Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

"Yes and no." Simon answered after a short pause. "I got it, but not soon enough."

The smile had gone again; and Roger frowned puzzledly.

"What was the dog?" he asked.

"The late Mr. Prosser," said the Saint carefully, and Roger jumped to one half of the right con­clusion.

"You mean he'd crashed the car?"

"He had crashed the car."

The affirmative came flatly, precisely, coldly— in a way that Roger could not understand.

And the Saint's eyes roved round the room without expression, taking in the three bound men in the corner, and Lessing in a chair, and Sonia Delmar beside Roger, and the telephone on the floor. The Saint's cigarette case lay on the desk where Marius had thrown it; and the Saint walked over in silence and picked it up.

"Well?" prompted Roger, and was surprised by the sound of his own voice.

The Saint had lighted a cigarette. He crossed the room again with the cigarette between his lips, and picked up the telephone. He looked once at the frayed ends of the flex; and then he held the in­strument close to his ear and shook it gently.

And then he looked at Roger.

"Have you forgotten Hermann?" he asked quietly.

"I had forgotten him for the moment, Saint. But ——"

"And those boxes he took with him—had you guessed what they were?''

"I hadn't."

Simon Templar nodded. "Of course," he said. "You wouldn't know what it was all about. But I'm telling you now, just to break it gently to you, that the Hirondel's been crashed and the telephone's bust, and those two things together may very well mean the end of peace on earth for God knows how many years. But you were just thinking we'd won the game, weren't you?"

"What do you mean, Saint?"

The newspaper that Marius had consulted was in the waste-basket. Simon bent and took it out, and the paragraph that he knew he would find caught his eye almost at once.

"Come here, Roger," said the Saint, and Roger came beside him wonderingly.

Simon Templar did not explain. His thumb simply indicated the paragraph; and Conway read it through twice—three times—before he looked again at the Saint with a fearful comprehension dawning in his eyes.

"BUT IT couldn't be that!''

Roger's dry lips framed the same denial mechanically, and yet he knew that sanity made him a fool even as he spoke. And the Saint's answer made him a fool again.

"But it is that!"

The Saint's terrible calm snapped suddenly, as a brittle blade snaps at a turn of the hand. Sonia Delmar came over and took the paper out of Roger's hands, but Roger scarcely noticed it—he was gazing, fascinated, at the blaze in the Saint's eyes.

"That's what Hermann's gone to do: I tell you, I heard every word. It's Angel Face's second string. I don't know why it wasn't his first—unless because he figured it was too desperate to rely on except in the last emergency. But he was ready to put it into action if the need arose, and it just happened that there was a chance this very night—by the grace of the devil ——"

"But I don't see how it works," Roger said stupidly.

"Oh, for the love of Pete!" The Saint snatched his cigarette from his mouth, and his other hand crushed Roger's shoulder in a vise-like grip. "Does that count? There are a dozen ways he could have worked it. Hermann's a German. Marius could easily have fixed for him to be caught later, with the necessary papers on him—and there the fat would have been in the fire. But what the hell does it matter now, anyway?"

And Roger could see that it didn't matter; but he couldn't see anything else. He could only say: "What time does it happen?"

"About six-thirty," said the Saint; and Roger looked at the clock.

It was twenty-five minutes past three.

"There must be another telephone somewhere," said the girl.

Simon pointed to the desk.

"Look at that one," he said. "The number's on it—and it's a Saxmundham number. Probably it's the only private phone in the village."

"But there'll be a post office."

"I wonder."

The Saint was looking at Marius. There might have been a sneer somewhere behind the graven inscrutability of that evil face, but Simon could not be sure. Yet he had a premonition. . . .

"We might try," Roger Conway was saying logically; and the Saint turned.

"We might. Coming?"

"But these guys—and Sonia —"

"Right. Maybe I'd better go alone. Give me one of those guns!"

Roger obeyed.

And once again the Saint went flying down the drive. The automatic was heavy in his hip pocket, and it gave him a certain comfort to have it there, though he had no love for firearms in the ordinary way. They made so much noise. . , . But it was more than possible that the post office would look cross-eyed at him, and it might boil down to a hold-up. He realized that he wasn't quite such a paralyzingly respectable sight as he had been earlier in the evening, and that might be a solid disadvantage when bursting into a village post office staffed by startled females at that hour of the morning. His clothes were undamaged, it was true; but Hermann's affectionate farewell had left certain traces on his face. Chiefly, there was a long scratch across his forehead, and a thin trickle of blood running down one side of his face, as a souvenir of the diamond ring that Hermann af­fected. Nothing such as wounds went, but it must have been enough to make him look a pretty sanguinary desperado. . . . And if it did come to a holdup, how the hell did telegraph offices work? The Saint had a working knowledge of Morse, but the manipulation of the divers gadgets connected with the sordid mechanism of transmissions of the same was a bit beyond his education. . . .

How far was it to the village? Nearly a mile, Roger had said when they drove out. Well, it was one river of gore of a long mile. ... It was some time since he had passed the spot where Mr. Prosser's memorial tablet might or might not be added to the scenic decorations. And, like a fool, he'd started off as if he were going for a hundred yards' sprint; and, fit as he was, the pace would kill his speed altogether if he didn't ease up. He did so, filling his bursting lungs with great gulps of the cool sea air. His heart was pounding like a demented triphammer. . . . But at that moment the road started to dip a trifle, and that must mean that it was nearing the village. He put on a shade of acceleration—it was easier going downhill—and presently he passed the first cottage.

A few seconds later he was in some sort of village street, and then he had to slacken off almost to a walk.

What the hairy hippopotamus were the visible distinguishing marks or peculiarities of a village post office? The species didn't usually run to a private building of its own, he knew. Mostly, it seemed to house itself in an obscure corner of the grocery store. And what did a grocery store look like in the dark, anyway? . . . His eyes were perfectly attuned to the darkness by this time; but the feebleness of the moon, which had dealt so kindly with him earlier in the evening, was now catching him on the return swing. If only he had had a flashlight. ... As it was, he had to use his petrol lighter at every door. Butcher—baker— candlestick maker—he seemed to strike every imaginable kind of shop but the right one. . . .

An eternity passed before he came to his goal.

There should have been a bell somewhere around the door . . . but there wasn't. So there was only one thing to do. He stepped back and picked up a large stone from the side of the road. Without hesitation he hurled it through an upper window.

Then he waited.

One—two—three minutes passed, and no in­dignant head was thrust out into the night to demand the reason for the outrage. Only, some­where behind him in the blackness, the window of another house was thrown up.