13. How Simon Templar was besieged, and Patricia Holm cried for help
Simon held her very close to him for a moment that was worth an eternity of battle; and then, very gently, he released her.
"Stand by for a sec, old dear," he murmured, "while I improve the fortifications."
The room was a narrow one, fortunately, and it held a large mass of furniture for its size. By dragging up the bed, the washstand, and another chest, it was just possible to extend the barricade in a tight jam across the room from the door to the opposite wall, so that nothing short of a battering-ram could ever have forced the door open. On the other hand, it was impossible to extend the barricade upwards in the same way to the height of the door. The Saint had been able to topple the wardrobe over; but even his. strength, even if he had been fresh and uninjured, could not have shifted the thing to cover the doorway in an upright position. And if axes were brought ...
But that again was a gloomy probability, which it wouldn't help anyone to worry about.
"They've got something to think about, anyway," said the Saint, standing back to view the result of his labours.
He had the air of listening while he talked; and when the sentence was finished he still listened.
The tumult outside had died down, and one voice rose clearly and stood alone out of the fading confusion.
Simon could not understand what it said, but he had no doubt who it was that spoke. No one could have mistaken that high-pitched, arrogant tone of command.
"Hullo, Marius, my little lamb!" he sang out breezily. "How's life?"
Then Marius spoke in English.
"I should stand well away from the door, Templar," he re-marked suavely. "I am about to shoot out the lock."
The Saint chuckled.
"It's all the same to me, honeybunch," he answered, "but I think you ought to know that one of your bright boys is stuck against the door, right over the lock, and I'm afraid he can't move—and I can't get him away without busting the works."
"That will be unlucky for him," said Marius callously; and the man pinned against the door shrieked once, horribly.
The Saint had Patricia away in a corner, covering her with his own body, when Marius fired. But, looking over his shoulder, he saw the man at the door bare his teeth dreadfully before he slopped limply forwards over the chest of drawers and lay still. The Saint's nerves were of pure tungsten, but the inhuman deliberateness of that murder made his blood run cold for an instant.
"Poor devil," he muttered.
But, outside, Marius had barked an order, and the assault was being renewed.
Simon went to the window; but one look at the bars told him that they had been too well laid for any unaided human effort to dislodge them. And there was nothing in the room that might have been used as a lever, except, perhaps, one of the bedposts—to obtain which would have meant disorganising the whole of the barricade.
The trap was complete.
And no help could be expected from outside, unless Roger . . . But the mere fact that Marius was there ruled Roger Conway out.
"How did you get here?" the girl was asking.
Simon told her the whole story, with his mind on other things. Perhaps because his attention was so divided, he forgot that her quick intelligence would not take long to seize upon the salient deduction; and he was almost startled when she interrupted him.
"But if you left Roger with Marius——"
The Saint looked at her and nodded ruefully.
"Let's face it," he said. "Old Roger's dropped a stitch. But he may still be knitting away somewhere. Roger isn't our star pupil, but he has a useful knack of tumbling out of trouble. Unless Teal's chipped in——"
"Why Teal?"
Simon came back to earth. So much had happened since he last saw her that he had overlooked her ignorance of it.
He told her what she had missed of the story—the adventure at Esher and the flight to Maidenhead. For the first time he fully understood all that was involved, and understood also why she had been taken to the house on the hill.
Quietly and casually, with flippancy and jest, in his own vivid way, he told the story as if it were nothing but a trivial incident. And a trivial incident it had become for him, in fact: he could no longer see the trees for the wood.
"So," he said, "you'll see that Angel Face means business, and you'll see why there's so much excitement in Bures tonight."
And, as he spoke, he glanced involuntarily at the lifeless figure sprawled over the chest of drawers, a silent testimony to the truth of his words; and the girl followed his gaze.
Then Simon met her eyes, and shrugged.
He made her sit down on the bed, and sat down himself beside her; he took a cigarette from his case and made her take one also.
"It won't help us to get worked up about it," he said lightly. "It's unfortunate about Sam Stick-my-gizzard over there; but the cheerful way to look at it is to think that he makes one less of the ungodly. Let's be cheerful. . . . And while we're being cheerful, tell me how you came into this mess from which I'm rescuing you at such great peril."
"That was easy. I wasn't expecting anything of the sort, you see. If you'd said more when you rang me up. . . . But I fell for it like a child. There was hardly anyone on the train, and I had a compartment to myself. We must have been near Reading when a man came along the corridor and asked if I had a match. I gave him one, and he gave me a cigarette. ... I know I was a fool to take it; but he looked a perfectly ordinary man, and I had no reason to be suspicious——"
Simon nodded.
"Until you woke up in a motor-car somewhere?"
"Yes. . . . Tied hand and foot, with a bag over my head. . . . We drove for a long time, and then I was brought in here. That was only about an hour before you threw the stones at my window. . . . Oh, Simon, I'm so glad you came!"
The Saint's arm tightened about her shoulders.
"So am I," he said.
He was looking at the door. Clearly, the efficiency of his barricade had been proved, for the attack had paused. Then Marius gave another order.
