“That is not my business.”
“You’re making it your business.”
The Saint paused for a moment, and then he went on in a voice that no one could have interrupted, the passionate voice of a prophet crying in the wilderness.
“There is science that is good and science that is evil. Yours is the evil science, and all the blessings that good science has given to mankind are no justification for your evil. If we must have science, let it be good science. Let it be a science in which men can still be men, even when they kill and are killed. If there must be war, let it be holy war. Let men fight with the weapons of men, and not with the weapons of fiends. Let us have men to fight and die as champions and heroes, as men used to die, and not as the beasts that perish, as men have to die in our wars now.”
“You are an absurd idealist—”
“I am an absurd idealist. But I believe that all that must come true. For, unless it comes true, the world will be laid desolate. And I believe that it can come true. I believe that, by the grace of God, men will awake presently and be men again, and colour and laughter and splendid living will return to a grey civilisation. But that will only come true because a few men will believe in it, and fight for it, and fight in its name against everything that sneers and snarls at that ideal. You are such a thing.”
“And you are the last hero—fighting against me?”
Simon shook his head.
“Not the last hero,” he said simply. “Perhaps not a hero at all. I call myself a soldier of life. I have sinned as much as any man, and more than most. I have been a hunted criminal. I am that now. But everything I’ve done has been done for the glory of an invisible ideal. I never understood it very clearly before, but I understand it now. But you…Why haven’t you even told me that you want to do what you want to do for the glory of your own ideal—for the glory, if you like, of England?”
A fantastic obstinacy flared in Vargan’s eyes.
“Because it wouldn’t be true,” he said. “Science is international. Honour among scientists is international. I’ve offered my invention first to England—that’s all. If they’re fools enough to refuse to reward me for it, I shall find a country that will.”
He came closer to the Saint, with his head sideways, his faded lips curiously twisted. And the Saint saw that he had wasted all his words.
“For years I’ve worked and slaved,” babbled Vargan. “Years! And what have I got for it? A few paltry letters to put after my name. No honour for everybody to see. No money. I’m poor! I’ve starved myself, lived like a pauper, to save the money to carry on my work! Now you ask me to give up everything that I’ve sacrificed the best years of my life to win—to gratify your Sunday School sentimentality! I say you’re a fool, sir—an imbecile!”
The Saint stood quite still, with Vargan’s bony hands clawing the air a few inches from his face. His impassivity seemed to infuriate the professor.
“You’re in league with them!” screamed Vargan. “I knew it. You’re in league with the devils who’ve tried to keep me down! But I don’t care! I’m not afraid of you. You can do your worst. I don’t care if millions of people die. I hope you die with them! If I could kill you—”
Suddenly he flung himself at the Saint like a mad beast, blubbering incoherently, tearing, kicking…
Orace caught him about the middle and swung him off his feet in arms of iron and the Saint leaned against the table, rubbing a shin that he had not been quick enough to get out of the way of that maniacal onslaught.
“Lock him up again,” said Simon heavily, and saw Orace depart with his raving burden.
He had just finished with the telephone when Orace returned.
“Get everybody’s things together,” he ordered. “Your own included. I’ve phoned for a van to take them to the station. They’ll go as luggage in advance to Mr Tremayne, in Paris.
I’ll write out the labels. The van will be here at four, so you’ll have to move.”
“Yessir,” said Orace obediently.
The Saint grinned.
“We’ve been a good partnership, haven’t we?” he said. “And now I’m clearing out of England with a price on my head. I’m sorry we’ve got to…break up the alliance…”
Orace snorted.
“Ya bin arskin forrit, aintcha?” he demanded unsympathetically. “Ain’t I tolja so arfadozen times?…Where ya goin’ ta?” he added, in the same ferocious tone.
“Lord knows,” said the Saint.
“Never bin there,” said Orace. “Allus wanted ta, but never adno invitashun. I’ll be ready to leave when you are, sir.”
He turned smartly on his heel and marched to the door. Simon had to call him back.
“Shake, you darned old fool,” said the Saint, and held out his hand. “If you think it’s worth it…”
“’Tain’t,” said Orace sourly. “But I’ll avta look arfter ya.”
Then Orace was gone, and the Saint lighted a cigarette and sat down by the open window, gazing dreamily out over the lawn and the sunlit river.
And it seemed to him that he saw a cloud like a violet mist unrolled over the lawn and the river and the white houses and fields behind, a gigantic cloud that crept over the country like a living thing, and the cloud scintillated as with the whirling and flashing of a thousand thousand sparks of violet fire. And the grass shrivelled in the searing breath of the cloud, and the trees turned black and crumpled in hot cinders as the cloud engulfed them. And men ran before the cloud, men agonised for breath, men with white, haggard faces and eyes glazed and staring, men…But the creeping of the cloud was faster than the swiftest man could run…
And Simon remembered the frenzy of Vargan.
For the space of two cigarettes he sat there with his own thoughts, and then he sat down and wrote a letter.
To Chief Inspector Teal,
Criminal Investigation Department,
New Scotland Yard,
London, S.W.1.
