Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

It was superb—worthy in every way of the strategic genius that Roger remembered so well. And it had had its inevitable effect. The points that Marius had scored, with those subtly mocking rhe­torical question marks in their tails, had struck home one after another with deadly aim. And Lessing was wavering. He was looking at Roger steadily, not yet in downright suspicion but with a kind of grim challenge.

And there was the impasse. Roger faced it. For Lessing, there was a charge to be proven: and if Marius was not bluffing, and Sonia Delmar had really left the house, how could there be any proof? For Roger himself, there was an unconscious man down by the gates who would not re­main permanently unconscious, and another in the hall who might be discovered even sooner; and be­fore either of them revived Roger had got to learn things—even as Marius had had to learn things. Only Roger was not Rayt Marius.. . .

But the tables were turned—precisely. In that last speech, with murder staring him in the face, the giant had made a counter-attack of dazzling audacity. And Sir Isaac Lessing waited. . . .

It was Roger's cue.

A queer feeling of impotence slithered into the pit of his stomach. And he fought it down—fought and lashed his brains to match themselves against a man beside whom he was a newborn babe.

"Still the same old Angel Face!"

Roger found his voice somehow, and levelled it with all the dispassionate confidence at his com­mand, striving to speak as the Saint would have spoken—to bluff out his weakness as the Saint would have bluffed. And he caught a sudden glit­ter in the giant's eyes at the sound of that very creditably Saintly drawl, and gathered a new surge of strength.

He turned to Lessing.

"Perhaps," he said, "I didn't make it quite plain enough that in the matter of slipperiness you could wrap Angel Face in sandpaper and still have him giving points to an eel. But I'll put it to you in his very own words. If I only wanted to trap you both here, why should I keep up the deception?"

"I believe I discarded that theory as soon as I had propounded it," said Marius imperturbably.

Roger ignored him.

"On the other hand, Sir Isaac, if I wanted to bring any charge against Marius—well, he generous enough to say that I was competent. Don't you think I might have invented something a little more plausible? And when I had invented something, wouldn't you have thought I'd have taken steps to see that I had some evidence— faked, if necessary? But I haven't any, except my own word. D'you think a really intelligent crook would try to put over anything like that?"

"I said our young friend was competent," mur­mured the giant; and Lessing looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Merely that he is even more competent than I thought. Consider it, Sir Isaac. To—er—fake evi­dence is not so easy as it sounds. But boldly to ad­mit that there is no evidence, and then brazenly to adduce that confession as evidence in itself—that is a masterpiece of competence which can rarely have been equalled."

Roger laughed shortly.

"Very neat, Angel Face," he remarked. "But that line is wearing a little thin. Now, I've just had a brain wave. You know a lot of things which I cer­tainly don't know, and which I very much want to know—where Sonia Delmar has gone, and what's happened to the Saint, for instance. And you won't tell me—yet. But there are ways of making people talk, Angel Face. You may remember that the Saint nearly had to demonstrate one of those ways on you a few months ago. I've always been sorry that something turned up to stop him, but it mayn't be too late to put that right now."

"My dear young friend ——"

"I'm talking," said Roger curtly. "As I said, there are ways of making people talk. In the general circumstances I'm not in a position to apply any of those methods single-handed, and Sir Isaac won't help me unless he's convinced. But you're going to talk, Angel Face—in your proper turn— you've got to be made to. And therefore Sir Isaac has got to be convinced, and that's where my brain wave comes in."

Marius shrugged.

"So far," he said, "you have not been conspicu­ously successful, but I suppose we cannot prevent your making further efforts."

Roger nodded.

"You don't mind, do you?" he said. "You're quite ready to let me go on until somebody comes in to rescue you. But this will be over very quickly. I'm going to give you a chance to prove your inno­cence—smashingly. Sir Isaac will remember that in my very competent story I mentioned other names besides yours—among them, one Heinrich Dussel and a certain Prince Rudolf."

"Well?"

" Do you deny that you know them?''

"That would be absurd."

"But you say they know absolutely nothing of this affair?"

"The suggestion is ridiculous. They would be as astonished as I am myself."

"Right." Roger drew a deep breath. "Then here's your chance. Over in that corner there's a telephone—with a spare receiver. We'll ring up Heinrich or the Prince—whichever you like—and as soon as they answer you'll give your name, and you'll say: 'The girl has got away again'— and let Sir Isaac hear them ask you what you're talking about!"

THERE HAD BEEN silence before; but now for an instant there was a silence that seemed to Roger's overwrought nerves like the utter dreadful stillness before the unleashing of a hurricane, that left his throat parched and his head singing. He could hear the beating of his own heart, and the creak of the chair as he moved shrieked in his ears. Once before he had known the same feeling—had waited in the same electric hush, his nerves raw and strained with the premonition of peril, quiveringly alert and yet helpless to guess how the blow would fall. . . .

And yet the tension existed only in himself. The silence was for a mere five seconds—just such a silence as might reasonably greet the. proposition he had put forward. And not a flicker of expres­sion passed across the face he watched—that rough-hewn nightmare face like the face of some abominable heathen idol. Only, for one sheer scin­tilla of time, a ferine, fiendish malignance seared into the gaze of those inhuman eyes.

And Lessing was speaking quite naturally.

"That seems a sensible way of settling the mat­ter, Marius."

Marius turned slowly.

"It is an admirable idea," he said. "If that will satisfy you—although it is a grotesque hour at which to disturb my friends."

"I shall be perfectly satisfied—if the answer is satisfactory," returning Lessing bluntly. "If I've been misled I'm ready to apologize. But Mr. Conway persists with the charge, and I'd be glad to have it answered."

"Then I should be delighted to oblige you."

In another silence, deeper even than the last, Roger watched Marius cross to the telephone.

He knew—he was certain—that the giant was cornered. Exactly as Marius had swung the scale over in his own favour during the first innings, so Roger had swung it back again, with the inspired challenge that had blazed into his brain at the mo­ment of his need. And Lessing had swung back with the scale. The millionaire was looking at Roger, curiously studying the stern young profile; and the grimness was gone again from the set of his jaw.

"A trunk call to London, please. . . . Hanover eight five six five.. . . Yes.. . . Thank you."

Marius's voice was perfectly self-possessed.

He put down the instrument and turned again blandly.

"The call will be through in a few minutes," he said. "Meanwhile, since I am not yet convicted, perhaps you will accept a cigar, Sir Isaac?"

"He might if you kept well away from that desk," said Roger relentlessly. "Let him help him­self; and he can pass you one if you want it."

Lessing shook his head.