Leslie Charteris - The Saint Returns

No rain of bullets was yet descending upon his head, but he moved quickly anyway. His feeble light showed him that his hopes of a tunnel carrying the water were better than confirmed: the channel seemed to have been artificially enlarged, possibly centuries before, at its downstream exit from the well — the direction which led toward the kitchen and the basement he had seen in the afternoon.

Inside the narrow passage the water level was higher than in the well, but there was still room for a man’s head and shoulders above the surface. Undoubtedly the monks of older, more generally dangerous times had used the tunnel for some such purpose as the Saint was using it now, and it seemed likely that in their anxiety and eagerness to escape from irreverent barons or rampaging Protestants they would have provided a more private means of entrance and exit than the well in the middle of their courtyard.

Simon moved on with the flowing water until he saw a glimmer of light. It was not, however, the door he had hoped for. Putting his eye to the glowing chink in the wall he found that he was standing just outside the basement he had visited earlier in the day. He could see the rows of bottles and tiers of casks. Then he saw Tanya and the General coming into the basement from the foot of the steps, Tanya’s pistol still pointed at the nape of the General’s neck. The Saint postulated that either she was pulling a good bluff or that Igor and Ivan had shown themselves and taken control in the courtyard.

“And where are the real monks?” she was asking.

“In heaven, of course,” the General replied, with successful irony in spite of his bad pronunciation. “They were ready. Graves already dug.”

“Where are the devices made?”

The General was not so co-operative in response to that inquiry.

“Speak,” she said, “or I shoot.”

“They are made here,” he said.

“Where?”

The General made a resigned gesture of his shoulders and hands.

“I show you. You see. I push this first.”

Tanya aimed the pistol more carefully and tightened her finger on the trigger.

“Slowly,” she cautioned.

The General nodded and pressed something on which a wooden ladle was hanging. There was an electric humming, then a rumbling sound as the central sections of the two longest walls of the chamber began pivoting. The place was transformed, as the shelves of dusty bottles swung out of sight, into an entirely modern workshop. The newly revealed sides of the walls were lined with work benches and shelves covered with electronic components, chemicals, precision tools — and large numbers of the familiar exploding transistor radios and lighter-cameras.

“Give me samples of the micro-explosive and the formula for it before we destroy this place.”

The General did not move.

“I destroy you also unless you give me the formula,” Tanya said. “You have tried to kill me many times. It would not seem unfair for me to kill you once.”

“I give,” said the General.

He pointed to a large chest.

“There.”

“Get it,” Tanya told him.

As she turned to keep her gun on the General, arms reached suddenly from draperies and grabbed her, knocking aside the gun and throwing her onto the floor out of the Saint’s field of view.

He moved swiftly further down the tunnel, searching for a connection between the passage and the monastery vaults. Within twenty paces he found it: a small door with a circle of pocked iron which served as a handle.

Bracing his feet he put all his strength into the pull. The hinges seemed to be rusted solid, but their fastenings were so old that they gave way and bent soundlessly.

Simon stepped into the dryness and warmth of a small unlighted room crowded with crates and piles of cardboard cartons. He did not need his flashlight, for the door of the room was half open, letting through enough indirect illumination to allow him to find his way quietly around the heaps of boxes. There was a fire extinguisher and an ax on the wall by the door, and overhead like a tangle of snakes ran a thick bundle of electric cables. This was obviously not one of those rooms open to tourists.

He realized immediately, as he got a look into the main basement through dark curtains just slightly parted at the doorway, that he was standing in the exact spot where Tanya’s captor had stood to grab her. The General and two other uniformed Chinese, their backs toward the Saint, held pistols on Tanya.

“Drop your guns,” Simon said, thinking it best to communicate his wishes in the simplest possible English.

At the same time, he stuck his automatic through the curtains. When the Chinese had dropped their pistols to the floor he showed himself.

“If you think you’re surprised, Tanya, dear, you should have seen my face when you showed up.”

Before she could reply, the General let out a desperate shout, and the two other men dove for Simon. It would have been a suicidal move on their part except for one thing: when the Saint pulled the trigger of his automatic it emitted only a sodden click. He was hurled back against the wall, his head glancing against the stones.

When his vision cleared a moment later the Chinese were once more in control, holding their dry pistols on him and Tanya.

“You are interested in our work, and you have seen,” the General said. “Now we take you back upstairs and kill you.”

“Where are Ivan and Igor?” the Saint asked Tanya.

“Quiet,” snapped the General.

But, looking at Tanya, Simon saw her give a kind of answer with an upward roll of her eyes.

The General opened a big refrigerator and checked the contents — rows of small amber bottles.

“You not take anything from here?” he asked Simon.

“No.”

The General went on counting. When he closed the door again he looked satisfied.

“Explosive,” he said. “Fuses must be cold.” He nodded towards the wood-burning heater, which showed orange flame through its grill. “Heat make explosion. Very big.”

Then he set into operation the mechanism that pivoted the walls, and half a minute later the chamber had once more become the dusty home of Grand Abrouillac.

“Now,” the General said, pointing into the side room through which Simon had come. “This way.”

As they went through the curtains and passed the threshold, Simon whispered to Tanya, “Scream your head off. Now!”

She screamed with enough force to frighten a banshee, furnishing an instant of confusion which was all the Saint needed. He toppled a pile of cartons towards the guards, snatched the fire ax from the wall, and sank the heavy blade into the mass of electric cables. The wooden handle insulated him from the spectacular multiplicity of short circuits which resulted. Sparks exploded over the room as the light bulbs went off, and in the weird flashing brilliance Simon was able to see enough to swing his medieval weapon again with deadly accuracy.

Both guards went down, and Tanya, who had crouched to escape the whistling blade, grabbed one of their pistols. The sparks were dying, and the General had plunged back into the pitch darkness of the liqueur-making vault. The fine beam of Simon’s light caught him as he felt his way to the foot of the stairs.

Tanya fired, and the General sprawled heavily forward onto the stone floor. Instantly there was a tremendous fusillade of gunfire at ground level outside.

“Ivan and Igor!” Tanya cried, and bolted up the stairs. “They were guarding the Chinese upstairs.”

“Stay inside!” Simon called after her.

He had stooped by the General’s body. Now he followed her up to the door and stopped her before she could unbolt it. But already the outburst of shots was dwindling. As the Saint pushed Tanya back and opened the door himself he heard only three scattered reports, and then no more.