Leslie Charteris - The Saint Closes the Case

Exactly. Say to-morrow evening. By which time Marius, with a good start to make up for his lack of official facilities, would also be getting hot on the trail.

The Saint was no fool. He knew that the Criminal Investi­gation Department, except in the kind of detective story in which some dude amateur with a violin and a taste for exotic philosophies made rings round their hardened highnesses, was not composed entirely of nitwits. Here and there, Simon did not hesitate to admit, among the men at New Scotland Yard, there was a brain not utterly cretinous. Claud Eustace Teal's, for instance. And Teal, though he might be something of a dim bulb at the spectacular stuff, was a hound for action when he had anything definite to act upon. And there might be more concrete things to act upon than a name and address in a chase of that sort; but, if there were, the Saint couldn't think of them.

Marius also. Well, Marius spoke for himself.

Taken by and large, it seemed as if Maidenhead was likely to become the centre of some considerable activity before the next nightfall.

"But we won't cry over spilt milk, my lads, we won't cry over spilt milk," went Simon's thoughts in a kind of refrain that harmonised with the rush of the big car. "We ought to have the best part of a day to play with, and that's the hell of a lot to me. So we won't cry over spilt milk, my lads—and so say all of us!"

But Roger Conway wasn't saying it.

He was saying: "We shall have to clear out of Maidenhead to-morrow—with or without Vargan. Have you any ideas about that?"

"Dozens," said the Saint cheerfully. "As for Vargan, by to-morrow evening there'll either be no more need to keep him a prisoner, or—well, there'll still be no need to keep him a prisoner. ... As for ourselves, there's my Desoutter at Hanworth. Teal won't have had time to find out about that, and I don't think he'll allow anything to be published about us in the papers so long as he's got a chance of clearing up the trouble without any publicity. To the ordinary outside world we're still perfectly respectable citizens. No one at Hanworth will say anything if I announce that we're pushing off to Paris by air. I've done it before. And once we're off the deck we've got a big cruising range to choose our next landing out of."

And he was silent again, revolving schemes further ahead.

In the back of the car, Patricia's head had sunk on to Norman's shoulder. She was asleep.

The first pale streaks of dawn were lightening the sky when they ran into the east of London. Roger put the Hirondel through the City as quickly as the almost deserted streets would allow.

He turned off on to the Embankment by New Bridge Street, and so they came to pass by Parliament Square on their way westwards. And it was there that Norman Kent had a strange experience.

For some while past, words had been running through his head, so softly that he had not consciously been aware of them—words with which he was as familiar as he was with his own name, and which, nevertheless, he knew he had not heard for many years. Words to a kind of chanting tune that was not a tune. . . . And at that moment, as the Hirondel was murmuring past the Houses of Parliament, he became con­sciously aware of the words that were running through his head, and they seemed to swell and become louder and clearer, as if a great choir took them up; and the illusion was so per­fect that he had looked curiously round towards the spires of Westminster Abbey before he realised that no service could be proceeding there at that hour.

"To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death: and to guide our feet into the way of peace. . . ."

And, as Norman Kent turned his eyes, they fell upon the great statue of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, which stands outside the House. And all at once the voices died away. But Norman still looked back, and saw Richard Coeur-de-Lion riding there, the last of his breed, huge and heroic against the pale dawn sky, with his right hand and arm hurling up his great sword in a gesture. And for some reason Norman Kent suddenly felt himself utterly alone and aloof, and very cold. But that might have been the chill of the dawn.

It was full daylight when they came to Maidenhead.

Orace was not in bed. Orace was never in bed when he could be useful, no matter at what unearthly hour that might be. But whether it was because he never went to bed at all, or whether it was because some strange clairvoyance always roused him in time to be ready for all emergencies, was his own mysterious secret.

He produced a great dish of sizzling bacon and eggs and a steaming pot of coffee as if by the waving of a magic wand.

Then the Saint gave orders.

"We will sleep till lunch-time," he said. "The difference it'll make to our strength will be worth the waste of time."

He himself was feeling ready to drop.

He took Orace with him to his room, and swore him to silence before he allowed him to see the wound. But Orace, seeing it, said: "Wot the thunderinell——"

Simon fluttered a tired hand.

"Don't swear, Orace," he rambled vaguely. "I didn't swear when it happened. And Miss Patricia doesn't know yet. . . . You'll look after Miss Patricia and the boys, Orace, if I conk out. Keep them out of mischief and so forth. . . . And if you see Angel Face, you'll shoot him through the middle of his ugly mug, with my compliments, Orace. . . ."

He slid sideways off the chair suddenly, but Orace's strong arms caught him as he fell.

Orace put him to bed as tenderly as if he had been a child.

And yet, next morning, the Saint was up and dressed before any of the others. He was rather pale under his tan, and his lean face seemed leaner than ever; but there was still a spring in his step. He had slept like a healthy schoolboy. His head was as clear as his eyes, and a cold shower had sent fresh life tingling through his veins.

"Learn a lesson from me," he said over his third egg. "If you had constitutions like mine, invigorated by my spiritual purity, and unimpaired, like mine, by the dissipation and riotous living that has brought you to the wrecks you are——"

And in this he was joking less than they thought. Sheer ruth­less will-power had forced his splendid physique on to the road of an almost miraculously swift recovery. Simon Templar had no time to waste on picturesque convalescences.

He sent Orace out for newspapers, and read them all. Far too much that should have been said was still left unsaid. But he could glean a hint here, a warning there, a confirmation everywhere; until at the end of it he seemed to see Europe ly­ing under the shadow of a dreadful darkness. But nothing was said in so many words. There were only the infuriating in­adequate clues for a suspicious man to interpret according to his suspicions. It seemed as if the face of the shadow was waiting for something to happen, before which it would not unveil itself. The Saint knew what that something was, and doubted himself for the first time since he had gathered his friends together under him to serve the ends of a quixotic ideal.

But still nothing whatever was said in the newspapers about the affair at Esher; and the Saint knew that this silence could only mean one thing.

It was not until three o'clock that he had a chance to discuss Vargan again with Roger and Norman; for it had been agreed that, although Patricia had to know that Vargan was a prisoner, and why he was a prisoner, and although his possible fate had once been mentioned before her, the question should not be raised again in her presence.

"We can't keep him for ever," said Simon, when the chance came. "For one thing, we look like spending a large part of the rest of our lives on the run, and you can't run well with a load of unwilling luggage. Of course, we might get away with it if we found some lonely place and decided to live like hermits for the rest of our days. But, either way, there'd still always be the risk that he might escape. And that doesn't amuse me in the least."