Monty Hayward produced a pipe and began to scrape it out with his penknife.
"Getting them back from Marcovitch," he observed, "will be comparatively child's play."
"As Simon said," murmured Patricia softly, "it seems a lot of fuss to make over one little blue diamond."
She spoke almost without thinking; and after she had spoken there was a silence.
And then, very firmly and distinctly, the Saint said: "Hell! . . ."
"I know how you feel about it, old man," said Monty Hay-ward sympathetically; and there he stopped, with the rest of his speech drying up in a hiatus of blank bewilderment. For the Saint had rolled over on one elbow in a sudden leap of volcanic energy, and his eyes were blazing.
"But that's just what you don't know!" he cried. "We've been bounced off a train—chucked out on our ears and darned glad to be let off as lightly as that. And why? God of battles, what have we been thinking about all this time? What have we been daydreaming about Rudolf?"
"I thought he was a crook," said Monty rationally.
"I know! That's the mistake we've all been making. And yet you can't say you ever heard me speak of Rudolf as a crook. He never had to be. It wasn't so long ago when Rudolf could have bought us both up every day for a week and never missed it. It wasn't so long ago when Rudolf and Rayt Marius were playing for bigger chips than a few coloured stones. It was war in those days, Monty—death rays and Secret Service men, spies and Bolsheviks and assassinations—all the fun of the fair. Naturally there was money in it, but that was all coming to Rayt Marius. Marius was a crook, even if he was dealing in millions. But Rudolf was something that seems much stranger in these days. Something a damned sight more dangerous."
"And what's that?"
"A patriot," said the Saint.
Patricia kicked at her stone again, and It tumbled out of reach. She hardly noticed it.
"Then when we found we were up against Rudolf again——"
"We ought to have been wide awake. And we weren't. We've been fast asleep I We've watched Rudolf moving heaven and earth to get his hands on those jewels—killing and torturing for them—even coming down to offering me a partnership while his men had orders to shoot us on sight—and we took it all as part of the game. We've been on the spot ever since Stanislaus went home with us. Up in that brake van—I've never seen anything so flat-and-be-damned in my life! Marcovitch was primed to put me out of the way from the beginning. It was written all over his face. And after that he'd 've shot up anyone else who butted in for a witness, and taken you and Monty for a dessert—made a clean sweep of it, and shovelled the whole mortuary out onto the line." The Saint's voice was tense and vital with his excitement. "I thought of it once myself, right in the first act; but since then there doesn't seem to have been much spare time. When Rudolf walked into our rooms at the Königshof, I was wondering what new devilment we'd stumbled across. I was telling myself that there was one thing we weren't going to find in this adventure—and that was ordinary boodle in any shape or form. And then, just because a quarter of a million pounds' worth of crystallized minerals fell out of that sardine tin, I went soft through the skull. I forgot everything I ever knew."
"Do you know any more now?" asked Monty skeptically. Simon looked at him straightly.
"I know one thing more, which I was going to tell you," he answered. "Josef Krauss gave me the hint before he died. He said: 'Take great care of the blue diamond. It is really priceless.' And just for the last few minutes, Monty, I've been thinking that when we know what he meant by that we shall know why Rudolf has made up his mind that you and I are too dangerous to live."
IX. HOW SIMON HAD AN INSPIRATION, AND
TRESPASSED IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN
MONTY HAYWARD dug out his tobacco pouch and investigated, the contents composedly. His deliberately practical intelligence refused to be stampeded into any Saintly flights of fancy.
"If it's any use to you," he said, "I should suggest that Josef was trying to be helpful. Perhaps he didn't know you were a connoisseur of blue diamonds."
"Perhaps," said the Saint.
He came to his feet with the lithe swiftness of an animal, settling his belt with one hand and sweeping back the other over his smooth hair. The cold winds of incredulity and common sense flowed past his head like summer zephyrs. He had his inspiration. The flame of unquenchable optimism in his eyes was electric, an irresistible resurgence of the old Saintly exaltation that would always find a new power and hope in the darkest thunders of defeat. He laughed. The stillness had fallen from him like a cloak—fallen away as if it had never existed. He didn't care.
