Leslie Charteris - The Saint Closes the Case

And yet, if this reduction of their mobile forces had not been an incidental part of the Saint's sketchy plan of cam­paign, the outcome of the adventure might have been very different.

As Simon pulled up at the very mouth of the lane, he flung a lightning glance over his shoulder, and saw the Hirondel already swerving across the road for the turn.

Then he heard the shot.

"For the love of Pete!"

The invocation dropped from the Saint's lips in a breathless undertone. He was getting out of the car at that moment, and he completed the operation of placing his second foot on the road with a terrifically careful intentness. As he straightened up with the same frozen deliberation, he found Conway at his elbow.

"You heard it?" Conway's curt, half-incredulous query.

"And how. . . ."

"Angel Face——"

"Himself!"

Simon Templar was standing like a rock. He seemed, to Conway's impatience, to have been standing like that for an eternity, as though his mind had suddenly left him. And yet it had only been a matter of a few seconds, and in that time the Saint's brain had been whirling and wheeling with a wild pre­cision into the necessary readjustments.

So Angel Face had beaten them to the jump—it could have been by no more than a fraction. And, as they had asked for trouble, they were well and truly in the thick of it. They had come prepared for the law; now they had to deal with both law and lawlessness, and both parties united in at least one common cause—to keep K. B. Vargan to themselves. Even if both parties were at war on every other issue. . . .

"So we win this hands down," said the Saint softly, amaz­ingly. "We're in luck!"

"If you call this luck!"

"But I do! Could we have arrived at a better time? When both gangs have rattled each other—and probably damaged each other—and Tiny Tim's boy friends have done the dirty work for us——"

He was cut short by another shot . . . then another . . . then a muddled splutter of three or four. . . .

"Our cue!" snapped the Saint, and Roger Conway was at his side as he leapt down the lane.

There was no sign of the sentries, but a man came rush­ing towards them out of the gloom, heavy-footed and panting. The Saint pushed Conway aside and flung out a well-timed foot. As the man sprawled headlong, Simon pounced on him and banged his head with stunning force against the road. Then he yanked the dazed man to his feet and looked closely at him.

"If he's not a policeman, I'm a Patagonian Indian," said the Saint. "A slight error, Roger."

The man answered with a wildly swinging fist, and the Saint hit him regretfully on the point of the jaw and saw him go down in a limp heap.

"What next?" asked Conway; and a second fusillade clat­tered out of the night to answer him.

"This is a very rowdy party," said the Saint mournfully. "Let's make it worse, shall we?"

He jerked an automatic from his pocket and fired a couple of shots into the air. The response was far more prompt than he had expected—two little tongues of flame that spat at them out of the further blackness, and two bullets that sang past their heads.

"Somebody loves us," remarked Simon calmly. "This way——"

He started to lead down the lane.

And then, out of the darkness, the headlights of a car came to life dazzlingly, like two monstrous eyes. For a second Con-way and the Saint stood struck to stillness in the glare that had carved a great trough of luminance out of the obscurity as if by the scoop of some gigantic dredge. So sudden and blinding was that unexpected light that an instant of time was almost fatally lost before either of them could see that it was not standing still but moving towards them and picking up speed like an express train.

"Glory!" spoke the Saint, and his voice overlapped the venomous rat-tat-tat! of another unseen automatic.

In the same instant he was whirling and stooping with the pace of a striking snake. He collared Conway at the knees and literally hurled him bodily over the low hedge at the side of the lane with an accuracy and expedition that the toughest and most seasoned footballer could hardly have bettered.

The startled Conway, getting shakily to his feet, found the Saint landing from a leap beside him, and was in time to see the dark shape of a closed car flash past in the wake of that eye-searing blaze of headlights—so close that its wings and running-board tore a flurry of crackling twigs from the hedge. And he realised that, but for the Saint's speed of reaction, they would have stood no chance at all in that narrow space.

He might have said something about it. By ordinary pro­cedure he should have given thanks to his saviour in a break­ing voice; they should have wrung each other's hands and wept gently on each other's shoulders for a while; but some­thing told Conway that it was no time for such trimmings. Besides, the Saint had taken the incident in his stride: by that time it had probably slithered through his memory into the dim limbo of distant reminiscence, and he would probably have been quite astonished to be reminded of it at that junc­ture. By some peaceful and lazy fireside, in his doddering old age, possibly . . . But in the immediate present he was con­cerned only with the immediate future.

He was looking back towards the house. There were lights showing still in some of the windows—it might altogether have been a most serene and tranquil scene, but for the jarring background of intermittent firing, which might have been nothing worse than a childish celebration of Guy Fawkes' day if it had been Guy Fawkes' day. But the Saint wasn't concerned with those reflections, either. He was searching the shadows by the gate, and presently he made out a deeper and more solid-looking shadow among the other shadows, a bulky shadow. ...

Crack!

A tiny jet of flame licked out of the bulky shadow, and they heard the tinkle of shattered glass; but the escaping car was now only a few yards from the main road.

Conway was shaking Simon by the shoulder, babbling: "They're getting away! Saint, why don't you shoot?"

Mechanically the Saint raised his automatic, though he knew that the chance of putting in an effective shot, in that light, was about a hundred to one against anybody—and the Saint, as a pistol shot, had never been in the championship class.

Then he lowered the gun again, with something like a gasp, and his left hand closed on Conway's arm in a vice-like grip.

"They'll never do it!" he cried. "I left the car slap op­posite the lane, and they haven't got room to turn!"

And Roger Conway, watching, fascinated, saw the lean blue shape of the Furillac revealed in the blaze of the flying headlights, and heard, before the crash, the scream of tortured tyres tearing ineffectually at the road.

Then the lights vanished in a splintering smash, and there was darkness and a moment's silence.

"We've got 'em!" rapped the Saint exultantly.

The bulky shadow had left the gate and was lumbering to­wards them up the lane. The Saint was over the hedge like a cat, landing lightly on his toes directly in Teal's path, and the detective saw him too late.

"Sorry!" murmured the Saint, and really meant it; but he crowded every ounce of his one hundred and sixty pounds of , dynamic fighting weight into the blow he jerked at the pit of Teal's stomach.

Ordinarily, the Saint entertained a sincere regard for the police force in general and Chief Inspector Teal in particular, but he had no time that night for more than the most laconic courtesies. Moreover, Inspector Teal had a gun, and, in the circumstances, would be liable to shoot first and ask ques­tions afterwards. Finally, the Saint had his own ideas and plans on the subject of the rescue of Vargan from the raiding party, and they did not include either the co-operation or in­terference of the law. These three cogent arguments he summed up in that one pile-driving jolt to Teal's third waist­coat button: and the detective dropped with a grunt of agony. Then the Saint turned and went flying up the lane after Roger Conway.