For a while there was only the murmur of conversation; and then that stopped with the sound of someone coming heavily down the corridor. And Simon Templar caught his breath, guessing that his worst forebodings were to be realised.
An instant later he was justified by a rendering crash on the door that was different from all the other thundering that had smashed upon it before.
"What is it?" asked Patricia.
"They've brought up the meat-axe," said the Saint carelessly; but he did not feel careless at heart, for the noise on the door and the crack that had appeared in one panel told him that an axe was being employed that would not take very long to damage even four inches of seasoned oak.
The blow was repeated.
And again.
The edge of a blade showed through the door like a thin strip of silver at the fourth blow.
A matter of minutes, now, before a hole was cut large enough for the besiegers to fire into the room—with an aim. And when that was done ...
The Saint knew that the girl's eyes were upon him, and tried desperately to postpone the question he knew she was framing.
"Marius, little pal!"
There was a lull; and then Marius answered.
"Are you going to say," sneered the giant, "that you will save us the trouble of breaking in the door?"
"Oh no. I just wanted to know how you were."
"I have nothing to complain of, Templar. And you?" .
"When there are grey skies," said the Saint, after the manner of Al Jolson, "I don't mind the grey skies. You make them blue, sonny boy. ... By the way, how did you leave my friend?"
Marius's sneering chuckle curdled through the door.
"He is still at Brook Street, in charge of Hermann. You remember Hermann, the man you knocked out? . . . But I am sure Hermann will be very kind to him. ... Is there anything else you wish to know?"
&nb
sp; "Nothing at the moment," said the Saint.
Marius spoke in his own language, and the axe struck again.
Then Patricia would no longer be denied. The Saint met her eyes, and saw that she understood. But she showed no fear.
Quite quietly they looked at each other; and their hands came together quite gently and steadily.
"I'm sorry," said Simon in a low voice. "I can never tell you how sorry I am."
"But I understand, Simon," she said; and her voice was still the firm, clear, unfaltering voice that he loved. "The gods haven't forgotten you, after all. Isn't this the sort of end you've always prayed for?"
"It is the end of the world," he said quietly. "Roger was my only reinforcement. If I didn't get back to Brook Street by a certain time, he was to come after me. But, obviously, Roger can't come now. ..."
"I know."
"I won't let you be taken alive, Pat."
"And you?"
He laughed.
"I shall try to take Marius with me. But—oh, Pat, I'd sell my soul for you not to be in it! This is my way out, but it isn't yours——"
"Why not? Shouldn't I want to see the last fight through with you?"
Her hands were on his shoulders then, and he was holding her face between his hands. She was looking up at him.
"Dear," he said, "I'm not complaining. We don't live in a magnificent age, but I've done my best to make life magnificent as I see it—to live my ideal of the happy warrior. But you made that possible. You made me seek and fight for the tremendous things. Battle and sudden death—yes, but battle and sudden death in the name of peace and life and love. You know how I love you, Pat. . . ."
She knew. And if she had never given him the ultimate depths of her heart before, she gave them all to him then, with a gladness in that kiss as vivid as a shout in silence.
"Does anything matter much beside that?" she asked.
"But I've sacrificed you! If I'd been like other men—if I hadn't been so fool crazy for danger—if I'd thought more about you, and what I might be letting you in for——"
She smiled.
"I wouldn't have had you different. You've never apologised for yourself before: why do it now?"
He did not answer. Who could have answered such a generosity?
So they sat together; and the battering on the door went on. The great door shook and resounded to each blow, and the sound was like the booming of a muffled knell.
Presently the Saint looked up, and saw that in the door was a hole the size of a man's hand. And suddenly a strange strength came upon him, weak and weary as he was.
"But, by Heaven, this isn't going to be the end!" cried the Saint. "We've still so much to do, you and I."
He was on his feet.
He couldn't believe that it was the end. He wasn't ready, yet, to pass out—even in a blaze of some sort of glory. He wouldn't believe that that was his hour at last. It was true that they still had so much to do. There was Roger Conway, and Vargan, and Marius, and the peace of the world wrapped up in these two. And adventure and adventure beyond. Other things. . . . For in that one adventure, and in that one hour, he had seen a new and wider vision of life, wider even than the ideal of the happy warrior, wider even than the fierce delight of battle and sudden death, but rather a fulfilment and a consummation of all these things—and how should he die before he had followed that vision farther?
And he looked at the door, and saw the eyes of Marius.
"I should advise you to surrender, Templar," said the giant coldly. "If you are obstinate, you will have to be shot."
"That'd help you, wouldn't it, Angel Face? And then how would you find Vargan?"
"Your friend Conway might be made to speak."
"You've got a hope!"
"I have my own methods of persuasion, Templar, and some of them are almost as ingenious as yours. Besides, have you thought that your death would leave Miss Holm without a protector?"
"I have," said the Saint. "I've also thought that my surrender would leave her in exactly the same position. But she has a knife, and I don't think you'll find her helpful. Think again!"
