The Saint's Getaway Page 21
He pushed one of them into Patricia's hands.
"Over the landing, and take any of the rooms opposite. Some of 'em are trying to break in at the back. Keep "em away from the door. Don't hit anyone if you can help it—and don't get hit yourself!"
He flung himself across to the window which he had opened before. Some of the policemen were keeping back the crowd of civilians who had materialized from nowhere; others were standing in groups watching the police station, and the Saint's appearance was the signal for a scattered fusillade. Another man was running across the street with an axe.
Bullets chipped the window frame and scraped showers of plaster from the ceiling as the Saint took aim. He dropped the man with the axe with a flesh wound in the fleshy part of his leg; another man picked up the axe and rushed for the main doors. Simon spread a curtain of clattering steel along the cobbles in front of the man's feet and checked the rush. It was certain suicide to take a step further into that rain of spattering death. The officer shouted a command, and the man ran back with the Saint slamming bullets round his feet.
The police retired behind the shelter of their cars, and paused. Simon saw the peak of the officer's cap rise up, and sent it flying with a well aimed shot. The man sank down again, and Simon proceeded methodically to plug the tires of the police cars. A couple of volunteers were carrying the wounded man away, and the Saint let them get on with it.
A lull descended on the street side of the battle, and through it Simon heard Patricia's rifle across the landing spitting its syncopated stutter of defiance. He waited, ramming a fresh feeder of ammunition into the clips.
Then another order rang out, and the police leapt up as one man in a second and better organized attack.
One squad charged for the door, headed by the man with the axe. The others covered their advance with a storm of fire that went whistling round the Saint's head like a cloud of angry hornets. Simon made his Luger belch lead till the barrel scalded his hands. It was a miracle that he was not hit himself, while he sprayed shots along the armour of the police cars and sent volleys of ricochets whining away off the cobble stones. One shot clipped his ear and drew blood: he shook his head and crowded a new box of cartridges onto the Luger's hungry breech.
Suddenly he found Monty Hayward beside him, automatic raised, taking aim. The Saint caught his wrist and dragged him away.
"You stay out of it!" he snarled. "I didn't take all this trouble just for you to get a bullet through your head, and I didn't clear you of one set of charges so that you could be pinched for shooting policemen."
Monty Hayward looked him in the eyes.
"That be damned for a yarn——"
"And you be damned for a fool. Your job is to look after Rudolf. What're you doing about him?"
"I knocked him out and left him," said Monty calmly.
The Saint looked round. He saw the prince lolling back in his chair with his face turned vacuously to the ceiling—and also he saw that the cabinet door was wide open, and the police chief and his inspector were standing in the room.
"What do you mean—you cleared me?" said Monty Hayward.
Simon turned him round by the shoulders.
"Rudolf's confession was heard. I arranged it like that— that's why I made him answer me, and got rather theatrical in the process. But it worked. You're clear, Monty—and if you do anything silly now those same men will be witnesses against you."
Monty looked at the white-haired police chief and then back to the Saint. His mouth set in a stubborn line.
"I told you I'd see it through with you," he said.
He flung off the Saint's hand and went back to the window. Then he felt the Saint's gun in his back.
"I mean it, Monty. If you don't stay out I'll plug you. Or else I'll lay you out as you laid out Rudolf. Don't be a fool!" They eyed each other steadily, while the guns outside thundered and chattered erratically. The regular thudding of the axe at the front doors resonated up through the building. And the Saint's face softened. "Monty, it's been swell having you. But you've done your share. Leave this to me."
He swung back to the window with his rifle coming up to his shoulder. Again the hysterical rattle of the Luger battered through the room, like a sheet of tin jabbed against a fast-moving fly-wheel. Simon poured the bullets round the knot of men clustered in the doorway, kicking up little spurts of dust and powdered stone from the cobbles. The fury of his fire drove them back for a moment; then a shot from the barrage that rained through the window struck the side of his gun, numbing his hands and hurling him backwards with the impact. When he tried to bring a fresh cartridge into the chamber he found that the action had jammed.
He threw the useless weapon across the room and dashed through the door. Out on the landing the sounds of thudding and smashing timber were louder, and he knew that the minutes of the front door's resistance were numbered. He took no notice. In a moment he was back, hauling a Nordenfeld machine gun behind him.
