The Saint Meets the Tiger

Chapter XIV CAPTAIN PATRICIA

"He branded me — the Tiger — " Agatha Girton's voice was pitched hysterically. "By God .. ."

Her face had become the face of a fiend. Hard and grim it always was — now, with smears of blood from brow to chin and her hair straggling damply over her temples, it was devilish.

"I'll get even for this one day.... I'll make him crawl.... Red-hot irons are too good for that — "

"But, Aunt Agatha — "

Patricia was full of questions, and it seemed the right moment to let some of them off, but Miss Girton turned on her like a wild beast, and the girl recoiled a step from the blaze of fury in those smouldering eyes.

"Go away."

"Was that the man who's been blackmailing you?"

"Go away."

"And is he the Tiger?"

Miss Girton took a pace forward and pointed to the door.

"Leave me, child," she said in a'terrible voice. "Go back to your Saint before I forget — If you aren't outside in a second I'll throw you out."

She meant it. Patricia had never seen and hoped she would never see again a woman's face so contorted with passion. There was nothing to do.

"Very well," said Patricia steadily. "I'll go I hope you won't be sorry."

"Go, then."

The girl flung up her head and marched to the door.

Go back to Simon? She would. There wasn't much risk about walking over to the Pill Box, she thought, and the feel of the automatic in her pocket gave her all the courage she needed. The Saint wouldn't be expecting her, but he could hardly object, considering the news she was bringing him. It had been an eventful afternoon — more eventful than he could possibly have foreseen — and, since there was nothing more that she could achieve on her own, it was essential that he should be provided with all the news up to date.

The time had passed quickly. It was twenty to seven when she set out: she came in sight of the Pill Box toward a quarter past, having taken it easy, and by that time it was nearly dark.

The sea shone like dull silver, reflecting all the last rays of twilight, and from the top of the cliff Patricia strained to see the ship they had observed that morning. She thought she could make out the tiniest of black dots on the horizon, but she would not have sworn to it. That was the ship that the Saint and Orace and she were scheduled to capture by themselves, and the monumental audacity of the scheme made her smile. But it was just because the scheme was so impossible that the prospect of attempting to carry it out did not bother her at all: it was the sort of reckless dare-devil thing that people did in books and films, the forlorn hope that always materialized in time to provide a happy ending. She could think of no precedent for it in real life, and therefore the only thing to go by was the standard of fiction — according to which it was bound to succeed. But she wondered if any man living except the Saint — her Saint — would have had the imagination to think of it, the courage to work out the idea in all seriousness, the heroic foolhardiness to try and bring it off, and the personality to captain the adventure. She and Orace were nothing but his devoted lieutenants: the whole fate of the long hazard rested on the Saint's broad shoulders.

With a shrug and a smile that showed her perfect teeth — a smile of utter fearlessness that Simon would have loved to see — the girl turned away and strolled across to the Pill Box. There was a light in the embrasure which she knew served for a window in the dining-drawing-smoking-sitting room, but when she peeped in she saw only Orace laying dinner. She went in and he swung round at the sound other footsteps.

She was amused but perplexed to see his face light up and then fall again as he recognized her.

"Where's Mr. Templar?" she asked, and he almost glared at her.

"Baek ut art pas'sevin," he growled.

He picked up his tray and stalked off toward the kitchen, and the girl stared after him in puzzlement. Orace, though a martinet, was only actually rude to Tiger Cubs and detectives: she had already seen through his mask of ferocity and discovered the kindly humanist underneath. On the last occasion of his escorting her home his manner had been even paternal, for Simon Templar's friends were Grace's friends. But this, now, was a ruffled Orace.

She followed him to the kitchen.

"Can I help you with anything? She inquired cheerfully.

"Naow, don't think sa, miss," he replied gruffly. "I'm use ter mannidging alone — thanks."

"Then could you tell me where Mr. Templar's gone? I could walk on and meet him."

Orace hammered the point of a tin opener into a can of salmon with quite unnecessary violence.

"Dunno anythink about it," he said. "You can betcha life, miss, 'e'll be 'ome when 'e said 'e would, if 'e can 'umanly possibly do ut. Most thunderin' punctual man alive, 'e is, an 'e'll come in the door just when the clock strikes. So yer got nuffin ta worry about."

