"You should have a medal," said Simon composedly. "I'm afraid I can't give you anything but love, baby, but I'll write to the War Office about you, if you think that might help."
Harding grinned and smoothed his crisp hair.
"I like your nerve," he said.
"I like yours," reciprocated the Saint. "I can see you're a good man gone wrong. You ought to have been of Us. There's a place in the gang vacant for you, if you'd care to join. Perhaps you'd like to be my halo?"
"So you are the Saint!" crisped Harding alertly.
Simon lowered his eyelids, and his lips twitched.
"Touché! ... Of course, you didn't know that definitely, did you? But you tumbled to the allusion pretty smartly. You're a bright spark, sonny boy—I'll tell the cockeyed world."
"It wasn't so difficult. Teal's told everyone that he'd eat his hat if Vargan didn't turn out to be your show. He said he knew your work too well to make any mistake about it, even if it wasn't signed as usual."
Simon nodded.
"I wonder which hat Teal would have eaten?" he murmured. "The silk one he wears when he goes to night-clubs disguised as a gentleman or the bowler with the beer-stain? Or has he got a third hat? If he has, I've never seen it. It's a fascinating thought. . . ."
And the Saint turned his eyes to the ceiling as if he really were fascinated by the thought.
But the Saint thought: "If Bertie and Teal have been putting their heads together, Bertie must know that there's likely to be a third man on the premises. A man already proved handy with the battleaxe, moreover. . . . Now, why hasn't Bertie said anything about him? Can it be that Bertie, our bright and bouncing Bertie, is having a moment of mental aberration and overlooking Norman?"
Then the Saint said aloud: "However—about that halo job. How does it appeal to you?"
"Sorry, old man."
"Oh, not at all," sighed the Saint. "Don't apologise. . . . What else can we do for you? You seem to have everything your own way, so we'll try to oblige. Name your horse."
"Yes, I seem to have rounded you up fairly easily."
So the cunningly hidden question was answered. It was true. Norman Kent, being for the moment out of sight, had fallen for the moment out of mind.
For a fleeting second the Saint met Roger Conway's eyes.
Then:
"What do we do?" asked the Saint amiably. "Stand and deliver?"
The youngster retired to the window and glanced out. Simon took one step towards him, stealthily, but there was an awkward distance between them, and Harding's eyes were only turned away for an instant. Then Harding turned round again, and the Saint was serenely selecting another cigarette.
"Have you got Vargan here?"
The Saint looked up.
"Ah!" said the Saint cautiously.
Harding set his lips.
In the few minutes of their encounter Simon Templar had had time to appreciate in the younger man a quiet efficiency that belied the first impression of youthfulness, combined with a pleasant sense of humour that was after the Saint's own heart. And at that moment the sense of humour was not so evident; but all the efficiency was there, and with it went a certain grimness of resolution.
"I don't know why you took Vargan," he said. "In spite of what we know about your ideas generally, that's still a mystery we haven't solved. Who are you working for?"
"Our own sweet selves," answered the Saint. "You see, our lawn's been going all to hell, and none of the weed-killers we've tried seem to do it any good, so we thought perhaps Vargan's electric exterminator might——"
"Seriously!"
Simon looked at him.
"Seriously, if you want to know," said the Saint, and he said it very seriously, "we took Vargan so that his invention should not be used in the war. And that decision of ours still stands."
"That was Teal's theory."
"Dear old Teal! The man's a marvel, isn't he? Just like a blinkin' detective in a story-book. . . . Yes, that's why we took Vargan. Teal will get a letter from me in the morning explaining ourselves at length."
"Something about the good of humanity, I suppose?"
"Correct," said the Saint. "Thereby snookering Angel Face, who certainly isn't thinking about the good of humanity."
Harding looked puzzled.
"This man you keep talking about—Angel Face——"
"Tiny Tim," explained Simon.
A light of understanding dawned upon the other.
"A man like an overgrown gorilla—with a face according——"
"How beautifully you put it, old dear! Almost the very words I used myself. You know——"
"Marius!" snapped Harding.
The Saint nodded.
"It rings the bell," he said, "and your penny will be returned in due course. But you don't surprise us. We knew."
"We guessed Marius was in this——"
"We could have told you."
Harding's eyes narrowed,
"How much more do you know?" he asked.
"Oh, lots of things," said the Saint blandly. "In my more brilliant moments I can run Teal a close race on some tracks. For instance, I wouldn't mind betting my second-best pair of elastic-sided boots that you were followed to-day—by one of Marius's men. But you mightn't have noticed that."
"But I did!"
Harding's automatic was still coolly and steadily aimed at the Saint's stomach, as it had been throughout the interview —when the aim was not temporarily diverted to Roger Con-way. But now there was just a little more steadiness and rigidity in the hand that held it. The change was almost imperceptible, but Simon Templar never missed anything like that. He translated the inflection in his own way; and when he . shifted his gaze back to Harding's eyes he found the interpretation confirmed there.
"I shook off my shadow a mile back," said Harding. "But I don't mind telling you that I shouldn't have come in here alone without waiting for reinforcements if I hadn't seen that somebody was a darned sight too interested in what I was doing. And the same reason is the reason why I want Vargan at once!"