"They shall have everything but the kitchen sink," he said; and Monty saw that he was smiling.
Monty stood and watched him drag the heavy gun to the window and set it up so that it pointed down at the nearest squad car. A full belt of cartridges was clamped through the slots, and the Saint jerked at the cocking lever to make sure of its smooth running. He fanned a burst along the street; and then he straightened up.
"It's been a great day," Monty," he said.
He glanced round the room.
Prince Rudolf was rousing again, staring as if hypnotized at the police chief and the inspector who were gazing down at him. The meaning of their presence was writing itself over his brain in letters of fire. Then he turned his head and saw the Saint.
He struggled to his feet. One of the things that Simon would always remember was the Crown Prince's last charming smile, and the gesture of those eloquent hands.
"After all, my dear young friend," said the prince gently, "you have not disappointed me."
The Saint looked at him without answering.
Then he turned to the desk and picked up a flat ebony ruler, He went with it to the machine gun and rammed it through the firing handles, locking down the trigger button, and the Nordenfeld started a continuous crackling as the breech sucked in the long belt of ammunition.
Simon left it and faced Monty again.
"Good luck, old lad," he said.
The Saint's hand was out, and the blue eyes smiled. Monty Hayward found himself without words, though there were questions still teeming in his mind. But he took the Saint's hand in a firm grip.
He felt a last strong touch on his shoulder, and the Saint laughed. And then Simon Templar was gone.
Monty Hayward heard him across the landing, calling to Patricia. The firing from the other room ceased. Their footsteps went down the stairs.
Monty stood where he was. He wondered whether those two splendid outlaws were choosing to go out as they had lived, in a blaze of their own glory and the stabbing flames of guns, making one last desperate bid for freedom. And he didn't know. His brain had gone hazy. He saw the Crown Prince fingering a button on his coat, saw the prince's hand go to his mouth; but still he didn't move—not even when Nina Walden cried out, and the prince sat down quietly like a tired man. . . . The door below was breaking in. He could hear every blow pounding through the heart of the seasoned oak, and the hoarse voices of the men working. There was less firing outside, but the Nordenfeld with the jammed trigger still played the crackling message of the man who had gone,
A long time afterwards—it might have been centuries, or it might have been a few seconds—Monty Hayward went to the window and stood beside the gun, looking out.
He saw the front doors give way, and the grey-uniformed men pouring in. He heard their boots clattering up the stairs, heard them pounding on the door of the room where he was, shouting for it to be opened. A bullet crashed through the panels and flattened itself on the wall a yard to his left. Still he did not move. The Saint
had locked the door as he went out and taken the key. The police chief bawled something to that effect, and a dozen shoulders tore the door from its hinges. Policemen filled the room.
Monty knew that the gun at his side gave a last expiring cough and went silent; that the room was a babel of voices; that Nina Walden was standing beside him and looking out also; that men were shaking him, barking their questions in his ear. He knew all those things, but they were only vague impressions in the haze of his memories.
What he saw, and saw clearly, was a figure in field grey that came out of the main doors with the limp form of a fair-haired girl slung over his shoulder. Monty saw the crowd surge round them, heard the uniformed man's curt explanation murmured from lip to lip through the crowd, and made out the word "venvundet" in it. He saw a passage open up through the mob, and the girl carried through on the shoulder of the grey uniform to the Crown Prince's Rolls. He saw the yellow car begin to move slowly through the milling crowd, gaining speed as it won through the densest part, with the grey uniform at the wheel and the girl beside him in the front seat. And he saw, he would have sworn he saw, that as the yellow car reached the open street and whirled away into the night, the driver raised one hand in gay debonair wave—even before another man appeared on the station steps with a shout of revelation that was taken up in the furious rumbling of a thousand throats.
Still Monty Hayward stood there, not hearing the impatient voices round him, not answering them; a free man, living again the unforgettable hours of his adventure and seeing all his life ahead. So he would go back to his life. And the Saint would go on. For it was thus that their paths led them. There would be a chase, but the police cars had already been disabled. There would be cordons, but the Saint would slip through them. There would be armed men at every frontier, but those two would still get away. He knew they would get away.
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