Knight Templar (The Avenging Saint)

"But what can I do?"

"Sit in a ring seat and root for me, sweetheart. Cheer on the gory brigand." Swiftly the Saint was replacing beard and glasses and settling Vassiloff's hat to a less rakish angle; and two blue devils of desperate delight danced in his eyes. "It seems to me," said the Saint, "that there's a heap more mirth and horseplay on the menu before we settle down to the speechifying. You ain't heard nothin' yet." And the Saint was buttoning the great fur collar about his chin with sinewy fingers that had an air of playing their own independent part in the surge of joyous anticipation that had suddenly swept up through every inch of his splendid frame. "And it seems to me," said the Saint, "that the best and brightest moments of the frolic are still ahead—so why worry about anything?"

He smiled down at her—at least, there was a Saintly glitter behind the thick glasses that he had perched upon his nose, though his mouth was hid­den. And as Sonia Delmar stood up she was shaken by a great wave of unreasoning grateful­ness—to the circumstances that made it necessary to switch off thus abruptly from the line of thought that he had opened up so lightly, and to the Saint himself, for making it so easy for her to turn away from the perilous path on which she might have stumbled. And she knew quite definite­ly that it was as deliberate and calculated a move as ever he made in his life, and he let her know it; yet that took none of the inherent gentleness from the gesture. And she accepted the gesture at its worth.

"You're right," she said. "There's a long way to go yet. First the crew and then Marius. . . . Haven't you any idea of what you're going to do?"

"None. But the Lord will provide. The great thing is that we know we shall find Marius at Saltham, and that's bound to make the entertainment go with a bang."

"But how do you know that?"

"My dear, you must have heard the aëro­plane—"

"Just after they shot the man in the motorboat?"

"Sure."

"I didn't realize—"

"And I thought you knew! But I didn't only hear it—I saw its lights and the flares they lit for it to land by. I haven't had time to tell you, but my trip to the Ritz this morning produced some real news—after I was supposed to have lit out for the tall timber. I left my card in Rudy's bathroom, and right up to the time that kite came down I was wondering how long it'd be before the Heavenly Twins found the memento and got busy. Oh, yes— Rayt Marius is at Saltham all right, and the best part of it is that he thinks I'm at the bottom of the deep blue sea with the shrimps nibbling my nose. There was a great orgy of signalling to that effect shortly after we upped anchor. So now you know why this is going to be no ordinary evening. . . . And with Roger and Ike rolling in on their cue, if all goes well—I ask you, is that or is that not en­titled to be called a real family reunion?"

"If you think Roger will be able to bring Sir Isaac—"

"Roger has a wonderful knack of getting things done." She nodded, very slowly.

"It will be—a reunion—"

"Yes." Simon took her hands. "But it's also a story—and so few people have stories. Why not live your story, Sonia? I'm living mine. ..."

And for a moment, through all his fantastic dis­guise, she saw that his eyes were bright and level again, with a sober intentness in their gaze that she had yet to read aright.

3

BUT THE SAINT was away before she could speak. The Saint was the most elusive man on earth when he chose to be; and he chose it then, with a breath of careless laughter that took him to the door and left the spell half woven and adrift behind him. He was away with a will-o'-the-wisp of sudden mis­chievous mirth that he had conjured out of that moment's precipitous silence, waking the moment to surer hazards and less strange adventure.

"Strange adventure! Maiden wedded. ..."

And the words of the song that he had sung so lightly twenty-four hours ago murmured mocking­ly in the Saint's ears as he paused for a second out­side the cabin, under the stars, glancing round for his bearings and giving his eyes a chance to take the measure of the darkness.

"And it's still a great life," thought the Saint, with a tingle of unabated zest in his veins; and then he found Sonia Delmar at his shoulder. Their hands met. "This way," said the Saint softly, se­renely, and steered her to the foot of the starboard companion. She went up after him. Looking up­wards, she saw him in the foreground of a queer perspective, like an insurgent giant escalading the last topping pinnacle of a preposterous tower; the pinnacle of the tower swayed crazily against the spangled pageant of the sky; the slithering rush of invisible waters filtered up out of an infinite abyss. . . . And then she saw another figure, al­ready bestriding the battlements of the last tower; then the Saint was also there, speaking with a quiet and precise insistence. . . . Then she also stood on the battlements of the swaying tower beside Simon Templar and the captain; and, as her feet found level boards, and the sea breeze sighed clearly to her face, the illusion of the tower fell away, and she saw the whole black bulk of the ship sheering through dark waters that were no longer infinitely far below, and over the dark waters was laid a golden carpet leading to the moon. And the captain's shoulders shrugged against the stars.

"If you insist—"

"It is necessary."

The moonlight glinted on the dull sheen of an automatic changing hands; then she saw the glim­mer of a brighter metal, and the captain's start of surprise.

"Quietly!" urged the Saint.

But the captain was foolish. For an instant he stood motionless, then he snatched. . . . The Saint's steely fingers took him by the throat. . . .

Involuntarily the girl closed her eyes. She heard a swift rustle of cloth, a quiver of fierce muscular effort; and then, away from the ship and down towards the sea, a kind of choking sob ... a splash . . . silence. . . . And she opened her eyes again, and saw the Saint alone. She saw the white flash of his teeth.

"Now his wives are all widows," said the Saint gently; and she shuddered without reason.

Other feet grated on the boards farther along the bridge; a man stood in the strip of light that came from the open door of the wheelhouse, pausing ir­resolute and half-interrogative. But the Saint was leaning over the side, looking down to the sea.

"Look!"

The Saint beckoned, but he never turned round. And the officer came forward. He also leaned over the side and looked down; but Simon stepped back. The Saint's right hand rose and fell, with a blue-black gleam in it. The sound of the dull im­pact was vaguely sickening....

"Two," said the Saint calmly. The officer was a silent heap huddled against the rail. "And that only leaves the quartermaster. Who says piracy isn't easy? Hold on while I show you . . . !"

He slipped away like a ghost; but the girl stayed where she was. She saw him enter the wheelhouse, and then his shadow bulked across one lighted window. She held her breath, tensing herself against the inevitable outcry—surely such luck could not hold for a third encounter! . . . But there was no sound. He appeared again, calling her name, and she went to the wheelhouse in a trance. There was a man sprawled on the floor—she tried to keep her eyes from the sight.

"Shelling peas is hard labour compared to this," Simon was murmuring cheerfully; and then he saw how pale she was. "Sonia!" drawled the Saint reproachfully—"don't say it gives you the wiggles in your little tum-tum to see the skids going under the ungodly!"

"But it doesn't, really. Look." She held up her hand—it was as steady as his own. "Only I'm not so used to it as you are."

He chuckled.

"You'll learn," he said. "It's surprising how the game grows on you. You get so's you can't do without it. Why, if I didn't have plenty of this sort of exercise, I should come out all over pimples and take to writing poetry. . . . See here, sweetheart— what you want is something to do. Now, d'you think you could wangle this wheel effect, while I get active on something else?"

He was stripping off beard and glasses; hat and coat followed them into a corner. She was irresist­ibly reminded of a similar transformation that very morning in Upper Berkeley Mews; and with the memory of the action returned also a vivid memory of the atmosphere in which it had first been performed. And the Saint was smiling in the same way, as gay and debonair as ever; and his careless confidence was like a draught of wine to her doubts.

She smiled, too.

"If it's the same as it is on Daddy's yacht—"

"The identical article.... So I'll leave you to it, lass. Make a wide circle round, and hold her a fraction south of south-southeast—I took a peek at that bouncing binnacle before I strafed the nautical gent over there by the cuspidor, and I reckon that course ought to take us back to some­where pretty near where we came from. Got it?"

"But where are you going?''

"Well, there's the third officer very busy being unconscious outside—at the moment—and Barna­cle Bill under the spittoon isn't dead yet, either; and I'd be happier to feel that they wouldn't be dangerous when they woke up. I won't heave them overboard, because I'm rather partial to lobsters, and you know what lobsters are; but I guess I'll fossick around for some rope and do the next best thing."

"And suppose anyone comes—could you spare a gun?"

"I could." And he did. "That belonged to the late lamented. So long as you don't get rattled and shoot me by mistake everything will be quite all right.. . .All set, lass?"

"All set, Saint."

"Good enough. And I'll be right back." He had hitched the sleeping quartermaster onto his shoulder, and he paused on the return journey to touch one of the cool, small hands that had taken over the helm. "Yo-ho-ho," said the Saint smiling, and was gone like a wraith.

4

HE DUMPED the quartermaster beside the third officer, and went quickly down the companion to the upper deck. There he found a plentiful supply of rope, and cut off as much as he required. On his way back he reentered the cabin in which he had found the girl, and borrowed a couple of towels from the bedchamber section beyond the curtains. That much was easy. He flitted silently back to the bridge, and rapidly bound and gagged the two un­conscious men with an efficient hand; the task called for hardly any attention, and while he worked his mind was busy with the details of the job that would have to be done next—which was not quite so easy. But when his victims lay at his feet giving two creditable imitations of Abednego before entering the hot room, the Saint went back to the upper deck without seeing the girl again.

On his first trip he had located one of the most important items in the catalogue—the boat in which Sonia Delmar had been taken to the ship. It still hung over the side, obviously left to be proper­ly stowed away the next morning; and, which was even more important, the gangway still trailed low down by the water, as a glance over the side had re­vealed.

"And a lazy lot of undisciplined sea-cooks that makes them out," murmured the Saint when he had digested all this good news. "But I'm making no complaints to-night!"

But for that providential slackness, the job he had to do would have been trebly difficult. Even so, it was none too easy; but it had come to him, during part of the buccaneering business on the bridge, that there was no real need to look forward to any superfluous unpleasantness on the return to Saltham, and that a resourceful and athletic man might very well be able to rule that ship's crew out of the list of probable runners for the Death-or-Glory Stakes. That was what the Saint was out to do, being well satisfied with the prospect of the main-line mirth and horseplay that lay ahead, without inviting the intrusion of any imported tal­ent en route; and he proceeded to put the first part of this project into execution forthwith, by lower­ing the boat gingerly, foot by foot, from alterna­tive davits, until it hung within a yard of the water. Then, with a rope from another boat coiled over his shoulder, he slid down the falls. One end of the rope he made fast in the bows of the boat; and then he spent some time adjusting the fenders. The other end of the rope he carried back with him on his return climb, stepping off on the main deck; and then, going down the gangway, he made that end fast to a convenient stanchion near the water level. Then he went back to the upper deck and paid out some more rope, even more gingerly at first, and then with a rush. The tackle creaked and groaned horrifically, and the boat finally hit the water with a smack that seemed loud enough to wake the dead; but the Saint had neither seen nor heard any sign of life on any of the expeditions connected with the job, and the odds were that the crew were all sleeping soundly in their bunks . . . unless an oiler or someone had taken it into his head to come up on deck for a breather about then. . . . But it was neck or nothing at that point, anyhow, and the Saint gave way on the falls reck­lessly until the ropes went slack. Then he leaned out over the side and looked down, and saw the boat floating free at the length of the rope by which he had moored it to the gangway; and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Praise the Lord!" breathed the Saint; and meant it.

He belayed again, and made a second trip down the falls to cast off the blocks. The cockle-shell bucked and plunged perilously in the ship's wash; but he noted with renewed satisfaction that it had sustained no damage in the launching, and was shipping no water in spite of its present maltreat­ment. Again he took a rest on the main deck on his way up and listened in silence for several seconds, but he heard no suspicious sound.

Back on the upper deck, it was the work of a. moment to haul the falls well up and clear; and then he made his last trip down the gangway and bent his back to the hardest physical labour of the whole performance—the task of talking in the towrope until the boat was near enough to be easily reached from the grating at the bottom of the gangway. He got it done after a struggle that left every muscle aching, and left the boat less than half a fathom away, with all the slack of the tow-rope secured in a seamanlike sheep-shank. And; then he went back to the bridge.

"Strange adventure that we're trolling:

Modest maid and gallant groom— "

The song came again to his lips as he turned into the wheelhouse and looked down the barrel of the girl's automatic.

"Put it away, honey," he laughed. "I have a tender regard for my thorax, and I've seen fingers less wobbly on the trigger!"

"But what have you been doing?"

"Preparing our getaway. Did I make a lot of noise?"

"I don't know—it seemed a frightful din to me—"

Simon grinned, and took out his cigarette case.

"It seemed the same to me, old dear," he re­marked. "But I don't think anyone else noticed it."

With a lighted cigarette between his lips, he re­lieved her of the wheel, and told her briefly what he had done.

"In its way, it should be a little gem of an es­cape," he said. "We bring the old tub in as near to the shore as we dare, and then we turn her round again and step off. When the next watch comes on duty they find out what's happened; but the old tub is blinding through the North Sea at its own sweet will, and they won't know whether they're coming or going. Gosh, wouldn't you give a couple of years of your life to be able to listen in on the excitement?"

She moved away, and brought up a chair to sit beside him. Now she definitely felt that she was dreaming. Looking back, it seemed incredible that so much could have happened in such a short time—that even the present position should have come to pass.

"When do you think we should get back?" she asked.

"We ought to sight land in about an hour, the way I figure it out," he answered. "And then— more fun!"

The smiling eyes rested on her face, reading there the helpless incredulity that she could not hide from her expression any more than she could dispel it from her mind; and the Saint laughed again, the soft lilting laughter of sheer boyish de­light that carried him through all the adventures that his gods were good enough to send.

"I meant to tell you it was a great life," said the Saint, with that lazy laughter dancing like sunshine through his voice. "Here you are, Sonia—have an­other of these cigarettes and tell me your story. We've got all the time in the world!"

CHAPTER NINE

How Simon Templar looked for land,

and proved himself a true prophet

BUT IT WAS the Saint who talked the most on that strange return voyage, standing up to the wheel, with the breeze through the open door fluttering his tie, and his shoulders sweeping wide and square against the light, and his tanned face seeming more handsome and devil-may-care and swaggeringly swift of line than ever.

She came to know him then as otherwise she might never have come to know him. It was not that he talked pointedly of himself—he had too catholic a range of interests to aim any long speech so monotonously—and yet it would be idle to deny that his own personality impregnated every subject on which he touched, were the touch never so fleeting. It was inevitable that it should be so, for he spoke of things that he had known and un­derstood, and nothing that he said came at second­hand. He told her of outlandish places he had seen, of bad men that he had met, of forlorn ventures in which he had played his part; and yet it was nothing like a detailed autobiography that he gave her—it was a kaleidoscope, an irresponsibly shredded panorama of a weird and wonderful life, strewn extravagantly under her eyes as only the Saint himself could have strewn it, seasoned with his own unique spice of racy illusion and flippant phrase; and it was out of this squandered prodigal­ity of inconsequent reminiscence, and the gallant manner of its telling, that she put together her picture of the man.

And, truly, he told her much of his amazing career, and even more of the ideals that had shaped it to the thing it was. And because she was no fool she gleaned from the tale a clear vision of the fantastic essence of the facts—of D'Artagnan born again without his right to a sword. . . .

"You see," he said, "I'm mad enough to believe in romance. And I was sick of this age—tired of the miserable little mildewed things that people racked their brains about, and wrote books about, and called Life. I'm not interested to read about maundering epileptics, and silly nymphomaniacs, and anaemic artists with a Message; and I'm not interested to meet them. If I notice them at all, they make me want to vomit. There's no message in life but the message of splendid living—which doesn't mean crawling about on a dunghill yap­ping about your putrid little repressions. Nor does it mean putting your feet on the mantelpiece and a soapily beatific expression on your face, and concentrating on God in the image of a musical-comedy curate or Aimee Semple McPherson. It means the things that our forefathers were quite contented with, though their children have got so damned refined that they really believe the said forefathers would have been much 'naicer' if they'd spent their days picking over the scabs on their souls instead of going in for the noisy vulgar things they did go in for—I mean battle, murder, and sudden death, with plenty of good beer and a complete callousness about blipping the ungodly over the beezer. The low-down shocker is a decent and clean and honest-to-God form of literature, because it does deal with things that have a right to occupy a man's mind—a primitive chivalry, and damsels in distress, and virtue triumphant, and a wholesale slaughter of villains at the end, and a real fight running through it all. It mayn't be true to life as we know it, but it ought to be true, and that's why it's the best stuff for people to read—if they must read about things instead of doing them. Only I preferred to do them. ..."

And he told her other things, so that the vision grew even clearer in her mind—that vision of a heroic revolt against circumstance, of a huge and heroic impatience against the tawdry pusillanimity that had tried and failed to choke his spirit, of a strange creed and a challenge. . . . And with it all there was a lack of bitterness, a joyous fatalism, that lent the recital half its glamour; the champion of lost causes fought with a smile. . . .

"Of course," he said, "it makes you an out­law—in spirit as well as in fact. But that again seems worth while to me. Isn't the outlaw one of the most popular figures in fiction? Isn't Robin Hood every schoolboy's idol? There's a reason for everything that people love, and there must be a reason for that—it must be the response of one of the most fundamental impulses of humanity. And why? For the same reason that Adam fell for the apple—because it's in the nature of man to break laws—because there's no real difference between the thrill of overthrowing a legitimate obstacle and the thrill of overthrowing a legitimate thou-shalt-not. Man was given legs to walk the earth; and therefore, out of divine cussedness of his inheri­tance, he chooses his heroes, not from the men who walk superlatively well, but from the men who trespass into the element for which they were never intended, and fly superlatively well. In the same way, man was also given moral limitations by his ancestors after God Almighty; and therefore he reserves his deepest and most secret admiration for those who defy those limitations. He would like to do it himself, but he hasn't the courage; and so he enjoys the defiance even more when it's done for him by someone else. But compare that pleasure with the pleasure of the outlaw himself, when he chooses his outlawry because he loves it, and goes forth into the wide world to rob bigger and better orchards than he ever dreamed of when he was a grubby little urchin with a feather in his cap!"

