The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)
Page 23
Simon heard the futile scream of brakes violently applied, and thought he would die smiling.
"Here we go," he thought, and held the wheel round on a reckless lock.
He only just failed. For one horrible instant he saw the off-side wing light of the approaching car leaping directly into the off-side wing light of the car in which he rode. Even so, he might have succeeded if Cullis had not got a hand back on the wheel and fought to turn it the other way.
Simon lashed at him with one elbow, but it was too late for that to be any good. The running board of the other car slashed their front wing like a knife; and there was a grating, tearing, shattering noise of tortured metal.
Simon was shot over the steering wheel by the impact. The car seemed to heave itself into the air, and for one blinding, numbing second he seemed to hang suspended in space. Then the road hit him a terrible blow across the shoulder blades; there was a splintering clatter, another and more violent jar, and dead silence.
He did not know how long he lay there on his back with his feet propped up somewhere in the air, bruised and aching in every limb, and only wondering whether he was really dead at last—and if not, why not. . . . A colossal weight seemed to be pressing into his chest. . . .
He opened one eye, and discerned brake and clutch and accelerator pedals mysteriously suspended over his head.
There was something else on his chest. He made this out to be the front seat—and the body of a man.
He tried to raise one hand, and found that it moved in a pool of something warm and sticky; and he wondered whether the blood was Cullis's or his own.
Then there was a thunder of knocking on the shipwrecked coachwork beside his ear, and a voice said, rather foolishly:
"Are you all right in there?"
"Can't see how anyone can be alive in this mess," said another voice. "They must have been doing over fifty."
But the Saint had recognized the first voice, and a husky croak of a chuckle came from his lips.
"Dear old Claud Eustace," he said. "Always ten minutes too late!"
Chapter XIV
HOW SIMON TEMPLAR PUT ON HIS HAT
CHIEF INSPECTOR TEAL reverently unwrapped his fourth wafer of gum. Simon Templar had bought it specially for him, and Teal was doing himself proud.
"Though why you aren't dead," said Mr. Teal, "is more than anyone will ever know."
The Saint, with a bandaged head and nothing more, grinned cheerfully.
"You can't keep a good man down," he said.
"It was sheer luck you didn't get me down," said Teal. "And that would have been a good man lost to the C. I. D., though I says it myself. I shall never be able to make out why none of us was hurt. It may have been because we'd almost stopped when you hit us; but our car was spun round broadside to the road—off-side front wheel knocked off as if it had been cut with a knife, chassis tied in a knot, both axles bust, gear box all over the road, and a worse shaking for all of us than any of us want to have again."
"Will you be sending in the bill?" drawled the Saint.
They were at Upper Berkeley Mews, where they had repaired for a very late supper, but it was more like breakfast than anything else.
Then the story of Lord Essenden was told, and also the story of Waldstein, and the chief commissioner's verdict was given. He looked at the girl and smiled.
"I believe you," he said. "There's the Saint to back you up in the story of Essenden, and now that I know you a little better I'm not sure that I should question it even without that. As for the rest, outside of our four selves there is no one left alive who knows anything worth knowing. And I don't think any of us will ask for trouble. We've had enough of the Angels of Doom."
He looked across at Teal for confirmation, and Chief Inspector Teal nodded drowsily. He seemed to be on the point of falling asleep.
"And the 'Wanted for Murder' business?" asked the Saint.
"That can be forgotten. Fresh evidence has come to light, and the charge has been withdrawn. That can be arranged without any fuss. And if Miss Trelawney is going back to the States——"
"I want," said Chief Inspector Teal, with a sudden and startling loudness, "to wash my hands."
Three pairs of eyes revolved slowly in their sockets and centred on him with an intentness that would have shattered the nerve of a lesser man, but Chief Inspector Teal suffered his blushing honours without visible emotion.
And then the Saint laughed.
"But of course," he said. "There's a barrel of very good beer in the kitchen—you might try that. Duodecimo's out there blowing himself tight with Chianti, but Orace will move him on if you say the word. . . . Will you want any soap?"
"I think," said Sir Hamilton Dorn mildly, "that we shall be able to find what we want."
The Saint watched the door close behind them; and then he loafed back to the fireplace, lighted a cigarette, and stood there with his hands in his pockets.
"Only the epilogue is left," he said.
"And a joke to explain," said Jill Trelawney.
Simon regarded her with his cigarette in one corner of a smiling mouth and his eyebrows aslant—rather like a blue-eyed and boyish Mephistopheles. Suddenly she understood all his charm.
"Most of it's explained," he said. "I was pulled into the Secret Service to keep me good, but the job never meant as much to me as it might have once. And then, when I was on the very point of quitting, your father's case developed into the Angels of Doom. I remember the night when I was talking it over with Auntie Ethel, and I was shown a photograph of you. And I made myself a promise."
She stood up and came towards the fireplace.
"What was it?"
"That you were a girl I was going to kiss before I died. And I did it halfway through the story, which spoils the ending; but even now——"
And suddenly, with his quick light laugh, he swept her into his arms and captured her red lips.
In a little while she said: "Are you sure you haven't made a mistake?"
"No," said the Saint, "I've made a friend."
His arm lay lightly round her shoulders.
"I'm the fool who never grows old," he said. "But the manner of folly changes. Yesterday it was battle, murder, and sudden death; to-morrow—who knows? But while there's a boy you love waiting for you, and a song and a story for me—who cares? ..."
One moment he held her eyes, and then he swung round and picked up a newspaper that lay on a side table.
One swift glance down the page, and he was looking at the clock.
"The Aquitania sails in seven hours," he said. "I can get you to Southampton with hours to spare; and then I can work a pull with the company. I'll guarantee you a berth——"
He read his answer in her face, and flung open the door.
"Orace!" he shouted, and his man came running. "Some sandwiches—a flask—coffee in the thermos. At the double! Is the Hirondel full up?"
"Yessir." .
"Good enough."
He went through into the garage, and in another moment the mighty car was roaring round to. pull up snorting at the front door. . . . And the Saint returned, as Mr. Teal, roused by the commotion, emerged from the back of the hall.
"Going away?" asked Teal.
"Just for a drive. . . . Jill, you'd better have a leather coat—take this one. ... That's the idea. . . . I'll take those things, Orace."
He saw the girl into the car, and came back to fetch another coat from the stand. Teal buttonholed him.
"Is this an elopement, Saint?"
"Now that's just what it isn't, Claud. ..... No, the Old Pentonvillains choker, Orace. ... Anything I can do
for you on the way, Claud Eustace?"
"If it is an elopement," said Teal lusciously, "you fixed it up quick enough."
Simon twisted the scarf round his neck and canted his most piratical hat at its most piratical angle over his right eye. And then he tapped the detective gently on the shoulder.
"Has it never o
ccurred to you," he said, "that one day a story might be written in which the heroine didn't fall in love with the hero, and the hero didn't fall in love with the heroine—and they were both perfectly happy in spite of that? Because this is that story. I am the most superlative story-book hero that ever lived, but the rules were not made for me."
And he took down Teal's bowler from the rack, and clapped it rakishly on the detective's head, and pulled Teal's ear, and punched him in, the stomach, and was gone; and an echo of Saintly laughter seemed still to hang in the little hall long after the clamour of the Hirondel had died away.
THE END
Look for the sign of The Saint on other Avon books.
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