Leslie Charteris - Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

If it failed ... He wondered what the penalty was for holding a millionaire's daughter prisoner by force. Whatever it was, he had every intention of risking it. The game, as he had told her, was very big. Far too big for any half-hearted player. . . .

But none of this showed on his face. Poised, quiet, magnificently confident, with that ghost of a swashbuckling smile on his lips, he bore her calm and steady scrutiny. And, looking deep into her eyes, he thought his own thoughts; so that a faint strange tremor moved him inwardly, in a way that he would not have thought possible.

But the girl could see none of this; and the hands that rested on her shoulders were as cool and firm as a surgeon's. She saw only the Saint's smile, the fineness of the clear blue eyes, the swift swaggering lines of the lean brown face. And perhaps because she was what she was, she recognized the quality of the man. . . .

"I'll give you my parole," she said.

"Thank you,'' said the Saint.

Then Simon showed her to his own room.

"You'll find a very good selection of silk pajamas in the wardrobe," he remarked lightly. "If they aren't big enough for you, wear two suits. That door leads into the bathroom. ..." Then he touched her hand. "One day," he said, "I'll try to apologize for all this."

She smiled.

"One day," she said, "I'll try to forgive you." .

"Good-night, Sonia."

He kissed her hand quickly and turned and went down the stairs again.

"Just one swift one, Roger, my lad," he murmured, picking up a tankard and steering towards the barrel in the corner, "and then we also will retire. Something accomplished, something done, 'as earned a k-night's repose. . . . Bung-ho!"

Roger Conway reached morosely for the decanter.

"You have all the luck, you big stiff," he complained. "She only spoke to me once, and I couldn't get a word in edgeways. And then I heard you call her Sonia."

"Why not?" drawled the Saint. "It's her name."

"You don't call a Steel Princess by her first name—when you haven't even been introduced."

"Don't I!"

Simon raised his tankard with a flourish, and quaffed. Then he set it down on the table, and clapped Roger on the shoulder.

"Cheer up," he said. "It's a great life."

"It may be for you," said Roger dolefully. "But what about me? If you'd taken the girl straight back to the Embassy I might have taken a few easy grands off papa for my share in the rescue."

"Whereas all you're likely to get now is fifteen years—or a bullet in the stomach from Marius." Simon grinned; then his face sobered again. "By this time both Marius and Rudolf know that we're back. And how much the police know will depend on how much Heinrich has told them. I don't think he'll say much about us without consulting the Prince and Marius."

"Well, you can bet Marius will spread the alarm."

"I'm not so sure. As long as he knows that we've got Sonia, I think he'll prefer to come after us with his own gang. And he'll find out to­morrow that she hasn't been sent back to the loving arms of the Embassy."

Roger Conway flicked some ash from his cigarette. Those who had known him in the old days, before his name, after the death of K. B. Vargan, became almost as notorious as the Saint's, would have been surprised at his stern seriousness. Fair-haired and handsome (though less beautiful now on account of the make-up that went with his costume) and as true to a type as the Saint was true to none, he had led a flippant and singularly useless life until the Saint enlisted him and trained him on into the perfect lieutenant. And in the strenuous perils of his new life, strange to say, Roger Conway was happier than he had ever been before. . . .

Roger said: "How much foundation had you got for that theory you put up to Sonia?"

"Sweet damn all," confessed the Saint. "It was just the only one I could see that fitted. There may be a dozen others; but if there are, I've missed them. And that's why we've got to find out a heap more before we restore that girl to the bosom of the Ambassador's wife. But is was a good theory— a damned good theory—and I have hunches about theories. That one rang a distinct bell. And I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be the right one."

"Nor do I. But what beats me is how you're going to use Sonia."

"And that same question beats me, too, Roger, at the moment. I know that for us to hold her is rather less cautious than standing pat on a bob-tailed straight when the man opposite has drawn two. And yet I can't get away from the hunch that she's heavy artillery, Roger, if we can only find a way to fire the guns. ..."

And the Saint relapsed into a reverie.

Certainly, it was difficult. It would have been difficult enough at the best of times—in the old days, for instance, when only a few select people knew that Simon Templar, gentleman of leisure, and the Saint, of doubtful fame, were one and the same person, and he had four able lieutenants at his call. Now his identity was known, and he had only Roger—though Roger was worth a dozen. The Saint was not the kind of man to have any half-witted Watson gaping at his Sherlock—any futile Bunny balling up his Raffles. But, even so, with the stakes as high as they were, he would have given anything to be able to put back the clock of publicity by some fourteen weeks.

An unprofitable daydream ... of a kind in which the Saint rarely indulged. And with a short laugh he got to his feet, drained his tankard, and stretched himself.

"Bed, my Roger," he murmured decisively. "That's where I solve all my problems."

And it was so.

A SILVER coffee machine was chortling cheerfully to itself when Sonia Delmar came down to the sitting room at about ten o'clock; and the fragrance of grilling bacon, to the accompaniment of a sizzling noise off, was distilling into the at­mosphere. The room had been newly swept and garnished; and bright September sunshine was pouring through the open windows. Almost immediately Roger Conway entered by another door bearing a frying pan in one hand and a chafing dish in the other.

"Excuse the primitive arrangements," he remarked. "I'm afraid we don't employ a staff of servants—they're liable to see too much."

She seemed surprised to see him; and it was not until then that he realized that she had had some excuse for ignoring him earlier in the day, when his face and hands had been villainously grimed for his role of unsuccessful street news-agent.

She was wearing one of the Saint's multifarious dressing gowns—a jade-green one—with the sleeves turned up and the skirt of the gown trailing the floor; but Roger wondered if any woman could have looked more superbly robed. In the cir­cumstances, she could have used no artificial aids to beauty, yet she had lost none of her fresh loveliness. And if Roger's enslavement had not already been complete, it would have been com­pleted by the smile with which she rewarded his efforts in the kitchen.

"Bacon and eggs!" she said. "My favourite breakfast!"

"They're my favourite, too," said Roger; and thus a friendship was sealed.

But it was not without a certain rueful humility that he noticed that she seemed to be looking for someone else. He supplied the information unasked.

"The Saint went off to get you some clothes himself. He shouldn't be long now."

" 'Saint.'. .. Hasn't he any other name?"

"Most people call him the Saint," said Roger.. "His real name is Simon Templar."

" 'Simon'?" She made enchantment of the name, so that Roger wished she would change the subject. And, in a way, she did. She said: "I remembered a lot more after I left you last night. There were three of you who escaped, weren't there? There was a girl—"