The Saint rested gracefully against the table and blew two smoke-rings of surpassing perfection.
"Is—that—so!"
"That is so," said Harding curtly. "I'll give you two minutes to decide."
"The alternative being?"
"I shall start shooting holes in you. Arms, legs. ... I think you'll tell me what I want to know before that's gone on very long."
Simon shook his head.
"You mayn't have noticed it," he said, "but I have an impediment in my speech. I'm very sensitive, and if anyone treats me unkindly it makes my impediment worse. If you started shooting at me it'd make me stammer so frightfully that I'd take half an hour to get out the first d-d-d-d-damn—let alone answering any questions."
"And," said Harding relentlessly, "I'll treat your friend in the same way."
The Saint flashed Roger Conway a smile.
"You wouldn't breathe a word, would you, old Roger?"
"Let him try to make me!" Conway scoffed.
Simon turned again.
"Honestly, Algernon," he said quietly, "you'll get nothing that way. And you know it."
"We shall see," said Harding.
The telephone stood on a small table beside the window. Still keeping the Saint and Conway covered, he took up the receiver.
"Hullo. . . . Hullo. . . . Hullo. . . ."
Harding looked at his watch, fidgeting with the receiver-hook.
"Fifteen seconds gone. . . . Blast this exchange! Hullo. . . . Hullo!"
Then he listened for a moment in silence, and after that he replaced the receiver carefully. He straightened up again, and the Saint read his face.
"There was another man in your gang," said Harding. "I remember now. Is he here?"
"Is the line dead?"
"As pork."
"No one in this house would have cut the line," said Simon. "I'll give you my word for that."
Harding
looked at him straightly.
"If that's true——"
"It can only be Marius," said the Saint slowly. "Perhaps the man who followed you wasn't so easy to shake off."
Roger Conway was looking out of another window from which he could see the lawn and the river at the end of the garden. Beyond the Saint's motor-boat another motor-boat rode in mid-stream, but it was not the motor-boat in which he had seen Teal. It seemed to Roger that the two men in the second motor-boat were looking intently towards the bungalow; but he could not be sure.
"Naturally," he agreed, "it might be Marius."
It was then that Simon had his inspiration, and it made him leap suddenly to his feet.
"Harding!"
Simon cried the name in a tone that would have startled anyone. Harding would not have been human if he had not turned completely round.
He had been looking through a window, with the table between himself and the Saint for safety, trying to discover what Conway was looking at. But all the time he had been there he had kept the windows in the corner of his eye. Simon had realised the fact in the moment of his inspiration, and had understood it. Norman had not been overlooked. But Harding admitted that he had come alone, and he had to make the best of a bad job. He had to keep covering the two prisoners he had already taken, and wait and hope that the third man would blunder unsuspectingly into the hold-up. And as long as part of Harding's alertness was devoted to that waiting and hoping, Norman's hands were tied. But now . . .
"What is it?" asked Harding.
He was staring at the Saint, and his back was squarely turned to the window behind him. Roger Conway, from the other side of the room, was also looking at the Saint in perplexed surprise. Only the Saint saw Norman Kent step through the window behind Harding.
But Harding felt and understood the iron grip that fell upon his gun wrist, and the hard bluntness that nosed into the small of his back.
"Don't be foolish," urged Norman Kent.
"All right."
The words dropped bitterly from the youngster's lips after a second's desperate hesitation. His fingers opened grudgingly to release his gun, and the Saint caught it neatly off the carpet.
"And our own peashooters," said Simon.
He took the other two automatics from Harding's pocket, restored one to Roger, and stepped back to the table with a gun in each of his own hands.
"Just like the good old story-book again," he remarked. "And here we are—all armed to the teeth. Place looks like an arsenal, and we all feel at home. Come over and be sociable, Archibald. There's no ill-feeling. . . . Norman, will you have a dud cheque or a bag of nuts for that effort?"
"I was wondering how much longer it'd be before you had the sense to create a disturbance?"
"I'm as slow as a freight car to-day," said the Saint. "Don't know what's the matter with me. But all's well that ends well, as the actress used to say, and——"
"It is?" asked Norman soberly.
Simon lifted an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"I heard you talking about the telephone. You were right. I didn't cut the line. Didn't think of it. And if the line is dead——"
The sentence was not finished.
No one heard the sound that interrupted it. There must have been a faint sound, but it would have been lost in the open air outside. But they all saw Norman Kent's face suddenly twist and go white, and saw him stagger and fall on one knee.
"Keep away from that window!"
Norman had understood as quickly as anyone, and he got the warning out in an agonised gasp. But the Saint ignored it. He sprang forward, and caught Norman Kent under the arms; and dragged him into shelter as a second bullet splintered the window-frame a few inches from their heads.
"They're here!"
Harding was standing recklessly in the open, careless of what his captors might be doing. The Saint rapped out a command to take cover, but Harding took no notice. Roger Conway had to haul him out of the danger zone almost by the scruff of the neck.