"Let's be moving," he said; and Monty Hayward stowed his pipe away again with a sigh.
"Where do you think we could move to?" he asked.
And once again it seemed to Patricia Holm that the breath of Saintly laughter in the air was like the sound of distant trumpets rallying a forlorn venture on the last frontiers of outlawry.
"We can move out of here. It won't be fifteen minutes after that train gets into Treuchtlingen before there'll be a cordon of gendarmerie packing around this neighbourhood closer than fat women round a remnant counter. And I've got a date with Marcovitch that they mightn't want me to keep."
He flicked the automatic adroitly out of Monty's pocket and dropped it into his own; and then a blur of colour moved in the borders of his vision, and his glance shot suddenly across Monty's shoulder.
"Holy smoke!" said the Saint. "What's this?"
Monty turned round.
It may be chronicled as a matter of solemn historical fact that the second in which he saw what had provoked the Saint's awed ejaculation was one of the most pregnant moments of his life. It was a back-hander from the gods which zoomed clean under his guard and knocked the power of protest out of him. To a man who had laboured so long and steadfastly to uphold the principles of a righteous and sober life in the face of unlimited discouragement, it was the unkindest cut of all.
He stood and stared at the approaching nucleus of his Waterloo with all the emotions of a temperance agitator who discovers that some practical joker has replenished with neat gin the glass of water from which he has just gulped an ostentatious draught of strength for his concluding peroration. He felt that Providence had gone out of its way to plant a banana skin directly under his inoffensive heel. If his guardian angel had bobbed up smirking at that moment with any chatty remarks about the. weather, Monty would unhesitatingly have socked him under the jaw. And yet the slim girl who was walking towards them across the clearing seemed brazenly unaware that she was making Nemesis look like a decrepit washerwoman going berserk on a couple of small ports. She was actually smiling at him; and the unblushing impudence of her put the finishing touch to Monty Hayward's débâcle.
"It's—it's someone I met on the train," he said faintly, and knew that Patricia Holm and the Saint were leaning on each other's shoulders in a convulsion of Homeric mirth.
It was Monty's only consolation that his Waterloo could scarcely have overtaken him in a more attractive guise. The awful glare with which he regarded her arrival almost sprained the muscles of his conscience, but it disconcerted her even less than the deplorable exhibition that was going on behind him.
"Hullo, Mr. Bandit," she said calmly.
The Saint freed himself unsteadily from Patricia's embrace. He staggered up alongside the stricken prophet.
"Shall we have her money or her life?" he crooned. "Or aren't we going to be introduced?"
"I think that would be a good idea," said the girl; and Monty called up all his battered reserves of self-control.
He glanced truculently around him.
"I'm Monty Hayward," he said. "This is Patricia Holm; and that nasty mess is Simon Templar. You can take it that they're both very pleased to meet you. Now, are we allowed to know who you are?"
"I'm Nina Walden." The girl's introspective survey considered Simon interestedly. "Aren't you the Saint?"
"Lady, you must move in distinguished circles."
"I do. I'm on the crime staff of the Evening Gazette—New York—and there's nothing more distinguished than that outside a jail. I thought I recognized your name."
She took a packet of cigarettes from her bag, placed one in her mouth, and raised her eyebrows impersonally for a light. The Saint supplied it.
"And did you get left behind in the excitement?" he murmured.
"I arranged to be left. Your friend told me there was a story coming—he didn't mean to give away any secrets, but he said one word too many when the train stopped. And then when he jumped out and left me floating, I just couldn't resist it. It was like having a murder committed on your own doorstep. Everyone was hanging out on this side of the track, so I stepped out on the other side while they were busy and lay low under the embankment. I walked over as soon as the train pulled out, but I certainly thought I should have to chase you a long way. It was nice of you to wait for me." She smiled at him shamelessly, without a quiver of those downright eyes. "Gee—I knew I was going to get a story, but I never guessed it'd be anything like this!"
