Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

"Pah! But I should flatter you by losing my temper with you." Again the hideous face was a mask, and the thin, high-pitched voice was as smooth and suave as ever. "I should not like you to think that I was so interested in you, my dear Templar. Once you kicked me; once, when I was in your hands, you threatened me with torture; but I am not annoyed. I do not lose my temper with the mosquito who bites me. I simply kill the mos­quito."

A severed strand of rope slipped down the Saint's wrist, and he gathered it in cautiously. Already the cords were loosening. And the Saint smiled.

"Really," he murmured, "that's awfully ruthless of you. But then, you strong, silent men are like that. . . . And are we all classified as mosquitos for this event?"

Marius spread out his hands.

"Your friend Conway, personally, is entirely unimportant," he said. "If only he had been wise enough to confine his adventurous instincts to activities which were within the limits of his in­telligence—" He broke off with a shrug. "However, he has elected to follow you into meddling with my affairs."

"And Lessing?"

"He also has interfered. Only at your in­stigation, it is true; but the result is the same."

The Saint continued to smile gently.

"I get you, Tiny Tim. And he also will have an unfortunate accident?"

"It will be most unfortunate." Marius drew leisurely at his cigar before proceeding. "Let me tell you the story as far as it is known. You and your gang kidnapped Sir Isaac—for some reason unknown—and killed his servants when they attempted to resist you. You brought him out to Saltham—again for some reason unkown. You drove past this house on to the cliff road, and there—still for some reason unknown—your car plunged over the precipice. And if you were not killed by the fall, you were certainly burned to death in the fire which followed. . . . Those are the bare facts—but the theories which will be put forward to account for them should make most interesting reading."

"I see," said the Saint very gently. "And now will you give us the low-down on the tragedy, honey-bunch? I mean, I'm the main squeeze in this blinkin' tear ——"

"I do not understand all your expressions. If you mean that you would like to know how the accident will be arranged, I shall be delighted to explain the processes as they take place. We are just about to begin."

He put down his cigar regretfully, and turned to the rope expert.

"Prosser, you will find a car at the lodge gates. You will drive it out to the cliff road, and then drive it over the edge of the cliff. Endeavour not to drive yourself over with it. After this, you will return to the garage, take three or four tins of petrol, and carry them down the cliff path. You will go along the shore until you come to the wreckage of the car, and wait for me there."

The Saint leaned even more lazily against the wall. And the cords had fallen away from his wrists. He had just managed to turn his hand and catch them as they fell.

"I may be wrong," he remarked earnestly, as the door closed behind Mr. Prosser, "but I think you're marvellous. How do you do it, Angel Face?"

"We will now have you gagged," said Marius unemotionally. "Ludwig, fetch some cloths."

Stifling a cavernous yawn, the German roused himself from the corner and went out.

And the Saint's smile could never have been more angelic.

The miracle! ... He could scarcely believe it. And it was a copper-bottomed wow. It was too utterly superfluously superlative for words. . . . But the blowed-in-the-glass, brass-bound, seventy-five-point-three-five-over-proof fact was that the odds had been cut down by half.

Quite casually, the Saint made sure of his angles.

The Bowery Boy was exactly on his right; Marius, by the desk, was half left.

And Marius was still speaking.

"We take you to the top of the cliffs—bound, so that you cannot struggle, and gagged, so that you cannot cry out—and we throw you over. At the bottom we are ready to remove the ropes and the gags. We place you beside the car; the petrol is poured over you; a match. , . . And there is a most unfortunate accident. . . ."

The Saint looked around.

Instinctively Roger Conway had drawn closer to the girl. Ever afterwards the Saint treasured that glimpse of Roger Conway, erect and defiant, with fearless eyes.

"And if the fall doesn't kill us?" said Roger distinctly.

"It will be even more unfortunate," said Marius. "But for any one of you to be found with a bullet wound would spoil the effect of the ac­cident. Naturally, you will see my point. ..."

There were other memories of that moment that the Saint would never forget. The silence of the girl, for instance, and the way Lessing's breath suddenly came with a choking sob. And the stolid disinterestedness of the Bowery Boy. And Lessing's sudden throaty babble of words. "Good God — Marius — you can't do a thing like that! You can't — you can't ——"

And Roger's quiet voice again, cutting through the babble like the slash of a sabre.

"Are we really stuck this time, Saint?"

"We are not," said the Saint.

He said it so gently that for a few seconds no one could have realized that there was a significant stone-cold deliberateness, infinitely too significant and stone-cold for bluff, about that very gen­tleness. And for those few seconds Lessing's hysterical incoherent babble went on, and the clock whirred to strike the hour. . . .

And then Marius took a step forward.

"Explain!"

There was something akin to fear in the venomous crack of that one word, so that even Lessing's impotent blubbering died in his throat; and the Saint laughed.

"The reason is in my pocket," he said softly. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Angel Face, my beautiful, but it's too late now ——"

In a flash the giant was beside him, fumbling with his coat.

"So! You will still be humorous. But perhaps, after all, you will not be thrown down the cliff before your car is set on fire ——''

"The inside breast pocket, darlingest," mur­mured the Saint very softly.

And he turned a little.

He could see the bulge in the giant's pocket, where Roger's captured automatic had dragged the coat out of shape. And for a moment the giant's body cut off most of the Saint from the Bowery Boy's field of vision. And Marius was intent upon the Saint's breast pocket. . . .

Simon's left hand leaped to its mark as swiftly and lightly as the hand of any professional pickpocket could have done. . . .

"Don't move an inch, Angel Face!"

The Saint's voice rang out suddenly like the crack of a whip—a voice of murderous menace, with a tang of tempered steel. And the automatic that backed it up was rammed into the giant's ribs with a savagery that made even Rayt Marius wince.

"Not one inch—not half an inch, Angel Face," repeated that voice of tensile tungsten. "That's the idea. . . . And now talk quickly to Lingrove— quickly! He can't get a bead on me, and he's wondering what to do. Tell him! Tell him to drop his gun!"

Marius's lips parted in a dreadful grin.

And the Saint's voice rapped again through the stillness.

"I'll count three. You die on the three. One!" The giant was looking into Simon's eyes, and they were eyes emptied of all laughter. Eyes of frozen ultramarine, drained of the last trace of human pity. . . . And Marius answered in a whisper.

"Drop your gun, Lingrove."

The reply came in a muffled thud on the carpet; but not for an instant did those inexorable eyes cease to bore into the giant's brain.

"Is it down, Roger?" crisped the Saint, and Conway spoke the single necessary word.

"Yes."

"Right. Get over in that corner by the telephone, Lingrove." The Saint, with the tail of his eye, could see the Bowery Boy pass behind the giant's shoulder; and the way was clear. "Get over and join him, Angel Face. ..."