Simon had jerked a settee from its place by the wall and run it across three-quarters of the width of the window opening; and he lay behind it, looking towards the road, with his guns in his hands. He saw something move behind the hedge, and fired twice at a venture, but he could not tell how much damage he had done.
There was the old Saintly smile back on the Saint's lips, and the old Saintly light back in his eyes. Against Harding, he hadn't really enjoyed himself. Against Teal, if it had been Teal outside, he wouldn't really have enjoyed himself. But it definitely wasn't Teal outside. Neither Chief Inspector Teal nor any of his men would have started blazing away like that with silenced guns and no preliminary parley. There was only one man in the cast who could conceivably behave like that; and against that man the Saint could enjoy himself thoroughly. He couldn't put his whole heart into the job of fighting men like Harding and Teal, men whom in any other circumstances he would have liked to have for his friends. But Marius was quite another matter. The feud with Marius was over something more than an outlook and a technical point of law. It was a personal and vital thing, like a blow in the face and a glove thrown down. ...
So Simon watched, and presently fired again. This time a cry answered him. And one bullet in reply zipped past his ear, and another clipped into the upholstery of the settee an inch from his head; and the Saintly smile became positively beatific.
"This is like war," said the Saint happily.
"It is war!" Harding shot back. "Don't you realise that?"
Roger Conway was kneeling beside Norman Kent, cutting away a trouser-leg stained with a spreading dark stain.
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
Harding stepped back.
"Didn't you understand? You seemed to know so much. . . . But you hadn't a chance to know that. Still, it would have been announced in the lunch editions, and plenty of people knew about it last night. Our ultimatum was delivered at noon to-day, and they've got till noon to-morrow to answer."
"What country? And what's the ultimatum about?"
Harding answered. The Saint was not very surprised. He had not read between the lines of his newspapers so assiduously for nothing.
"Of course, it's all nonsense, like anything else that any country ever sent an ultimatum to another about," said Harding. "We've put it off as long as you can, but they've left us no choice. They're asking for trouble, and they're determined to have it. Half the government still can't understand it—they think our friends ought to know better. Just swollen head, they say. That's why everything's been kept so dark. The Government thought the swelling was bound to pass off naturally. Instead of which, it's been getting worse."
The Saint remembered a phrase from the letter which he had taken from Marius: "Cannot fail this time. . . ."
And he understood that the simple word of a man like Marius, with all the power that he represented standing in support behind the word, might well be enough to sway the decisions of kings and councils.
He said, with his eyes still watching the road: "How many people have a theory to account for the swelling?"
"My chief, and a handful of others," said Harding. "We knew that Marius was in it, and Marius spells big money. But what's the use of telling ordinary people that? They couldn't see it. Besides, there was still a flaw in our theory, and we couldn't fill it up—until the show at Esher on Saturday. Then we knew."
"I figured it out the same way," said the Saint.
"Everything hangs on this," said Harding quietly. "If Marius gets Vargan for them, it means war."
Simon raised one gun, and then lowered it again as his target ducked.
"Why have you told me all this?" he asked.
"Because you ought to be on our side," Harding said steadily. "I don't care what you are. I don't care what you've done. I don't care what you're working for. But Marius is here how, and I know you can't be with Marius. So——"
"Somebody's waving a white flag," said the
Saint.
He got to his feet, and Harding came up beside him. Behind the hedge, a man stood up and signalled with a handkerchief.
Then Simon saw that the road beyond the hedge was alive with men.
"What would you do here?" he asked.
"See them!" rapped Harding. "Hear what they've got to say. We can still fight afterwards. They will fight! Templar——"
The Saint beckoned, and saw a man rise from his crouched position under the hedge and walk alone up the drive. A giant of a man. ...
"Angel Face himself!" murmured Simon.
He swung round, hands on hips.
"I've heard your argument, Harding," he said. "It's a good one. But I prefer my own. In the circumstances, I'm afraid you'll have to accept it. And I want your answer quickly. The offer I made you is still open. Do you join us for the duration, or have I got to send you out there to shift for yourself? I'd hate to do it, but if you're not for us——"
"That's not the point," said Harding steadfastly. "I was sent here to find Vargan, and I think I've found him. As far as that's concerned, there can't be peace between us. You'll understand that. But for the rest of it ... Beggars can't be choosers. We agree that Marius must not have Vargan, whatever else we disagree about. So, while we have to fight Marius——"
"A truce?"
The youngster shrugged. Then he put out his hand.
"And let's give 'em hell!" he said.
18. How Simon Templar received Marius, and the Crown Prince remembered a debt
A moment later the Saint was on his knees beside Norman Kent, examining Norman's wound expertly. Norman tried to delay him.
"Pat," whispered Norman; "I left her hiding in your room."
Simon nodded.
"All right. She'll be safe there for a bit. And I'd just as soon have her out of the way while Tiny Tim's beetling around. Let's see what we can do for you first."
He went on with the examination. The entrance was three inches above the knee, and it was much larger than the entrance of even a large-calibre automatic bullet should have been. There was no exit hole, and Norman let out an involuntary cry of agony at the Saint's probing.
The Saint Closes the Case s-2 Page 19