"Yes, but the end of it!"

"The end?" said the Saint, with far-away eyes and a reckless smile. "Well—

'What gifts hath Fate for all his chivalry?

Even such as hearts heroic oftenest win:

Honour, a friend, anguish, untimely death.'

And yet—I don't know that that's a bad re­ward. . . . Do you remember me telling you about Norman Kent? I found his grave when I came back to England, and I had those lines carved over it. And do you know, I've often thought I should be proud to have earned them on my own." He could talk like that with fresh blood upon his hands and his heart set upon another killing! For a moment the girl felt that it could not be true — she could not be sitting there listening to him with no feeling of revulsion for such a smug hypocrisy. But it was so. And she knew, at the same time, that that charge would not have been true — his simple sincerity was as natural as the half smile that went with the words.

So they talked. . . . And the Saint opened up for her a world of whose existence she had never known, a world of flamboyant colours and magni­ficently medieval delights. His magic made her see it as he saw it — a rich romance that depended on no cloaks or ruffles or other laboriously pic­turesque trappings for its enchantment, a play of fierce passions and grim dangers and quixotic loyalties, a tale that a man had dreamed and gone out to live. It was Gawain before the Grail, it was Bayard on the bridge of Garigliano, it was Roland at the gates of Spain; a faith that she had thought was dead went through it all, a thread of fairy gold with power to transmute all baser metals that it touched. Thus and thus he showed her glimpses of the dream; and he would have shown her more; but all at once she faltered, she who from the first had matched his stride so easily, she saw a step that he had deliberately missed, and she could not be silent. She said: "Oh, yes, but there are other things — in your own life! Even Robin Hood had to admit it!"

"You mean Maid Marian? ' '

"Roger told me. I asked him."

"About Patricia?"

"Yes."

The Saint gazed across the tiny cabin; but he could not see beyond the windows.

"Patricia—happened. She came in an adventure, and she stayed. She's been more to me than anyone can ever know."

"Do you love her?"

The Saint turned.

"Love?" said the Saint softly. "What is love?"

"You should know," she said.

"I've wondered."

Now they had been talking for a long time.

'' Have you never been in love? " she asked.

The Saint drew back his sleeve and looked thoughtfully at his watch.

"We ought to be getting near land," he said. "Would you mind taking over the wheel again, old dear, while I go and snoop round the horizon?"

2

HE WAS GONE for several minutes; and when he came back it was like the return of a different man. And yet, in truth, he had not changed at all; if anything, he was an even more lifelike picture of himself. It was the Saint as she had first met him who came back, with a Saintly smile, and a Saintly story, and a spontaneous Saintly mischief rekindling in his eyes; but that very quintessential Saintliness somehow set him infinitely apart. Suddenly, in a heart-stopping flash of understanding, she knew why. . . .

"Do they keep a lookout on any of your father's yachts?" he drawled. "Or don't they do any night work?"

"A lookout? I don't know."

"Well, they certainly stock one on this blistered buque, as they do on any properly conducted ship, but blow me if I hadn't forgotten the swine!"

"Then he must have heard you lowering that boat!"

The Saint shook his head. His smile was ridiculously happy.

"Not he! That's just one more point we can chalk up to ourselves for the slovenliness of this bunch of Port Mahon sodgers. He must have been fast asleep—if he hadn't, we'd have known all about him before now. But he woke up later, by the same token—I saw him lighting a cigarette up in the bows when I went out on the bridge. And it was just as well for us that he did take the idea of smoking a cigarette at that moment, for there was land on the starboard bow as plain as the hump on a camel, and in another few minutes he couldn't have helped noticing it."

"But what shall we do?"

Simon laughed.

"It's done, old darling," he answered cheer­fully, and she did not have to ask another ques­tion.

He lounged against the binnacle, a fresh white cylinder between his lips, his lighter flaring in his hand. The adventure had swept him up again: she could mark all the signs. The incident of which he had returned to speak so airily was a slight thing in itself, as he would have seen it; but it had turned a subtle scale. Though he lounged there so lazily relaxed, so easy and debonair, it was a dynamic and turbulent repose. There was nothing about it of permanence or even pause: it was the calm of a couched panther. And she saw the mocking curve of the eager fighting lips, the set of the finely chiselled jaw, the glimmer of laughter in the clear eyes half-sheathed by languid lids; and she read his destiny again in that moment's silence.

Then he straightened up; and it was like the uncoiling of tempered steel. His hand fell on her shoulder.

"Come and have a look," he said.

She secured the wheel amidships and followed him outside.

The wind touched her hair, cool and sweet as a sea nymph's breath; it whispered in the rigging, a muted chant to the rustle and throb of the ship's passage. Somewhere astern, between the bridge and the frayed white feather of their wake, the rattle and swish of a donkey engine shifting clinker jarred into the softness of the night. The sky was a translucent veil of purple, spangled with silver dust, a gossamer canopy flung high above the star-spearing topmasts, with a silver moon riding be­tween yardarm and water. And away ahead and to her right, as the Saint had prophesied, a dark line of land was rising half a hand's-breath from the sea. ...

She heard the Saint speaking, with a faint tremor of reckless rapture in his voice.

"Only a little while now and then the balloon! ... I wonder if they've all gone to bed, to dream about my obituary notice in the morning papers. . . . You know, that'd make the reunion too perishingly perfect for words—to have Angel Face trying to do his stuff in a suit of violently striped pajamas and pink moccasins. I'm sure Angel Face is the sort of man who would wear striped pajamas, "said the Saint judicially. . . .

It did not occur to her to ask why the Saint should take the striping of pajamas as such an axiomatic index of villainy; but she remembered, absurdly, that Sir Isaac Lessing had a delirious taste in stripes. They had been members of the same house party at Ascot that summer, and she had met him on his way back from his bath. . . . And Sonia said abruptly: "Aren't you worried about Roger?"

"In a way .... But he's a great lad. I trained him myself."

"Did he—think the same as you?"

"About the life?"

"Yes."

Simon leaned on the rail gazing out to the slowly rising land.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm damned if I know. ... I led him on, of course, but he wasn't too hard to lead. It gave him something to do. Then he got tied up with a girl one time, and that ought to have been the end of him; but she let him down rather badly. After that—maybe you'll understand—he was as keen as knives. And I can't honestly say I was sorry to have him back."

"Do you think he'll stay?"

"I've never asked him, old dear. There's no contract—if that's what you mean. But I do know that nothing short of dynamite would shift him out of this particular party, and that's another reason why I'm not fretting myself too much about him tonight. You see, he and I and Norman were the original Musketeers, and—well, I guess Roger wants to meet Rayt Marius again as much as I do ...."

"And you mean to kill Marius?" said the girl quietly.

The Saint's cigarette end glowed brighter to a long, steady inhalation, and she met the wide, bland stare of Saintly eyes.

"But of course," he said simply. "Why not?"

And Sonia Delmar made no answer, turning her face again towards the shore. Words blazed through her brain; they should have come pelting—but her tongue was tied. He had shown her the warning, made it so plain that only a swivel-eyed half-wit could have missed it: "NO ENTRY—ONE WAY STREET," it said. And not once, but twice, he had edged her gently off the forbidding road, before her own unmannered obstinacy had pricked him to the snub direct. Yet he had broken the strain as easily and forthrightly as he had broken the spell; by now the entire circumstance had probably slipped away to the spacious background of his mind. He was as innocent of resentment as he was innocent of restraint; he pointed her retreat for the third time with no whit less of gentle grace; and she could not find the hardihood to breach the peace again. .

3

THE SHIP ploughed on through a slow swell of dark shining steel; and the Saint's lighter gritted and flared again in the gloom. His soft chuckle scarcely rose above the sigh of the breeze.

"If you want to powder your nose or anything, Sonia," he murmured, "this is your chance. I guess we'll be decanting ourselves in a few minutes now. We don't want to drive this gondola right up to the front door—I've no idea what the coast is like around here, and it might be infernally awkward to run aground at the critical moment."

"And even then we don't know where we are," she said.

"Well I'm not expecting we'll find ourselves a hundred miles away, and the nearest signpost will give us our bearings. . . . Glory be! Do you know, old dear?—I believe I shall be more interested in Marius's pantry than in his pajamas when we do arrive!"

He had so many other things to think about that he was only just becoming aware that he had gone through a not uneventful day on nothing but breakfast and a railway-station sandwich; and when the Saint developed an idea like that he never needed roller skates to help him catch up with it. After another wary glance at the land he wandered off the bridge in search of the galley; and in a few minutes he was back, with bulging pockets and a large sandwich in each hand. Even so, he had run it rather fine—the shore was looming up more quickly than he had thought.

"Here we are, che-ild—and off you go," he said briskly. "The orchestra's tuned up again, and we're surely going to start our symphony right now." He grinned, thrusting the sandwiches into her hands. "Paddle along down the gangway, beautiful, and begin gnawing bits out of these; and I'll be with you as soon as I've ported the plurry helm."

"O.K., Simon. ..."

Yet she did not go at once. She stood there facing him in the starlight. He heard her swift breath, and a puzzled question shaped itself in his mind, on the brink of utterance; but then, before he could speak, her lips brushed his mouth, very lightly.

Then he was alone.

"Thank you, Sonia," whispered the Saint.

He knew there was no one to hear.

Then he went quickly into the wheelhouse; and his hands flashed over the spokes as he put the wheel hard over. And once again he remembered his song:

"Modest maiden will not tarry;

Though but sixteen year she carry,

She must marry, she must marry,

Though the altar be a tomb— "

The Saint smiled crookedly.

For a space he held the wheel locked over, judging his time; and then he went out again onto the bridge. The line of land was slipping round to the starboard quarter, dangerously near. He went back and held the wheel for a few moments longer; when he emerged for a second survey the coast was safely astern, and he permitted himself a brief prayer of contented thanksgiving.

The quartermaster and the third officer, at the starboard end of the bridge, had both returned to life. Simon observed them squirming in helpless fury as he made for the companion, and paused to sweep them a mocking bow.

"Bon soir, mes enfants," he murmured. "Remember me to Monsieur Vassiloff."

He sped down to the upper deck to the cabin below. His business there detained him only for a matter of seconds; and then he raced down another companion to the main deck. Every second lost, now that the ship was headed away from the shore, meant so much more tedious rowing; and the Saint, when pruning down an affliction of that kind of toil, was in the habit of moving so fast that a pursuing jack rabbit would have suffocated in his dust.

The girl was waiting at the foot of the gangway.

"Filled the aching void, baby? . . . Well, stand by to make the jump when I give the word. It's a walk-over really—but don't lose your nerve, because I shan't be able to hold the boat for ever."

He dropped on one knee, locking one arm round the lowest rand-rail stanchion and gripping the tworope with his other hand. Inch by inch he edged the boat up to the grating on which they stood, until it was plunging dizzily through the wash only a foot away.

"Go!" said the Saint through his teeth; and she went.

He saw her stumble as the boat heaved up on a vicious flurry of water, and held his breath; but she fell inside the boat—though only just—with one hand on the gunwale and the other in the sea. He watched her scramble away towards the stern; and then he let go the slack of the rope, buttoned his coat, and leaped lightly after her.

A loose oar caught him across the knees, almost bringing him down; but he found his balance, and pivoted round with Belle flashing in his hand. Once, twice, he hacked at the straining rope, and it parted with a dull twang. The side of the ship seemed to gather speed, slipping by like a huge moving wall.

"Hallelujah," said the Saint piously.

The transhipment had been a merry moment, in its modest way, as he had known all along it would be, though he had characteristically refused to grow any gray hairs over it in anticipation. And in this case his philosophy was justified of the result.

He waved a cheery hand to the girl, and clambered aft. As he flopped onto a thwart and started to unship a pair of oars the black bulge of the steamer's haunches went past him; so close that he could have put out a hand and touched it; and the flimsy cockleshell, slithering into the unabated maelstrom of the ship's wake, lurched up on its tiller and smashed down into a seething trough with a report like a gunshot. An undercarry of fine spray whipped into his eyes. "Matchless for the complexion," drawled the Saint, and dipped the first powerful oar.

The lifeboat yawed round, reeling back into easier water. A few strong pulls, and the merry moment was over altogether.

"Attaboy ....!"

He rested on his oars, with the frail craft settling down under him to comparative equilibrium, and carefully mopped the salt spume from his face. Over the girl's shoulder he could watch the shadowy hull of the departing ship sliding mon­strously away into the darkness. The steady pulse-beats of its engines came more and more faintly to his ears—fainter, very soon, than the booming and boiling of its wash against the coast. . . .

The Saint reached forward, lifted a battered sandwich from the girl's lap, and took a large contented bite.

"Feelin' good again, lass?"

"All right now, Big Chief."

"That's the spirit." All the Saint's buoyant optimism reached her through his voice. "And how you'd better get gay with those vitamins, old dear, while I do my Charon act. You can't keep your end up on an empty stomach—and this wild party is just getting into its stride!''

And, with his mouth full, Simon bent again to the oars.

4

IT WAS A STIFF twenty minutes' pull to the shore, but the Saint took it in his night's work cheerfully. It gave him a deep and enduring satisfaction to feel his muscles limbering up to the smooth rhythm of the heavy sweeps; and the fact that the boat had never been designed for one-man sculling practice robbed him of none of his pleasure. The complete night's party wasn't everyone's idea of a solo piece, anyway, if it came to that; but the Saint wasn't kicking. He was essentially a solo per­former; and, if the circumstances required him to turn himself into a complete brass band—well, he was quite ready to warm himself up for the concert. So he rowed with a real physical en­joyment of the effort, and when the boat grounded at last, with a grating bump, there was a tingle of new strength rollicking joyously through every inch of his body.

"This way, sweetheart!"

He stood up in the bows. Fortunately the beach shelved steeply; watching his chance with the ebb of a wave he was able to jump easily to dry land. The girl followed. As her feet touched the shingle he caught her up and swung her bodily out of reach of the returning water, and stood beside her, his hands on his hips.

"Home is the sailor, home from the spree. . . . And now, what price Everest?"

With a hand on her arm he steered her over the stones. Something like a low wall rose in front of them. He lifted her to the top of it like a feather, and joined her there himself a moment later; and then he laughed.

"Holy Haggari—this is indubitably our evening!"

"Why—do you know where we are?"

"That's more than I could tell you. But I do know that there's going to be no alpine work. Pass down the car, Sonia!"

The land reared up from where they stood—not the scarp that he had expected, but a whale's back, overgrown with stunted bushes. They moved on in a steady climb, the Saint's uncanny instinct picking a way through the straggling obstacles without a fault. For about fifty yards the slope was steep and the foothold precarious; then, gradually, it began to flatten out gently for the summit. Their feet stumbled off the rubble onto grass. . . .

He stopped by a broken-down fence at the top of the climb to give the girl a breather.

Eighty feet below, the sea was like a dark cloth laid over the floor of the world; and over the cloth moved two steady points of luminance—the masthead lights of the ship that they had left. To right and left of them the coast was shrouded in unbroken obscurity. Behind them, the land fell smoothly away in an easy incline, rising again in the distance to the line of another hill, a long slow undulation with one lonely spangle of light on its farthest curve.

"Where there's a house there's a road," opined the Saint. "We may even find a road before that, but we might as well head that way. Ready?"

"Sure."

He picked her up lightly in his arms and set her down on the other side of the fence. In a moment they were pushing on again together.

His zest was infectious. She found that the spirit of the adventure was gathering her up again, even as it had gathered up the Saint. Reason went by the board; the Saint's own fantastic delight took its place. She managed a glance at the luminous dial of her wrist watch, and could have gasped when she saw the time. A truly comprehensive realization of all that she had lived through in a day and two half-nights was only just beginning to percolate into her brain, and the understanding of it dazed her. In four circuits of the clock she had lived through an age, and yet with no sense of incongruity until that moment; her whole life had been speeded up in one galvanic acceleration, mentally and emotionally as well as in event, and somewhere in that fabulous rush she had found something that would have amazed the Sonia Delmar of a few days ago.

Long ragged grasses rustled about their ankles. They dropped into a hollow, rose again momentar­ily, faced a hedge; but the Saint found a gap for them as if he could see as clearly in the dark as he could have seen by daylight. Then they plodded over a ploughed field. Once she stumbled, but he caught her. He himself had an almost supernatural sense of country; in the next field he checked her abruptly and guided her round a fallen tree that she would have sworn he could not have been told of by his eyes. Came another hedge, a ditch, and a field of corn; he found a straight path through it, and she heard him husking a handful of ears as he walked.

"It's not even Sunday any longer," he re­marked, "so we shan't be bawled out."

And once again she was bewildered by a mind that could remember such pleasant far-off things at such a time—Scribes and Pharisees, old family Bibles, fields of Palestine!

Presently they came to a gate; the Saint ran his fingers lightly along the top, feeling for wire; then he stood still.

