THAT HAND-BRAKE'S still a bit feeble, old boy." Roger Conway came in, unfastening the gaudy choker which he had donned for his character part. "You ought to get—"
His voice trailed away, and he stood staring.
The Saint was on his knees, his little throwing knife in his hand, swiftly cutting ropes away from wrists and ankles.
"I'll have it seen to on Monday," said the Saint coolly.
Roger swallowed.
"Damn it, Saint—"
Simon looked round with a grin.
"Yes, I know, sonny boy," he said. "It is our evening, isn't it?"
He stood up and looked down at the girl.
"How are you feeling, old thing?"
She had her hands clasped to her forehead.
"I'll be all right in a minute," she said. "My head—hurts. . . ."
"That dope they gave you," murmured the Saint. "And the crack you got afterwards. Rotten, isn't it? But we'll put that right in a brace of shakes. Roger, you beetle off to the kitchen and start some tea, and I'll officiate with the dispensary."
Roger departed obediently; and Simon went over to a cupboard, and took therefrom a bottle and a glass. From the bottle he shook two pink tablets into the glass. Then he fizzed soda-water onto them from the siphon, and thoughtfully watched them dissolve.
"Here you are, old dear." He touched the girl lightly on the shoulder, with the foaming drink in his other hand. "Just shoot this down, and in about five minutes, when you've lowered a cup of tea on top of it, you'll be prancing about like a canary on a hot pancake."
She looked up at him a little doubtfully, as if she were wondering whether her present headache might not be so bad as the one she might get from the glass he was offering. But the Saint's smile was reassuring.
"Good girl. . . . And it wasn't so very foul, was it?"
Simon smiled approval as she handed him back the empty glass.
"Thank you—so much. ..."
"Not at all," said the Saint. "Any little thing like that. . . . Now, all you've got to do, lass, is just to lie back and rest and wait for that cup of tea."
He lighted a cigarette and leaned against the table, surveying her in silence.
Under her tousled hair he saw a face that must have been modelled by happy angels. Her eyes were closed then, but he had already seen them open—deep pools of hazel, shaded by soft lashes.
Her mouth was proud and imperious, yet with laughter lurking in the curves of the red lips. And a little colour was starting to ebb back into the faultless cheeks. If he had ever seen real beauty in a woman, it was there. There was a serene dignity in the forehead, a fineness of line about the small, straight nose, a wealth of character in the moulding of the chin that would have singled her out in any company. And the Saint was not surprised; for it was dawning upon him that he knew who she was.
The latest Bystander was on the table beside him. He picked it up and turned the pages. . . . She was there. He knew he could not have been mistaken, for he had been studying the picture only the previous afternoon. He had thought she was lovely then; but now he knew that the photograph did her no justice.
He was still gazing at her when Roger entered with a tray.
"Good man." Simon removed his gaze from the girl for one second, with an effort, and then allowed it to return. He shifted off the table. "Come along, lass."
She opened her eyes, smiling.
"I feel ever so much better now," she said.
"Nothing to what you'll feel like when you've inhaled this Château Lipton," said the Saint cheerfully. "One or two lumps? Or three?"
"Only two."
She spoke with the slightest of American accents, soft and utterly fascinating.
Simon handed her the cup.
"Thank you," she said; and then, suddenly: "Oh, tell me how you found me. ..."
"Well, that's part of a long story," said the Saint. "The short part of it is that we were interested in Heinrich Dussel—the owner of the house where I found you—and Roger here was watching him. About midnight Roger saw an old man arrive in a car—drugged—"
"How did you know I was drugged?"
"They brought a wheel chair out of the house for you," Roger explained. "They seemed to be in rather a hurry, and as they lifted you out of the car they caught your head a frightful crack on the door. Now, even a paralyzed old man doesn't take a bang on the head like that without making some movement or saying something; but you took it like a corpse, and no one even apologized."
The Saint laughed.
"It was a really bright scheme," he said. "A perfect disguise, perfectly thought out—right down to those gloves they put on you in case anyone noticed your hands. And they'd have brought it off if it hadn't been for that one slip— and Roger's eagle eye. But after that, the only thing for us to do was to interview Heinrich. ..."
He grinned reminiscently, and retailed the entire episode for Roger Conway's benefit. The latter half of it the girl already knew, but they laughed again together over the thought of the curtain to the scene—the Law ploughing heroically in to rescue other gray-beards from the flames, and finding Mr. Dussel. . . .
"The only thing I haven't figured out," said the Saint, "is how it was a man I heard cry out, when the window was smashed in the frolic before I came in."
