Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

"I won't smoke," he said briefly

Marius glanced at Roger.

"Then, with your permission, perhaps Mr.—er—Conway ——''

Roger stepped forward, took a cigar from the box on the desk, and tossed it over. Marius caught it, and bowed his thanks.

Roger had to admire the man's self-control. The giant was frankly playing for time, gambling the whole game on the hope of an interruption before the call came through that would inevitably damn him beyond all redemption; his brain, behind that graven mask, must have been a seething ball-race of whirling schemes; yet not by the most infinitesi­mal twitch of a muscle did he betray one scantling of concern. And before that supernatural im­passivity Roger's glacial vigilance keyed up to aching pitch.. . .

Deliberately Marius bit off the tip of the cigar and removed the band; his right hand moved to his pocket in the most natural way in the world, and Roger's voice rang out like the crack of a whip.

"Stop that!"

Marius's eyebrows went up.

"But surely, my dear young friend," he protested mildly, "you will permit me to light my cigar!"

"I'll give you a light."

Roger fished a match out of his pocket, struck it on the sole of his shoe, and crossed the room.

As he held it out, at arm's length, and Marius carefully put his cigar to the flame, their eyes met.. . .

In the stillness, the shout from the hall outside came plainly to their ears.. . .

"Lessing—we'll see this through!" Roger Conway stood taut and still; only his lips moved. "Come over here.. . .! Marius, get back ——"

And then, even as he spoke, the door behind him burst open, and instinctively he looked round. And the explosion of his own gun came to him through a bitter numbness of despair, for the hand that held it was crushed and twisted in such a grip as he had never dreamed of; and he heard the giant's low chuckle of triumph too late.

He was flung reeling back, disarmed—Marius hurled him away as if he had been a wisp of thistle­down. And as he lurched against the wall he saw, through a daze of agony, the Saint himself stand­ing within the room, cool and debonair; and be­hind the Saint was Sonia Delmar, with her right arm twisted up behind her back; and behind Sonia was Hermann, with an automatic in his hand. "Good-evening, everybody," said the Saint.

"Love, your magic spell is everywhere . . ."

GAY, MOCKING, cavalier, the old original Saintly voice! And there was nothing but a mischievous laughter in the clear blue eyes that gazed so de­lightedly at Marius across the room—nothing but the old hell-for-leather Saintly mirth. Yet the Saint stood there unarmed and at bay; and Roger knew then that the loss of his own gun made little differ­ence, for Hermann was safely sheltered behind the girl and his Browning covered the Saint without a tremor.

And Simon Templar cared for none of these things. . . . Lot's wife after the transformation scene would have looked like an agitated eel on a hot plate beside him. By some trick of his own in­imitable art, he contrived to make the clothes that had been through so many vicissitudes that night look as if he had just taken them off his tailor's de­livery van; his smiling freshness would have made a rosebud in the morning dew appear to wear a positively debauched and scrofulous aspect; and that blithe, buccaneering gaze travelled round the room as if he were reviewing a rally of his dearest friends. For the Saint in a tight corner had ever been the most entrancing and delightful sight in all the world. . . .

"And there's Roger. How's life, sonny boy? Well up on its hind legs—what? . . . Oh, and our one and only Ike! Sonia—your boy friend."

But Lessing's face was gray and drawn.

"So it was true, Marius!" he said huskily.

"Sure it was," drawled the Saint. "D'you mean to say you didn't believe old Roger? Or did Uncle Ugly tell you a naughty story?" And again the Saint beamed radiantly across at the motionless giant. "Your speech, Angel Face: 'Father, I can­not tell a lie. I am the Big Cheese.' . . . Sobs from pit and gallery. But you seem upset, dear heart— and I was looking to you to be the life and soul of the party. 'Hail, smiling morn,' and all that sort of thing."

Then Marius came to life.

For a moment his studied impassivity was gone altogether. His face was the contorted face of a beast; and the words he spat out came with the snarl of a beast; and the gloating leer on the lips of the man Hermann froze where it grimaced, and faded blankly. And then the Saint intervened.

"Hermann meant well, Angel Face," he mur­mured peaceably; and Marius swung slowly round.

"So you have escaped again, Templar," he said.

"In a manner of speaking," agreed the Saint modestly. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

He took out his cigarette case, and the giant's mouth writhed into a ghastly grin.

"I have heard about your cigarettes," he said. "Give those to me!"

"Anything to oblige," sighed the Saint.

He wandered over, with the case in his hand, and Marius snatched it from him. The Saint sighed again, and settled himself on the edge of the big desk, with a scrupulous regard for the crease in his trousers. His eye fell on the box of cigars, and he helped himself absent-mindedly.

Then Lessing was facing Marius.

"What have you to say now?" he demanded; and the last atom of emotion drained out of Marius's features as he looked down at the mil­lionaire.

"Nothing at all, Sir Isaac." Once again that thin, soft voice was barren of all expression, the accents cold and precise and unimpassioned. "You were, after all, correctly informed—in every par­ticular."

"But—my God, Marius! That war—everything —— Do you realize what this means?"

"I am perfectly well aware of all the implica­tions, my dear Sir Isaac."

"You were going to make me your tool in that ——"

"It was an idea of mine. Perhaps even now ——"

"You devil!"

The words bit the air like hot acid; and Marius waved protesting and impatient hands.

"My dear Sir Isaac, this is not a Sunday school. Please sit down and be quiet for a moment, while I attend to this interruption.''

"Sit down?" Lessing laughed mirthlessly. The stunned incredulity in his eyes had vanished, to be replaced by something utterly different. "I'll see you damned first! What's more, I'm going to put you in an English prison for a start—and when you come out of that I'll have you hounded out of every capital in Europe. That's my answer!"

He turned on his heel.

Between him and the door Hermann still held the girl. And Roger Conway stood beside her.

"One moment."

Marius's voice—or something else—brought Lessing up with a snap, and the millionaire faced slowly round again. And, as he turned, he met a stare of such pitiless malevolence that the flush of fury petrified in his face, leaving him paler than before.

"I am afraid you cannot be allowed to leave im­mediately, my dear Sir Isaac," said the giant silk­ily; and there was no mistaking the meaning of the slight movement of the automatic in his hand. "A series of accidents has placed you in possession of certain information which it would not suit my purpose to permit you to employ in the way which you have just outlined. In fact, I have not yet de­cided whether you will ever be allowed to leave."

THE SAINT cleared his throat.

"The time has come," he remarked diffidently, "for me to tell you all the story of my life."

He smiled across at Lessing; and that smile and the voice with it, slashed like a blast of sunshine through the tenuous miasma of evil that had spawned into the room as Marius spoke.