Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

She did not answer; and Simon took another cigarette. But he did not light it at once. He turned it between his fingers with a savage gentleness, as if the immensity of his inspiration cried aloud for some physical expression.

He went on, in the same dispassionate tone:

"In the story I've just told you, Vargan wasn't the whole of the plot. He was the key piece—but the general idea went deeper and wider. Before he came into the story, there'd been an organized attempt to create distrust between this country and others in Europe. You must see how easy that would be to wealthy and unscrupulous men. At man alleged to be, say, a French spy, is arrested— here. A man alleged to be a spy of ours is arrested—in France. And it goes on. Spies aren't shot in time of peace. They merely go to prison. If I can afford to send for a number of English crooks, say, and tell them: 'I want you to go to such and such a place, with certain things which I will give you. You will behave in such and such a manner, you will be arrested and convicted as a spy, and you will be imprisoned for five years. If you take your sentence and keep your mouth shut, I will pay you ten thousand pounds'—aren't there dozens of old lags in England who'd tumble over each other for the chance? And it would be the same with men from other countries. Of course, their respective governments would disown them; but governments always disown their spies. That wouldn't cut any ice. And as it went on, the distrust would grow. . . . That isn't romance. It's been done before, on a smaller scale. Marius was doing it before we intervened, in June last. What they call 'situations' were coming to dangerous heads. When Marius fell down over Vargan, the snake was scotched. We thought we'd killed it; but we were wrong. Do you remember the German who was caught trying to set fire to our newest airship, the R103?"

"Yes."

"Marius employed him—for fifteen thousand pounds. I happened to know that. In fact, it was intended that the R103 should actually be destroyed. The plot only failed because I sent information to Scotland Yard. But even that couldn't avert the public outcry that followed. . . . Then, perhaps, you remember the Englishman who was caught trying to photograph a French naval base from the air?"

"The man there was so much fuss about a month ago?"

The Saint nodded.

"Another of Marius's men. I know, because I was hiding in Marius's wardrobe at the Hotel Edouard VII, in Paris, when that man received his instructions. . . . And the secret treaty that was stolen from our Foreign Office messenger between Folkestone and Boulogne—"

"I know."

"Marius again."

The Saint stood up; and again he began to pace the room.

"The world's full of Peace Pacts and Disar­mament Conferences," he said, "but where do those things go to when there's distrust between nations? No one may want war—those who saw the last war through would do anything to prevent another—but if a man steals your chickens, and throws mud at your wife when she goes for a walk, and calls you names over the garden wall, you just naturally have to push his teeth through the back of his neck. You can be as long-suffering as you like; but presently he carefully lays on the last straw just where he knows it'll hurt most, and then you either have to turn round and refashion his face or earn the just contempt of all your neigh­bours. Do you begin to understand?"

"I do. ... But I still don't see what I've got to do with it."

"But I told you!" She shook her head, blankly. "When?"

"Didn't you see? When I was talking about financiers—after I'd recognized you? Isn't your father Hiram Delmar, the Steel King? And aren't you engaged to marry Sir Isaac Lessing, the man who controls a quarter of the world's oil? And isn't Lessing, with his Balkan concessions, practically the unofficial dictator of southeastern Europe? And hasn't he been trying for years to smash R.O.P.? . . . Suppose, almost on the eve of your wedding, you disappear — and then you're found — on the other side — in Russia. ..."

The Saint's eyes were blazing.

"Why, it's an open book!" he cried. "It's easy enough to stir up distrust among the big nations; but it's not so easy to get them moving — there's a hell of a big coefficient of inertia to overcome when you're dealing with solid old nations like England and France and Germany. But the Balkans are the booster charge — they've been that dozens of times before — and you and Lessing make up the detonator. . . . It's worthy of Marius's brain! He's got Lessing's psychology weighed up to the last lonely milligram. He knows that Lessing's notorious for being the worst man to cross in all the world of high finance. Lessing's gone out of his way to break men for nothing more than an argument over the bridge table, before now. . . . And with you for a lever, Marius could engineer Lessing into the scheme — Lessing could set fire to the Balkans — and there might be war in Europe within the week!"

ONCE, MONTHS BEFORE, when Simon Templar had expounded a similar theory, Roger Conway had looked at him incredulously, as if he thought the Saint must have taken leave of his senses. But now there was no incredulity in Roger's face. The girl looked at him, and saw that he was as grave as his leader.

She shook her head helplessly.

"It's like a story-book," she said, "and yet you make it sound so convincing. You do. . . ."

She put her hand to her sweet head; and then, only then, Simon struck a match for his mauled cigarette, and laughed gently.

"Poor kid! It has been a thick night, hasn't it? ... But you'll feel heaps better in the morning; and I guess our council of war won't grow mould if it stands over till breakfast. I'll show you your room now; and Roger shall wade out into the wide world first thing to-morrow, and borrow some reasonable clothes for you off a married friend of mine."

She stood up, staring at him.

"Do you mean that—you're going to keep me here?"

The Saint nodded.

"For to-night, anyway.''

"But the Embassy—"

"They'll certainly be excited, won't they?"

She took a step backwards.

"Then—after all—you're—"

"No, we aren't. And you know it."

Simon put his hands on her shoulders, smiling down at her. And the Saint's smile, when he wished, could be a thing no mortal woman could resist.

"We're playing a big game, Roger and I," he said. "I've told you a little of it to-night. One day I may be able to tell you more. But already I've told you enough to show you that we're out after something more than pure soft roe and elephant's eggs. You've said it yourself."

Again he smiled.

"There'll be no war if you don't go back to the Embassy to-night," he said. "Not even if you disappear for twenty-four hours—or even forty-eight. I admit it's a ticklish game. It's rather more ticklish than trying to walk a tight-rope over the crater of Vesuvius with two sprained ankles and a quart of bootleg hooch inside you. But, at the moment, it's the only thing I can see for us—for Roger and me—to take Marius's own especial battle-axe and hang it over his own ugly head. I can't tell you yet how the game will be played. I don't know myself. But I shall think something out overnight. . . . And meanwhile—I'm sorry— but you can't go home."

"You want to keep me a prisoner?"

"No. That's the last thing I want. I just want your parole—for twelve hours."

In its way the half-minute's silence that followed was perhaps as tense a thirty seconds as Simon Templar had ever endured.

Since he started talking he had been giving out every volt of personality he could command. He knew his power to a fraction—every inflection of voice and gesture, every flicker of expression, every perfectly timed pause. On the stage or the screen he could have made a fortune. When he chose he could play upon men and women with a sure and unfaltering touch. And in the last half-hour he had thrown all his genius into the scale.