"I bit him in the hand," said the girl simply.
Simon held up his hands in admiring horror.
"I get you. . . . You came to, and tried to make a fight of it—and you—you—bit a man in the hand?"
She nodded.
"Do you know who I am?"
"I do," said the Saint helplessly. "That's what makes it so perfect."
SIMON TEMPLAR picked up the Bystander.
"I recognized you from your picture in here," he said, and handed the paper to Roger. "See if you can find it, sonny boy."
The girl passed him her cup, and he took and replenished it.
"I was at a ball at the Embassy," she said. "We're staying there. ... It was very dull. About half-past eleven I slipped away to my room to rest—it was so hot in the ballroom. I'm very fond of chocolates"—she smiled whimsically—"and there was a lovely new box on my dressing table. I didn't stop to think how they came there—I supposed the Ambassador's wife must have put them in my room, because she knows my weakness—and I just naturally took one. I remember it had a funny bitter taste, and I didn't like it; and then I don't remember anything until I woke up in that house. ..."
She shuddered; then she laughed a little.
"And then you came in," she said.
The Saint smiled, and glanced across at Roger Conway, who had put down the Bystander and was staring at the girl. And she laughed again, merrily, at Roger's consternation.
"I may be a millionaire's daughter," she said, "but I enjoyed your tea like anyone else."
Simon offered his cigarette case.
"Those are the ones that don't explode," he said, pointing, and helped himself after her. Then he said: "Have you started wondering who was responsible?"
"I haven't had much time."
"But now—can you think of anyone? Anyone who could do a thing like that in an Embassy, and smuggle you out in those clothes?"
She shook her head.
"It seems so fantastic."
"And yet I could name the man who could have done it—and did it."
"But who?"
"You probably danced with him during the evening."
"I danced with so many."
"But he would be one of the first to be presented."
"I can't think—"
"But you can!" said the Saint. "A man of medium height—slim—small moustache—very elegant." He watched the awakening comprehension in her eyes, and forestalled it. "The Crown Prince Rudolf of—"
"But that's impossible!"
"It is—but it's true. I can give you proof. . . . And it's just his mark. It's worthy of him. It's one of the biggest things that have ever been done!"
The Saint was striding up and down the room in his excitement, with a light kindling in his face and a fire in his eyes that Roger Conway knew of old. Simon Templar's thoughts, inspired, had leaped on leagues beyond his spoken words, as they often did when those queer flashes of genius broke upon him. Roger knew that the Saint would come back to earth in a few moments and condescend to make his argument plain to less vivid minds; Roger was used to these moods, and had learned to wait patiently upon them, but bewildered puzzlement showed on the girl's face.
"I knew it!" Simon stopped pacing the room suddenly, and met the girl's smiling perplexity with a laugh. "Why, it's as plain as the nose on your—on—on Roger's face! Listen. . . ."
He swung onto the table, discarded a half-smoked cigarette, and lighted a fresh one.
"You heard me tell Dussel that I was—the Saint?"
"Yes."
"Hadn't you heard that name before?"
"Of course, I'd seen it in the newspapers. You were the leader of a gang."
"And yet," said the Saint, "you haven't looked really frightened since you've been here."
"You weren't criminals."
"But we committed crimes."
"Just ones—against men who deserved it."
"We have killed men."
She was silent.
"Three months ago," said the Saint, "we killed a man. It was our last crime, and the best of all. His name was Professor K. B. Vargan. He had invented a weapon of war which we decided that the world would be better without. He was given every chance—we risked everything to offer him his life if he would forget his diabolical invention. But he was mad. He wouldn't listen. And he had to die. Did you read that story?"
"I remember it very well."
"Other men—agents of another country—were also after Vargan, for their own ends," said the Saint. "That part of the story never came out in the papers. It was hushed up. Since they failed, it was better to hush up the story than to create an international situation. There was a plot to make war in Europe, for the benefit of a group of financiers. At the head of this group was a man who's called the Mystery Millionaire and the Millionaire Without a Country—one of the richest men in the world—Dr. Rayt Marius. Do you know that name?" She nodded.
"Everyone knows it."
"The name of the greatest private war-maker in modern history," said Simon grimly. "But this plot was his biggest up to date. And he was using, for his purpose, Prince Rudolf. It was one of those two men who killed one of my dearest friends, in my bungalow up the river, where we had taken Vargan. You may remember reading that one of our little band was found there. Norman Kent— one of the whitest men that ever walked this earth. ..."
