Leslie Charteris - The Saint in Pursuit

“Stay where you are!” Simon told her.

Somehow he kept the Volkswagen on the road in a swerving course that allowed no more sharp applications of the brake. It was all he could do to hold the car on the steep downgrade while he used all the leverage of his back to shrug and push the unconscious Uzdanov away, disengaging his fat arm from the steering wheel and dumping him off his shoulders and neck into the rear of the car.

As the Russian slid heavily back on to the floor behind, Simon had a more urgent problem to monopolize his attention. The headlights of the car, spearing out into the darkness, suddenly showed nothing at all. A hairpin turn was going its own way directly to the left, threatening to leave the Volkswagen with no more support under its wheels than several hundred feet of fresh and very dark mountain air. The Swiss highway authorities had reckoned that the bend could be negotiated at fifty kilometres an hour and had put up a sign marking it safe at forty. The Saint had just entered into it at a speed of almost eighty.

Only the instincts and skill of a Monte Carlo Rally driver, combined with a favorable nod from whatever gods concern themselves with such crises in the wee hours of the night, could have saved the car and its occupants from a graceful but rapidly drooping trajectory straight off the side of a cliff. By some miraculous combination of just the right amount of pressure on the brake and precise turns of the steering wheel Simon persuaded the car to keep its smoking tires more or less on the pavement.

A ton and more of metal responded to his delicate touch like a living thing. The highway and the rough shoulder to which it clung were a heaving blur as the machine, in a final fantastic pirouette, swung its engine-heavy rear to the fore with a wail like a riot of bagpipes. A partial spin had finally been the Saint’s only choice. Any other end to his manoeuvres would have sent him rolling over the low safety wall and plummeting into the valley below.

The car slid to a crashing stop, half on and half off the road. The engine stalled and died, and suddenly the world seemed terribly quiet. There was a sensation of extreme remoteness, and the only sound was the wind, which strangely made the car seem to sway and quiver.

Simon sat very still, his senses acutely tuned to judge the extent of the Volkswagen’s continuing predicament. It was not just vertigo or imagination which told him that the brisk Alpine breeze was making the car quiver. Straight ahead of him from where he sat in the driver’s seat, the car’s headlights illuminated the sheer wall of rock which rose straight up from the inner side of the road. Behind him, the rear of the car sagged ominously.

Near his feet there was a tentative stir.

“Have we stopped?” Vicky quavered.

She was still rolled into a frightened ball underneath the dashboard, and Simon could see by the light of the dome bulb which had proved Uzdanov’s undoing that her eyes were not yet open.

“We’ve stopped temporarily, at any rate,” he answered. “But don’t move until I tell you to.”

Vicky’s eyes popped open.

“Don’t move?” she objected with a sudden bravado born of the simple realization that she was still alive. “Don’t move? Why not?”

“Ill tell you in a minute.”

Vicky looked less brave and stared towards the back of the car.

“Is that commie out cold? I think you killed him.”

“Anyway, he’s resting in peace at the moment,” Simon told her, after a cautious twist and a downward glance.

Vicky’s expression became a little happier again.

“You almost knocked his head off. It was wonderful.”

The Saint was paying much more attention to the precarious position of his car than to his desultory dialogue with Vicky, which was mainly designed to keep her occupied while he decided what to do. If she suddenly realized how close the car might be to losing its balance and dropping over the cliffside, she would be liable to panic and trigger just that undesirable event.

“He almost cut my head off, which wouldn’t have been so wonderful,” he mentioned abstractedly.

“He’s still got my letter!” Vicky remembered aloud.

Before she could unwind herself from the floor the Saint stopped her with a gentle but undeniably firm hand on her shoulder.

“I asked you not to move,” he said in a voice that had all the smooth poise of a tightrope-walker’s bearing.

“Not move?” Vicky asked indignantly, albeit impressed by his tone. “I want out. From now on I travel by bicycle or I don’t travel at all.”

“I think you’ll be travelling by foot for quite a distance, if we get out of here.”

He had chosen the last phrase deliberately.

“If?” Vicky echoed uneasily. “Aren’t we safe? We’re alive and that red rat or whatever he is has got his knife out of our backs. Don’t tell me something else can go wrong now?”

Simon nodded and held her eyes magnetized with the intense translucency of his blue ones as he measured his next words.

“What else can be wrong is the fact that the parking place I’ve ended up in is something less than ideal. Our rear wheels, my dear, are hanging over the void, and it may be only that extra bit of strudel you ate for dinner that’s keeping our front end anchored to the road. I recommend that we open our respective doors carefully and jump out simultaneously on the count of three.”

Vicky’s eyes were very, very wide.

“You’re kidding me,” she complained weakly.

“If you think so, let me get out first,” Simon answered.

“Oh, no! I’ll take your word for it.”

“Okay, then. Get out when I say ‘three’. One...”

“Wait!” she said. “What about him?”

“You mean Boris the back-seat driver? We’ll let Father Marx worry about him. After all, the car may not go over even after we get out.”

Vicky’s fingers were touching the streak of blood on her cheek.

“I’m not worried about his health,” she said. “But he’s got that letter he took away from me a few minutes ago. He’s got my ten million dollars!”

“We might shift the balance too much if we tried to get it. Worry about saving yourself first, and then worry about your loot.” His voice became imperative, still without losing its firm core of calmness. “Now pay attention to what I’m telling you! It’s important that we both get out of here at the same time, just in case it takes the two of us weighting down the front of this beetle to keep it from tangling with the thick end of this alp. Open your door while I count, and jump exactly when I say ‘three’.”

A fresh gust of wind seemed to make the car tremble as he spoke; and Vicky’s face, pale in the dim yellow dome light, became rigid with fear.

“Jump,” she repeated huskily, her lips barely moving.

“Yes, and be sure you don’t jump towards the back of the car or you’ll probably go over the edge. The rear end is sticking out into space.”

“All right,” she responded faintly.

“Good. Get ready, and when I say ‘three’ get out fast. One...”

Simon opened his door slowly, and Vicky timidly did the same.

“Two...”

Vicky moved from her kneeling position on the floor to a half-sitting crouch that would let her move quickly out of the car when the last number was called. Her shift of weight, combined with sail-effect of the open doors as they were caught by the wind, made the car sway like a distressed canoe. Her facial hue had become more green than white.

“Oh, we can’t!” she whimpered.

Even the Saint felt as if some intestinal quicksand was sucking down the floor of his stomach, but he managed to keep any hint of his sensations out of the timbre of his voice.