Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

The drive cut straight to the front door of the house, and Roger travelled as straight as the drive, his automatic swinging in his hand. He did not pause until he had reached the top of the steps, and there he waited an impatient moment to give Lessing a chance. Then, as the millionaire set the first toiling foot on the wide stone stair, Roger pressed the bell.

He braced himself, listening to the approach of heavy footsteps down the hall, as Lessing came panting up beside him. There was the sound of two bolts socketing back; then the rattle of the latch; then, as the door opened the first cautious inch, Roger hurled his weight forward. . . .

The man who had opened the door looked down the snout of the gun; and his hands voyaged slowly upwards.

"Turn round," said Roger monotonously. . .

As he brought the gun butt back into his hand he found the millionaire at his elbow, and surprised a certain dazed admiration in Lessing's crag-like face.

"I wish I had you in my office," Lessing was saying helplessly. "You're such a very efficient young man, Mr.—er—Conway —"

"I'm all of that," agreed an unsmiling Roger.

And then he heard a sound in the far corner of the hall, and whipped round to see an open door and a giant blocking the doorway. And Roger laughed.

"Angel Face!" he breathed blissfully. "The very man. . . . We've just dropped in to see you, Angel Face!"

MARIUS STOOD perfectly still—the automatic that was focussed on him saw to that. And Roger Conway walked slowly across the hall, Lessing behind him.

"Back into that room, Angel Face!" The giant turned with a faint shrug, and led the way into a richly furnished library. In the centre of the room he turned again, and it was then that he first saw Lessing in the full light. Yet the wide, hideous face remained utterly impassive—only the giant's hands expressed a puzzled and faintly cyni­cal surprise.

"You, too, Sir Isaac? What have you done to in­cur our friend's displeasure?"

"Nothing," said Roger sweetly. "He's just come along for a chat with you, as I have. Keep your hands away from that desk, Angel Face—I'll let you know when we want to be shown the door."

Lessing took a step forward. For all his bulk, he was a square-shouldered man, and his clean­shaven jaw was as square as his shoulders.

"I'm told," he said, "that you have, or have had, my fiancée—Miss Delmar—here."

Marius's eyebrows went up.

"And who told you that, Sir Isaac?"

"I did," said Roger comfortably. "And I know it's true, because I saw her brought here—in the ambulance you sent to take her from Upper Berk­eley Mews, as we arranged you should.''

Marius still looked straight across at Lessing.

"And you believed this story, Sir Isaac?" he in­quired suavely; and the thin, soft voice carried the merest shadow of pained reproach.

"I came to investigate it. There were other circumstances ——"

"Naturally there are, Sir Isaac. Our friend is a highly competent young man. But surely—even if his present attitude and behavior are not sufficient to demonstrate his eccentric character—surely you know who he is?"

"He was good enough to tell me."

The giant's slitted gaze did not waver by one millimetre.

"And you still believed him, Sir Isaac?"

"His gang has a certain reputation."

"Yes, yes, yes!" Marius fluttered one vast hand. "The sensational newspapers and their romantic nonsense! I have read them myself. But our friend is still wanted by the police. The charge is—mur­der."

"I know that."

"And yet you came here with him—volun­tarily?"

"I did."

"You did not even inform the police?"

"Mr. Conway himself offered to do that. But he also pointed out that that would mean prison for himself and his friend. Since they'd been good enough to find my fiancée for me, I could hardly offer them that reward for their services."

"So you came here absolutely unprotected?"

"Well, not exactly. I told my butler that unless I telephoned him within three hours he was to go to the police."

Marius nodded tolerantly.

"And may I ask what were the circumstances in which our friend was so ready to go to prison if you refused to comply with his wishes?"

"A war—which I was to be tricked into financ­ing."

"My dear Sir Isaac!"

The giant's remonstrance was the most perfect thing of its kind that Roger had ever seen or heard; the gesture that accompanied it would have been expressive enough in itself. And it shook Lessing's confidence. His next words were a shade less asser­tive; and the answer to them was a foregone con­clusion.

"You still haven't denied anything, Marius."

"But I leave it to your own judgment!"

"And still you haven't denied anything, Angel Face," said Roger gently.

Marius spread out eloquent hands.

"If Sir Isaac is still unconvinced," he answered smoothly, "I beg that he will search my house. I will summon a servant —"

"You'll keep your hands away from that bell!"

"But if you will not allow me to assist you —"

"I'll let you know when I want any help."

The giant's huge shoulders lifted in deprecating acquiescence. He turned again to Lessing.

"In that case, Sir Isaac," he remarked, "I am unfortunately deprived of my proof that Miss Delmar is not in this house."

"So you got her away on that ship, did you?" said Roger very quietly.

"What ship?"

"I see. . . . And did you meet the Saint?"

"I have seen none of your gang."

Slowly Roger sank down to the arm of a chair, and the hand that held the gun was as cold and steady as an Arctic rock. The knuckle of the trigger finger was white and tense; and for a mo­ment Rayt Marius looked at death with expression­less eyes.. . .

And then the giant addressed Lessing again without a change of tone.

"You will observe, Sir Isaac, that our impetuous young friend is preparing to shoot me. After that, he will probably shoot you. So neither of us will ever know his motive. It is a pity—I should have been interested to know it. Why, after his gang have abducted your fiancee for some mysterious reason, they should have elected to make such a crude and desperate attempt to make you believe that I was responsible—unless it was nothing but an elaborate subterfuge to trap us both simultan­eously in this house, in which case I cannot under­stand why he should continue with the accusation now that he has achieved his end.. . . Well, we are never likely to know, my dear Sir Isaac. Let us en­deavour to extract some consolation from the re­flection that your butler will shortly be informing the police of our fate."

ROGER'S FACE was a mask of stone; but behind that frozen calm two thoughts in concentric circles were spinning down through his brain, and noth­ing but those thoughts sapped from his trigger fin­ger the last essential milligram of pressure that would have sent Rayt Marius to his death.

He had to know definitely what had happened to the Saint; and perhaps Marius was the only man who could tell him.

Nothing else was in doubt. Marius's brilliantly urbane cross-examination of Lessing had been turned to its double purpose with consummate skill. In a few minutes, a few lines of dialogue, in­nocently and unobtrusively, Marius had gained all the information that he needed—about their num­bers, about the police, about everything. . . . And at the same time, in the turning of those same questions, he had attacked the charge against him with the most cunning weapon in his armoury— derision. Inch by inch he had gone over it with a distorting lens, throwing all its enormities into high relief, flooding its garish colours with the cold, merciless light of common, conventional sense; and then, scorning even to deny, he had sim­ply stepped back and sardonically invited Lessing to form his own conclusions.. . .