The Saint brought his lighter slowly back to his pocket. On his left, Monty Hayward was stomaching that final pulverizing wallop of revelation with a look of pained reproach on his face which was far more eloquent than any flow of speech; on his right, Patricia Holm was standing a little aloof, with her hands tucked into the slack of that swashbuckling belt of hers, silently enjoying the humorous flavour of the scene; but the Saint had flashed on far beyond those things. A wave of the inspired opportunism which could never let any situation become static under the ceaseless play of his imagination had lifted him up to a new level of audacity that the others had yet to reach. The downfall of Monty Hayward was complete: so be it: the Saint saw no need to ask for further details—he had thrust back that supreme moment into the index of episodes which might be chortled over in later years, and he was working on to the object which was just then so much more urgently important Nina Walden was there—and the Saint liked her nerve.
"So you're a dyed-in-the-wool reporter?" he drawled; and the girl nodded bewitchingly.
"Yes, sir."
"And you've got all your papers—everything you need to guarantee you as many facilities as a foreign journalist can corner in this country?"
"I think so."
"And you want the biggest story of your life—a front-page three-column splash with banner lines and black type?"
"I'm hoping to get it."
The Saint gave her smile for smile. And the Saintly smile was impetuous with a mercurial resolve that paralleled the swaggering alignment of his shoulders.
"Nina, the story's yours. I've always wanted to make one newspaper get its facts about me right before I die. But the story isn't quite finished yet, and it never will be if you're in too much of a hurry for it. We were just pushing on to finish it—and we've wasted enough time already. Come on with us—leave the interviews till afterwards—and I'll give you the scoop of the year. I don't know what it is, but I know it'll be a scoop. Wipe all your moral scruples off the map— help me as much as I'll help you—and it's a monopoly. Would you like it?"
The girl picked a loose flake of tobacco from the edge of her red mouth.
"Reporters are born without moral scruples," she said candidly. "You're on."
"We're leaving now," said the Saint.
He flung an arm round Patricia's waist and turned her towards a path which led out of the clearing away from the embankment, a grass-paved ride broad enough for them to walk abreast; and if she had been a few pounds lighter his exuberance would have swung her off her feet. Even after all those years of adventure in which they had been together he would never cease to amaze her: his incredible resilience could conceive nothing more fantastic than the idea of ultimate failure. In him it had none of the qualities of mere humdrum doggedness that it would have had in anyone of a more dull and commonplace fibre; it was as swift as a steel blade, a gay challenge to disaster that never doubted the abiding favour of the stars. It if had been anything less he could never have set forth in such a vein to find the end of that chequered story. Marcovitch was gone. The jewels were gone. Prince Rudolf had become an incalculable quantity whose contact with the current march of events might weave in anywhere between Munich and the North Pole. And three tarnished brigands plus a magazine-cover historian, who had been lucky to escape from the last skirmish with their lives, were left high and dry in an area of strange country that would shortly be seething with armed hostility. The task in front of them might have made hunting needles in haystacks seem like an idle pastime for blind octogenarians; but the Saint saw it only as a side road to victory.
"Pat, when this jaunt is over I think we must go back to England. You've no idea how I miss Claud Eustace Teal and all those jolly games we used to have with Scotland Yard."
She knew that he was perfectly serious—as the Saint understood seriousness. He had never changed. She did not have to look at him to see the sunny glint in his eyes, the careless faith in a joyously spendthrift destiny.
She said: "What about Monty?"
The Saint gazed ahead down the widening lane of trees.
"I should like to have kept him, but I suppose he isn't ours."
Westwards as they walked the trees were thinning out, opening tall windows into a landscape of green fields and homely cottages. The golden daylight broke through the laced boughs overhead and dappled their shady path with pools of luminance. A lark dived out of the clear infinity of blue and drifted earthwards like an autumn leaf. Way over on a distant slope the midget silhouettes of a ploughing team moved placidly against the sky, the tinkle of bells and the crack of the ploughman's whip coming vividly through the still air. It seemed almost unbelievable that that peaceful scene could be overrun with grey-clad men combing inexorably through the hedgerows and hollows for a scent of the irreverent corsair who had tweaked their illustrious beards; but the Saint stopped suddenly at a turn of the path, halting Patricia with him, and she also had seen the road and heard the voices.