"What is it? "she asked.

"The road!"

He might have been Cortez at gaze before the Pacific; his ravishment could not have been greater.

He vaulted over; she followed more cautiously, and he lifted her down, with a breath of laughter. They went on. Road he might have called, but it was really no more than a lane; yet it was something—a less nerve-racking surface for her feet, at least. For about half a mile they took its winding course, until she had lost her bearings altogether. With that loss she lost also an iota of the fickle enthusiasm that had helped her over the fields; about a road, or even a lane, there was a brusque reminder of more prosaic atmospheres and more ordinary nights. And it was definitely the threshold of a destination. . . .

But Simon Templar was happy; as he walked he hummed a little tune; she could feel, as by a sixth sense, the quickened spring in his step, though he never set a pace that would have spent her en­durance. His presence was even more vital for this restraint. For the destination and the destiny were his own; and she knew that there was a song in his heart as well as on his lips, an exultation that no one could share.

So they were following the lane. And then, of a sudden, he stopped, his song stopping with him; and she saw that the lane had at last brought them out upon an unquestionable road. She saw the telegraph poles reaching away on either side—not very far, for they stood between two bends. But it was a road. . . .

"I don't see a signpost," she remarked dubiously. "Which way shall we—"

"Listen!"

She strained her ears, and presently she was able to pick up the sound he had heard—the purr of a powerful car.

"Who cares about signposts?" drawled the Saint. "Why, this bird might even give us a lift—it might even be Roger!"

They stood by the side of the road, waiting. Slowly the purr grew louder. Simon pointed, and she saw the reflection of the headlights as a pale nimbus in the sky; then, suddenly a clump of trees stood out black and stark against a direct glare.

"Stand by to glom the Saltham Limited!"

The Saint had slipped out into the middle of the road. Beyond him, at the next bend in the road, a hedge and a tree were picked out in a strengthening shaft of light. The voice of the car was rising to a querulous drone. Then, all at once, the light began to sweep along the hedge; then, in another instant, it blazed clear down the road itself, corrugating the tarmac with shadows; and the Saint stood full in the centre of the blinding beam, waving his arms.

She heard the squeal of the brakes as he stepped aside; and the car slid past with an expiring swish of wind, and came to rest a dozen yards beyond.

The Saint sprinted after it, and Sonia Delmar was only just behind him.

"Could you tell me—"

"Ja!"

The monosyllable cracked out with a guttural swiftness that sent the Saint's hand flying to his hip, but the man in the car already had him covered. Simon grasped the fact—in time.

But the girl was not a yard away, and she also had a gun. Simon tensed himself for the shot. . . .

"Put up your hands, Herr Saint."

There was a note of leering triumph in the harsh voice, and the Saint, blinking the last of the glare of the headlights out of his eyes, recognized the man. Slowly he raised his hands, and his breath came in a long sigh.

"Bless my soul!" said the Saint, who was never profane on really distressing occasions. "It's dear old Hermann. And he's going to give us our lift!"

CHAPTER TEN

How Sir Isaac Lessing took exercise,

and Rayt Marius lighted a cigar

ROGER CONWAY'S foot shifted off the accelerator and trod ungently upon the brake, and the Hiron­del skidded to a protesting standstill.

"We've arrived," said Roger grimly.

The man beside him glanced at the big iron gates a few yards down the road and gained one momen­tary glimpse of them before the headlights went out under Roger's hand on the switch.

"This is the place?" he asked.

"It is."

"And where is your friend?"

"If I were a clairvoyant, Sir Isaac, I might be able to tell you. But you saw me get out and look for the message where he arranged to leave one if he could—and there was no message. That's all I know, except — Have you ever seen a man shot through the stomach, Sir Isaac?"

"No."

"You probably will," said Roger; and Lessing was silent.

He had no idea why he should have been silent. He knew that he ought to have said things—angry and outraged and ordinary things. He ought to have been saying things like that all the way from London. But, somehow, he hadn't said them. . He'd certainly started to say them, once, two hours ago, when he had been preparing his second after-dinner Corona, and this curt and crazy young man had forced his way past butler and footman and penetrated in one savage rush to the sanctum sanctorum of the Oil Trade; he had nobly gone on trying to say them for a while after that, while the butler and the footman, torn between duty and discretion, had wavered apoplectically before the discouragement of the automatic in the curt and crazy young man's hand; and yet ... Somehow that had been as far as he'd got. The young man had had facts. The young man, com­pelling audience at the business end of his Webley, had punched those facts home one on top of the other with the shattering effect of a procession of mule kicks; and the separate pieces of that pre­posterous jig-saw had fitted together without one single hiatus that Sir Isaac Lessing could dis­cover—and he was a man cynically practised at discovering the flaws in ingenious stories. And the whole completed edifice, fantastic as were its foundations, and delirious as were the lines on which it reared itself, stood firm and unshakable against the cyclone of reasonable incredulity that he loosed upon it when he got his turn. For the young man spoke freely of the Saint; and that name ran through the astounding structure like a web-work of steel girders, poising its most extrava­gant members, bearing it up steadfast and inde­feasible against the storm. And the climax had come when, at the end of narrative and cross-examination, the crazy young man had laid his gun on the table and invited the millionaire to take his choice—Saltham or Scotland Yard....

"Come on, "snapped Roger.

He was already out of the car, and Lessing fol­lowed blindly. Roger had his finger on the bell be­side the gate when Lessing caught up with him— Lessing was not built for speed. He stood beside his guide, breathing heavily, and they watched a window light up in the cottage that served for a lodge. A grumbling figure came through the gloom to the other side of the gates.

"Who is that?"

"A message for the prince.''

"He is not here."

"I said from the prince. Open quickly, fool!"

A key grated in the massive lock, and, as the gate swung open on creaking hinges, Roger slipped through in a flash. The muzzle of his gun jabbed into the man's ribs.

"Quiet," said Roger persuasively.

The man was very quiet.

"Turn round."

The gatekeeper obeyed. Roger reversed his gun swiftly, and struck accurately with the butt and in­tent to do enduring damage.. . .

"Hurry along, please," murmured Roger brisk­ly.

He went padding up the drive, and Sir Isaac Lessing plodded after him short-windedly. It was a long time since the millionaire had taken any exer­cise of this sort; and his palmiest athletic days were over, anyway; but Roger Conway hustled him along mercilessly. Having hooked his fish, accord­ing to the Saint's instructions, he meant to keep it on the line; but he was in no mood to play it with a delicate hand. He had never seen Isaac Lessing in his life before, and his first glimpse of the man had upset all his expectations, but he had a fundamen­tal prejudice against the Petroleum Panjandrum which could not be uprooted merely by discovering that he neither lisped nor oleaginated.

The drive cut straight to the front door of the house, and Roger travelled as straight as the drive, his automatic swinging in his hand. He did not pause until he had reached the top of the steps, and there he waited an impatient moment to give Lessing a chance. Then, as the millionaire set the first toiling foot on the wide stone stair, Roger pressed the bell.

He braced himself, listening to the approach of heavy footsteps down the hall, as Lessing came panting up beside him. There was the sound of two bolts socketing back; then the rattle of the latch; then, as the door opened the first cautious inch, Roger hurled his weight forward. . . .

The man who had opened the door looked down the snout of the gun; and his hands voyaged slowly upwards.

"Turn round," said Roger monotonously. . .

As he brought the gun butt back into his hand he found the millionaire at his elbow, and surprised a certain dazed admiration in Lessing's crag-like face.

"I wish I had you in my office," Lessing was saying helplessly. "You're such a very efficient young man, Mr.—er—Conway —"

"I'm all of that," agreed an unsmiling Roger.

And then he heard a sound in the far corner of the hall, and whipped round to see an open door and a giant blocking the doorway. And Roger laughed.

"Angel Face!" he breathed blissfully. "The very man. . . . We've just dropped in to see you, Angel Face!"

2

MARIUS STOOD perfectly still—the automatic that was focussed on him saw to that. And Roger Conway walked slowly across the hall, Lessing behind him.

"Back into that room, Angel Face!" The giant turned with a faint shrug, and led the way into a richly furnished library. In the centre of the room he turned again, and it was then that he first saw Lessing in the full light. Yet the wide, hideous face remained utterly impassive—only the giant's hands expressed a puzzled and faintly cyni­cal surprise.

"You, too, Sir Isaac? What have you done to in­cur our friend's displeasure?"

"Nothing," said Roger sweetly. "He's just come along for a chat with you, as I have. Keep your hands away from that desk, Angel Face—I'll let you know when we want to be shown the door."

Lessing took a step forward. For all his bulk, he was a square-shouldered man, and his clean­shaven jaw was as square as his shoulders.

"I'm told," he said, "that you have, or have had, my fiancée—Miss Delmar—here."

Marius's eyebrows went up.

"And who told you that, Sir Isaac?"

"I did," said Roger comfortably. "And I know it's true, because I saw her brought here—in the ambulance you sent to take her from Upper Berk­eley Mews, as we arranged you should.''

Marius still looked straight across at Lessing.

"And you believed this story, Sir Isaac?" he in­quired suavely; and the thin, soft voice carried the merest shadow of pained reproach.

"I came to investigate it. There were other circumstances ——"

"Naturally there are, Sir Isaac. Our friend is a highly competent young man. But surely—even if his present attitude and behavior are not sufficient to demonstrate his eccentric character—surely you know who he is?"

"He was good enough to tell me."

The giant's slitted gaze did not waver by one millimetre.

"And you still believed him, Sir Isaac?"

"His gang has a certain reputation."

"Yes, yes, yes!" Marius fluttered one vast hand. "The sensational newspapers and their romantic nonsense! I have read them myself. But our friend is still wanted by the police. The charge is—mur­der."

"I know that."

"And yet you came here with him—volun­tarily?"

"I did."

"You did not even inform the police?"

"Mr. Conway himself offered to do that. But he also pointed out that that would mean prison for himself and his friend. Since they'd been good enough to find my fiancée for me, I could hardly offer them that reward for their services."

"So you came here absolutely unprotected?"

"Well, not exactly. I told my butler that unless I telephoned him within three hours he was to go to the police."

Marius nodded tolerantly.

"And may I ask what were the circumstances in which our friend was so ready to go to prison if you refused to comply with his wishes?"

"A war—which I was to be tricked into financ­ing."

"My dear Sir Isaac!"

The giant's remonstrance was the most perfect thing of its kind that Roger had ever seen or heard; the gesture that accompanied it would have been expressive enough in itself. And it shook Lessing's confidence. His next words were a shade less asser­tive; and the answer to them was a foregone con­clusion.

"You still haven't denied anything, Marius."

"But I leave it to your own judgment!"

"And still you haven't denied anything, Angel Face," said Roger gently.

Marius spread out eloquent hands.

"If Sir Isaac is still unconvinced," he answered smoothly, "I beg that he will search my house. I will summon a servant —"

"You'll keep your hands away from that bell!"

"But if you will not allow me to assist you —"

"I'll let you know when I want any help."

The giant's huge shoulders lifted in deprecating acquiescence. He turned again to Lessing.

"In that case, Sir Isaac," he remarked, "I am unfortunately deprived of my proof that Miss Delmar is not in this house."

"So you got her away on that ship, did you?" said Roger very quietly.

"What ship?"

"I see. . . . And did you meet the Saint?"

"I have seen none of your gang."

Slowly Roger sank down to the arm of a chair, and the hand that held the gun was as cold and steady as an Arctic rock. The knuckle of the trigger finger was white and tense; and for a mo­ment Rayt Marius looked at death with expression­less eyes.. . .

And then the giant addressed Lessing again without a change of tone.

"You will observe, Sir Isaac, that our impetuous young friend is preparing to shoot me. After that, he will probably shoot you. So neither of us will ever know his motive. It is a pity—I should have been interested to know it. Why, after his gang have abducted your fiancee for some mysterious reason, they should have elected to make such a crude and desperate attempt to make you believe that I was responsible—unless it was nothing but an elaborate subterfuge to trap us both simultan­eously in this house, in which case I cannot under­stand why he should continue with the accusation now that he has achieved his end.. . . Well, we are never likely to know, my dear Sir Isaac. Let us en­deavour to extract some consolation from the re­flection that your butler will shortly be informing the police of our fate."

3

ROGER'S FACE was a mask of stone; but behind that frozen calm two thoughts in concentric circles were spinning down through his brain, and noth­ing but those thoughts sapped from his trigger fin­ger the last essential milligram of pressure that would have sent Rayt Marius to his death.

He had to know definitely what had happened to the Saint; and perhaps Marius was the only man who could tell him.

Nothing else was in doubt. Marius's brilliantly urbane cross-examination of Lessing had been turned to its double purpose with consummate skill. In a few minutes, a few lines of dialogue, in­nocently and unobtrusively, Marius had gained all the information that he needed—about their num­bers, about the police, about everything. . . . And at the same time, in the turning of those same questions, he had attacked the charge against him with the most cunning weapon in his armoury— derision. Inch by inch he had gone over it with a distorting lens, throwing all its enormities into high relief, flooding its garish colours with the cold, merciless light of common, conventional sense; and then, scorning even to deny, he had sim­ply stepped back and sardonically invited Lessing to form his own conclusions.. . .

It was superb—worthy in every way of the strategic genius that Roger remembered so well. And it had had its inevitable effect. The points that Marius had scored, with those subtly mocking rhe­torical question marks in their tails, had struck home one after another with deadly aim. And Lessing was wavering. He was looking at Roger steadily, not yet in downright suspicion but with a kind of grim challenge.

And there was the impasse. Roger faced it. For Lessing, there was a charge to be proven: and if Marius was not bluffing, and Sonia Delmar had really left the house, how could there be any proof? For Roger himself, there was an unconscious man down by the gates who would not re­main permanently unconscious, and another in the hall who might be discovered even sooner; and be­fore either of them revived Roger had got to learn things—even as Marius had had to learn things. Only Roger was not Rayt Marius.. . .

But the tables were turned—precisely. In that last speech, with murder staring him in the face, the giant had made a counter-attack of dazzling audacity. And Sir Isaac Lessing waited. . . .

It was Roger's cue.

A queer feeling of impotence slithered into the pit of his stomach. And he fought it down—fought and lashed his brains to match themselves against a man beside whom he was a newborn babe.

"Still the same old Angel Face!"

Roger found his voice somehow, and levelled it with all the dispassionate confidence at his com­mand, striving to speak as the Saint would have spoken—to bluff out his weakness as the Saint would have bluffed. And he caught a sudden glit­ter in the giant's eyes at the sound of that very creditably Saintly drawl, and gathered a new surge of strength.

He turned to Lessing.

"Perhaps," he said, "I didn't make it quite plain enough that in the matter of slipperiness you could wrap Angel Face in sandpaper and still have him giving points to an eel. But I'll put it to you in his very own words. If I only wanted to trap you both here, why should I keep up the deception?"

"I believe I discarded that theory as soon as I had propounded it," said Marius imperturbably.

Roger ignored him.

"On the other hand, Sir Isaac, if I wanted to bring any charge against Marius—well, he generous enough to say that I was competent. Don't you think I might have invented something a little more plausible? And when I had invented something, wouldn't you have thought I'd have taken steps to see that I had some evidence— faked, if necessary? But I haven't any, except my own word. D'you think a really intelligent crook would try to put over anything like that?"

"I said our young friend was competent," mur­mured the giant; and Lessing looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Merely that he is even more competent than I thought. Consider it, Sir Isaac. To—er—fake evi­dence is not so easy as it sounds. But boldly to ad­mit that there is no evidence, and then brazenly to adduce that confession as evidence in itself—that is a masterpiece of competence which can rarely have been equalled."

Roger laughed shortly.

"Very neat, Angel Face," he remarked. "But that line is wearing a little thin. Now, I've just had a brain wave. You know a lot of things which I cer­tainly don't know, and which I very much want to know—where Sonia Delmar has gone, and what's happened to the Saint, for instance. And you won't tell me—yet. But there are ways of making people talk, Angel Face. You may remember that the Saint nearly had to demonstrate one of those ways on you a few months ago. I've always been sorry that something turned up to stop him, but it mayn't be too late to put that right now."

"My dear young friend ——"

"I'm talking," said Roger curtly. "As I said, there are ways of making people talk. In the general circumstances I'm not in a position to apply any of those methods single-handed, and Sir Isaac won't help me unless he's convinced. But you're going to talk, Angel Face—in your proper turn— you've got to be made to. And therefore Sir Isaac has got to be convinced, and that's where my brain wave comes in."

Marius shrugged.

"So far," he said, "you have not been conspicu­ously successful, but I suppose we cannot prevent your making further efforts."

Roger nodded.

"You don't mind, do you?" he said. "You're quite ready to let me go on until somebody comes in to rescue you. But this will be over very quickly. I'm going to give you a chance to prove your inno­cence—smashingly. Sir Isaac will remember that in my very competent story I mentioned other names besides yours—among them, one Heinrich Dussel and a certain Prince Rudolf."

"Well?"

" Do you deny that you know them?''

"That would be absurd."

"But you say they know absolutely nothing of this affair?"

"The suggestion is ridiculous. They would be as astonished as I am myself."

"Right." Roger drew a deep breath. "Then here's your chance. Over in that corner there's a telephone—with a spare receiver. We'll ring up Heinrich or the Prince—whichever you like—and as soon as they answer you'll give your name, and you'll say: 'The girl has got away again'—and let Sir Isaac hear them ask you what you're talking about!"

