"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.
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!"
"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.
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!"