Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

"But what shall we do?"

Simon laughed.

"It's done, old darling," he answered cheer­fully, and she did not have to ask another ques­tion.

He lounged against the binnacle, a fresh white cylinder between his lips, his lighter flaring in his hand. The adventure had swept him up again: she could mark all the signs. The incident of which he had returned to speak so airily was a slight thing in itself, as he would have seen it; but it had turned a subtle scale. Though he lounged there so lazily relaxed, so easy and debonair, it was a dynamic and turbulent repose. There was nothing about it of permanence or even pause: it was the calm of a couched panther. And she saw the mocking curve of the eager fighting lips, the set of the finely chiselled jaw, the glimmer of laughter in the clear eyes half-sheathed by languid lids; and she read his destiny again in that moment's silence.

Then he straightened up; and it was like the uncoiling of tempered steel. His hand fell on her shoulder.

"Come and have a look," he said.

She secured the wheel amidships and followed him outside.

The wind touched her hair, cool and sweet as a sea nymph's breath; it whispered in the rigging, a muted chant to the rustle and throb of the ship's passage. Somewhere astern, between the bridge and the frayed white feather of their wake, the rattle and swish of a donkey engine shifting clinker jarred into the softness of the night. The sky was a translucent veil of purple, spangled with silver dust, a gossamer canopy flung high above the star-spearing topmasts, with a silver moon riding be­tween yardarm and water. And away ahead and to her right, as the Saint had prophesied, a dark line of land was rising half a hand's-breath from the sea. ...

She heard the Saint speaking, with a faint tremor of reckless rapture in his voice.

"Only a little while now and then the balloon! ... I wonder if they've all gone to bed, to dream about my obituary notice in the morning papers. . . . You know, that'd make the reunion too perishingly perfect for words—to have Angel Face trying to do his stuff in a suit of violently striped pajamas and pink moccasins. I'm sure Angel Face is the sort of man who would wear striped pajamas, "said the Saint judicially. . . .

It did not occur to her to ask why the Saint should take the striping of pajamas as such an axiomatic index of villainy; but she remembered, absurdly, that Sir Isaac Lessing had a delirious taste in stripes. They had been members of the same house party at Ascot that summer, and she had met him on his way back from his bath. . . . And Sonia said abruptly: "Aren't you worried about Roger?"

"In a way .... But he's a great lad. I trained him myself."

"Did he—think the same as you?"

"About the life?"

"Yes."

Simon leaned on the rail gazing out to the slowly rising land.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm damned if I know. ... I led him on, of course, but he wasn't too hard to lead. It gave him something to do. Then he got tied up with a girl one time, and that ought to have been the end of him; but she let him down rather badly. After that—maybe you'll understand—he was as keen as knives. And I can't honestly say I was sorry to have him back."

"Do you think he'll stay?"

"I've never asked him, old dear. There's no contract—if that's what you mean. But I do know that nothing short of dynamite would shift him out of this particular party, and that's another reason why I'm not fretting myself too much about him tonight. You see, he and I and Norman were the original Musketeers, and—well, I guess Roger wants to meet Rayt Marius again as much as I do ...."

"And you mean to kill Marius?" said the girl quietly.

The Saint's cigarette end glowed brighter to a long, steady inhalation, and she met the wide, bland stare of Saintly eyes.

"But of course," he said simply. "Why not?"

And Sonia Delmar made no answer, turning her face again towards the shore. Words blazed through her brain; they should have come pelting—but her tongue was tied. He had shown her the warning, made it so plain that only a swivel-eyed half-wit could have missed it: "NO ENTRY—ONE WAY STREET," it said. And not once, but twice, he had edged her gently off the forbidding road, before her own unmannered obstinacy had pricked him to the snub direct. Yet he had broken the strain as easily and forthrightly as he had broken the spell; by now the entire circumstance had probably slipped away to the spacious background of his mind. He was as innocent of resentment as he was innocent of restraint; he pointed her retreat for the third time with no whit less of gentle grace; and she could not find the hardihood to breach the peace again. .

THE SHIP ploughed on through a slow swell of dark shining steel; and the Saint's lighter gritted and flared again in the gloom. His soft chuckle scarcely rose above the sigh of the breeze.

"If you want to powder your nose or anything, Sonia," he murmured, "this is your chance. I guess we'll be decanting ourselves in a few minutes now. We don't want to drive this gondola right up to the front door—I've no idea what the coast is like around here, and it might be infernally awkward to run aground at the critical moment."

"And even then we don't know where we are," she said.

"Well I'm not expecting we'll find ourselves a hundred miles away, and the nearest signpost will give us our bearings. . . . Glory be! Do you know, old dear?—I believe I shall be more interested in Marius's pantry than in his pajamas when we do arrive!"

He had so many other things to think about that he was only just becoming aware that he had gone through a not uneventful day on nothing but breakfast and a railway-station sandwich; and when the Saint developed an idea like that he never needed roller skates to help him catch up with it. After another wary glance at the land he wandered off the bridge in search of the galley; and in a few minutes he was back, with bulging pockets and a large sandwich in each hand. Even so, he had run it rather fine—the shore was looming up more quickly than he had thought.

"Here we are, che-ild—and off you go," he said briskly. "The orchestra's tuned up again, and we're surely going to start our symphony right now." He grinned, thrusting the sandwiches into her hands. "Paddle along down the gangway, beautiful, and begin gnawing bits out of these; and I'll be with you as soon as I've ported the plurry helm."

"O.K., Simon. ..."

Yet she did not go at once. She stood there facing him in the starlight. He heard her swift breath, and a puzzled question shaped itself in his mind, on the brink of utterance; but then, before he could speak, her lips brushed his mouth, very lightly.

Then he was alone.

"Thank you, Sonia," whispered the Saint.

He knew there was no one to hear.

Then he went quickly into the wheelhouse; and his hands flashed over the spokes as he put the wheel hard over. And once again he remembered his song:

"Modest maiden will not tarry;

Though but sixteen year she carry,

She must marry, she must marry,

Though the altar be a tomb — "

The Saint smiled crookedly.

For a space he held the wheel locked over, judging his time; and then he went out again onto the bridge. The line of land was slipping round to the starboard quarter, dangerously near. He went back and held the wheel for a few moments longer; when he emerged for a second survey the coast was safely astern, and he permitted himself a brief prayer of contented thanksgiving.

The quartermaster and the third officer, at the starboard end of the bridge, had both returned to life. Simon observed them squirming in helpless fury as he made for the companion, and paused to sweep them a mocking bow.