Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint s-4

by Leslie Charteris

"All right?'' he queried briefly.

  "Yes," came the automatic answer.

  No greater bluff could ever have been put up in two words and a stride. It was such a perfect little cameo of the art that the liveried man did not realize how he had been bluffed until three seconds after the Saint had spoken. And that was about four seconds too late. For by that time the Saint was only a yard away.

  "That's fine," said the Saint crisply. "Keep your face shut, and everything will still be all right. Back into that room...."

  There was a little knife in the Saint's hand. The Saint could do things with that knife that would have made a circus performer blink. But at that moment the Saint wasn't throwing the knife—he was just pricking the liveried man's throat with the point. And the liveried man recoiled instinctively.

  The Saint pushed him on, into the room, and kicked the door shut behind him. Then he dropped the knife, and took the man by the throat....

  He made very little noise. And presently the man slept....

  Then the Saint got to his feet and looked about him.

  The invalid lay on the bed—an old man, it seemed, judging by the thick gray beard. A shabby tweed cap was pulled down over eyes shielded by dark glasses, and his clothes were shapeless and ill-fitting. He wore black gloves, and above these there were ropes, binding his wrists together; and there were ropes also about his ankles.

  The Saint picked him up in his arms. He seemed to weigh hardly anything at all.

  As swiftly and silently as he had come, the Saint went down the stairs again with his light load.

  Even then, it was not all perfectly plain sailing. A hubbub began to arise from below as Simon reached the first floor; and as he turned the corner onto the last flight, he saw a man unlocking the door of the room in which Heinrich Dussel had been locked. And Simon continued calmly downwards.

  He reached the hall level in time to meet two automatics—one in the hand of the man who had unlocked the door, and one in the hand of Heinrich Dussel.

  "Your move, Heinrich," said the Saint calmly. "May I smoke while you're thinking it over?"

  He put the shabby old man carefully down on a convenient chair, and took out his cigarette case.

  "Going to hand me over to the police?" he murmured. "If you are, you'll have to figure out a lot of explanations pretty quickly. The cop outside heard me say I was your doctor, and he'll naturally want to know why you've waited such a long time before denying it. Besides, there's Convalescent Cuthbert here. ..." The Saint indicated the old man in the chair, who was trying ineffectually to say something through a very efficient gag. "Even mental cases aren't trussed up quite like that."

  "No," said Dussel deliberately— "you will not be handed over to the police, my friend."

  "Well, you can't keep me here," said the Saint, puffing. "You see, I had some words with the cop before I came to your door, and I told him I shouldn't be staying more than half an hour— voluntarily. And after the excitement just before I walked in, I should think he'll still be waiting around to see what happens."

  Dussel turned to his servant.

  "Go to a window, Luigi, and see if the policeman is still outside."

  "It is a bit awkward for you, Heinrich, old dear, isn't it?" murmured Simon, smoking tranquilly, as the servant disappeared. "I'm so well known to the police. I'd probably turn out to be well known to you, too, if I told you my name. I'm known as the Saint. ..." He grinned at Dussel's sudden start. "Anyway, your pals know me. Ask the Crown Prince—or Dr. Marius. And remember to give them my love...."

  The Saint laughed shortly; and Heinrich Dussel was still staring at him, white-lipped, when the servant returned to report that the constable was watching the house from the opposite pavement, talking to a newspaperman.

  "You seem annoyed, Heinrich," remarked the Saint, gently bantering, though the glitter behind Dussel's thick glasses should have told him that he was as near sudden death at that moment as it is healthy for any man to be. "Now, the Crown Prince never looks annoyed. He's much more strong and silent than you are, is Rudolf...."

  Simon spoke dreamily, almost in a whisper, and his gaze was intent upon his cigarette end. And, all the while, he smiled.... Then—

  "I'll show you a conjuring trick," he said suddenly. "Look!"

  He threw the cigarette end on the carpet at their feet, and closed his eyes. But the other two looked.

  They heard a faint hiss; and then the cigarette burst into a flare of white-hot eye-aching light that seemed to scorch through their eyeballs and sear their very brains. It only lasted a moment, but that was long enough. Then a dense white smoke filled the hall like a fog. And the Saint, with the old man in his arms again, was at the front door. They heard his mocking voice through their dazed blindness.

  "Creates roars of laughter," said the Saint. "Try one at your next party—and invite me. . . . So long, souls!"

  The plop of a silenced automatic came through the smoke, and a bullet smacked into the door beside the Saint's head. Then he had the door open, and the smoke followed him out.

  "Fire!" yelled the Saint wildly. "Help!" He rushed down the steps, and the policeman met him on the pavement. "For heaven's sake try to save the others, officer! I've got this old chap all right, but there are more in there—"

  He stood by the curb, shaking with silent laughter, and watched the Law brace itself and plunge valiantly into the smoke. Then the Hirondel purred up beside him, with the melan­choly-looking vendor of newspapers at the wheel, and the Saint stepped into the back seat.

  "O.K., big boy," he drawled; and Roger Conway let in the clutch.

  4

  "ALTOGETHER a most satisfactory beginning to the Sabbath," the Saint remarked, as the big car switched into a side street. "I won't say it was dead easy, but you can't have everything. The only real trouble came at the very end, and then the old magnesium cigarette was just what the doctor ordered.... Have a nice chat with the police?"

  "Mostly about you," said Roger. "The ideas that man had about the Saint were too weird and wonderful for words. I steered him onto the subject, and spent the rest of the time wishing I hadn't—it hurt so much trying not to laugh."

  Simon chuckled.

  "And now," he said, "I'm wondering what story dear Heinrich is trying to put over. That man won't get any beauty sleep tonight. Oh, it's a glorious thought! Dear Heinrich...."

  He subsided into a corner, weak with merriment, and felt for his cigarette case. Then he observed the ancient invalid, writhing helplessly on the cushions beside him, and grinned.

  "Sorry, Beautiful," he murmured, "but I'm afraid you'll have to stay like that till we get home. We can't have you making a fuss now. But as soon as we arrive we'll untie you and give you a large glass of milk, and you shall tell us the story of your life."

  The patriarch shook his head violently; then, finding that his protest was ignored, he relapsed into apathetic resignation.

  A few minutes later the Hirondel turned into the mews where Simon Templar had established his headquarters in a pair of luxuriously converted garages. As the car stopped, Simon picked up the old man again and stepped out. Roger Conway opened the front door for him, and the Saint passed through the tiny hall into the sitting room, while Roger went to put the car away. Simon deposited the he-ancient in a chair and drew the blinds; not until after he had assured himself that no one could look in from outside did he switch on the lights and turn to regard his souvenir of the night's entertainment.

  "Now you shall say your piece, Uncle," he remarked, and went to untie the gag. "Roger will make your Glaxo hot for you in a minute, and— Holy Moses!"

  The Saint drew a deep breath.

  For, as he removed the gag, the long gray beard had come away with it. For a moment he was too amazed to move. Then he snatched off the dark glasses and the shabby tweed cap, and a mass of rich brown hair tumbled about the face of one of the loveliest girls he had ever seen.

  CHAPTER TWO

  How Simon Templar entertained a
guest, and spoke of two old friends

  1

  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."

  2

  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 b
iggest 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.