"I remember."
The Saint was gazing into the fireplace, and there was something in his face that forbade anyone to break the short silence which followed.
Then he pulled himself together.
"The rest of us got away, out of England," he went on quietly. "You see, Norman had stayed behind to cover our retreat. We didn't know then that he'd done it deliberately, knowing he hadn't a hope of getting away himself. And when we found out, it was too late to do anything. It was then that I swore to—pay my debt to those two men. ..."
'' I understand,'' said the girl softly.
"I've been after them ever since, and Roger with me. It hasn't been easy, with a price on our heads; but we've had a lot of luck. And we've found out—many things. One of them is that the work that Norman died to accomplish isn't finished yet. When we put Vargan out of Marius's reach we thought we'd knocked the foundations from under his plot. I believe Marius himself thought so, too. But now he seems to have discovered another line of attack. We haven't been able to find out anything definite, but we've felt—reactions. And Marius and Prince Rudolf are hand in glove again. Marius is still hoping to make his war. That is why Marius must die very soon—but not before we're sure that his intrigue will fall to pieces with his death."
The Saint looked at the girl.
"Now do you see where you come in?" he asked.
She passed a hand across her eyes.
"You're terribly convincing." Her eyes had not left his face all the time he had been talking. "You don't seem like a man who'd make things like that up ... or dream them. . . . But—"
"Your left hand," said the Saint.
She glanced down. The ring on the third finger caught the light and flung it back in a blaze of brilliance. And was he mistaken, or did he see the faintest shadow of fear touch a proud face that should never have looked afraid?
But her voice, when she spoke, told him nothing.
"What has that to do with it?"
"Everything," answered Simon. "It came to me when I first mentioned Prince Rudolf's name to you. But I'd already got the key to the whole works in the song I was singing just before I barged into Heinrich Dussel's house—and I didn't know it. . . ."
The girl wrinkled her brow.
"What do you mean?"
"I told you that Marius was working for a group of financiers—men who hoped to make millions out of the war he was engineering for them," said the Saint. "Now, what kind of financier do you think would make the most out of another great war?"
She did not answer; and Simon took another cigarette. But he did not light it at once. He turned it between his fingers with a savage gentleness, as if the immensity of his inspiration cried aloud for some physical expression.
He went on, in the same dispassionate tone:
"In the story I've just told you, Vargan wasn't the whole of the plot. He was the key piece—but the general idea went deeper and wider. Before he came into the story, there'd been an organized attempt to create distrust between this country and others in Europe. You must see how easy that would be to wealthy and unscrupulous men. At man alleged to be, say, a French spy, is arrested— here. A man alleged to be a spy of ours is arrested—in France. And it goes on. Spies aren't shot in time of peace. They merely go to prison. If I can afford to send for a number of English crooks, say, and tell them: 'I want you to go to such and such a place, with certain things which I will give you. You will behave in such and such a manner, you will be arrested and convicted as a spy, and you will be imprisoned for five years. If you take your sentence and keep your mouth shut, I will pay you ten thousand pounds'—aren't there dozens of old lags in England who'd tumble over each other for the chance? And it would be the same with men from other countries. Of course, their respective governments would disown them; but governments always disown their spies. That wouldn't cut any ice. And as it went on, the distrust would grow. . . . That isn't romance. It's been done before, on a smaller scale. Marius was doing it before we intervened, in June last. What they call 'situations' were coming to dangerous heads. When Marius fell down over Vargan, the snake was scotched. We thought we'd killed it; but we were wrong. Do you remember the German who was caught trying to set fire to our newest airship, the R103?"
"Yes."
"Marius employed him—for fifteen thousand pounds. I happened to know that. In fact, it was intended that the R103 should actually be destroyed. The plot only failed because I sent information to Scotland Yard. But even that couldn't avert the public outcry that followed. . . . Then, perhaps, you remember the Englishman who was caught trying to photograph a French naval base from the air?"
"The man there was so much fuss about a month ago?"
The Saint nodded.
"Another of Marius's men. I know, because I was hiding in Marius's wardrobe at the Hotel Edouard VII, in Paris, when that man received his instructions. . . . And the secret treaty that was stolen from our Foreign Office messenger between Folkestone and Boulogne—"
"I know."
"Marius again."
The Saint stood up; and again he began to pace the room.
