Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

"You come outa that airyplane?" blurted one of them dazedly; and Simon Templar nodded.

He put up a filthy hand and smeared the blood out of his eyes.

"I came to tell you to stop the train," he said. "There are two bombs on the line."

THE SAINT RESTED where they had laid him down. He had never known what it was to be so utterly weary. All his strength seemed to have ebbed out of him, now that it had served for the supreme effort. He felt that he had not slept for a thousand years. . . .

All around him there was noise. He heard the hoarse roar of escaping steam, the whine of brakes, the fading clatter of movement, the jolt and hiss of the stop. In the sudden silence he heard the far, steady drone of the aëroplane filling the sky. Then there were voices, running feet, ques­tions and answers mingling in an indecipherable murmur. Someone shook him by the shoulder, but at that moment he felt too tired to rouse, and the man moved away.

And then, presently, he was shaken again, more insistently. A cool wet cloth wiped his face, and he heard a startled exclamation. The aëroplane seemed to have gone, though he had not heard its humming die away: he must have passed out altogether for a few seconds. Then a glass was pressed to his lips; he gulped, and spluttered as the neat spirit rawed his throat. And he opened his eyes.

"I'm all right," he muttered.

All he saw at first was a pair of boots. Large boots. And his lips twisted with a rueful humour. Then he looked up and saw the square face and the bowler hat of the man whose arm was around his shoulders.

"Bombs, old dear," said the Saint. "They've got the niftiest little electric firing device at­tached—you lay it over the line, and it blows up the balloon when the front wheels of the train go over it. That's my dying speech. Now it's your turn."

The man in the bowler hat nodded.

"We've already found them. You only stopped us with about a hundred yards to spare." He was looking at the Saint with a kind of wry regret. "And I know you," he said.

Simon smiled crookedly.

"What a thing is fame!" he sighed. "I know you, too, Detective-Inspector Carn. How's trade? I shall come quietly this time, anyway—I couldn't run a yard."

The detective's lips twitched a trifle grimly. He glanced over his shoulder.

"I think the King is waiting to speak to you," he said.

IT WAS LATE in a fair September afternoon when Roger Conway turned into Upper Berkeley Mews and admitted himself with his own key.

He found the Saint sitting in an armchair by the open window with a book on his knee, and was somehow surprised.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded; and Simon rose with a smile.

"I have slept," he murmured. "And so have you, from all accounts."

Roger spun his peaked cap across the room. "I have," he said. "I believe the order for my release came through about lunchtime, but they thought it would be a shame to wake me. "

The Saint inspected him critically. Roger's livery covered him uncomfortably. It looked as if it had shrunk. It had shrunk.

"Jolly looking clothes, those are," Simon remarked. "Is it the new fashion? I'd be afraid of catching cold in the elbows, you know. Besides, the pants don't look safe to sit down in."

Roger returned the survey insultingly.

"How much are you expecting to get on that face in part exchange?" he inquired; and suddenly the Saint laughed.

"Well, you knock-kneed bit of moth-eaten gorgonzola!"

"Well, you cross-eyed son of flea-bitten hobo!"

And all at once their hands met in an iron grasp.

"Still," said the Saint presently, "you don't look your best in that outfit, and I guess you'll feel better when you've had a shave. Some kind soul gave me a ring to say you were on your way, and I've turned the bath on for you and laid out your other suit. Push on, old bacillus; and I'll sing to you when you come back."

"I shall not come back for years," said Roger delicately.

The Saint grinned.

He sat down again as Roger departed and took up his book again, and traced a complicated arabesque in the corner of a page thoughtfully. Then he wrote a few more lines, and put away his fountain pen. He lighted a cigarette and gazed at a picture on the other side of the room: he was still there when Roger returned.

And Roger said what he had meant to say before.

"I was thinking," Roger said, "you'd have gone after Angel Face."

Simon turned the pages of his book.

"And so was I," he said. "But the reason why I haven't is recorded here. This is the tome in which I dutifully make notes of our efforts for the benefit of an author bloke I know, who has sworn to make a blood-and-thunder classic of us one day. This entry is very tabloid."

"What is it?"

"It just says—'Hermann.' "

And the Saint, looking up, saw Roger's face, and laughed softly.

"In the general excitement," he said gently, "we forgot dear Hermann. And Hermann was ordered to go straight back as soon as he'd parked his bombs. I expect he has. Anyway, I haven't heard that he's been caught. There's still a chance, of course. . . . Roger, you may wonder what's hap­pened to me, but I rang up our old friend Chief Inspector Teal and told him all about Saltham, and he went off as fast as a police car could take him. It remains to be seen whether he arrived in time. ... The crown prince left England last night, but they've collected Heinrich. I'm afraid Ike will have to get a new staff of servants, though. His old ones are dead beyond repair. . . . I think that's all the dope,"

"It doesn't seem to worry you," said Roger.

"Why should it?" said the Saint a little tiredly. "We've done our job. Angel Face is smashed, whatever happens. He'll never be a danger to the world again. And if he's caught he'll be hanged, which will do him a lot of good. On the other hand, if he gets away, and we're destined to have another round—that is as the Lord may provide."

"And Norman?"

The Saint smiled, a quiet little smile.

"There was a letter from Pat this morning," he said. "Posted at Suez. They're going on down the east coast of Africa, and they expect to get around to Madeira in the spring. And I'm going to do something that I think Norman would have wanted far more than vengeance. I'm going ad­venturing across Europe; and at the end of it I shall find my lady."

Roger moved away and glanced at the tele­phone.

"Have you heard from Sonia?" he asked.

"She called up," said the Saint. "I told her to come right round and bring papa. They should be here any minute now."

Conway picked up the Bystander and put it down again.

He said: "Did you mean everything you said last night—this morning?"

Simon stared out of the window.

"Every word," he said.

He said: "You see, old Roger, some queer things happen in this life of ours. You cut adrift from all ordinary rules; and then, sometimes, when you'd sell your soul for a rule, you're all at sea. And when that happens to a man he's surely damned, bar the grace of Heaven; because I only know one thing worse than swallowing every commandment that other people lay down for you, and that's having no commandments but those you lay down for yourself. None of which abstruse philosophy you will understand. . . . But I'll tell you, Roger, by way of a fact, that everything life gives you has to be paid for; also that where your life leads you, there will your heart be also. Selah. Autographed copies of that speech, on vellum, may be obtained on the instal­ment plan at all public houses and speakeasies— one pound down, and the rest up a gum tree. ..."

A car drove down the mews and stopped by the door. But Roger Conway was still looking at the Saint; and Roger was understanding, with a strange wild certainty, that perhaps after all he had never known the Saint, and perhaps he would never know him.