention, could ask him why he went.

  But Roger had not understood Hermann's mission.

  And even the Saint had taken fully a minute to realize the ultimate significance of the way that hurtling telephone had smashed into the wall; but there was nothing about it that he did not realize now, as he raced down the long, dark drive. That had been a two-edged effort—by all the gods! It was a blazing credit to the giant's lightning grasp on situations—a desperate bid for salvation, and simultaneously a vindictive defiance. And the thought of that last motive lent wings to the Saint's feet. . . .

  He reached the lodge gates and looked up and down the road; but he could see no car. And then, as he paused there, he heard, quite distinctly, the unmistakable snarl of the Hirondel with an open throttle.

  The Saint spun round.

  An instant later he was flying up the road as if a thousand devils were baying at his heels.

  He tore round a bend, and thought he could recognize a clump of trees in the gloom ahead. If he was right, he must be getting near the cliff. The snarl of the Hirondel was louder. . . .

  He must have covered the last hundred yards in a shade under evens. And then, as he rounded the last corner, he heard a splintering crash.

  With a shout he flung himself forward. And yet he knew that it was hopeless. For one second he had a glimpse of the great car rearing like a stricken beast on the brink of the precipice, with its wide flaming eyes hurling a long white spear of light into the empty sky; and then the light went out, and down the cliff side went the roar of the beast and a racking, tearing thunder of breaking shrubs and battered rocks and shattering metal. . . . And then another crash. And a silence. . . .

  The Saint covered the rest of the distance quite calmly; and the man who stood in the road did not try to turn. Perhaps he knew it would be useless.

  "Mr. Prosser, I believe?" said the Saint caressingly.

  The man stood mute, with his back to the gap which the Hirondel had torn through the flimsy rails at the side of the road. And Simon Templar faced him.

  "You've wrecked my beautiful car," said the Saint, in the same caressing tone.

  And suddenly his fist smashed into the man's face; and Mr. Prosser reeled back, and went down without a sound into the silence.

  4

  WHICH WAS CERTAINLY very nice and jolly, reflected the Saint, as he walked slowly back to the house. But not noticeably helpful. . . .

  He walked slowly because it was his habit to move slowly when he was thinking. And he had a lot to think about. The cold rage that had possessed him a few minutes before had gone altogether: the prime cause of it had been duly dealt with, and the next thing was to weigh up
the consequences and face the facts.

  For all the threads were now in his hands, all ready to be wormed and parcelled and served and put away—all except one. And that one was now more important than all the others. And it was utterly out of his reach—not even the worst that he could do to Marius could recall it or change its course. . . .

  "Did you get your dog, old boy?" Roger Conway's cheerful accents greeted him as he opened the door of the library; but the Saintly smile was unusually slow to respond.

  "Yes and no." Simon answered after a short pause. "I got it, but not soon enough."

  The smile had gone again; and Roger frowned puzzledly.

  "What was the dog?" he asked.

  "The late Mr. Prosser," said the Saint carefully, and Roger jumped to one half of the right con­clusion.

  "You mean he'd crashed the car?"

  "He had crashed the car."

  The affirmative came flatly, precisely, coldly— in a way that Roger could not understand.

  And the Saint's eyes roved round the room without expression, taking in the three bound men in the corner, and Lessing in a chair, and Sonia Delmar beside Roger, and the telephone on the floor. The Saint's cigarette case lay on the desk where Marius had thrown it; and the Saint walked over in silence and picked it up.

  "Well?" prompted Roger, and was surprised by the sound of his own voice.

  The Saint had lighted a cigarette. He crossed the room again with the cigarette between his lips, and picked up the telephone. He looked once at the frayed ends of the flex; and then he held the in­strument close to his ear and shook it gently.

  And then he looked at Roger.

  "Have you forgotten Hermann?" he asked quietly.

  "I had forgotten him for the moment, Saint. But ——"

  "And those boxes he took with him—had you guessed what they were?''

  "I hadn't."

  Simon Templar nodded. "Of course," he said. "You wouldn't know what it was all about. But I'm telling you now, just to break it gently to you, that the Hirondel's been crashed and the telephone's bust, and those two things together may very well mean the end of peace on earth for God knows how many years. But you were just thinking we'd won the game, weren't you?"