Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

"He'd have to start all over again—"

"And so should we, Roger—just as it happened a few months back. And that isn't good enough. Not by a mile. Besides," said the Saint dreamily, "Rayt Marius and I have a personal argument to settle, and I think—I think, honey-bunch—that that's one of the most important points of all, in this game. ..."

Conway shrugged.

"Then—what?"

"I guess we might tool over to Saltham and get ready to beat up this house party."

Roger fingered an unlighted cigarette.

"I suppose we might," he said.

The Saint laughed and stood up.

"There seems to be an attack of respectability coming over you, my Roger," he murmured. "First you talk about fetching in the police, and then you have the everlasting crust to sit there in a beer-sodden stupor and suppose we might waltz into as good a scrap as the Lord is ever likely to stage-manage for us. There's only one cure for that disease, sweetheart—and that's what we're going after now. Long before dark, Marius himself and a reinforcement of lambs are certain to be steaming into Saltham, all stoked up and sizzling at the safety valve, and the resulting ballet ought to be a real contribution to the gaiety of nations. So hurry up and shoot the rest of that ale through your face, sonny boy, and let's go!"

THEY WENT. ...

Not that it was the kind of departure of which Roger Conway approved. In spite of all the training which the Saint had put into him, Roger's remained a cautious and deliberate temperament. He had no peace of mind about haring after trouble with an armoury composed of precious little more than a sublime faith in Providence and a practised agility at soaking people under the jaw. He liked to consider. He liked to weigh pro and con. He liked to get his hooks onto a complete detail map of the campaign proposed, with all important landmarks underlined in red ink. He liked all sorts of things that never seemed to come his way when he was in the Saint's company. And he usually seemed to be tottering through the greater part of their divers adventures in a kind of lobster-supper dream, feeling like a man who is compelled to run a race for his life along a delirious precipice on a dark night in a gale of wind and a pea-soup fog. But always in that nightmare the Saint's fantastic optimism led him on, dancing ahead like a will-o'-the-wisp, trailing him dizzily behind into hell-for-leather audacities which Roger, in the more leisured days that followed, would remember in a cold sweat.

And yet he suffered it all. The Saint was just that sort of man. There was a glamour, a magnificent recklessness, a medieval splendor about him that no one with red blood in his veins could have resisted. In him there was nothing small, nothing half-hearted: he gave all that he had to everything that he did, and made his most casual foolishness heroic.

"Who cares?" drawled the Saint, with his lean brown hands seeming merely to caress the wheels of the Hirondel, and his mad, mocking eyes lazily skimming the road that hurtled towards them at seventy miles an hour. "Who cares if a whole army corps of the heathen comes woofling into Saltham to-night, even with a detachment of some of our old friends in support—the Black Wolves, for instance, or the Snake's Boys, or the Tiger Cubs, or even a brigade of the crown prince's own household cavalary—old Uncle Rayt Marius an' all? For it seems years since we had what you might call a one hundred per cent rodeo, Roger, and I feel that unless we get moving again pretty soon we shall be growing barnacles behind the ears."

Roger said nothing. He had nothing to say. And the big car roared out into the east.

The sun had long since set, and now the twilight was closing down with the suddenness of the season. As the dusk became dangerous for their speed, Simon touched a switch, and the tremendous twin headlights slashed a blazing pathway for them through the darkness.

They drove on in silence; and Roger Conway, strangely soothed by the swift rush of wind and the deep-chested drone of the open exhaust, sank into a hazy reverie. And he remembered a brown-eyed slip of a girl, sweet and fresh from her bath, in a jade-green gown, who was called America's loveliest lady, and who had sat in a sunny room with him that morning and eaten bacon and eggs. Also he remembered the way she and the Saint had spoken together, and how far away and unattainable they had seemed in their communion, and how little the Saint would say afterwards. He was quiet. ...

And then, it seemed only a few minutes later, Simon was rousing him with a hand on his shoulder; and Roger struggled upright and saw that it was now quite dark, and the sky was brilliant with stars.

"Your cue, son," said the Saint. "The last signpost gave us three miles to Saltham. Where do we go from here?"

"Right on over the next crossroads, old boy . . . . " Roger picked up his bearings mechanically. "Carry on ... and bear left here. . . . Sharp right just beyond that gate, and left again almost immediately. ... I should watch this corner—it's a brute. . . . Now stand by to fork right in about half a mile, and the house is about another four hundred yards farther on."

The Saint's foot groped across the floor and kicked over the cut-out control, and the thunder of their passage was suddenly hushed to a murmuring whisper that made figures on the speedometer seem grotesque. The Saint had never been prone to hide any of his lights under a bushel, and in the matter of racing automobiles particularly he had cyclonic tastes; but his saving quality was that of knowing precisely when and where to get off.

"We won't tell the world we're on our way till we've given the lie of the land a brisk double-O," he remarked. "Let's see—where does this comic chemin trail to after it's gone past the baronial hall?"

"It works round the grounds until it comes out onto the cliffs," Roger answered. "Then it runs along by the sea and dips down into the village nearly a mile away."

"Any idea how big these grounds are?"

"Oh, large! . . . I could give you a better idea of the size if I knew how much space an acre takes up."

"Parkland, or what?"

"Trees all around the edge and gardens around the house—as far as I could see. But part of it's park—you could play a couple of cricket matches on it. ... The gates are just round this bend on your right now."

"O.K., big boy. ..."

The Saint eased up the accelerator and glanced at the gates as the Hirondel drifted past. They were tall and broad and massive, fashioned in wrought iron in an antique style; far beyond them, at the end of a long straight drive, he could see the silhouette of a gabled roof against the stars, with one tiny square of window alight in the black shadow. . . . Maybe Sonia Delmar was there. . . . And he looked the other way, and saw the grim line of Roger's mouth.

"Feeling a bit more set for the stampede, son?" he asked softly.

"I am." Roger met his eyes steadily. "And it might amuse you to know, Saint, that there isn't another living man I'd have allowed to make it a stampede. Even now, I don't quite see why Sonia had to go back."

Simon touched the throttle again and they swept on.

"D'you think I'd have let Sonia take the risk for nothing myself?" he answered. "I didn't know what I was going to get out of my trip to the Ritz. And even what I did get isn't the whole works. But Sonia—she's right in their camp, and they've no fear of her squealing. It would amuse them to boast to her, Roger—I can see them doing it."

"That Russian they're bringing over—"

"Vassiloff?"

"That's it—"

"I rather think he'll boast more than any of them."

"What's he getting out of it?"

"Power," said the Saint quietly. "That's what they're all playing for—or with. And Rayt Marius most of all, for the power of gold—Marius and the men behind him. But he's the mad dog. . . . Did you know that he was once a guttersnipe in the slums of Prague? . . . Wouldn't it be the greatest thing in his life to sit on the unnofficial throne of Europe—to play with kings and presidents for toys—to juggle with great nations as in the past he's juggled with little ones? That's his idea. That's why he's playing Vassiloff with one finger, because Vassiloff hates Lessing, and Prince Rudolf with another finger, because Rudolf fancies himself as a modern Napoleon—and, by the lord, Roger, Rudolf could make that fancy into fact, with Marius behind him! . . . And God knows how many other people are on his strings, here and there .... And Sonia's the pawn that's right inside their lines—that might become a queen in one move, and turn the scales of their tangled chessgame to hell or glory."