Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

"Just do what Angel Face told you, Sir Isaac," said the Saint winningly. "Park yourself in a pew and concentrate on Big Business. Just think what a half-nelson you'll have on the Banana Oil market when Angel Face has unloaded his stock. And he won't hurt you, really. He's a plain, blunt man, and I grant you his face is against him, but he's a simple soul at heart. Why, many's the time we've sat down to a quiet game of dominoes—haven't we, Angel Face?—and all at once, after playing his third double-six, he's said, in just the same dear dreamy way: 'Templar, my friend, have you never thought that there is something embolismal about Life?' And I've said, brokenly: 'It's all so—so um­bilical. ' Just like that. 'It's all so umbilical. . . .' Doesn't it all come back to you, Angel Face?"

Marius turned to him.

"I have never been amused by your humour, Templar" he said. "But I should be genuinely in­terested to know how you have spent the evening."

All the giant's composure had come back, save for the vindictive hatred that burned on in his eyes like a lambent fire. He had been secure in the thought that the Saint was dead, and then for a space the shock of seeing the Saint alive had bat­tered and reeled and ravaged his security into a racketing chaos of raging unbelief; and at the ut­termost nadir of that havoc had come the cataclys­mic apparition of Sonia Delmar herself, entering that very room, to overwhelm his last tattered hope of bluff and smash down the ripening harvest of weeks of brilliant scheming and intrigue into one catastrophic devastation; and he had certainly been annoyed. . . . Yet not for an instant could his mind have contained the shred of an idea of de­feat. He stood there by the desk where the Saint sat, a poised and terrible colossus; and behind that unnatural calm the brain of a warped genius was fighting back with brute ferocity to retrieve the ir­retrievable disaster. And Simon looked at him, and laughed gently.

"To-night's jaunt," said the Saint, "is definite­ly part of the story of my life."

"And of how many more of your friends?"

Simon shook his head.

"You never seem to be able to get away from the distressing delusion that I am.some sort of gang," he murmured. "I believe we've had words about that before. Saint Roger Conway you've met. That in the middle is a new recruit—Saint Isaac Lessing, Regius Professor of Phlebology at the University of Medicine Hat and Consulting Scolecophagist to the Gotherington Gasworks, recently canonized for his article in The Suffragette advocating more clubs for women. 'Clubs, tomahawks, flat-irons, anything you like,' he said. . . . And here we all are."

"And how many more?" repeated Marius.

"Isn't that quite clear?" sighed the Saint. "There are no more. Let me put it in words of one syllable. The unadulterated quintessence of nihility ——"

Savagely Marius caught his arm in one gigantic hand, and the Saint involuntarily tensed his mus­cles.

"Not that way, Angel Face," he said softly. "Or there might be a vulgar brawl. ..."

Yet perhaps it was that involuntary tensing of an arm of leather and iron, rather than the change in the Saint's voice, that made Marius loose his grip. With a tremendous effort the giant controlled him self again, and his lips relaxed from the animal snarl that had distorted them; only the embers of his fury still glittered in his eyes.

"Very good. There are no more of you. And what happened on the ship?"

"Well, we went for a short booze—cruise."

"And the man who was shot in the motorboat— was he another of your friends?"

Simon surveyed the ash on his cigar approving­ly.

"One hates to cast aspersions on the dead," he answered, "but I can't say that we ever became what you might call bosom pals. Not," said the Saint conscientiously, "that I had anything against the man. We just didn't have the chance to get properly acquainted. In fact, I'd hardly given him the first friendly punch on the jaw, and dumped him in that motorboat to draw the fire, when some of the sharpshooting talent pulled the voix celeste stop on him for ever. I don't even know his name; but he addressed me in Grand Opera, so if your ice-cream plant is a bit diminuendo ——"

Hermann spoke sharply.

"It was Antonio, mein Herr! He stayed on the beach after we took the girl down ——"

"So!" Marius turned again. "It was one of my own men!"

"Er—apparently," said the Saint with sorrow.

"And you were already on the ship?"

"Indeed to goodness. But only just." The Saint grinned thoughtfully. "And then I met Comrade Vassiloff—a charming lad, with a beautiful set of hairbrushes. We exchanged a little backchat, and then I tied him up and passed on. Then came the amusing error."

"What was that?"

"You see, it was a warm evening, so I'd bor­rowed Comrade Vassiloff's coat to keep the heat out. The next cabin I got into was the captain's and he promptly jumped to the conclusion that Comrade Vassiloff was still inhabiting the coat."

Marius stiffened.

"Moeller! The man always was a fool! When I meet him again ——"

The Saint shook his head.

"What a touching scene it would have been!" he murmured. "I almost wish it could come true. . . . But it cannot be. I'm afraid, Angel Face, that Cap­tain Moeller has also been translated."

"You killed him?"

"That's a crude way of putting it. Let me explain. Overcome with the shock of discovering his mistake, he went slightly bughouse, and seemed to imagine that he was a seagull. Launching himself into the empyrean—oh, very hot, very hot!—he disappeared from view, and I have every reason to believe that he made a forced landing a few yards farther on. As I didn't know how to stop the ship ——"

"When was this?"

"Shortly after the ceremony. That was the amusing error. When I rolled into his cabin Sonia was there as well, and there was a generally festive air about the gathering. The next thing I knew was that I was married." He saw Marius start, and laughed softly. "Deuced awkward, wasn't it, Angel Face?"

He gazed at Marius benevolently; but, after that first unpurposed recoil, the giant stood quite still. The only one in the room who moved was Lessing, who came slowly to his feet, his eyes on the girl.

"Sonia—is that true?"

She nodded, without speaking; and the million­aire sank back again, white-faced.

The Saint slewed round on his perch, and it was at Roger that he looked.

"It was quite an unofficial affair," said the Saint deliberately. "I doubt if the Archbishop of Canterbury would have approved. But the net result ——"

"Saint!"

Roger Conway took a pace forward, and the name was cried so fiercely that Simon's muscles tensed again. And then the Saint's laugh broke the hush a second time, with a queer blend of sadness and mockery.

"That's all I wanted," said the Saint; and Roger fell back, staring at him.

But the Saint said no more. He deposited an inch and a half of ash in an ashtray, flicked a min­ute flake of the same from his knee, adjusted the crease in his trousers, and returned his gaze again to Marius.

Marius had taken no notice of the interruption. For a while longer he continued to stare fixedly at the Saint; and then, with an abrupt movement, he turned away and began to pace the room with huge, smooth strides. And once again there was silence.

The Saint inhaled meditatively.

An interval of bright and breezy badinage, he realized distinctly, had just been neatly and un­obtrusively bedded down in its appointed niche in the ancient history of the world, and the action of the piece was preparing to resume. And the coming action, by all the portents, was likely to be even brighter and breezier than the badinage—in its own way.