He ended on a more gentle note, but there was no doubt that he was very upset.

"Why — has anything happened to make you think I'd be likely to worry?" Patricia queried, with her heart thumping a little faster. "Was he going to do anything special this afternoon?"

"Naaow!"snarled Orace, unconvincingly derisive, and went on hacking at the tin.

The girl went back to the sitting room and dropped into a chair. The Saint's cigarette box was handy to her elbow, and she took a cigarette and lighted it thoughtfully.

Whether she was intended to worry or not, there could be no denying the obvious fact that Orace was distinctly agitated. She found it was twenty minutes and a bit past seven, and wondered if the Saint would be as punctual as Orace had predicted, and whether they would have to assume that something had happened to him if he hadn't arrived within five minutes of the half-hour. Where could he have gone? There was nothing to be done about the Tiger's ship at that hour. Had he gone on a preliminary reconnaissance of the island? Had he taken it into his head to inspect the Old House at closer quarters? Or had he gone over to beard Bittle or Bloem again — the sort of senseless bravado that would give a man like him a thrill?

She watched the minute hand of her watch travel down to the twenty-five-past mark, and reflected that she had been spending a good deal other time lately with one eye on the clock, wondering if the Saint was going to be punctual or not. Heavens; he wasn't the only one who could be worried!

Orace came in and laid a place for her. Then he lugged an enormous silver turnip from his trousers pocket.

"In a minnit er two," he said. "Thunderin’ punctual, 'e always is."

He nodded to her encouragingly, and strutted out. She heard his boots on the concrete floor outride, and guessed that he had gone to the entrance to see if he could spot the Saint coming up the hill.

At twenty-five to eight there was still no sign of the Saint.

Patricia took to moving restlessly about the room. She felt suddenly depressed. The Saint had gone swashbuckling off into the blue, without a word to anyone — and had blasted his reputation for punctuality. He might have been in so many different places, trying to do so many different things: she raged at her helplessness. She could only wait and wait and wait, and he'd either turn up or he wouldn't. No clue... Anything might have happened to him. She racked her brains to deduce where he would be most likely to have gone, and an appalling number of possibilities made faces at her and invited her to take her pick.

Orace came in again. He had taken off his apron and put on his coat and a cap. One of his pockets bulged and sagged.

"I'm gonna see if I can find 'im, miss," he said. "But wiv yore permission I'll see you 'ome fust."

She stood up ''

"Where are you going?"

"Jus' lookin' rahnd, miss. 'E tole me wun or two plyces ta try. I'll find 'im orlright — don' chew worry."

"I'll come with you,” she said at once.

He shook his head.

"Carn't 'ave ya doin' that. 'Fennything wuz ta 'appen ta yer, 'e'd kill me."

"Where do we go first?" she demanded, ignoring his reply.

"Where do Igo first he amended. Well, I can tell ya that."

He fished the Saint's note out of his pocket and gave it to her. She read it through with growing apprehension. It had somehow failed to occur to her that he would automatically spend the time before evening in investigating the second possibility of the Old House — the disused inn behind the village. That was where he must have gone. Perhaps he had been trapped there....

"Come on," she rapped, and led the way.

Outside, she took the path which led down to the inland end of the village, instead of the one which led to the opposite tor by way of the quay, and Orace hurried after her and caught her arm.

"Wrong wy, miss," he said.

She looked at him.

"This is the way I'm going."

"Sorry, miss," he persisted. "I carn't letcha do that."

"Can't you?" she said slowly. "I'm sorry, but I must. I'll show you — "

With a lightning twist she shook off his hand and ran. She could hear him racing lamely after her, shouting and imploring her to stop and think what the Saint would say, but she ran on like the wind. She went down the slope at break-neck speed, sure-footed as a cat, but Orace limped along behind doggedly, sliding and stumbling in the steep darkness. Then a stone rolled under her foot: she jumped to save herself, caught her other foot in a tuft of grass, floundered, and went down in a heap. He had grabbed her before she could rise.

"I'm sorry, miss, but it's me dooty, an 'e'd sy the syme."

She got to her feet, shaken and breathless, but-relieved to find that she had not even slightly twisted her ankle.

Orace felt something hard dig into his ribs, and knew what it was.

