Leslie Charteris - The Saint Closes the Case

Norman Kent had scribbled one line. He blotted it care­fully, and folded the sheet.

"And an envelope, Roger."

He placed the sheet inside and stuck down the flap.

Then he held out his hand to Roger Conway.

"Good luck, Roger," he said. "Be good."

"All the best, Norman, old man."

They gripped.

And Simon was speaking to the Prince.

"It seems," said Simon, "that this is au revoir, Your High­ness!"

The Prince made one of his exquisitely courteous gestures.

"I trust," he replied, "that it is not adieu. I hope to meet you again in better days."

Then the Saint looked at Marius, and for a long time he held the giant's eyes. And he gave Marius a different good-bye.

"You, also," said the Saint slowly, "I shall meet again."

But, behind the Saint, Norman Kent laughed; and the Saint turned.

Norman stretched out one hand, and the Saint took it in a firm grasp. And Norman's other hand offered the letter.

"Put this in your pocket, Simon, and give me your word not to open it for four hours. When you've read it, you'll know where you'll see me again. I'll be waiting for you. And don't worry. Everything is safe with me. Good hunting, Saint!"

"Very good hunting to you, Norman."

Norman Kent smiled.

"I think it will be a good run," he said.

So Simon Templar went to his lady.

Norman saw Roger and Simon pass through the window and turn to look back at him as they reached the garden; and he smiled again, and waved them a gay good-bye. A moment afterwards he heard the rising drone of the Hirondel and the soft crunching of tyres down the drive.

He caught one last glimpse of them as the car turned into the road—the Saint at the wheel, with one arm about Patricia's shoulders, and Roger Conway in the back, with one of the Prince's men riding on the running-board beside him. That, of course, would be to give them a passage through the guards at the crossroad. ...

And then they were gone.

Norman sat down on the sofa, feeling curiously weak. His leg was numb with pain. He indicated decanter, siphon, glasses, and cigarette-box with a wave of his automatic.

"Make yourselves at home, gentlemen," he invited. "And pass me something on your way. I'm afraid I can't move. You ought to stop your men using soft-nosed bullets, Marius— they're dirty things."

It was the Prince who officiated with the whisky and lighted Norman a cigarette.

"War is a ruthless thing," said the Prince. "As a man I like and admire you. But as what I am, because you are against my country and myself, if I thought you were attempting to trick me I should kill you without compunction—like that!" He snapped his fingers. "Even the fact that you once helped to save my life could not extenuate your offence."

"Do you think I'm a fool?" asked Norman, rather tiredly.

He sipped his drink, and the hands of the clock crawled round.

Five minutes.

Ten.

Fifteen.

The Prince sat in an armchair, his legs elegantly crossed with a proper regard for the knife-edge crease in his trousers. In one hand he held a glass; with the other he placidly smoked a cigarette through a long holder.

Marius paced the room like a caged lion. From time to time he glanced at Norman with venom and suspicion in his slitted gaze, and seemed about to say something; but each time he checked himself and resumed his impatient promenade—until the Prince stopped him with a languid wave of his cigarette-holder.

"My dear Marius, your restlessness disturbs me. For Heaven's sake practise some self-control."

"But, Highness——"

"Marius, you repeat yourself. Repetition is a tedious vice."

Then Marius sat down.

The Prince delicately stifled a yawn.

Harding, on the floor, groaned, and roused as if from a deep sleep. Norman leaned over and helped him to come to a sit­ting position. The youngster opened his eyes slowly, rubbing a tender jaw muzzily. He would never know how the Saint had hated having to strike that blow.

Norman allowed him to take in the situation as best he could. And he gave him a good look at the automatic.

"Where are the others?" asked Harding hazily.

"They've gone," said Norman.

In short, compact sentences he explained what had hap­pened.

Then he addressed a question to the Prince.

"What is Captain Harding's position in this affair?"

"If he does not allow his sense of duty to over-ride his dis­cretion," answered the Prince carelessly, "we are no longer interested in him."

Harding scrambled unsteadily to his feet.

"But I'm damned well interested in you!" he retorted. And he turned to Norman with a dazed and desperate entreaty. "Kent—as an Englishman—you're not going to let these swabs——"

"You'll see in seven minutes," said Norman calmly.

Harding wavered before the level automatic in Norman's hand. He cursed, raved impotently, almost sobbed.

"You fool! You fool! Oh, damn you! . . . Haven't you any decency? Can't you see——"

Norman never moved, but his face was very white. Those few minutes were the worst he had ever spent. His leg was throbbing dreadfully. And Harding swore and implored, argued, pleaded, fumed, begged almost on his knees, lashed Norman Kent with words of searing scorn. . . .

Five minutes to go.

Four . .. . three . . . two ...

One minute to go.

The Prince glanced at the gold watch on his wrist, and ex­tracted the stub of a cigarette from his long holder with fas­tidious fingers.

"The time is nearly up," he murmured gently.

"Oh, for God's sake!" groaned Harding. "Think, Kent, you worm! You miserable;—abject—crawling—coward! Give me a gun and let me fight——"

"There's no need to fight," said Norman Kent.

He put one hand to his pockety and for a second he thought that Harding would chance the automatic and leap at his throat. He held up the crumpled sheets, and both the Prince and Marius rose—the Prince with polished and unhurried ele­gance, and Marius like an unleashed fiend.

Somehow Norman Kent was struggling to his feet again. He was very pale, and the fire in his eyes burned with a fever­ish fierceness. His wounded leg was simply the deadened source of a thousand twinges of torment that shot up the whole of his side at the least movement, like long, jagged needles. But he had a detached determination to face the end on his feet.

"The papers I promised you!"

He pushed them towards Marius, and the giant grabbed them with enormous, greedy hands.

And then Norman was holding out his gun, butt foremost, towards Harding. He spoke in tense, swift command.

"Through the window and down the garden, Harding! Take the Saint's motor-boat. It's moored at the end of the lawn. The two men on the river shouldn't stop you——"

"Highness!"

It was Marius's voice, shrill and savage. The giant's face was hideously contorted.

Norman thrust Harding behind him, covering his retreat to the window.

"Get out!" he snarled. "There's nothing for you to wait for now. . . . Well, Marius?"

The Prince's voice slashed in with a deadly smoothness: "Those are not Vargan's papers, Marius?"

"An absurd letter—to this man himself—from one of his friends!"

"So!"

The word fell into the room with the sleek crispness of a drop of white-hot metal. Yet the Prince could never have been posed more gracefully, nor could his face have ever been more serene.

"You tricked me after all!"

"Those are the papers I promised you," said Norman coolly.

"He must have the real papers still, Highness!" babbled Marius. "I was watching him—he had no chance to give them to his friends——"

"That's where you're wrong!"

Norman spoke very, very quietly, almost in a whisper, but the whisper held a ring of triumph like a trumpet call. The glaze in his dark eyes was not of this world.