4

THERE HAD BEEN silence before; but now for an instant there was a silence that seemed to Roger's overwrought nerves like the utter dreadful stillness before the unleashing of a hurricane, that left his throat parched and his head singing. He could hear the beating of his own heart, and the creak of the chair as he moved shrieked in his ears. Once before he had known the same feeling—had waited in the same electric hush, his nerves raw and strained with the premonition of peril, quiveringly alert and yet helpless to guess how the blow would fall. . . .

And yet the tension existed only in himself. The silence was for a mere five seconds—just such a silence as might reasonably greet the. proposition he had put forward. And not a flicker of expres­sion passed across the face he watched—that rough-hewn nightmare face like the face of some abominable heathen idol. Only, for one sheer scin­tilla of time, a ferine, fiendish malignance seared into the gaze of those inhuman eyes.

And Lessing was speaking quite naturally.

"That seems a sensible way of settling the mat­ter, Marius."

Marius turned slowly.

"It is an admirable idea," he said. "If that will satisfy you—although it is a grotesque hour at which to disturb my friends."

"I shall be perfectly satisfied—if the answer is satisfactory," returning Lessing bluntly. "If I've been misled I'm ready to apologize. But Mr. Conway persists with the charge, and I'd be glad to have it answered."

"Then I should be delighted to oblige you."

In another silence, deeper even than the last, Roger watched Marius cross to the telephone.

He knew—he was certain—that the giant was cornered. Exactly as Marius had swung the scale over in his own favour during the first innings, so Roger had swung it back again, with the inspired challenge that had blazed into his brain at the mo­ment of his need. And Lessing had swung back with the scale. The millionaire was looking at Roger, curiously studying the stern young profile; and the grimness was gone again from the set of his jaw.

"A trunk call to London, please. . . . Hanover eight five six five.. . . Yes.. . . Thank you."

Marius's voice was perfectly self-possessed.

He put down the instrument and turned again blandly.

"The call will be through in a few minutes," he said. "Meanwhile, since I am not yet convicted, perhaps you will accept a cigar, Sir Isaac?"

"He might if you kept well away from that desk," said Roger relentlessly. "Let him help him­self; and he can pass you one if you want it."

Lessing shook his head.

"I won't smoke," he said briefly

Marius glanced at Roger.

"Then, with your permission, perhaps Mr.—er—Conway ——''

Roger stepped forward, took a cigar from the box on the desk, and tossed it over. Marius caught it, and bowed his thanks.

Roger had to admire the man's self-control. The giant was frankly playing for time, gambling the whole game on the hope of an interruption before the call came through that would inevitably damn him beyond all redemption; his brain, behind that graven mask, must have been a seething ball-race of whirling schemes; yet not by the most infinitesi­mal twitch of a muscle did he betray one scantling of concern. And before that supernatural im­passivity Roger's glacial vigilance keyed up to aching pitch.. . .

Deliberately Marius bit off the tip of the cigar and removed the band; his right hand moved to his pocket in the most natural way in the world, and Roger's voice rang out like the crack of a whip.

"Stop that!"

Marius's eyebrows went up.

"But surely, my dear young friend," he protested mildly, "you will permit me to light my cigar!"

"I'll give you a light."

Roger fished a match out of his pocket, struck it on the sole of his shoe, and crossed the room.

As he held it out, at arm's length, and Marius carefully put his cigar to the flame, their eyes met.. . .

In the stillness, the shout from the hall outside came plainly to their ears.. . .

"Lessing—we'll see this through!" Roger Conway stood taut and still; only his lips moved. "Come over here.. . .! Marius, get back ——"

And then, even as he spoke, the door behind him burst open, and instinctively he looked round. And the explosion of his own gun came to him through a bitter numbness of despair, for the hand that held it was crushed and twisted in such a grip as he had never dreamed of; and he heard the giant's low chuckle of triumph too late.

He was flung reeling back, disarmed—Marius hurled him away as if he had been a wisp of thistle­down. And as he lurched against the wall he saw, through a daze of agony, the Saint himself stand­ing within the room, cool and debonair; and be­hind the Saint was Sonia Delmar, with her right arm twisted up behind her back; and behind Sonia was Hermann, with an automatic in his hand. "Good-evening, everybody," said the Saint.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

How Simon Templar entertained

the congregation, and

Hermann also had his fun

"Love, your magic spell is everywhere . . ."

GAY, MOCKING, cavalier, the old original Saintly voice! And there was nothing but a mischievous laughter in the clear blue eyes that gazed so de­lightedly at Marius across the room—nothing but the old hell-for-leather Saintly mirth. Yet the Saint stood there unarmed and at bay; and Roger knew then that the loss of his own gun made little differ­ence, for Hermann was safely sheltered behind the girl and his Browning covered the Saint without a tremor.

And Simon Templar cared for none of these things. . . . Lot's wife after the transformation scene would have looked like an agitated eel on a hot plate beside him. By some trick of his own in­imitable art, he contrived to make the clothes that had been through so many vicissitudes that night look as if he had just taken them off his tailor's de­livery van; his smiling freshness would have made a rosebud in the morning dew appear to wear a positively debauched and scrofulous aspect; and that blithe, buccaneering gaze travelled round the room as if he were reviewing a rally of his dearest friends. For the Saint in a tight corner had ever been the most entrancing and delightful sight in all the world. . . .

"And there's Roger. How's life, sonny boy? Well up on its hind legs—what? . . . Oh, and our one and only Ike! Sonia—your boy friend."

But Lessing's face was gray and drawn.

"So it was true, Marius!" he said huskily.

"Sure it was," drawled the Saint. "D'you mean to say you didn't believe old Roger? Or did Uncle Ugly tell you a naughty story?" And again the Saint beamed radiantly across at the motionless giant. "Your speech, Angel Face: 'Father, I can­not tell a lie. I am the Big Cheese.' . . . Sobs from pit and gallery. But you seem upset, dear heart— and I was looking to you to be the life and soul of the party. 'Hail, smiling morn,' and all that sort of thing."

Then Marius came to life.

For a moment his studied impassivity was gone altogether. His face was the contorted face of a beast; and the words he spat out came with the snarl of a beast; and the gloating leer on the lips of the man Hermann froze where it grimaced, and faded blankly. And then the Saint intervened.

"Hermann meant well, Angel Face," he mur­mured peaceably; and Marius swung slowly round.

"So you have escaped again, Templar," he said.

"In a manner of speaking," agreed the Saint modestly. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

He took out his cigarette case, and the giant's mouth writhed into a ghastly grin.

"I have heard about your cigarettes," he said. "Give those to me!"

"Anything to oblige," sighed the Saint.

He wandered over, with the case in his hand, and Marius snatched it from him. The Saint sighed again, and settled himself on the edge of the big desk, with a scrupulous regard for the crease in his trousers. His eye fell on the box of cigars, and he helped himself absent-mindedly.

Then Lessing was facing Marius.

"What have you to say now?" he demanded; and the last atom of emotion drained out of Marius's features as he looked down at the mil­lionaire.

"Nothing at all, Sir Isaac." Once again that thin, soft voice was barren of all expression, the accents cold and precise and unimpassioned. "You were, after all, correctly informed—in every par­ticular."

"But—my God, Marius! That war—everything —— Do you realize what this means?"

"I am perfectly well aware of all the implica­tions, my dear Sir Isaac."

"You were going to make me your tool in that ——"

"It was an idea of mine. Perhaps even now ——"

"You devil!"

The words bit the air like hot acid; and Marius waved protesting and impatient hands.

"My dear Sir Isaac, this is not a Sunday school. Please sit down and be quiet for a moment, while I attend to this interruption.''

"Sit down?" Lessing laughed mirthlessly. The stunned incredulity in his eyes had vanished, to be replaced by something utterly different. "I'll see you damned first! What's more, I'm going to put you in an English prison for a start—and when you come out of that I'll have you hounded out of every capital in Europe. That's my answer!"

He turned on his heel.

Between him and the door Hermann still held the girl. And Roger Conway stood beside her.

"One moment."

Marius's voice—or something else—brought Lessing up with a snap, and the millionaire faced slowly round again. And, as he turned, he met a stare of such pitiless malevolence that the flush of fury petrified in his face, leaving him paler than before.

"I am afraid you cannot be allowed to leave im­mediately, my dear Sir Isaac," said the giant silk­ily; and there was no mistaking the meaning of the slight movement of the automatic in his hand. "A series of accidents has placed you in possession of certain information which it would not suit my purpose to permit you to employ in the way which you have just outlined. In fact, I have not yet de­cided whether you will ever be allowed to leave."

2

THE SAINT cleared his throat.

"The time has come," he remarked diffidently, "for me to tell you all the story of my life."

He smiled across at Lessing; and that smile and the voice with it, slashed like a blast of sunshine through the tenuous miasma of evil that had spawned into the room as Marius spoke.

"Just do what Angel Face told you, Sir Isaac," said the Saint winningly. "Park yourself in a pew and concentrate on Big Business. Just think what a half-nelson you'll have on the Banana Oil market when Angel Face has unloaded his stock. And he won't hurt you, really. He's a plain, blunt man, and I grant you his face is against him, but he's a simple soul at heart. Why, many's the time we've sat down to a quiet game of dominoes—haven't we, Angel Face?—and all at once, after playing his third double-six, he's said, in just the same dear dreamy way: 'Templar, my friend, have you never thought that there is something embolismal about Life?' And I've said, brokenly: 'It's all so—so um­bilical. ' Just like that. 'It's all so umbilical. . . .' Doesn't it all come back to you, Angel Face?"

Marius turned to him.

"I have never been amused by your humour, Templar" he said. "But I should be genuinely in­terested to know how you have spent the evening."

All the giant's composure had come back, save for the vindictive hatred that burned on in his eyes like a lambent fire. He had been secure in the thought that the Saint was dead, and then for a space the shock of seeing the Saint alive had bat­tered and reeled and ravaged his security into a racketing chaos of raging unbelief; and at the ut­termost nadir of that havoc had come the cataclys­mic apparition of Sonia Delmar herself, entering that very room, to overwhelm his last tattered hope of bluff and smash down the ripening harvest of weeks of brilliant scheming and intrigue into one catastrophic devastation; and he had certainly been annoyed. . . . Yet not for an instant could his mind have contained the shred of an idea of de­feat. He stood there by the desk where the Saint sat, a poised and terrible colossus; and behind that unnatural calm the brain of a warped genius was fighting back with brute ferocity to retrieve the ir­retrievable disaster. And Simon looked at him, and laughed gently.

"To-night's jaunt," said the Saint, "is definite­ly part of the story of my life."

"And of how many more of your friends?"

Simon shook his head.

"You never seem to be able to get away from the distressing delusion that I am.some sort of gang," he murmured. "I believe we've had words about that before. Saint Roger Conway you've met. That in the middle is a new recruit—Saint Isaac Lessing, Regius Professor of Phlebology at the University of Medicine Hat and Consulting Scolecophagist to the Gotherington Gasworks, recently canonized for his article in The Suffragette advocating more clubs for women. 'Clubs, tomahawks, flat-irons, anything you like,' he said. . . . And here we all are."

"And how many more?" repeated Marius.

"Isn't that quite clear?" sighed the Saint. "There are no more. Let me put it in words of one syllable. The unadulterated quintessence of nihility ——"

Savagely Marius caught his arm in one gigantic hand, and the Saint involuntarily tensed his mus­cles.

"Not that way, Angel Face," he said softly. "Or there might be a vulgar brawl. ..."

Yet perhaps it was that involuntary tensing of an arm of leather and iron, rather than the change in the Saint's voice, that made Marius loose his grip. With a tremendous effort the giant controlled him self again, and his lips relaxed from the animal snarl that had distorted them; only the embers of his fury still glittered in his eyes.

"Very good. There are no more of you. And what happened on the ship?"

"Well, we went for a short booze—cruise."

"And the man who was shot in the motorboat— was he another of your friends?"

Simon surveyed the ash on his cigar approving­ly.

"One hates to cast aspersions on the dead," he answered, "but I can't say that we ever became what you might call bosom pals. Not," said the Saint conscientiously, "that I had anything against the man. We just didn't have the chance to get properly acquainted. In fact, I'd hardly given him the first friendly punch on the jaw, and dumped him in that motorboat to draw the fire, when some of the sharpshooting talent pulled the voix celeste stop on him for ever. I don't even know his name; but he addressed me in Grand Opera, so if your ice-cream plant is a bit diminuendo ——"

Hermann spoke sharply.

"It was Antonio, mein Herr! He stayed on the beach after we took the girl down ——"

"So!" Marius turned again. "It was one of my own men!"

"Er—apparently," said the Saint with sorrow.

"And you were already on the ship?"

"Indeed to goodness. But only just." The Saint grinned thoughtfully. "And then I met Comrade Vassiloff—a charming lad, with a beautiful set of hairbrushes. We exchanged a little backchat, and then I tied him up and passed on. Then came the amusing error."

"What was that?"

"You see, it was a warm evening, so I'd bor­rowed Comrade Vassiloff's coat to keep the heat out. The next cabin I got into was the captain's and he promptly jumped to the conclusion that Comrade Vassiloff was still inhabiting the coat."

Marius stiffened.

"Moeller! The man always was a fool! When I meet him again ——"

The Saint shook his head.

"What a touching scene it would have been!" he murmured. "I almost wish it could come true. . . . But it cannot be. I'm afraid, Angel Face, that Cap­tain Moeller has also been translated."

"You killed him?"

"That's a crude way of putting it. Let me explain. Overcome with the shock of discovering his mistake, he went slightly bughouse, and seemed to imagine that he was a seagull. Launching himself into the empyrean—oh, very hot, very hot!—he disappeared from view, and I have every reason to believe that he made a forced landing a few yards farther on. As I didn't know how to stop the ship ——"

"When was this?"

"Shortly after the ceremony. That was the amusing error. When I rolled into his cabin Sonia was there as well, and there was a generally festive air about the gathering. The next thing I knew was that I was married." He saw Marius start, and laughed softly. "Deuced awkward, wasn't it, Angel Face?"

He gazed at Marius benevolently; but, after that first unpurposed recoil, the giant stood quite still. The only one in the room who moved was Lessing, who came slowly to his feet, his eyes on the girl.

"Sonia—is that true?"

She nodded, without speaking; and the million­aire sank back again, white-faced.

The Saint slewed round on his perch, and it was at Roger that he looked.

"It was quite an unofficial affair," said the Saint deliberately. "I doubt if the Archbishop of Canterbury would have approved. But the net result ——"

"Saint!"

Roger Conway took a pace forward, and the name was cried so fiercely that Simon's muscles tensed again. And then the Saint's laugh broke the hush a second time, with a queer blend of sadness and mockery.

"That's all I wanted," said the Saint; and Roger fell back, staring at him.

But the Saint said no more. He deposited an inch and a half of ash in an ashtray, flicked a min­ute flake of the same from his knee, adjusted the crease in his trousers, and returned his gaze again to Marius.

Marius had taken no notice of the interruption. For a while longer he continued to stare fixedly at the Saint; and then, with an abrupt movement, he turned away and began to pace the room with huge, smooth strides. And once again there was silence.

The Saint inhaled meditatively.

An interval of bright and breezy badinage, he realized distinctly, had just been neatly and un­obtrusively bedded down in its appointed niche in the ancient history of the world, and the action of the piece was preparing to resume. And the coming action, by all the portents, was likely to be even brighter and breezier than the badinage—in its own way.

Thus far Simon Templar had to admit that he had had all the breaks; but now Rayt Marius was definitely in play. And the Saint understood, quite quietly and dispassionately, as he had always un­derstood these things, that a succulent guinea pig in the jaws of a lion would have been considered a better risk for life insurance than he. For the milk of human kindness had never entered the reckon­ing—on either side—and now that Marius had the edge ... As the Saint watched the ruthless, delib­erate movements of that massive neolithic figure, there came back to him a vivid recollection of the house by the Thames where they had faced each other at the close of the last round, and of the passing of Norman Kent . . . and the Saint's jaw tightened a little grimly. For between them now there was infinitely more than there had been then. Once again the Saint had wrecked a cast-iron hand at the very moment when failure must have seemed impossible; and he had never thought of the giant as a pious martyr to persecution. He knew, in that quiet and dispassionate way, that Marius would kill him—would kill all of them—without a mo­ment's compunction, once it was certain that they could not be more useful to him alive.

Yet the Saint pursued the pleasures of his cigar as if he had nothing else to think about. In his life he had never walked very far from sudden death; and it had been a good life.... It was Lessing who broke first under the strain of that silence. The millionaire started up with a kind of gasp.

"I'm damned if I'll stay here like this!" he babbled. "It's an outrage! You can't do things like this in England."

Simon looked at him coldly.

"You're being obvious, Ike," he remarked, "and also futile. Sit down."

"I refuse ——"

Lessing swung violently away towards the door; and even the Saint could not repress a smile of entirely unalloyed amusement as the millionaire fetched up dead for the second time of asking be­fore the discourteous ugliness of Hermann's auto­matic.

"You'll pick up the rules of this game as we go along, Ike," murmured the Saint consolingly; and then Marius, whose measured pacing had not swerved by a hair's breadth for Lessing's protest, stopped by the desk with his finger on the bell.