"Will this show you I’m serious?" she panted. "I'd hate to have to hurt you, Orace; but I will if you drive me to it. I've got to go."

He waited without stirring for a long time. He could easily have grabbed her wrist and taken the gun from her, but it was the sob in her voice that stopped him.""

"Orl right," he said at last. "If it'll myke it easier for yer...."

She knew then that he feared the worst.

They hurried on down the hill. She remembered his limp and let him set the pace, but he managed to struggle on at a good jog trot in spite of his lameness. They went through the village until the black bulk of the Old House loomed before them.

"Will ya lead the wy, miss, since yer 'ere? I dunno this plice too well."

She took him round by the approach the Saint had used, but there was no need for the same caution, for the moon would not rise for another three hours. He stopped her at the door.

"Lemme go fust."

He thrust her behind him and blocked the way by his greater strength and weight, and she had to obey. She heard him fumble in his pockets, and then he kicked open the door and at the same moment a beam of light stabbed down the passage from the electric torch in his hand.

"See them footmarks?" he whispered. "Men's bin 'ere lytely, and I'll betcha they wuz Tiger Cubs."

The shaft of luminance broke on the table at the end of the corridor. The Saint had turned the box round, and from the side elevation its function was more easily deducible. Even so, it was creditably astute of Orace to stop dead in his tracks and turn suddenly to an examination of the door through which they had just come. He found the scar in the wood where the bullet had splintered it, and went back to make a study of the ground outside.

"Naow!" he announced at length. "Thatdidn't catch Mr. Templar, like it ud uv cort me fee 'adn't put it ahter action."

He went down the passage again, keeping to the centre, so that she was forced to walk behind him and be shielded by his body. Her hand was on the automatic in her pocket, and, though every one of her nerves was tense and tingling, her muscles felt strangely cold and calm. Just as a boxer, trained to a milligramme, is a bundle of tortured nerves up to the moment he enters the ring, when all at once his brain becomes clear and ice-cold as an Arctic sky and his body soothes down in a second into smooth efficiency — so Patricia's agony of fear and anxiety had frozen into a grim chilled-steel determination. The Saint had been there: they were on his track. The suspense and anguish of inaction was over.

Orace had halted just before he came to the open door.

"We better lookaht 'ere," he said.

She was looking round his shoulder as he turned the ray of the torch into the room, and they both saw the emptiness of it and the yawning square hole in the floor just inside the threshold.

Orace heard the girl give a strangled cry that choked in her throat. She would have rushed past him, but he caught and held her, though she fought him like a fury.

"Wyte — in a minnit!" he urged hoarsely.

He kept her back and edged toward the trapdoor, testing the soundness of the floor inch by inch as he advanced. It was not until he had thus satisfied himself about the safety of the footing right up to the edge of the opening that he would allow her to approach it.

They knelt down and turned the light of the torch into the gap. It shot down far into the blackness till it lost itself in space. Higher up they could see that the shaft was circular and lined with green, slimy brick. Evidently they were looking down the remains of a well over which the Old House had been built: Patricia thought she could detect a faint glimmer of reflection of the torch's light from the surface of the water. Orace fetched one of the empty beer bottles from across the room, and they dropped it down the pit. It seemed an eternity before the hollow sound of the splash returned to their ears.

"Bouter nundred feet," Orace guessed, and in this he was approximately right, being no more than sixty feet out.

The girl leaned over and cupped her hands.

"Simon!" she called. "Simon!"

Only the echo answered her.

"Mr. Templar, sir — Orace speakin'," bellowed the man, but it was only his own voice that boomed back out of the darkness in reply,

Patricia's face was bowed in her hands.

"Saint, Saint. . . . Oh, God. ... My darling. ..." The words came brokenly, dazedly. "Dear God, if you can save him now, give me his life!"

Presently she looked at Orace.

"Are you sure he went that way? The other trap didn't catch him.

Orace had been examining the pitfall, and now, by the light of the torch, he pointed to the evidence. A square of the flooring had been cut out with a keyhole saw, leaving only the flimsiest connections at the corners which the weight of a man would destroy at once. The jagged ends of broken wood could be seen at once, and from one of these Orace plucked a shred of tweed and brought it close to the light.