Dear Old Claud Eustace,
Before anything else, I want to apologise for assaulting you and one of your men at Esher on Saturday, and also to apologise for the way a friend of mine treated you yesterday. Unfortunately, on both occasions, the circumstances did not permit us to dispose of you by more peaceful means.
The story that Roger Conway told you last night was nothing but the truth. We rescued Professor Vargan from the men who first took him—who were led, as Conway told you, by the celebrated Dr Rayt Marius—and removed him to a place of safety. By the time you receive this, you will know our reason, and, since I have not the time to circularise the Press myself, I hope this explanation will be safe in your hands.
Little remains for me to add to what you already know.
We have tried to appeal to Vargan to suppress his invention on humanitarian grounds. He will not listen. His sole thought is the recognition which he thinks his scientific genius deserves. One cannot argue with monomaniacs: therefore, we find ourselves with only one course open to us.
We believe that for this diabolical discovery to take its place in the armament of the nations of Europe, at a time when jealousies and fears and the rumours of wars are again lifting their heads, would be a refinement of “civilisation” which the world could well be spared. You may say that the exclusive possession of this invention would confirm Great Britain in an unassailable supremacy, and perhaps thereby secure the peace of Europe. We answer that no secret can be kept for ever. The sword is two-edged. And, as Vargan answered me by saying, “Science is international”—so I answer you by saying that humanity is also international.
We are content to be judged by the verdict of history, when all the facts are made known.
But in accomplishing what we have accomplished, we have put you in the way of learning our identities, and that, as you will see, must be an almost fatal blow to such an organisation as mine.
Nevertheless, I believe that in time I shall find a way for us to continue the work that we have set ourselves to
do.
We regret nothing that we have already done. Our only regret is that we should be scattered before we have had time to do more. Yet we believe that we have done much good, and that this last crime of ours is the best of all.
Au revoir!
Simon Templar (“The Saint”).
He had heard, while he wrote, the sounds of Orace despatching luggage, and, as he signed his name, Orace entered with a tray of tea and the report that the van had departed.
Patricia came in through the French windows a moment later. He thought she could never have looked so slim and cool and lovely. And, as she came to him, he swung her up in one arm as if she had been a feather.
“You see,” he smiled, as he set her down, “I’m not quite a back number yet.”
She stayed close to him, with cool golden-brown arms linked round his neck, and he was surprised that she smiled so slowly.
“Oh, Simon,” she said, “I do love you so much!”
“Darling,” said the Saint, “this is so sudden! If I’d only known…”
But something told him that it was not a time for jesting, and he stopped.
But of course she loved him. Hadn’t he known it for a whole heavenly year, ever since she confessed it on the tor above Baycombe—that peaceful Devonshire village—only a week after he’d breezed into the district as a smiling swashbuckler in search of trouble, without the least notion that he was waltzing into a kind of trouble to which he had always been singularly immune? Hadn’t she proved it, since, in a hundred ways? Hadn’t the very night before, at Bures, been enough in itself to prove the fact beyond question for all time?
And now, in the name of fortune and all the mysteries of women, she had to blurt it out of the blue like that, almost as if…“Burn it!” thought the Saint. “Almost as if she thought I was going to leave her!”
“Darling old idiot,” said the Saint, “what’s the matter?”
Roger Conway answered, from the Saint’s shoulder, having entered the room unnoticed. He answered with a question.
“You’ve seen Vargan?”
“I have.”
Roger nodded.
“We heard some of the noise. What did he say?”
“He went mad, and gibbered. Orace rescued me, and carried him away—fighting like a wild cat. Vargan’s a lunatic, as Norman said. And a lunatic said…‘No.’”
Conway went to the window and looked up the river, shading his eyes against the sun. Then he turned back.
“Teal’s on his way,” he said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “For the last half-hour the same energetic bird has been scuttling up and down the river in a motor-boat. We spotted him through the kitchen window, while we were drinking beer and waiting for you.”
“Well, well, well!” drawled the Saint, very gently and thoughtfully.
“He was snooping all round with a pair of binoculars. Pat being out on the lawn may have put him off for a bit. I left Norman on the look-out, and sent Orace out for Pat as soon as we heard you were through.”
Norman Kent came in at that moment, and Simon took his arm and drew him into the group.
“Our agile brain,” said the Saint, “deduces that Hermann has squealed, but has forgotten the actual number of our telephone. So Teal has to investigate Maidenhead generally. That may yet give us another hour or two, but it doesn’t alter the fact that we have our marching orders. They’re easy. Your luggage has already gone. So, if you beetle off to your rooms and have a final wash and brush-up, we’ll be ready to slide. Push on, souls!”
He left them to it, and went to the kitchen in search of Orace.
“Got your bag packed, Orace?”
“Yessir.”
“Passport in order?”
“Yessir.”
“Fine. I’d like to take you in the Desoutter, but I’m afraid there isn’t room. However, the police aren’t after you, so you won’t have any trouble.”
“Nossir.”
The Saint took ten five-pound notes from a bulging wallet.