"I have decided," he said; and the Saint turned with a seraphic smile.

"Loud and prolonged applause," drawled the Saint.

He stood up; and Roger Conway, watching the two men as they stood there eye to eye, felt a queer cold shiver trickle down his spine like a drizzle of ghostly icicles.

3

JUST FOR A COUPLE of seconds it lasted, that clash of eyes—as crisp and cold as a clash of steel. Just long enough for Roger Conway to feel, as he had never felt before, the full primitive savagery of the volcanic hatreds that seethed beneath the stillness. He felt that he was a mere spectator at the climax of a duel to the death between two reincarnate paladins of legend; and for once he could not re­sent this sense of his own unimportance. There was something prodigious and terrifying about the cul­mination of that epic feud—something that made Roger pray blasphemously to awake and find it all a dream. . . . And then the Saint laughed; the Saint didn't give a damn; and the Saint said: "You're a wonderful asset to the gayety of na­tions, Angel Face."

With a faint shrug Marius turned away, and he was placidly lighting a fresh cigar when the door opened to admit three men in various stages of un­dress.

Simon inspected them interestedly. Evidently the household staff was not very large, for he recognized two of the three at once. The bullet-headed specimen in its shirt-sleeves, unashamedly rubbing the sleep out of its eyes with two flabby fists, was obviously the torpescent and bibulous Bavarian who had spoken so yearningly of his bed. Next to him, the blue-chinned exhibit without a tie, propping itself languidly against a bookcase, could be identified without hesitation as the Bow­ery Boy who was a suffering authority on thirsts. The third argument for a wider application of capital punishment was a broken-nosed and shifty-eyed individual whom the Saint did not know— nor, having surveyed it comprehensively, did Simon feel that his life had been a howling wilder­ness until the moment of that meeting.

It was to Broken Nose that Marius spoke.

"Fetch some rope, Prosser," he ordered curtly, "and tie up these puppies."

"Spoken like a man, Angel Face," murmured the Saint approvingly as Broken Nose departed.

"You think of everything, don't you? . . . And may one ask what you've decided?"

"You shall hear, "he said.

The Saint bowed politely and returned to the serene enjoyment of his cigar. Outwardly he re­mained as unperturbed as he had been throughout the interview, but all his faculties were tightening up again into cool coordination and razor-edged alertness. Quietly and inconspicuously he flexed the muscles of his forearm—just to feel the reas­suring pressure of the straps that secured the little leather sheath of Belle. When Hermann had taken his gun he had not thought of Belle; nor, since then, had the thought seemed to occur to Marius; and with Belle literally up his sleeve the Saint felt confident of being able to escape from any system of roping that might be employed—provided he was left unobserved for a few minutes. But there were others to think of—particularly the girl. Simon stole a glance at her. Hermann still held her with her right arm twisted up behind her back— holding her like that, in the back seat, he had forced the Saint to drive the car back. "And if you do not behave, English swine," he had said, "I will break the arm." It had been the same on the walk up the long drive. "If you escape, and I do not shoot you, English swine, she will scream until you return." Hermann had the most sweet and en­dearing inspirations, thought the Saint, with his heart beating a little faster; and then his train of thought was interrupted by the return of Mr. Prosser in charge of a coil of rope.

As he placed his hands helpfully behind his back the Saint's thoughts switched off along another line. And that line ranged out in the shape of a series of question marks towards the decision of Marius which he had yet to hear. From the first he had intended to make certain that the giant's machinations should this time be ended for ever, not merely checked, and with this object he had been prepared to take almost any risk in order to discover what other cards Marius might have to play; and now he was surely going to get his wish. . . . Though what the revelation could possibly be was more than Simon Templar could divine. That there could be any revelation at all, other than the obvious one of revenge, Simon would not have believed of anyone but Marius. The game was smashed—smithereened—blown to ten different kinds of Tophet. There couldn't be any way of evading the fact—unless Marius, with Lessing in his power, had conceived some crazy idea of achieving by torture what cunning had failed to achieve. But Marius couldn't be such a fool. . . .

The rope expert finished his task, tested the knots, and passed on to Roger Conway; and the Saint shifted over to the nearest wall and lounged there elegantly. Marius had seated himself at the desk, and nothing about him encouraged the theory that he was merely plotting an empty ven­geance. After a brief search through a newspaper which he took from the wastebasket beside him, he had spread out a large-scale map on the desk in front of him and taken some careful measure­ments; and now, referring at intervals to an open time-table, he was making some rapid calculations on the blotter at his elbow. The Saint watched him thoughtfully; and then Marius looked up, and the sudden sneering glitter in his eyes showed that he had misconstrued the long silence and the furrows of concentration that had corrugated the Saint's forehead.

"So you are beginning to realize your foolish­ness, Templar?" said the giant sardonically. "Per­haps you are beginning to understand that there are times when your most amusing bluff is wasted? Perhaps you are even beginning to feel a little— shall we say—uneasy?"

The Saint beamed.

"To tell you the truth," he murmured, "I was composing one of my celebrated songs. This was in the form of an ode on the snags of life which Angel Face could overcome with ease and grace. The limpness of asparagus meant nothing to our Marius: not once did he, with hand austere, drip melted butter in his ear. And with what maestria did Rayt inhale spaghetti from the plate! Pursuing the elusive pea ——"

For a moment the giant's eyes blazed, and he half rose from his chair; and then, with a short laugh, he relaxed again and picked up the pencil that had slipped from his fingers.

"I will deal with you in a moment," he said. "And then we shall see how long your sense of humor will last."

"Just as you like, old dear," murmured the Saint affably. "But you must admit that Ella Wheeler Wilcox has nothing on me."

He leaned back once more against the wall and watched Broken Nose getting busy with the girl. Roger and Lessing had already been attended to. They stood side by side—Lessing with glazed eyes and an unsteady mouth, and Roger Conway pale and expressionless. Just once Roger looked at the girl, and then turned his stony gaze upon the Saint, and the bitter accusation in that glance cut Simon like a knife. But Sonia Delmar had said nothing at all since she entered the room, and even now she showed no fear. She winced, once, momentarily, when the rope expert hurt her; and once, when Roger was not looking at her, she looked at Roger for a long time; she gave no other sign of emotion. She was as calm and queenly in defeat as she had been in hope; and once again the Saint felt a strange stirring of wonder and admiration. . . .

But—that could wait. ... Or perhaps there would be nothing to wait for. ... The Saint be­came quietly aware that the others were waiting for him—that there was more than one reason for their silence. Even as two of them had followed him blindly into the picnic, so they were now look­ing to him to take them home. . . . The fingers of the Saint's right hand curled tentatively up towards his left sleeve. He could just reach the hilt of his little knife; but he released it again at once. The only chance there was lay in those six inches of slim steel, and if that were lost he might as well ask permission to sit down and make his will: he had to be sure of his time.. . .

At length the rope expert had finished, and at the same moment Marius came to the end of his calculations and leaned back in his chair. He looked across the room.

"Hermann!"

"Ja, mein Herr?"

"Give your gun to Lingrove and come here."

Without moving off the bookcase the Bowery Boy reached out a long arm and appropriated the automatic lethargically; and Hermann marched over to the desk and clicked his heels.

And Marius spoke.

He spoke in German; and, apart from Hermann and the somnolent Bavarian, Simon Templar was probably the only one in the room who could fol­low the scheme that Marius was setting forth in cold staccato detail. And that scheme was one of such a stupendous enormity, such a monstrous in­humanity, that even the Saint felt an icy thrill of horror as he listened.

4

HE STARED, FASCINATED, at the face of Hermann, taking in the shape of the long narrow jaw, the hollow cheeks, the peculiar slant of the small ears, the brightness of the sunken eyes. The man was a fanatic, of course—the Saint hadn't realized that before. But Marius knew it. The giant's first curt sentences had touched the chords of that fanati­cism with an easy mastery; and now Hermann was watching the speaker raptly, with one high spot of colour burning over each cheek-bone, and the fanned flames of his madness flickering in his gaze. And the Saint could only stand there, spell­bound, while Marius's gentle, unimpassioned voice repeated his simple instructions so that there could be no mistake. . . .

It could only have taken five minutes altogether; yet in those five minutes had been outlined the bare and sufficient essentials of an abomination that would set a torch to the powder magazine of Europe and kindle such a blaze as could only be quenched in smoking seas of blood. . . . And then Marius had finished, and had risen to unlock a safe that stood in one corner of the room; and the Saint woke up.

Yet there was nothing that he could do—not then. . . . Casually his eyes wandered round the room, weighing up the grouping and the odds; and he knew that he was jammed—jammed all to hell. He might have worked his knife out of its sheath and cut himself loose, and that knife would then have kissed somebody good night with unerring accuracy; but it wouldn't have helped. There were two guns against him, besides the three other hoodlums who were unarmed; and Belle could only be thrown once. If he had been alone, he might have tried it—might have tried to edge round until he could stick Marius in the back and take a lightning second shot at the Bowery Boy from behind the shelter of that huge body—but he was not alone. . . . And for a moment, with a deathly soberness, the Saint actually considered that idea in despite of the fact that he was not alone. He could have killed Marius, anyway—and that fiendish plot might have died with Marius— even if Lessing and Roger and Sonia Delmar and the Saint himself also died. . . .

And then Simon realized, grimly, that the plot would not have died. To Hermann alone, even without Marius, the plot would always have been a live thing. And again the Saint's fingers fell away from his little knife.. . .

Marius was returning from the safe. He carried two flat metal boxes, each about eight inches long, and Hermann took them from him eagerly.

"You had better leave at once." Marius spoke again in English, after a glance at the clock. "You will have plenty of time—if you do not have an accident."

"There will be no accident, mein Herr."

"And you will return here immediately."

"Jawohl!"

Hermann turned away, slipping the boxes into the side pockets of his coat. And, as he turned, a new light was added to the glimmering madness in his eyes; for his turn brought him face to face with the Saint.

"Once, English swine, you hit me."

"Yeah." Simon regarded the man steadily. "I'm only sorry, now, that it wasn't more than once."

"I have not forgotten, pig," said Hermann purringly; and then, suddenly, with a bestial snarl, he was lashing a rain of vicious blows at the Saint's face. "You also will remember," he screamed, "that I hit you—pig—like that—and that—and that. . . ."

It was Marius who caught and held the man's arms at last.

"Das ist genug, Hermann. I will attend to him myself. And he will not hit you again."

"Das ist gut." Panting, Hermann drew back. He turned slowly, and his eyes rested on the girl with a gloating leer. And then he marched to the door. "I shall return, werter Herr," he said thick­ly; and then he was gone.

Marius strolled back to the desk and picked up his cigar. He gazed impassively at the Saint.

"And now, Templar," he said, "we can dispose of you." He glanced at Roger and Lessing. "And your friends,'' he added.

There was the faintest tremor of triumph in his voice, and for an instant the Saint felt a qualm of desperate fear. It was not for himself, or for Roger. But Hermann had been promised a Re­ward. ...

And then Simon pulled himself together. His head was clear—Hermann's savage attack had been too unscientific to do more than superficial damage—and his brain had never seemed to func­tion with more ruthless crystalline efficiency in all his life. Over the giant's shoulder he could see the clock; and that clock face, with the precise posi­tion of the hands, printed itself upon the forefront of the Saint's mind as if it had been branded there with red-hot irons. It was exactly twenty-eight minutes past two. Four hours clear, and a hundred and fifteen miles to go. Easy enough on a quiet night with a powerful car—easy enough for Her­mann. But for the Saint. ... for the Saint, every lost minute sped the world nearer to a horror that he dared not contemplate. He saw every facet of the situation at once, with a blinding clarity, as he might have seen every facet of a pellucid jewel sus­pended in the focus of battery upon battery of thousand-kilowatt sun arcs—saw everything that the slightest psychological fluke might mean— heard, in imagination, the dry, sarcastic welcome of his fantastic story. . . . Figures blazed through his brain in an ordered spate—figures on the speedometer of the Hirondel, trembling past the hairline in the little window where they showed— seventy-five—eighty—eighty-five. . . . Driving as only he could drive, with the devil at his shoulder and a guardian angel's blessing on the road and on the tires, he might average a shade over fifty. Give it two hours and a quarter, then—at the forlorn minimum. . . .

And once again the Saint looked Marius in the eyes, while all these things were indelibly graven upon a brain that seemed to have been turned to ice, so clear and smooth and cold it was. And the Saint's smile was very Saintly.

"I hope," he drawled, "that you've invented a really picturesque way for me to die."

CHAPTER TWELVE

How Marius organized an accident

and Mr. Prosser passed on

IT IS CERTAINLY necessary for you to die, Tem­plar," said Marius dispassionately. "There is a score between us which cannot be settled in any other way."

The Saint nodded, and for a moment his eyes were two flakes of blue steel.

"You're right, Angel Face," he said softly. "You're dead right. . . . This planet isn't big enough to hold us both. And you know as surely as you're standing there that if you don't kill me I'm going to kill you, Rayt Marius!"

"I appreciate that," said the giant calmly.

And then the Saint laughed.

"But still we have to face the question of method, old dear," he murmured, with an easy return of all his old mocking banter. "You can't wander round England bumping people off quite so airily. I know you've done it before—on one particular occasion—but I haven't yet discovered how you got away with it. There are bodies to be got rid of, and things like that, you know—it isn't quite such a soft snap as it reads in story books. It's an awful bore, but there you are. Or were you just thinking of running us through the mincing machine and sluicing the pieces down the kitchen sink?"

Marius shook his head.

"I have noticed," he remarked, "that in the stories to which you refer, the method employed for the elimination of an undesirable busybody is usually so elaborate and complicated that the hero's escape is as inevitable as the reader expects it to be. But I have not that melodramatic mind. If you are expecting an underground cellar full of poisonous snakes, or a trap-door leading to a subterranean river, or a man-eating tiger imported for your benefit, or anything else so con­ventional—pray disillusion yourself. The end I have designed for you is very simple. You will simply meet with an unfortunate accident—that is all."

He was carefully trimming the end of his cigar as he spoke; and his tremendous hands moved to the operation with a ruthless deliberation that was more terrible than any violence.

The Saint had to twist his bound hands together until the cords bit into his wrists—to make sure that he was awake. Vengeful men he had faced often, angry men a thousand times; more than once he had listened to savage, triumphant men luxuriously describing, with a wealth of sadistic detail, the arrangements that they had made for his demise: but never had he heard his death discussed so quietly, with such an utterly pitiless cold­bloodedness. Marius might have been engaged in nothing but an abstract philosophical debate on the subject—the ripple of vindictive satisfaction in his voice might have passed unnoticed by an inattentive ear. . . .

And as Marius paused, intent upon his cigar, the measured tick of the clock and Lessing's stertorous breathing seemed to assault the silence deaf­eningly, mauling and mangling the nerves like the tortured screech of a knife blade dragged across a plate. . . .

And then the sudden scream of the telephone bell jangled into the tenseness and the torture, a sound so abruptly prosaic as to seem weird and unnatural in that atmosphere; and Marius looked round.

"Ah—that will be Herr Dussel."

The Saint turned his head in puzzled surprise, and saw that Roger Conway's face was set and strained.

And then Marius was talking.

Again he spoke in German; and Simon listened, and understood. He understood everything— understood the grim helplessness of Roger's stillness—understood the quick compression of Roger's lips as Marius broke off to glance at the clock. For Roger Conway's German was restricted to such primitive necessities as Bahnhof, Speisewagen, and Bier; but Roger could have needed no German at all to interpret that renewed interest in the time.

The Saint's fingers stole up his sleeve, and Belle slid gently down from her sheath.

And Simon understood another reason why Roger had been so silent, and had played such an unusually statuesque part in the general exchange of genial persiflage. Roger must have been waiting, hoping, praying, with a paralyzing in­tentness of concentration, for Marius to overlook just the one desperate detail that Marius had not overlooked. ...

The Saint leaned very lazily against the wall. He tilted his head back against it, and gazed at the ceiling with dreamy eyes and a look of profound boredom on his face. And very carefully he turned the blade of Belle towards the ropes on his wrists.

"An unfortunate accident," Marius had said. And the Saint believed it. Thinking it over now, he didn't know why he should ever have imagined that a man like Marius would indulge in any of the theatrical trappings of murder. The Saint knew as well as anyone that the bloodcurdling inventions of the sensational novelist had a real foundation in the mentality of a certain type of crook, that there were men constitutionally incapable of putting the straightforward skates under an enemy whom they had in their power—men whose tortuous minds ran to electrically fired revolvers, or tame al­ligators in a private swimming bath, as inevitably as water runs downhill. The Saint had met that type of man. But to Rayt Marius such devices would not exist. Whatever was to be done would be done quickly. . . .

And the same applied to the Saint—con­sequently. Whatever he was going to do, by way of prophylaxis, he would have to do instantly. Whatever sort of gamble it might be, odds or no odds, handicaps or no handicaps, Bowery Boys and miscellaneous artillery notwithstanding, hell-fire and pink damnation inasmuch and herein­after—be b-blowed. . . . Simon wondered why he hadn't grasped that elementary fact before.

"Gute Nacht, mein Freund. Schlafen Sie wohl ..."

Marius had finished. He hung up the receiver; and the Saint smiled at him.

"I trust," said Simon quietly, "that Heinrich will obey that last instruction—for his own sake. But I'm afraid he won't."