"That there's 'is," he said huskily. "Looks like 'e weren't expectin' if. ..."But don' chew lose 'art, miss — 'e always wuz the luckiest man wot ever stepped. P'raps 'e's as right as ryne, lyin' aht cumfittible somewhere jus' lettin' the Tiger think 'e's a goner an' get keerless, an' orl set ready ter pop up an''ave the larf on'im lyter."

It was not Orace's fault if he did not sound very convincing. His arm went clumsily about her, and drew her gently away and outside the room.

"One thing," he observed in an exaggeratedly commonplace tone, "ther carn't be no Tiger Cubs 'angin' arahnd 'ere naow — the noise we've myde, they'd uv bin buzzin' in like 'ornets be this time, if ther 'ad bin."

"Could we get a rope and go down?" she asked, striving to master her voice.

"I'll git sum men from the village to "avea look," he promised. "Ain't nothink we can do fer 'im fee isdahn there — 'e'd uv gorn howers ago...."

She leaned weakly against the wall, eyes closed and the tears starring on her cheeks, while Orace tried in his rough but kindly manner to console her. She hardly heard a word he said.

The Saint gone? A terrifying emptiness ached her heart. It was horrible to think of. Could a man like him be meant for such an end — to die alone in the unanswering darkness, drowned like a rat? He would have kept afloat for a long time, but if he had been alive and down there then he would have shouted back to them. Perhaps he had struck his head in the fall....

And then, slowly, a change came over her.

There was still that hurtful lump in her throat, and the dead numbness of her heart, but she was no longer trembling. Instead, she found herself cold and quiet. The darkness was speckled with dancing, dizzy splashes of red,...

This was the Tiger's doing — he was the man who had sent Simon Templar to his death. And, with a bitter, dead, icy certainty, Patricia Holm knew that she would never-rest until she had found the Tiger....

"Come along. Miss Patricia," pleaded Orace. "It ain't so bad — we don't know 'e ever went dahn. Lemme tyke yer back, anjer can lie on the bed while I go explorin'; an' as soon's ever I 'ears any-think I'll come an' tell ya."

."No.":

She snapped out the word in a voice that was as clear and strong as a tocsin.

"There ain't nothink — "

"There is," said Patricia. Her hands closed fiercely on Grace's shoulders. "There is. We've got to go on with the job. It's up to us. It's what he'd have wished — he wouldn't have had any patience with our going to weep in our corner and chuck in the towel and let the Tiger get away. If the Saint gave his life to get the Tiger, we can't waste the sacrifice. Orace," she said, "will you carry on with me?”

He only hesitated a moment; then she heard him suck in his breath.

"Yes, Miss Patricia," said Orace. "I guess yer right — we carn't let the Tiger get aw'y wiv it, an' we carn't let Mr. Templar 'ave gorn under fer nuffin. An' fee's gorn, I guess yer must in'erit Orace, miss. I'm on." He paused. "But 'adn't we better get 'old uv Dr. Carn, miss? 'E's a detective, really, Mr. Templar tole me, and 'e's after the Tiger,"

"I suppose so. ... We must hurry!"

They passed through the village, and Patricia set off up the hill at a raking pace, with Orace toiling gamely along just behind.

Carn's cottage was in darkness, and the girl fairly flew to the front door and tugged at the bell furiously. She kept it up for a full minute, but no one answered, though they could hear the metallic clamour reverberating through the house.

"He's away," she said flatly.

The man could see her white face and compressed lips. .

"I remember," he said. " 'E kyme up this afternoon ter warn me an' Mr. Templar that the Tiger was meanin' ter do us in to-night. An' I sore 'im drivin' orf along the Ilfracombe road in the farmer's trap, me eyes bein' rather good.... Carn's fahndart somefing. Wod did 'e wanter go ter Ilfracombe for?"

"If he has found out anything," said the girl swiftly, "he probably went off to call in some reenforcements. Perhaps he found out about the ship coming in tonight. And in that case he'll be back soon."

"Mos' likely," agreed Orace cautiously. "But yer carn't bet on it, yer know."

She bit her lip.

"That's true. We've got to make our arrangements and leave him out. If he arrives, so much the better, I don't know," said Patricia slowly, "that I wouldn't rather find the Tiger before Carn does."