"The world's full of Peace Pacts and Disarmament Conferences," he said, "but where do those things go to when there's distrust between nations? No one may want war—those who saw the last war through would do anything to prevent another—but if a man steals your chickens, and throws mud at your wife when she goes for a walk, and calls you names over the garden wall, you just naturally have to push his teeth through the back of his neck. You can be as long-suffering as you like; but presently he carefully lays on the last straw just where he knows it'll hurt most, and then you either have to turn round and refashion his face or earn the just contempt of all your neighbours. Do you begin to understand?"
"I do. ... But I still don't see what I've got to do with it."
"But I told you!" She shook her head, blankly. "When?"
"Didn't you see? When I was talking about financiers—after I'd recognized you? Isn't your father Hiram Delmar, the Steel King? And aren't you engaged to marry Sir Isaac Lessing, the man who controls a quarter of the world's oil? And isn't Lessing, with his Balkan concessions, practically the unofficial dictator of southeastern Europe? And hasn't he been trying for years to smash R.O.P.? . . . Suppose, almost on the eve of your wedding, you disappear — and then you're found — on the other side — in Russia. ..."
The Saint's eyes were blazing.
"Why, it's an open book!" he cried. "It's easy enough to stir up distrust among the big nations; but it's not so easy to get them moving — there's a hell of a big coefficient of inertia to overcome when you're dealing with solid old nations like England and France and Germany. But the Balkans are the booster charge — they've been that dozens of times before — and you and Lessing make up the detonator. . . . It's worthy of Marius's brain! He's got Lessing's psychology weighed up to the last lonely milligram. He knows that Lessing's notorious for being the worst man to cross in all the world of high finance. Lessing's gone out of his way to break men for nothing more than an argument over the bridge table, before now. . . . And with you for a lever, Marius could engineer Lessing into the scheme — Lessing could set fire to the Balkans — and there might be war in Europe within the week!"
ONCE, MONTHS BEFORE, when Simon Templar had expounded a similar theory, Roger Conway had looked at him incredulously, as if he thought the Saint must have taken leave of his senses. But now there was no incredulity in Roger's face. The girl looked at him, and saw that he was as grave as his leader.
She shook her head helplessly.
"It's like a story-book," she said, "and yet you make it sound so convincing. You do. . . ."
She put her hand to her sweet head; and then, only then, Simon struck a match for his mauled cigarette, and laughed gently.
"Poor kid! It has been a thick night, hasn't it? ... But you'll feel heaps better in the morning; and I guess our council of war won't grow mould if it stands over till breakfast. I'll show you your room now; and Roger shall wade out into the wide world first thing to-morrow, and borrow some reasonable clothes for you off a married friend of mine."
She stood up, staring at him.
"Do you mean that—you're going to keep me here?"
The Saint nodded.
"For to-night, anyway.''
"But the Embassy—"
"They'll certainly be excited, won't they?"
She took a step backwards.
"Then—after all—you're—"
"No, we aren't. And you know it."
Simon put his hands on her shoulders, smiling down at her. And the Saint's smile, when he wished, could be a thing no mortal woman could resist.
"We're playing a big game, Roger and I," he said. "I've told you a little of it to-night. One day I may be able to tell you more. But already I've told you enough to show you that we're out after something more than pure soft roe and elephant's eggs. You've said it yourself."
Again he smiled.
"There'll be no war if you don't go back to the Embassy to-night," he said. "Not even if you disappear for twenty-four hours—or even forty-eight. I admit it's a ticklish game. It's rather more ticklish than trying to walk a tight-rope over the crater of Vesuvius with two sprained ankles and a quart of bootleg hooch inside you. But, at the moment, it's the only thing I can see for us—for Roger and me—to take Marius's own especial battle-axe and hang it over his own ugly head. I can't tell you yet how the game will be played. I don't know myself. But I shall think something out overnight. . . . And meanwhile—I'm sorry— but you can't go home."
"You want to keep me a prisoner?"
"No. That's the last thing I want. I just want your parole—for twelve hours."
In its way the half-minute's silence that followed was perhaps as tense a thirty seconds as Simon Templar had ever endured.
Since he started talking he had been giving out every volt of personality he could command. He knew his power to a fraction—every inflection of voice and gesture, every flicker of expression, every perfectly timed pause. On the stage or the screen he could have made a fortune. When he chose he could play upon men and women with a sure and unfaltering touch. And in the last half-hour he had thrown all his genius into the scale.
If it failed ... He wondered what the penalty was for holding a millionaire's daughter prisoner by force. Whatever it was, he had every intention of risking it. The game, as he had told her, was very big. Far too big for any half-hearted player. . . .