"Wait here while I take a look," he murmured.
He flitted in among the trees like a shadow, and the girl stood motionless in the shelter of a clump of bushes with her heart beating a little faster. Monty Hayward and the Evening Gazette were closing up in an interrogative silence; and Patricia had a numbing sense of the magnitude of the feat which Simon Templar had set himself to perform. Escape would have seemed difficult enough for one man alone—a mere modest getaway that was satisfied with a whole skin for its reward—but the Saint was cheerfully booking passengers for the tour and announcing his unalterable intention of collecting a quarter of a million pounds' worth of expenses en route. That was the measure of his genius, the squandered greatness that created its own worlds to conquer.
He came back in a few moments; and he was smiling.
"Down there," he said, "there's a covered wagon. And the crew are having an early tea. I ordered them specially to meet us here, and they look good enough to me. Let's take 'em."
He turned back with a swing of lean, venturous limbs; and Monty Hayward followed him in a mood of unwonted light-headedness. Something inside Monty Hayward was reacting vengefully against the continued impact of circumstance. He felt that he had taken as much dragooning from circumstance as he could stand, and his capacity for meek long-suffering was wearing out. A malicious freak of fate had thrown up an unceremonious slip of a girl to let the Saint acclaim him hilariously as a full-fledged buccaneer, and that was the last straw. Buccaneer he would be—and let the blood flow in buckets.
They reached a narrow gap in the undergrowth, and there the Saint touched Monty's shoulder, pointing down to the road. A six-wheeled lorry was drawn up close to the side, and just below where they had paused two weatherbeaten men in overalls were reclining against the low bank. Each of them held a massive sandwich of bread and s
ausage in one hand and a steaming cup in the other; and Monty's eyes fastened on one of those cups fascinatedly. It occurred to him that a twentieth-century buccaneer might not necessarily be at such a disadvantage as he had once thought. . . .
"Make it snappy," said the Saint.
He went over the bank in a flying dive, and Monty was only a second behind him. Patricia heard one muffled howl, an eddy of whirling effort, and the smack of bone against bone; then she also came over the bank and saw Simon already starting to strip the overalls from his victim. Monty was dusting his trousers, and in his right hand he held like a captured banner the unspilt cup which he would always estimate as one of the outstanding achievements of his life. He raised it dramatically to Nina Walden as she came through the trees.
"Madam," he said, "your tea."
It was a moment which atoned to him for everything that had gone before; and the girl stepped down smiling into the road and accepted his triumph in the same way as Queen Elizabeth might have accepted the Armada.
"You boys certainly know how to work," she said; and Monty shrugged.
"We do this sort of thing every day," he stated aggressively.
The Saint laughed.
"You're getting the spirit of the business, Monty," he said. "Now if you can hustle into those jeans before anyone else comes along we might call the boat pushed out. Pat, you take a peep under the tarpaulins and find out what the cargo is. They might be carrying some more crown jewels!"
"They're carrying engine castings," Patricia reported.
"O. K., lass. There ought to be room for you girls to pack between them. I'm sorry it wasn't eiderdowns, but, after all, it's a warm day."
The Saint was completing one of those lightning changes which had always been the envious wonder of bis select audiences. The immaculate draperies of Savile Row and St. James's had disappeared under a soiled blue boiler suit as if he had never worn them; the shoes of Lobb were stuffed into his pockets and replaced by the dusty boots of toil; the patent-leather hair was tousled into negligent curls. Those who knew him best had asserted that Simon Templar could parade more miracles in the way of disguise with a dab of treacle and a length of string than most men could have accomplished with the largest make-up box in Hollywood. To him the outward paraphernalia of costume was merely the show case for a perfect cameo of character study—an inimitable transformation of personality in which no living man could equal him.
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