Orace, that simple soul, was amazed at the concentrated savageness of her low, even voice. Women, in his philosophy, did not behave like this. But Patricia had the gift of leadership, and he had ceased to question her authority. He made no comment.

"We must watt till they come in for the gold," she said. "We might as well go back to the Pill Box and have dinner. We shall want all our strength."

Of a sudden the girl had become a remorseless fighting machine. She had fallen into her part as if she had been born and trained for no other purpose. It was not so much that the role fitted her as that she was able to adapt herself to the role. She ruthlessly suppressed her grief, finding that the rush of action took her mind off the awful thought of Simon's fate. She allowed place in her brain for no other thought than that of trapping the Tiger and squaring up the account, and she concentrated on the task with every atom of force she could muster.

A sense of the unreality of the whole affair possessed her, drying up tears and crushing out sentiment. Her world was reeling and racing about her — the landmarks were hopelessly lost — but she felt herself poised above the chaos, remote and stable. The sword in her hand wielded her. She was going on with the job. The fight was going to be battled out to the last second, with the last ounce of vital energy in her body; for the time, she seemed to be beyond human limitations. When it was all over and settled one way or the other, the tension would snap and she would hurtle down into black abysses of terror and despair; but while the war was still to be waged she knew that hers was a strength greater than herself — knew that she could stand on the brink of the chasm in the blinding light and fight tirelessly on to the death.

She said, in that new, cotd, dispassionate voice:

"We shall want help — the odds are too great against two of us. I'll get Mr. Lomas-Coper. He's the only man here I could trust."

" ‘Im?"spat the disgusted Orace. "That thunderin' jelly bag?"

"I know he's not such an ass as he pretends to be," said Patricia. "He'll weigh in all right."

They were nearing Bloem's house at that moment, and a lean dark figure loomed startlingly out of the shadow of the hedge. A pencil of luminance leaped from Orace's torch and picked up the pleasantly vacuous face of Algy himself.

"Is that you, Pat?" he said. "I thought I recognized your voice."

He was surprised at the firmness with which she grasped the limp paw he extended.

"I was just looking for you," she said crisply. "Come over to the Pill Box. We're going to have some dinner and hold a council of war."

"W-w-what?" stammered Algy.

"Don't waste time. I'll tell you when we get there."

There was so much crisp command in her tone that he fell in beside them obediently.

"But, dear old peach," he protested weakly. "There's no comic old war on, don't you know! Is it a joke? I'll buy it. Never say Algy isn't a sportsman, old darling."

"There's nothing very funny about it," she said, and something deadly about her obvious seriousness made him hold his peace for the rest of the journey.

In the Pill Box, she sat down at once to the food Orace provided, though Algy excused himself. He had already dined, and as a matter of fact, he explained, he had been on his way to visit her at the Manor.

While she ate she talked — in curt, cold sentences which held even the fatuous Algy intent. She told him the whole story from beginning to end, and his jaw sagged lower and lower as the recital proceeded. And when it was finished she looked anxiously at him, wondering whether he would say something foolish and soothing about the heat of the day and the probability that she would feel better in the morning — or, if he believed her, whether he would show up yellow.

She was satisfied to find that her estimate had been correct. While she looked, he closed his mouth with a snap, and the tightening of his mouth lent a new strength to his face. His eyes were gazing steadily back at her, and there was a steady soberness in them which transformed him.

"Just like a shilling shocker — what?" Said Algy quietly, but there was not much flippancy in his voice.

She outlined their plan, and he was staggered.

"You've a nerve!" he remarked. "But isn't that old Carn's job?" ^

"It was the Saint's idea," she told him; "and it's such a desperate gamble that it might as easily succeed as not. As for Carn — we daren't bank on him. He mightn't know as much as we think, and he mayn't have gone into Ilfracombe for the reason we suppose — we can only hope for the best. But we've got to be prepared to take the field without him. And, besides, as you'll understand, I've rather a special desire to meet the Tiger and talk to him alone…”

For an amazing moment Algy saw death in her eyes; then, with the clenching of a small fist, the ferocity passed, and she was once again the cold, calculating general planning an attack.

"I know you swim pretty well," she said, "Can you do the distance?"

He nodded.

"I think so."

"Will you?"

No more than two seconds ticked away into eternity before he held out his hand.