But none of this showed on his face. Poised, quiet, magnificently confident, with that ghost of a swashbuckling smile on his lips, he bore her calm and steady scrutiny. And, looking deep into her eyes, he thought his own thoughts; so that a faint strange tremor moved him inwardly, in a way that he would not have thought possible.
But the girl could see none of this; and the hands that rested on her shoulders were as cool and firm as a surgeon's. She saw only the Saint's smile, the fineness of the clear blue eyes, the swift swaggering lines of the lean brown face. And perhaps because she was what she was, she recognized the quality of the man. . . .
"I'll give you my parole," she said.
"Thank you,'' said the Saint.
Then Simon showed her to his own room.
"You'll find a very good selection of silk pajamas in the wardrobe," he remarked lightly. "If they aren't big enough for you, wear two suits. That door leads into the bathroom. ..." Then he touched her hand. "One day," he said, "I'll try to apologize for all this."
She smiled.
"One day," she said, "I'll try to forgive you." .
"Good-night, Sonia."
He kissed her hand quickly and turned and went down the stairs again.
"Just one swift one, Roger, my lad," he murmured, picking up a tankard and steering towards the barrel in the corner, "and then we also will retire. Something accomplished, something done, 'as earned a k-night's repose. . . . Bung-ho!"
Roger Conway reached morosely for the decanter.
"You have all the luck, you big stiff," he complained. "She only spoke to me once, and I couldn't get a word in edgeways. And then I heard you call her Sonia."
"Why not?" drawled the Saint. "It's her name."
"You don't call a Steel Princess by her first name—when you haven't even been introduced."
"Don't I!"
Simon raised his tankard with a flourish, and quaffed. Then he set it down on the table, and clapped Roger on the shoulder.
"Cheer up," he said. "It's a great life."
"It may be for you," said Roger dolefully. "But what about me? If you'd taken the girl straight back to the Embassy I might have taken a few easy grands off papa for my share in the rescue."
"Whereas all you're likely to get now is fifteen years—or a bullet in the stomach from Marius." Simon grinned; then his face sobered again. "By this time both Marius and Rudolf know that we're back. And how much the police know will depend on how much Heinrich has told them. I don't think he'll say much about us without consulting the Prince and Marius."
"Well, you can bet Marius will spread the alarm."
"I'm not so sure. As long as he knows that we've got Sonia, I think he'll prefer to come after us with his own gang. And he'll find out tomorrow that she hasn't been sent back to the loving arms of the Embassy."
Roger Conway flicked some ash from his cigarette. Those who had known him in the old days, before his name, after the death of K. B. Vargan, became almost as notorious as the Saint's, would have been surprised at his stern seriousness. Fair-haired and handsome (though less beautiful now on account of the make-up that went with his costume) and as true to a type as the Saint was true to none, he had led a flippant and singularly useless life until the Saint enlisted him and trained him on into the perfect lieutenant. And in the strenuous perils of his new life, strange to say, Roger Conway was happier than he had ever been before. . . .
Roger said: "How much foundation had you got for that theory you put up to Sonia?"
"Sweet damn all," confessed the Saint. "It was just the only one I could see that fitted. There may be a dozen others; but if there are, I've missed them. And that's why we've got to find out a heap more before we restore that girl to the bosom of the Ambassador's wife. But is was a good theory— a damned good theory—and I have hunches about theories. That one rang a distinct bell. And I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be the right one."
"Nor do I. But what beats me is how you're going to use Sonia."
"And that same question beats me, too, Roger, at the moment. I know that for us to hold her is rather less cautious than standing pat on a bob-tailed straight when the man opposite has drawn two. And yet I can't get away from the hunch that she's heavy artillery, Roger, if we can only find a way to fire the guns. ..."
And the Saint relapsed into a reverie.
Certainly, it was difficult. It would have been difficult enough at the best of times—in the old days, for instance, when only a few select people knew that Simon Templar, gentleman of leisure, and the Saint, of doubtful fame, were one and the same person, and he had four able lieutenants at his call. Now his identity was known, and he had only Roger—though Roger was worth a dozen. The Saint was not the kind of man to have any half-witted Watson gaping at his Sherlock—any futile Bunny balling up his Raffles. But, even so, with the stakes as high as they were, he would have given anything to be able to put back the clock of publicity by some fourteen weeks.
An unprofitable daydream ... of a kind in which the Saint rarely indulged. And with a short laugh he got to his feet, drained his tankard, and stretched himself.
"Bed, my Roger," he murmured decisively. "That's where I solve all my problems."
And it was so.