The giant smiled satirically.

"Herr Dussel is perfectly at liberty to go to sleep—after he has followed my other in­structions." He turned to Roger. "And you, my dear young friend—did you also understand?"

Roger stood up straight.

"I guessed," he said; and again Marius smiled.

"So you realize—do you not—that there is no chance of a mistake? There is still, I should think, half an hour to go before Sir Isaac's servants will be communicating with the police—plenty of time for them also to meet with an unfortunate ac­cident. And there will be no one to repeat your story."

"Quate," said the Saint, with his eyes still on the ceiling. "Oh, quate."

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 count 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?"

"What do you mean, Saint?"

The newspaper that Marius had consulted was in the waste-basket. Simon bent and took it out, and the paragraph that he knew he would find caught his eye almost at once.

"Come here, Roger," said the Saint, and Roger came beside him wonderingly.

Simon Templar did not explain. His thumb simply indicated the paragraph; and Conway read it through twice—three times—before he looked again at the Saint with a fearful comprehension dawning in his eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

How Simon Templar entered a post office,

and a boob was blistered

"BUT IT couldn't be that!''

Roger's dry lips framed the same denial mechanically, and yet he knew that sanity made him a fool even as he spoke. And the Saint's answer made him a fool again.

"But it is that!"

The Saint's terrible calm snapped suddenly, as a brittle blade snaps at a turn of the hand. Sonia Delmar came over and took the paper out of Roger's hands, but Roger scarcely noticed it—he was gazing, fascinated, at the blaze in the Saint's eyes.

"That's what Hermann's gone to do: I tell you, I heard every word. It's Angel Face's second string. I don't know why it wasn't his first—unless because he figured it was too desperate to rely on except in the last emergency. But he was ready to put it into action if the need arose, and it just happened that there was a chance this very night—by the grace of the devil ——"

"But I don't see how it works," Roger said stupidly.

"Oh, for the love of Pete!" The Saint snatched his cigarette from his mouth, and his other hand crushed Roger's shoulder in a vise-like grip. "Does that count? There are a dozen ways he could have worked it. Hermann's a German. Marius could easily have fixed for him to be caught later, with the necessary papers on him—and there the fat would have been in the fire. But what the hell does it matter now, anyway?"

And Roger could see that it didn't matter; but he couldn't see anything else. He could only say: "What time does it happen?"

"About six-thirty," said the Saint; and Roger looked at the clock.

It was twenty-five minutes past three.

"There must be another telephone somewhere," said the girl.

Simon pointed to the desk.

"Look at that one," he said. "The number's on it—and it's a Saxmundham number. Probably it's the only private phone in the village."

"But there'll be a post office."

"I wonder."

The Saint was looking at Marius. There might have been a sneer somewhere behind the graven inscrutability of that evil face, but Simon could not be sure. Yet he had a premonition. . . .

"We might try," Roger Conway was saying logically; and the Saint turned.

"We might. Coming?"

"But these guys—and Sonia —"

"Right. Maybe I'd better go alone. Give me one of those guns!"

Roger obeyed.

And once again the Saint went flying down the drive. The automatic was heavy in his hip pocket, and it gave him a certain comfort to have it there, though he had no love for firearms in the ordinary way. They made so much noise. . , . But it was more than possible that the post office would look cross-eyed at him, and it might boil down to a hold-up. He realized that he wasn't quite such a paralyzingly respectable sight as he had been earlier in the evening, and that might be a solid disadvantage when bursting into a village post office staffed by startled females at that hour of the morning. His clothes were undamaged, it was true; but Hermann's affectionate farewell had left certain traces on his face. Chiefly, there was a long scratch across his forehead, and a thin trickle of blood running down one side of his face, as a souvenir of the diamond ring that Hermann af­fected. Nothing such as wounds went, but it must have been enough to make him look a pretty sanguinary desperado. . . . And if it did come to a holdup, how the hell did telegraph offices work? The Saint had a working knowledge of Morse, but the manipulation of the divers gadgets connected with the sordid mechanism of transmissions of the same was a bit beyond his education. . . .

How far was it to the village? Nearly a mile, Roger had said when they drove out. Well, it was one river of gore of a long mile. ... It was some time since he had passed the spot where Mr. Prosser's memorial tablet might or might not be added to the scenic decorations. And, like a fool, he'd started off as if he were going for a hundred yards' sprint; and, fit as he was, the pace would kill his speed altogether if he didn't ease up. He did so, filling his bursting lungs with great gulps of the cool sea air. His heart was pounding like a demented triphammer. . . . But at that moment the road started to dip a trifle, and that must mean that it was nearing the village. He put on a shade of acceleration—it was easier going downhill—and presently he passed the first cottage.

A few seconds later he was in some sort of village street, and then he had to slacken off almost to a walk.

What the hairy hippopotamus were the visible distinguishing marks or peculiarities of a village post office? The species didn't usually run to a private building of its own, he knew. Mostly, it seemed to house itself in an obscure corner of the grocery store. And what did a grocery store look like in the dark, anyway? . . . His eyes were perfectly attuned to the darkness by this time; but the feebleness of the moon, which had dealt so kindly with him earlier in the evening, was now catching him on the return swing. If only he had had a flashlight. ... As it was, he had to use his petrol lighter at every door. Butcher—baker— candlestick maker—he seemed to strike every imaginable kind of shop but the right one. . . .

An eternity passed before he came to his goal.

There should have been a bell somewhere around the door . . . but there wasn't. So there was only one thing to do. He stepped back and picked up a large stone from the side of the road. Without hesitation he hurled it through an upper window.

Then he waited.

One—two—three minutes passed, and no in­dignant head was thrust out into the night to demand the reason for the outrage. Only, some­where behind him in the blackness, the window of another house was thrown up.

The Saint found a second stone. ...

" 'Oo's that?"

The quavering voice that mingled with the tinkle of broken glass was undoubtedly feminine, but it did not come from the post office. Another window was opened. Suddenly the woman screamed. A man's shout answered her. . . .

"Hell," said the Saint through his teeth.

But through all the uproar the post office remained as silent as a tomb. "Deaf, doped, or dead," diagnosed the Saint without a smile. "And I don't care which. . . ."

He stepped into the doorway, jerking the gun from his pocket. The butt of it crashed through the glass door of the shop, and there was a hole the size of a man's head. Savagely the Saint smashed again at the jagged borders of the hole, until there was a gap big enough for him to pass through. The whole village must have been awake by that time, and he heard heavy footsteps running down the road.

As he went in his head struck against a hanging oil lamp, and he lifted it down from its hook and lighted it. He saw the post office counter at once, and had reached it when the first of the chase burst in behind him.

Simon put the lamp down and turned.

"Keep back," he said quietly.

There were two men in the doorway; they saw the ugly steadiness of the weapon in the Saint's hand and pulled up, open-mouthed.

The Saint sidled along the counter, keeping the men covered. There was a telephone box in the corner—that would be easier than tinkering at a telegraph apparatus ——

And then came another man, shouldering his way through the crowd that had gathered at the door. He wore a dark blue uniform with silver buttons. There was no mistaking his identity.

" 'Ere, wot's this?" he demanded truculently.

Then he also saw the Saint's gun, and it checked him for a moment—but only for a moment.

"Put that down," he blustered, and took an­other step forward.

2

SIMON TEMPLAR'S thoughts moved like lightning. The constable was coming on—there wasn't a doubt of that. Perhaps he was a brave man, in his blunt way; or perhaps Chicago was only a fairy tale to him; but certainly he was coming on. And the Saint couldn't shoot him down in cold blood without giving him a chance. Yet the Saint realized at the same time how threadbare a hope he would have of putting his preposterous story over on a turnip-headed village cop. At Scotland Yard, where there was a different type of man, he might have done it; but here . . .

It would have to be a bluff. The truth would have meant murder—and the funeral procession would have been the cop's. Even now the Saint knew, with an icy intensity of decision, that he would shoot the policeman down without a second's hesitation, if it proved to be necessary. But the man should have his chance. . . .

The Saint drew himself up.

"I'm glad you've come, officer," he remarked briskly. "I'm a Secret Service agent, and I shall probably want you."

A silence fell on the crowd. For the Saint's clothes were still undeniably glorious to behold, and he spoke as one having authority. Standing there at his full height, trim and lean and keen-faced, with a cool half smile of greeting,on his lips, he looked every inch a man to be obeyed. And the constable peered at him uncertainly.

"Woi did you break them windoos, then?"

"I had to wake the people here. I've got to get on the phone to London—at once. I don't know why the post-office staff haven't shown up yet— everyone else seems to be here—"

A voice spoke up from the outskirts of the crowd.

'Missus Fraser an' 'er daughter doo 'ave goorn to London theirselves, sir, for to see 'er sister. They ain't a-comin' back till morning.''

"I see. That explains it." The Saint put his gun down on the counter and took out his cigarette case. "Officer, will you clear these good people out, please? I've no time to waste."

The request was an order—the constable would not have been human if he had not felt an automatic instinct to carry it out. But he still looked at the Saint.

"Oi doo feel oi've seen your face befoor," he said, with less hostility; but Simon laughed.

"I don't expect you have," he murmured. "We don't advertise."

"But 'ave you got anything on you to show you're wot you says you are?"

The Saint's pause was only fractional, for the answer that had come to him was one of pure inspired genius. It was unlikely that a hayseed cop like this would know what evidence of identity a secret agent should properly carry; it was just as unlikely that he would recognize the document that Simon proposed to show him. ...

"Naturally," said the Saint, without the flicker of an eyelid. "The only difficulty is that I'm not allowed to disclose my name to you. But I think there should be enough to convince you without that."

And he took out his wallet, and from the wallet he took a little book rather like a driving license, while the crowd gaped and craned to see. The constable came closer.

Simon gave him one glimpse of the photograph which adorned the inside, while he covered the opposite page with his fingers; and then he turned quickly to the pages at the end.

For the booklet he had produced was the cer­tificate of the Fédération Aéronautique Inter­nationale, which every amateur aviator must obtain—and the Saint, in the spare time of less strenuous days, had been wont to aviate amateurly with great skill and dexterity. And the two back pages of the certificate were devoted to an im­pressive exhortation of all whom it might concern, translated into six different languages, and saying:

The Civil, Naval, and Military authorities, including the Police, are respectfully requested to aid and assist the holder of this certificate.

Just that and nothing more. . . .

But it ought to be enough. It ought to be. ... And the Saint, with his cigarette lighted, was quietly taking up his gun again while the constable read; but he might have saved himself the trouble for the constable was regarding him with a kind of awe.

"Oi beg your pardon, sir. ..."

"That," murmured the Saint affably, "is O.K. by me."

He replaced the little book in his pocket with a silent prayer of thanksgiving, while the policeman squared his shoulders importantly and began to disperse the crowd; and the dispersal was still proceeding when the Saint went into the telephone booth.

He should have been feeling exultant, for everything should have been plain sailing now. . . . And yet he wasn't. As he took up the receiver he remembered the veiled sneer that he had seen—or imagined—in the face of Marius. And it haunted him. He had had a queer intuition then that the giant had foreseen something that the Saint had not for seen; and now that intuition was even stronger. Could it be that Marius was ex­pecting the prince, or some ally, due to arrive about that time, who might take the others by surprise while the Saint was away? Or might the household staff be larger than the Saint had thought, and might there be the means of a rescue still within the building? Or what? . . . "I'm growing nerves," thought the Saint, and cursed all intuitions categorically.

And he had been listening for some time before he realized that the receiver was absolutely silent— there was none of the gentle crackling undertone that ordinarily sounds in a telephone receiver. . . .

"Gettin' on all roight, sir?"

The crowd had gone, and the policeman had returned. Simon thrust the reciever into his hand.

"Will you carry on?" he said. "The line seems to have gone dead. If you get a reply, ask for Victoria six eight two seven. And tell them to make it snappy. I'm going to telegraph."

"There's noo telegraph, sir."

"What's that?"

"There's noo telegraph, sir."

"Then how do they send and receive telegrams? or don't they?"

"They doo coom through on the telephoon, sir, from Saxmundham." The constable jiggered the receiver hook. "And the loine doo seem to be dead, sir," he added helpfully.

Simon took the receiver from him again.

"What about the station?" he snapped. "There must be a telephone there."

The policeman scratched his head.

"I suppose there is, sir. . . . But, now Oi coom to think of it, Oi did 'ear earlier in the day that the telephoon loine was down somewhere. One o' they charrybangs run into a poost on Saturday noight ——"

He stopped, appalled, seeing the blaze in the Saint's eyes.

Then, very carefully, Simon put down the re­ceiver. He had gone white to the lips, and the twist of those lips was not pleasant to see.

"My God in heaven!" said the Saint huskily. "Then there's all hell let loose tonight!"

3

"IS IT AS BAD as that, sir?" inquired the constable weakly; and Simon swung round on him like a tiger. "You blistered boob!" he snarled. "D'you think this is my idea of being comic?"

And then he checked himself. That sort of thing, wouldn't do any good.

But he saw it all now. The first dim inkling had come to him when Marius had hurled that tele­phone at him in the house; and now the proof and vindication was staring him in the face in all its hideous nakedness. The telegraph post had been knocked down on Saturday night; being an un­important line, nothing would be done to it before Monday; and Marius had known all about it. Marius's own line must have followed a different route, perhaps joining the other at a point beyond the scene of the accident. . . .

Grimly, gratingly, the Saint bedded down the facts in separate compartments of his brain, while he schooled himself to a relentless calm. And presently he turned again to the policeman.

"Where's the station?" he asked. "They must have an independent telegraph there.''

"The station, sir? That'll be a little way oover the bridge. But you woon't foind anyone there at this toime, sir ——"

"We don't want anyone," said the Saint. "Come on!"

He had mastered himself again completely, and he felt that nothing else that might happen before the dawn could possibly shake him from the glacial discipline that he had locked upon his passion. And, with the same frozen restraint of emotion, he understood that the trip to the station was probably a waste of time; but it had to be tried. . . .

The crowd of villagers was still gathered outside the shop, and the Saint strode through them with out looking to the right or left. And he remem­bered what he had read about the place before he came there—its reputed population of 3,128, its pleasure grounds, its attractions as a watering-place—and at that moment he would cheerfully have murdered the author of that criminal agglomeration of troutspawn and frogbladder. For any glories that Saltham might once have claimed had long since departed from it: it was now nothing but a forgotten seaside village, shorn of the most elementary amenities of civilization. And yet, unless a miracle happened, history would remember it as history remembers Serajevo. . . .

The policeman walked beside him; but Simon did not talk. Beneath that smooth crust of icy calm a raging wrathlike white-hot lava seethed through the Saint's heart. And while he could have raged, he could as well have wept. For he was seeing all that Hermann's mission would mean if it suc­ceeded, and that vision was a vision of the ruin of all that the Saint had sworn to do. And he thought of the waste—of the agony and blood and tears, of the squandered lives, of the world's new hopes crushed down into the mud, and again of the faith in which Norman Kent had died. . . . And some­thing in the thought of that last superb spendthrift sacrifice choked the Saint's throat. For Norman was a link with the old careless days of debonair adventuring, and those days were very far away— the days when nothing had mattered but the fighting and the fun, the comradeship and the glamour and the high risk, the sufficiency of gay swashbuckling, the wine of battle and the fair full days of quiet. Those days had gone as if they had never been.

So the Saint came soberly to the station, and smashed another window for them to enter the station master's office.

There was certainly a telegraph, and for five minutes the Saint tried to get a response. But he was without hope.

And presently he turned away and put his head in his hands.

"It's no use," he said bitterly. "I suppose there isn't anyone listening at the other end."

The policeman made sympathetic noises.

"O' course, if you woon't tell me wot the trouble is ——"

"It wouldn't help you. But I can tell you that I've got to get through to Scotland Yard before six-thirty—well before. If I don't, it means— war."

The policeman goggled.

"Did you say war, sir?"

"I did. No more and no less. . . . Are there any fast cars in this blasted village?"

"Noo, sir—noon as Oi can think of. Noon wot you moight call farst."

"How far is it to Saxmundham?"

" 'Bout twelve moile, sir, Oi should say. Oi've got a map 'ere, if you'd loike me to look it up."

Simon did not answer; and the constable groped in a pocket of his tunic and spilled an assortment of grubby papers onto the table.

In the silence Simon heard the ticking of a clock, and he slewed round and located it on the wall behind him. The hour it indicated sank slowly into his brain, and again he calculated. Two hours for twelve miles. Easy enough—he could probably get hold of a lorry, or something else on four wheels with an engine, that would scrape through in an hour, and leave another hour to deal with the trouble he was sure to meet in Saxmundham. For the bluff that could be put over on a village cop wouldn't cut much ice with the bulls of a rising town. And suppose the lorry broke down and left them stranded on the road. . . . Two lorries, then. Roger would have to follow in the second in case of accidents.

The Saint stood up.

"Will you push off and try to find me a couple of cars?" he said. "Anything that'll go. I've got another man with me—I'll have to fetch him. I'll meet you. ..."

His voice trailed away.

For the constable was staring at him as if he were a ghost; and a moment later he understood why. The constable held a sheet of paper in his hand—it was one of the bundle that he had taken from his pocket, but it was not a map—and he was looking from the paper to the Saint with bulging eyes. And the Saint knew what the paper was, and his right hand moved quietly to his hip pocket.

