Leslie Charteris - Vendetta for the Saint

Ponti muttered curses under his breath, but not far enough under to deprive Simon of some of the more picturesque imprecations. He looked back for the scout car, but they had already left it far behind and were almost certainly increasing their lead.

“We need grenades, at least. On one of these hairpin bends, we might lob one ahead of them. Perhaps we should slow down and wait for Lieutenant Fusco.”

“And maybe never see our quarry again,” retorted the Saint. “Have you noticed that the speedometer is reading around a hundred and fifty kilometers most of the time? At that speed, they only have to be out of sight for a couple of minutes at any crossroads, and we should be flipping coins to help us guess which way they went. That car may look as if it belongs in a museum, but so does this one, and you can see how un-decrepit we are. We simply can’t afford to fall any farther behind than we have to to avoid stopping a bullet.”

Ponti answered with a short pungent phrase which summed up the situation more succinctly than anything printable.

“I thoroughly agree,” said the Saint sympathetically. “But it still leaves us nothing to do except follow them. So you might as well relax on this luxurious upholstery until your fine mind comes up with something more constructive.”

There was obviously no simple solution. They were in something like the classic predicament of the man who had the tiger by the tail. There seemed to be no way to improve the hold; and although letting go might be less disastrous, it was an alternative which neither of them would consider for a moment.

“Eventually they must run out of gas,” Ponti said, not too optimistically, as he watched the tail light weaving down the road ahead of them.

“And so must we. Of course, if it happens to them first, you and I can surround them.”

Simon Templar was in much better spirits, perhaps because he had had more opportunities in his life to become acclimated to tiger-tail-holding. From his point of view, the night so far had been a howling success. The Ungodly were on the run, and he was right behind them, goosing them along. The next move might be a problem; but so long as nothing as yet had positively gone wrong, everything should be considered to be going well. The dying autocrat whom he had seen was probably dead by now: even if nature had not taken its course, he would have been in no condition to be moved, and could likely have been helped over the last step out of this vale of tears rather than left to be captured. Certainly the men in the scudding carriage ahead could only be the most vigorous and determined aspirants to the throne. And among them was surely Al Destamio — or Dino Cartelli — the man who was the main reason for Simon’s involvement in the affair.

He refused to believe that Fate would cheat him of a show-down now...

There was a faint smile on the Saint’s lips, and a song in his throat that only he could hear above the drone of the motor.

Crossroads flashed by, and occasional tricky forks, but Simon followed the limousine through them all. It could not outdistance him or shake him off. Most of the time he stayed maddeningly just out of hand-gun range, but he always managed to creep up when it counted most and when the rough-riding swings of the pursued car made it least risky. What he feared most was a lucky hit on a tire or the Bugatti’s radiator, but none of the fugitive’s erratic shots found such a mark. It did not seem to occur to the Saint that he could be hit himself, though one bullet did nick the metal frame of the windshield and whine away like a startled mosquito with hi-fi amplification.

Another village loomed up, lining a straight stretch of road that the limousine’s headlights showed clear for a quarter of a mile ahead. The limousine seemed to slacken speed instead of accelerating, and Simon eased up on the throttle and fell even farther behind.

“What’s the matter?” Ponti fumed. “This is your chance to pass them!”

“And have them nudge us into the side of a building?” Simon said. “Either that, or have a nice steady shot at us as we catch up. No, thank you. I think that’s just what they want to tempt us to do.”

But for the first time his intuition seemed to have lost its edge.

The car in front braked suddenly, and swung into a turning in the middle of the village which made a right-angle junction with the main road — if such a term could be applied to the one they were on.

Simon raced the Bugatti towards the corner, but slowed up again well before he reached it and made the turn wide and gently, for it was an ideal spot for an ambush. The side road was empty, but in a hundred yards it made another blind curve to the left, and again Simon negotiated the turning with extreme caution. Again there was no ambush, but the black limousine was less than fifty yards ahead and putting on speed up a grade that started to wind up into the mountains. Simon could judge its acceleration by his own, as he revved up in pursuit and yet at first failed to narrow the gap between them.

Then as he whipped the Bugatti around another bend, and began to gain a yard or two, something clicked in his mind, and he laughed aloud with exultation.

Ponti stared at him in amazement.

“May I ask what is so funny?”

“The weird whims of Providence, and the philosophical principle of the Futility of Effort,” said the Saint. “Here we are racking our brains to find a way to end the stalemate, and forgetting that the Ungodly must have been doing the very same thing. Now they have made their move, and I think I know what it was. Let us catch up and make sure.”

“You are crazy! Just now you would not catch up because they would fill us with bullets!”

“But now I don’t think they will. However, the only way to be sure is to try it — as the actress said to the bishop.”

“I was a fool to ever have anything to do with you,” Ponti said, taking out his gun and preparing to die with honor.

In a minute they screamed out of another turn only a couple of lengths behind the limousine, but there were no shots and the firing port remained closed. The full beam of the Bugatti’s headlights blazed into the rear window of the car ahead as the road straightened.

“They are gone!” Ponti shouted incredulously. “It is empty except for the driver! Unless they are crouching down—”

Taking advantage of the straight stretch, Simon poured on the gas, and the Bugatti surged forward as if a giant hand had slapped it from behind.

“No, there is only the driver,” he said calmly, as they thundered alongside. “And I think he is making the fatal mistake of lowering his window so he can shoot at us.”

Ponti was prepared. He sat sideways, his left hand cupped under his right elbow to steady it, and took careful aim. When the bullet-proof glass had dropped far enough, while the driver was still raising his own gun, Ponti’s pistol barked once. The driver’s head was slammed sideways and he flopped over the wheel. Simon braked quickly as the limousine veered wildly across the road, rolled over, and somersaulted crazily out of sight.

Still braking, Simon spotted a cart track on his right, spun into it, and backed out to face the way they had come. He stopped again, and got out.

“You can send for the body later,” he said. “But now slide over and take the wheel. You are getting a second chance to enjoy driving this marvelous car.”

“Why?” Ponti asked blankly, as Simon got in on the other side.

“Because two can play the trick that they thought of. Did you notice that it took them entirely too long to make that double jog out of the village, and how close we were behind them even though I deliberately slowed up? That was because they stopped for a moment while they were out of sight, and the passengers piled out, counting on the driver to lead us on a wild-goose chase through the hills.”