“There’s a train to London at 4:58,” he said. “Paddington, 5:40. That’ll give you time to say good-bye to all your aunts, and catch a train from Victoria at 8:20, which will take you via Newhaven and Dieppe to Paris, where you arrive at 5:23 tomorrow morning at the Gare St Lazare. While you’re waiting in London, you’d better tear yourself away from your aunts for as long as it takes you to send a wire to Mr Tremayne and ask him to meet you at the station and protect you from all those wild French ladies you’ve read about. We’ll meet you at Mr Tremayne’s…Oh, and you might post this letter for me.”
“Yessir.”
“O.K., Orace. You’ve just got time to get to the station without bursting a bloodvessel. S’long!”
He went on to his room, and there he found Patricia.
Simon took her in his arms at once.
“You’re coming on this getaway?” he asked.
She held tightly to him.
“That’s what I was wondering when I came in from the garden,” she said. “You’ve always been such a dear old quixotic ass, Simon. You know how it was at Baycombe.”
“And you thought I’d want to send you away.”
“Do you?”
“I should have wanted to once,” said the Saint. “In the bad old days…But now—oh, Pat, dear lass, I love you too much to be unselfish! I love your eyes and your lips and your voice and the way your hair shines like gold in the sun. I love your wisdom and your understanding and your kindliness and your courage and your laughter. I love you with every thought of my mind and every minute of my life. I love you so much that it hurts. I couldn’t face losing you. Without you, I just shouldn’t have anything to live for…And I don’t know where we shall go or what we shall do or what we shall find in the days that are coming. But I do know that if I never find more than I’ve got already—just you, lass!—I shall have had more than my life…”
“I shall have had more than mine, Simon…God bless you!”
He laughed.
“He has,” said the Saint. “You see how it is…And I know a gentleman would be strong and silent, and send you out into the night for your own sake. But I don’t care. I’m not a gentleman. And if you think it’s worth it, to be hunted out of England with me—”
But her lips silenced his, and there was no need to say more. And in Simon Templar’s heart was a marvel of thanksgiving that was also a prayer.
16
HOW SIMON TEMPLAR PRONOUNCED SENTENCE, AND NORMAN KENT WENT TO FETCH HIS CIGARETTE-CASE
A few minutes later, the Saint joined Roger Conway and Norman Kent in the sitting-room. He had already started up the Hirondel, tested its smooth running as well as he could, and examined the tyres. The sump showed no need of oil, and there was petrol enough in the tank to make a journey twice as long as the one they had to take. He had left the car ticking over on the drive outside, and returned to face the decision that had to be taken.
“Ready?” asked Norman quietly.
Simon nodded.
In silence he took a brief survey through the French windows, and then he came back and stood before them.
“I’ve only one preliminary remark to make,” he said. “That is—where is Tiny Tim?”
They waited.
“Put yourselves in his place,” said the Saint. “He hasn’t got the facilities for trailing us that Teal has had. But Teal is here, and wherever old Teal is, Angel Face won’t be far behind. Angel Face, being presumably anything but a bonehead, would naturally figure that the smartest thing to do, knowing Teal was trailing us, would be to trail Teal. That’s the way I’d do it myself, and you can bet that Angel Face is nearly as rapid on the bounce, in the matter of brainwaves, as we are ourselves. I just mention that as a factor to be remembered during this fade-away act—and because it’s another reason for us to solve a certain problem quickly.”
They knew what he meant, and met his eyes steadily—Roger Conway grim, Norman Kent grave and inscrutable.
&nb
sp; “Vargan will not listen to reason,” said the Saint simply. “You heard him…And there’s no way out for us. We’ve only one thing to do. I’ve tried to think of other solutions, but there just aren’t any…You may say it’s cold-blooded. So is any execution. But a man is cold-bloodedly executed by the law for one murder that is a matter of ancient history. We execute Vargan to save a million murders. There is no doubt in any of our minds that he will be instrumental in those murders if we let him go. And we can’t take him with us…So I say that he must die.”
“One question,” said Norman. “I believe it’s been asked before. If we remove Vargan, how much of the menace of war do we remove with him?”
“The question has been answered before. I think Vargan is a keystone. But even if he isn’t—even if the machinery that Marius has set in motion is able to run on without wanting more fuel—even if there is to be war—I say that the weapon that Vargan has created must not be used. We may be accused of betraying our country, but we must face that. Perhaps there are some things even more important than winning a war…Do you understand, I wonder?”
Norman looked through the window, and some whimsical fancy, unbidden alien at such a conference, touched his lips with the ghost of a smile.
“Yes,” he said, “there are so many important things to think of.”
The Saint turned to Roger Conway.
“And you, Roger—what do you say?”
Conway fingered an unlighted cigarette.
“Which of us shall do it?” he asked simply.
Simon Templar looked from Roger to Norman, and he said what he had always meant to say.
“If we are caught,” he said, “the man who does it will be hanged. The others may save themselves. I shall do it.”
Norman Kent rose.
“Do you mind?” he said. “I’ve just remembered I left my cigarette-case in my bedroom. I’ll be back in a moment.”
He went out, and passed slowly and thoughtfully down the little hall to a door that was not his own.
The Saint Closes the Case (The Saint Series) Page 18