Yet his face betrayed nothing.

"What's the matter, officer?" he inquired curtly. "Aren't you well?"

Still staring, the policeman inhaled audibly. And then he spoke.

"Oi knew Oi'd seen your face befoor!"

"What the devil do you mean?"

"Oi knoo wot Oi mean." The policeman put the paper back on the table and thumped it trium­phantly. "This is your phootograph, an' it says as you're wanted for murder!"

Simon stood like a rock.

"My good man, you're talking through your hat," he said incisively. "I've shown you my identity card ——"

"Ay, that you 'ave. But that's just wot it says 'ere." The constable snatched up the paper again. "You tell me wot this means: ' 'As frequently represented 'imself to be a police officer.' An' if callin' yourself a Secret Service agent ain't as good as callin' yourself a police officer, Oi'd loike to knoo wot's wot!"

"I don't know who you're mixing me up with ——"

"Oi'm not mixin' you up with anyone. Oi knoo 'oo you are. An' you called me a blistered boob, didn't you? Tellin' me the tale loike that—the worst tale ever I 'eard! Oi'll shoo you if Oi'm a blistered boob. ..."

The Saint stepped back and his hand came out of his pocket. After all, there was no crowd here to interfere with a straight fight.

"O.K. again, son," he drawled. "I'll promise to recommend you for promotion when I'm caught. You're a smart lad. . . . But you won't catch me. ... "

The Saint was on his toes, his hands rising with a little smile on his lips and a twinkle of laughter in his eyes. And suddenly the policeman must have realized that perhaps after all he had been a blistered boob—that he ought to have kept his discovery to himself until he could usefully reveal it. For the Saint didn't look an easy man to arrest at that moment. . . .

And, suddenly, the policeman yelled—once.

Then the Saint's fists lashed into his jaw, left and right, with two crisp smacks like a kiss-cannon of magnified billiard balls, and he went down like a log.

"And that's that," murmured the Saint grimly.

He reached the window in three strides, and stood there, listening. And out of the gloom there came to him the sound of hoarse voices and hurrying men.

"Well, well, well!" thought the Saint, with characteristic gentleness, and understood that a rapid exit was the next thing for him. If only the cop hadn't managed to uncork that stentorian bellow. . . . But it was too late to think about that—much too late to sit down and indulge in vain lamentations for the bluff that might have been been put over the villagers while the cop lay gagged and bound in the station master's office, if only the cop had passed out with his mouth shut. "It's a great little evening," thought the Saint, as he slipped over the sill.

He disappeared into the shadows down the plat­form like a prowling cat a moment before the leading pair of boots came pelting over the con­crete. At the end of the platform he found a board fence, and he was astride it when a fresh outcry arose from behind him. Still smiling abstractedly, he lowered himself onto a patch of grass beside the road. The road itself was deserted—evidently all the men who had followed them to the station had rushed in to discover the reason for the noise—and no one challenged the Saint as he walked swiftly and silently down the dark street. And long before the first feeble apology for a hue and cry arose behind him he was flitting soundlessly up the cliff road, and he had no fear that he would be found.

4

IT WAS EXACTLY half-past four when he closed the door of Marius's library behind him and faced six very silent people. But one of them found quite an ordinary thing to say.

"Thank the Lord," said Roger Conway.

He pointed to the open window; and the Saint nodded.

"You heard?"

"Quite enough of it."

The Saint lighted a cigarette with a steady hand.

"There was a little excitement," he said quietly.

Sonia Delmar was looking at him steadfastly, and there was a shining pity in her eyes.

"You didn't get through," she said.

It was a plain statement — a statement of what they all knew without being told. And Simon shook his head slowly.

"I didn't. The telephone line's down between here and Saxmundham, and I couldn't get any answer from station telegraph. Angel Face knew about the telephone — that's one reason why he heaved his own at me."

"And they spotted you in the village?"

"Later. I had to break into the post office — the dames in charge were away — but I got away with that. Told the village cop I was a secret agent. He swallowed that at first, and actually helped me break into the station. And then he got out a map to find out how far it was to Saxmundham, and pulled out his Police News with my photograph in it at the same time. I laid him, of course, but I wasn't quite quick enough. Otherwise I might still have got something to take us into Saxmundham —

I was just fixing that when the cop tried to earn his medal."

"You might have told him the truth," Roger ventured.

He expected a storm, but the Saint's answer was perfectly calm.

"I couldn't risk it, old dear. You see, I'd started off with a lie, and then I'd called him a blistered boob when I was playing the Secret Service gag—and I'd sized up my man. I reckon I'd have had one chance in a thousand of convincing him. He was as keen as knives to get his own back, and his kind of head can only hold one idea at a time. And if I had convinced him, it'd have taken hours, and we'd still have had to get through to Saxmundham; and if I'd failed—"

He left the sentence unfinished. There was no need to finish it.

And Roger bit his lip.

"Even now," said Roger, "we might as well be marooned on a desert island.''

Sonia Delmar spoke again.

"That ambulance," she said. "The one they brought me here in ——''

It was Marius who answered, malevolently from his corner.

"The ambulance has gone, my dear young lady.

It returned to London immediately afterwards."

In a dead silence the Saint turned.

"Then I hope you'll go on enjoying your tri­umph, Angel Face," he said, and there was a ruthless devil in his voice. "Because I swear to you, Rayt Marius, that it's the last you will ever enjoy. Others have killed; but you have sold the bodies and souls of men. The world is poisoned with every breath you breath. . . . And I've changed my mind about giving you a fighting chance."

The Saint was resting against the door; he had not moved from it since he came in. He rested there quite slackly, quite lazily; but now his gun was in his hand, and he was carefully thumbing down the safety catch. And Roger Conway, who knew what the Saint was going to do, strove to speak casually.

"I suppose," remarked Roger Conway casually, "you could hardly run the distance in the time. You used to be pretty useful ——"

The Saint shook his head.

"I'm afraid it's a bit too much," he answered. "It isn't as if I could collapse artistically at the finish. . . . No, old Roger, I can't do it. Unless I could grow a pair of wings ——"

"Wings!"

It was Sonia Delmar who repeated the word— who almost shouted it—clutching the Saint's sleeve with hands that trembled.

But Simon Templar had already started up, and a great light was breaking in his eyes.

"God's mercy!" he cried, with a passionate sincerity ringing through the strangeness of his oath. "You've said it, Sonia! And I said it. ... We'd forgotten Angel Face's aëroplane!"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

How Roger Conway was left alone,

and Simon Templar went to his reward

THE SAINT'S GUN was back in his pocket; there was a splendid laughter in his eyes, and a more splendid laughter in his heart. And it was with the same laughter that he turned again to Marius.

"After all, Angel Face," he said, "we shall have our fight!"

And Marius did not answer.

"But not now, Saint!" Roger protested in an agony; and Simon swung round with another laugh and a flourish to go with it.

"Certainly not now, sweet Roger! That comes afterwards—with the port and cigars. What we're going to do now is jump for that blessed avion."

"But where can we land? It must be a hundred miles to Croydon in a straight line. That'll take over an hour—after we've got going—and there's sure to be trouble at the other end ——"

"We don't land, my cherub. At least, not till it's all over. I tell you, I've got this job absolutely taped. I'm there!"

The Saint's cigarette went spinning across the room, and burst in fiery stars against the opposite wall. And he drew Roger and the girl towards him, with a hand on each of their shoulders.

"Now see here. Roger, you'll come with me, and help me locate and start up the kite. Sonia, I want you to scrounge round and find a couple of helmets and a couple of pairs of goggles. Angel Face's outfit is bound to be around the house somewhere, and he's probably got some spares. After that, find me another nice long coil of rope—I'll bet they've got plenty—and your job's done. Lessing,"—he looked across at the millionaire, who had risen to his feet at last—"it's about time you did something for your life. You find some stray bits of string, without cutting into the beautiful piece that Sonia's going to find for me, and amuse yourself splicing large and solid chairs onto Freeman, Hardy, and Willis over in the corner. Then they'll be properly settled to wait here till I come back for them. Is that all clear?"

A chorus of affirmatives answered him.

"Then we'll go," said the Saint.

And he went; but he knew that all that he had ordered would be done. The new magnificent vitality that had come to him, the dazzling dare­devil delight, was summed up and blazoned to them all in the gay smile with which he left them; it swept them up, inspired them, kindled within them the flame of his own superb rapture; he knew that his spirit stayed with them, to spur them on. Even Lessing. . . .

And Roger. . . .

And Roger said awkwardly as they turned the corner of the house and went swiftly over the dark grassland: "Sonia told me more about that cruise while you were away, Saint."

"Did she now?"

"I'm sorry I behaved like I did, old boy."

Simon chuckled.

"Did you think I'd stolen her from you, Roger?"

"Do you want to?" Roger asked evenly.

They moved a little way in silence.

Then the Saint said: "You see, there's always Pat."

"Yes."

"I'll tell you something. I think, when she first met me, Sonia fell. I know I did—God help me— in a kind of way. I still think she's—just great. There's no other word for her. But then, there's no other word for Pat."

"No."

"More than once, it did occur to me —— But what's the use? There are all kinds of people in this wall-eyed world, and especially all kinds of women. They're just made different ways, and you can't alter it. I suppose you'll call that trite; but I give you my word, Roger, I had to go on that cruise last night before I really understood the saying. And so did Sonia. But I got more out of it than she did, because it was the sequel that was so frightfully funny, and I don't think she'll ever see the joke. I don't think you will, either; and that's another reason why ——"

"What was the joke?" Roger asked.

"When we met Hermann," said the Saint, "and Hermann pointed a gun at me, Sonia also had a gun. And Sonia didn't shoot. Pat wouldn't have missed that chance." He stopped, and raised the lantern he carried. "And that's our kite, isn't it?" he said.

A little way ahead of them loomed up the squat black shape of a small hangar. They reached it in a few more strides, and the Saint pulled back the sliding doors. And the aëroplane was there—a Gypsy Moth in silver and gold, with its wings demurely folded. "Isn't this our evening?" drawled the Saint.

Roger said cautiously: "So long as there's enough juice."

"We'll see," said the Saint, and he was already peering at the gauge. His murmur of satisfaction rang hollowly between the corrugated iron walls. "Ten gallons. . . It's good enough!"

They wheeled the machine out together, and the Saint set up the wings. Then he hustled Roger into the cockpit and took hold of the propeller.

"Switch off—suck in!"

The screw went clicking round; then:

"Contact!"

"Contact!"

The engine coughed once, and then the propeller vibrated back to stillness. Again the Saint bent his back, and this time the engine stuttered round a couple of revolutions before it stopped again.

"It's going to be an easy start," said the Saint. "Half a sec. while I see if they've got any blocks."

He vanished into the hangar, and returned in a moment with a couple of large .wooden wedges that trailed cords behind them. These he fixed under the wheels, laying out the cords in the line of the wings; then he went back to the propeller.

''We out to do it this time. Suck in again!''

Half a dozen brisk winds and he was ready.

"Contact!"

"Contact!"

A heaving jerk at the screw. . . . The engine gasped, stammered, hesitated, picked up with a loud roar. . . .

"Hot dog!" said the Saint.

He sprinted round the wing and leaped to the side, with one foot in the stirrup and a long arm reaching over to the throttle.

"Stick well back, Roger. . . . That's the ticket!"

The snarl of the engine swelled furiously; a gale of wind buffeted the Saint's face and twitched his coat half away from his shoulders. For a while he hung on, holding the throttle open, while the bellow of the engine battered his ears, and the machine strained and shivered where it stood; then he throttled back, and put his lips to Roger's ear.

"Hold on, son. I'll send Sonia out to you. Switch off the engine if she tries to run away."

Roger nodded; and the Saint sprang down and disappeared. In a few moments he was back at the house, with the mutter of the engine scattered through the dark behind him; and Sonia Delmar was waiting for him on the doorstep.

"I've got all the things you wanted," she said.

Simon glanced once at her burdens.

"That's splendid." He touched her hand. "Roger's out there, old dear. Would you like to take those effects out to him?"

"Sure."

"Right. Follow the noise, and don't run into the prop. Where's Ike?"

"He's nearly finished."

"O.K. I'll bring him along."

With a smile he left her, and went on into the library. Lessing was just rising from his knees; a glance showed Simon that Marius, the German, and the Bowery Boy had been dealt with as per invoice.

"All clear, Ike?" murmured the Saint; and Lessing nodded.

"I don't think they'll get away, though I'm not an expert at this game."

"It looks good to me—for an amateur. Now, will you filter out into the hall? I'll be with you in one moment."

The millionaire went out submissively; and Simon turned to Marius for the last time. Through the open window came a steady distant drone; and Marius must have heard and understood it, but his face was utterly inscrutable.

"So," said the Saint softly, "I have beaten you again, Angel Face."

The giant looked at him with empty eyes.

"I am never beaten, Templar," he said.

"But you are beaten this time," said the Saint. "Tomorrow morning I shall come back, and we shall settle our account. And, in case I fail, I shall bring the police with me. They will be very in­terested to hear all the things I shall have to tell them. The private plotting of wars for gain may not be punishable by any laws, but men are hanged for high treason. Even now, I'm not sure that I wouldn't rather have you hanged. There's something very definite and unromantic about hanging. But I'll decide that before I return. ... I leave you to meditate on your victory."

And Simon Templar turned on his heel and went out, closing and locking the door behind him.

Sir Isaac Lessing stood in the hall. He was still deathly pale, but there was a strange kind of courage in the set of his lips and the levelling of the eyes with which he faced the Saint—the strangest of all kinds of courage.

"I believe I owe you my life, Mr. Templar," he said steadily; but the Saint's nod was curt.

"You're welcome."

"I'm not used to these things," Lessing said; "and I find I'm not fitted for them. I suppose you can't help despising me. I can only say that I agree with you. And I should like to apologize."

For a long moment the Saint looked at him, but Lessing met the clear blue gaze without flinching. And then Simon gripped the millionaire's arm.

"The others are waiting for us," he said. "I'll talk to you as we go."

They passed out of the door; and the Saint, glancing back, saw a man huddled in one corner of the hall, very still. By the lodge gates, a little while before, he had seen another man, just as still. And, later, he told Roger Conway that those two men were dead. "You want to be careful how you bash folks with the blunt end of a gat," said the Saint. "It's so dreadfully easy to stave in their skulls." But he never told Roger what he said to Sir Isaac Lessing in the small hours of that morning as they walked across the landing field under the stars.

2

"AND SO WE LEAVE YOU," said the Saint.

He had been busy for a short time performing some obscure operation with the rope that Sonia Delmar had brought; but now he came round the aëroplane into the light of the lantern, buckling the strap of his helmet. Lessing waited a little way apart; but Simon called him, and he came up and joined the group.

"We'll meet you in London," said the Saint. "As soon as we're off you'd better take Sonia down to the station and wait there for the first train. I don't think you'll have any trouble; but if you do it shouldn't be difficult to deal with it. There's nothing you can be held for. But for God's sake don't say anything about Angel Face or this house—I'd as soon trust that village cop to look after Angel Face as I'd leave my favourite white mouse under the charge of a hungry cat. When you get to town I expect you'll want some sleep, but you'll find us in Upper Berkeley Mews this evening. Sonia knows the place."

Lessing nodded.

"Good luck," he said, and held out his hand.

Simon crushed it in a clasp of steel.

He moved away, held up his handkerchief for a moment to check the wind, and went to clear the chocks from under the wheels. Then he climbed into the front cockpit and plugged his telephones into the rubber connection. His voice boomed through the speaking tube.

"All set, Roger?"

"All set."

The Saint looked back.

He saw Roger catch the girl's hand to his lips; and then she tore herself away. And with that last glimpse of her, the Saint settled his goggles over his eyes and pushed the stick forward; and the tumult of the engine rose to a howl as he threw open the throttle and they began to jolt forward over the grass.

Not quite so damned easy, taking off on a dark night, with the Lord knew what at the end of the run. . . . But he kept the tail up grimly until he had got his full flying speed, and then eased the stick back as quickly as he dared. . . . The bump­ing lessened, ceased altogether; they rushed smoothly through the air. . . . Looking over the side, he saw a black feather of tree-top slip by six feet below, and grinned his relief. Turning steeply to the west, he saw a tiny speck of light in the darkness beyond his wing tip. The lantern. . . . And then the machine came level again, and went racing through the night in a gentle climb.

The stinging swiftness of the upper air was new life to him. A little while ago he had been weary to death, though no one had known: but now he felt shoutingly fit for the adventure of his life. It might have been because of the fresh hope he had found when there had seemed to be no hope. . . . For he had his chance; and, if human daring and skill and sinew counted for anything, he would not fail. And so the work would be done, and life would go on, and there would be other things to see and new songs to sing. Battle, murder, and sudden death, he had had them all—full measure, pressed down, running over. And her had loved them for their own sake. . . . And his follies he had had, temp­tations, nonsense, fool's paradise and fool's hell; and those also had gone over. And now a vow had been fulfilled, and much good done, and a great task was near its end; but there must be other things.

"For the song and the sword and the pipes of Pan

Are birthrights sold to a usurer;

But I am the last lone highwayman,

And lam the last adventurer."