"Besides," said Marius, in the same dispassionate tone, "you need not be killed at once. It would be possible to wound you again."
The Saint threw back his head.
"I never surrender," he said.
"Very well," said Marius calmly.
He snapped out another order, and again the axe crashed on the door. The Saint knew that the hole was being enlarged so that a man could shoot through it and know what he was shooting at, and he knew that the end could not now be long in coming.
There was no cover in the room. They might have flattened themselves against the wall in which the door was, so that they could not be seen from outside, but that would make little difference. A few well-grouped shots aimed along the wall by an automatic would be certain of scoring.
And the Saint had no weapon but the captured knife; and that, as he had said, he had given to Patricia.
The odds were impossible.
As he watched the chips flying from the gap which the axe had already made—and it was now nearly as big as a man's head—the wild thought crossed his mind that he might challenge Marius to meet him in single combat. But immediately he discarded the thought. Dozens of men might have accepted, considering the difference in their sizes: the taunt of cowardice, the need to maintain their prestige among their followers, at least, might have forced their hand and stung them to take the challenge seriously. But Marius was above all that. He had one object in view, and it was already proved that he viewed it with a singleness of aim that was above all ordinary motives. The man who had cold-bloodedly shot a way through the body of one of his own gang—and got away with it—would not be likely to be moved by any argument the Saint could use.
Then—what?
The Saint held Patricia in his arms, and his brain seemed to reel like the spinning of a great crazy flywheel. He knew that he was rapidly weakening now. The heroic effort which had taken him to that room and barricaded it had cost him much, and the sudden access of supernatural strength and energy which had just come upon him could not last for long. It was like a transparent mask of glittering crystal, hard but brittle, and behind it and through it he could see the foundations on which it based its tenacity crumbling away.
It was a question, as it had been in other tight corners, of playing for time. Arid it was also the reverse. Whatever was to be done to win the time must be done quickly—--before that forced blaze of vitality fizzled out and left him powerless.
The Saint passed a hand across his eyes, and felt strangely futile. If only he were whole and strong, gifted again with the blood that he had lost, with a shoulder that wasn't spreading a numbing pain all over him, and a brain cleared of the muzzy aftermath of that all-but-knock-out swipe on the jaw, to be of some use to Patricia in her need!
"Oh, God!" he groaned. "God help me!"
But still he could see nothing useful to do—nothing but the forlorn thing that he did. He put Patricia from him and leapt to the door on to part of the barricade, covering with his body the hole that was being cut. Marius saw him.
"What is it now, Templar?" asked the giant grimly.
"Nothing, honey," croaked the Saint, with a breathless little laugh. "Just that I'm here, and I'm carefully arranging myself so that if anyone shoots at me it will be fatal. And I know you don't want me to die yet. So it'll keep you busy a bit longer— won't it?—making that hole big enough for it to be safe to shoot through. . . ."
"You are merely being foolishly troublesome," said Marius unemotionally, and added an order.
The man with the axe continued his work.
But it would take longer—that was all the Saint cared about. There was hope as long as there was life. The miracle might happen . . . might happen. . . .
He found Patricia beside him.
"Simon—what's the use?"
"We'll see, darling. We're still kicki
ng, anyway—that's the main thing."
She tried to move him by force, but he held her hands away. And then she tore herself out of his grasp; and with dazed and uncomprehending eyes he watched her at the window— watched her raise the sash and look out into the night.
"Help!"
"You fool!" snarled the Saint bitterly. "Do you want them to have the last satisfaction of hearing us whine?"
He forgot everything but that—that stern point of pride —and left his place at the door. He reached her in a few lurching strides, and his hands fell roughly on her shoulders to drag her away.
She shouted again: "Help!"
"Be quiet!" snarled the Saint bitterly.
But when he turned her round he saw that her face was calm and serene, and not at all the face that should have gone with those cries.
"You asked God to help you, old boy," she said. "Why shouldn't I ask the men who have come?"
And she pointed out of the window.
He -looked; and he saw that the gate at the end of the garden, and the drive within, were lighted up as with the light of day by the headlights of a car that had stopped in the road beyond. But for the din of the axe at the door he would have heard its approach.
And then into that pathway of light stepped a man, tall and dark and trim; and the man cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted:
"Coming, Pat! . . . Hullo, Simon!"
"Norman!" yelled the Saint. "Norman—my seraph—my sweet angel!"
Then he remembered the odds, and called again:
"Look out for yourself! They're armed——"
"So are we," said Norman Kent happily. "Inspector Teal and his merry men are all round the house. We've got 'em cold."
For a moment the Saint could not speak.
Then:
"Did you say Inspector Teal?"
"Yes," shouted Norman. And he added something. He added it brilliantly. He knew that the men in the house were foreigners—that even Marius, with his too-perfect English, was a foreigner—and that no one but the Saint and Patricia could be expected to be familiar with the more abstruse perversions and defilements possible to the well of native English. And he made the addition without a change of tone that might have hinted at his meaning. He added: "All breadcrumbs and breambait. Don't bite!"
The Saint Closes the Case s-2 Page 15