Not even all that he had done was a destiny; there must always be other things. So long as the earth turned for the marching seasons, and the stars hung in the sky, for so long there would be other things. There was neither climax nor anti­climax: a full life had no place for such trivial theatricalities. A full life was made up of all that life had to offer; it was complete, taking every­thing without fear and giving everything without favour; and wherever it ended it would always be whole. So it would go on. To fight and kill one day, to rescue the next; to be rich one day, and to be a beggar the next; to sin one day, and to do something heroic the next—so might a man's sins be forgiven. And there was so much that he had not done. He hadn't walked in the gardens of Monte Carlo, immaculate in evening dress, and he hadn't tramped from one end of Europe to the other in the oldest clothes he could find. He hadn't been a beachcomber on a South Sea island, or built a house with his own hands, or read the lessons in a church, or been to Timbuktu, or been married, or cheated at cards, or learned to talk Chinese, or shot a sitting rabbit, or driven a Ford, or. . . Hell! Was there ever an end? And everything that a man could do must enrich him in some way, and for everything that he did not do his life must be for ever poorer. . . .

So, as the aëroplane fled westwards across the sky, and the sky behind it began to pale with the promise of dawn, the Saint found a strange peace of heart; and he laughed. . . .

His course was set unerringly. In the old days there had been hardly an inch of England over which he had not flown; and he had no need of maps. As the silver in the sky spread wanly up the heavens, the country beneath him was slowly lighted for his eyes; and he began to school Roger in a difficult task.

"You have handled the controls before, haven't you, old dear?" he remarked coolly; and an unenthusiastic reply came back to him.

"Only for a little while."

"Then you've got about half an hour to learn to handle them as if you'd been born in the air!"

Roger Conway said things—naughty and irrel­evant things, which do not belong here. And the Saint smiled.

"Come on," he said. "Let's see you do a gentle turn."

After a pause, the machine heeled over drunkenly. . . .

"Verminous," said the Saint scathingly. "You're too rough on that rudder. Try to imagine that you're not riding a bicycle. And don't use the stick as if you were stirring porridge. . . . Now we'll do one together." They did. "And now one to the left. . . ."

For ten minutes the instruction went on.

"I guess you ought to be fairly safe on that," said the Saint at the end of that time. "Keep the turns gentle, and you won't hurt yourself. I'm sorry I haven't time to tell you all about spins, so if you get into one I'm afraid you'll just have to die. Now we'll take the glide."

Then Roger was saying, unhappily: "What's the idea of all this, Saint?"

"Sorry," said the Saint, "but I'm afraid you'll be in sole charge before long. I'm going to be busy."

He explained why; and Roger's gasp of horror came clearly through the telephones.

"But how the hell am I going to get down, Saint?"

"Crash in the Thames," answered Simon succinctly. "Glide down to a nice quiet spot, just as you've been taught, undo your safety belt, flatten out gently when you're near the water, and pray. It's not our aëroplane, anyway."

"It's my life," said Roger gloomily.

"You won't hurt yourself, sonny boy. Now, wake up and try your hand at this contour chasing. ..."

And the nose of the machine went down, with a sudden scream of wires. The ground, luminous now with the cold pallor of the sky before sunrise, heaved up deliriously to meet them. Roger's head sang with a rush of blood, and he seemed to have left his stomach about a thousand feet behind. ... Then the stick stroked back between his legs, his stomach flopped nauseatingly down towards his seat, and he felt slightly sick. . . .

"Is it always as bad as that?" he inquired faintly.

"Not if you don't come down so fast," said the Saint cheerfully. "That was just to save time. . . . Now, you simply must get used to this low flying. It's only a matter of keeping your head and going light on the controls." The aëroplane shot between two trees, with approximately six inches to spare beyond either wing, and a flock of sheep stampeded under their wheels. "You're flying her, Roger! Let's skim this next hedge. . . . No, you're too high. I said skim, not skyrocket." The stick went forward a trifle. "That's better. . . . Now miss this fence by about two feet. . . . No, that was nearer ten feet. Try to do better at the next, but don't go to the other extreme and take the undercarriage off. . . . That's more like it! You were only about four feet up that time. If you can get that distance fixed in your eye, you'll be absolutely all right. Now do the same thing again. . . . Good! Now up a bit for these trees. Try to miss them by the same distance—it'll be good practice for you. ..."

And Roger tried. He tried as he had never before tried anything in his life, for he knew how much depended on him. And the Saint urged him on, speaking all the time in the same tone of quiet encouragement, grimly trying to crowd a month's instruction into a few minutes. And somehow he achieved results. Roger was getting the idea; he was getting that most essential thing, the feel of the machine; and he had started off with the greatest of all blessings—a cool head and an instinctive judgment. It was much later when he found a patch of gray hair on each of his temples. . . .

And so, for the rest of that flight, they worked on together, with the Saint glancing from time to time at his watch, yet never varying the patient steadiness of his voice.

And then the time came when the Saint said that the instruction must be over, hit or miss; and he took over the controls again. They soared up in a swift climb; and, as the fields fell away beneath them, a shaft of light from the shy rim of the sun caught them like a fantastic spotlight, and the aeroplane was turned to a hurtling jewel of silver and gold in the translucent gulf of the sky.

3

"DOWN THERE, on your right!" cried the Saint; and Roger looked over where the Saint's arm pointed.

He saw the fields laid out underneath them like a huge unrolled map. The trees and little houses were like the toys that children play with, building their villages on a nursery floor. And over that grotesque vision of a puny world seen as an idle god might see it, a criss-cross of roads and lanes sprawled like a sparse muddle of strings, and a railway line was like a knife-cut across the icing of a cake, and down the railway line puffed the tiniest of toy trains.

The aëroplane swung over in a steep bank, and the map seemed to slide up the sky until it stood like a wall at their wing tip; and the Saint spoke again.

"Hermann's about twenty miles away, but that doesn't give us much time at seventy miles an hour. So you've got to get it over quickly, Roger. If you can do your stuff as you were doing it just now, there's simply nothing can go wrong. Don't get excited, and just be a wee bit careful not to stall when my weight comes off. I'm not quite sure what the effect will be."

"And suppose—suppose you don't bring it off?"

They were flying to meet the toy train now.

"If I miss, Roger, the only thing I can ask you to do is to try to land farther up the line. You'll crash, of course, but if you turn your petrol off first you may live to tell the tale. But whether you try it or not is up to you."

"I'll try it, Saint, if I have to."

"Good scout."

They had passed over the train; and then again they turned steeply, and went in pursuit.

And the Saint's calm voice came to Roger's ears with a hint of reckless laughter somewhere in its calm.

"You've got her, old Roger. I'm just going to get out. So long, old dear, and the best of luck."

"Good luck, Simon."

And Roger Conway took over the controls.

And then he saw the thing that he will never forget. He saw the Saint climb out of the cockpit in front of him, and saw him stagger on the wing as the wind caught him and all but tore him from his precarious hold. And then the Saint had hold of a strut with one hand, and the rope that he had fixed with the other, and he was backing towards the leading edge of the wing. Roger saw him smile, the old incomparable Saintly smile. . . . And then the Saint was on his knees; then his legs had disap­peared from view; then there was only his head and shoulders and two hands. . . . one hand .... And the Saint was gone.

Roger put the stick gently forward.

He looked back over the side as he did so, in a kind of sick terror that he would see a foolish spread-eagle shape dwindling down into the unrolled map four thousand feet below; but he saw nothing. And then he had eyes only for the train.

Hit or miss. ...

And Simon Templar also watched the train.

He dangled at the end of his rope, like a spider on a thread, ten feet below the silver and gold fuselage. One foot rested in a loop that he had knotted for himself before they started; his hands were locked upon the rope itself. And the train was coming nearer.

The wind lashed him with invisible whips, bil­lowing his coat, fighting him with savage flailing fingers. It was an effort to breathe; to hold on at all was a battle. And he was supposed to be resting there. He had deliberately taught Roger to fly low, much lower than was necessary, because that extreme was far safer than the possibility of being trailed along twenty feet above the carriage roofs. When the time came he would slip down the rope, hang by his arms, and lei go as soon as he had the chance.

And that time was not far distant. Roger was diving rather steeply, with his engine full on. . . . But the train was also moving. ... At two hundred feet the Saint guessed that they were overtaking the train at about twenty miles an hour. He ought to have told Roger about that. . . . But then Roger must have seen the mistake also, for he throttled the engine down a trifle, and they lost speed. And they were drifting lower. . . .

With a brief prayer, the Saint twitched his foot out of the stirrup and went down the rope hand over hand.

"Glory!" thought the Saint. "If the fool stalls—if he tries to cut his speed down by bringing the stick back. . ."

But they weren't stalling. They were keeping their height for a moment; then they dipped straightly, gaining on the train at about fifteen miles an hour. . . no, ten. . . . And the hindmost carriage slipped under the Saint's feet—a dozen feet under them.

There were only three coaches on the train.

But they were dropping quickly now—Roger was contour-chasing like an ace! He wasn't dead centre, though. . . .A shade to one side. . . . "Just a touch of left rudder!" cried the Saint helplessly; for one of his feet had scraped the outside edge of a carriage roof, and they were still going lower. . . . And then, somehow, it hap­pened just as if Roger could have heard him: the Saint was clear over the roof of the leading coach, and his knees and arms were bent to keep his feet off it. . . .

And he let go.

The train seemed to tear away from under him; his left hand crashed into a projection, and went numb; and the roof became red-hot and scorched his legs. He felt himself slithering towards the side, and flung out his sound right hand blindly. ... He caught something like a handle. . . held on. . . and the slipping stopped with a jar that sent a twinge of agony stabbing through his shoulder.

He lay there gasping, dumbly bewildered that he should still be alive.

For a full minute. . . .

And then the meaning of it filtered into his understanding; and he laughed softly, absurdly, a laughter queerly close to tears.

For the work was done.

Slowly, in a breathless wonder, he turned his head. The aëroplane was turning, coming back towards him, alongside the train, low down. And a face looked out, helmeted, with its big round goggles masking all expression and giving it the appearance of some macabre gargoyle; but all that could be seen of the face was as white as the morning sky.

Simon waved his injured hand; and, as the aëroplane swept by in a droning thunder of noise, the snowy flutter of a handkerchief broke out against its silver and gold. And so the aëroplane passed, rising slowly as it went towards the north, with the sunrise striking it like a banner unfurled.

And five minutes later, in a strange and mon­strous contrast to the flamboyant plumage of the great metal bird that was swinging smoothly round into the dawn, a strained and tatterdemalion figure came reeling over the tender of the swaying locomotive; and the two men in the cab, who had been watching him from the beginning, were there to catch him as he fell into their arms.

"You come outa that airyplane?" blurted one of them dazedly; and Simon Templar nodded.

He put up a filthy hand and smeared the blood out of his eyes.

"I came to tell you to stop the train," he said. "There are two bombs on the line."

4

THE SAINT RESTED where they had laid him down. He had never known what it was to be so utterly weary. All his strength seemed to have ebbed out of him, now that it had served for the supreme effort. He felt that he had not slept for a thousand years. . . .

All around him there was noise. He heard the hoarse roar of escaping steam, the whine of brakes, the fading clatter of movement, the jolt and hiss of the stop. In the sudden silence he heard the far, steady drone of the aëroplane filling the sky. Then there were voices, running feet, ques­tions and answers mingling in an indecipherable murmur. Someone shook him by the shoulder, but at that moment he felt too tired to rouse, and the man moved away.

And then, presently, he was shaken again, more insistently. A cool wet cloth wiped his face, and he heard a startled exclamation. The aëroplane seemed to have gone, though he had not heard its humming die away: he must have passed out altogether for a few seconds. Then a glass was pressed to his lips; he gulped, and spluttered as the neat spirit rawed his throat. And he opened his eyes.

"I'm all right," he muttered.

All he saw at first was a pair of boots. Large boots. And his lips twisted with a rueful humour. Then he looked up and saw the square face and the bowler hat of the man whose arm was around his shoulders.

"Bombs, old dear," said the Saint. "They've got the niftiest little electric firing device at­tached—you lay it over the line, and it blows up the balloon when the front wheels of the train go over it. That's my dying speech. Now it's your turn."

The man in the bowler hat nodded.

"We've already found them. You only stopped us with about a hundred yards to spare." He was looking at the Saint with a kind of wry regret. "And I know you," he said.

Simon smiled crookedly.

"What a thing is fame!" he sighed. "I know you, too, Detective-Inspector Carn. How's trade? I shall come quietly this time, anyway—I couldn't run a yard."

The detective's lips twitched a trifle grimly. He glanced over his shoulder.

"I think the King is waiting to speak to you," he said.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

How Simon Templar

put down a book

IT WAS LATE in a fair September afternoon when Roger Conway turned into Upper Berkeley Mews and admitted himself with his own key.

He found the Saint sitting in an armchair by the open window with a book on his knee, and was somehow surprised.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded; and Simon rose with a smile.

"I have slept," he murmured. "And so have you, from all accounts."

Roger spun his peaked cap across the room. "I have," he said. "I believe the order for my release came through about lunchtime, but they thought it would be a shame to wake me. "

The Saint inspected him critically. Roger's livery covered him uncomfortably. It looked as if it had shrunk. It had shrunk.

"Jolly looking clothes, those are," Simon remarked. "Is it the new fashion? I'd be afraid of catching cold in the elbows, you know. Besides, the pants don't look safe to sit down in."

Roger returned the survey insultingly.

"How much are you expecting to get on that face in part exchange?" he inquired; and suddenly the Saint laughed.

"Well, you knock-kneed bit of moth-eaten gorgonzola!"

"Well, you cross-eyed son of flea-bitten hobo!"

And all at once their hands met in an iron grasp.

"Still," said the Saint presently, "you don't look your best in that outfit, and I guess you'll feel better when you've had a shave. Some kind soul gave me a ring to say you were on your way, and I've turned the bath on for you and laid out your other suit. Push on, old bacillus; and I'll sing to you when you come back."

"I shall not come back for years," said Roger delicately.

The Saint grinned.

He sat down again as Roger departed and took up his book again, and traced a complicated arabesque in the corner of a page thoughtfully. Then he wrote a few more lines, and put away his fountain pen. He lighted a cigarette and gazed at a picture on the other side of the room: he was still there when Roger returned.

And Roger said what he had meant to say before.

"I was thinking," Roger said, "you'd have gone after Angel Face."

Simon turned the pages of his book.

"And so was I," he said. "But the reason why I haven't is recorded here. This is the tome in which I dutifully make notes of our efforts for the benefit of an author bloke I know, who has sworn to make a blood-and-thunder classic of us one day. This entry is very tabloid."

"What is it?"

"It just says—'Hermann.' "

And the Saint, looking up, saw Roger's face, and laughed softly.

"In the general excitement," he said gently, "we forgot dear Hermann. And Hermann was ordered to go straight back as soon as he'd parked his bombs. I expect he has. Anyway, I haven't heard that he's been caught. There's still a chance, of course. . . . Roger, you may wonder what's hap­pened to me, but I rang up our old friend Chief Inspector Teal and told him all about Saltham, and he went off as fast as a police car could take him. It remains to be seen whether he arrived in time. ... The crown prince left England last night, but they've collected Heinrich. I'm afraid Ike will have to get a new staff of servants, though. His old ones are dead beyond repair. . . . I think that's all the dope,"

"It doesn't seem to worry you," said Roger.

"Why should it?" said the Saint a little tiredly. "We've done our job. Angel Face is smashed, whatever happens. He'll never be a danger to the world again. And if he's caught he'll be hanged, which will do him a lot of good. On the other hand, if he gets away, and we're destined to have another round—that is as the Lord may provide."

"And Norman?"

The Saint smiled, a quiet little smile.

"There was a letter from Pat this morning," he said. "Posted at Suez. They're going on down the east coast of Africa, and they expect to get around to Madeira in the spring. And I'm going to do something that I think Norman would have wanted far more than vengeance. I'm going ad­venturing across Europe; and at the end of it I shall find my lady."

Roger moved away and glanced at the tele­phone.

"Have you heard from Sonia?" he asked.

"She called up," said the Saint. "I told her to come right round and bring papa. They should be here any minute now."

Conway picked up the Bystander and put it down again.

He said: "Did you mean everything you said last night—this morning?"

Simon stared out of the window.

"Every word," he said.

He said: "You see, old Roger, some queer things happen in this life of ours. You cut adrift from all ordinary rules; and then, sometimes, when you'd sell your soul for a rule, you're all at sea. And when that happens to a man he's surely damned, bar the grace of Heaven; because I only know one thing worse than swallowing every commandment that other people lay down for you, and that's having no commandments but those you lay down for yourself. None of which abstruse philosophy you will understand. . . . But I'll tell you, Roger, by way of a fact, that everything life gives you has to be paid for; also that where your life leads you, there will your heart be also. Selah. Autographed copies of that speech, on vellum, may be obtained on the instal­ment plan at all public houses and speakeasies— one pound down, and the rest up a gum tree. ..."

A car drove down the mews and stopped by the door. But Roger Conway was still looking at the Saint; and Roger was understanding, with a strange wild certainty, that perhaps after all he had never known the Saint, and perhaps he would never know him.

The Saint closed his book. He laid it down on the table beside him, and turned to meet Roger's eyes.

" 'For all the Saints who from their labours rest,' " he said. "Sonia has arrived, my Roger."

And he stood up, with the swift careless laugh that Roger knew, an his hand fell on Roger's shoulder, and so they went out together into the sunlight.

THE END