Андрей Л.Рюмин - 03 Enter the Saint

"Pleasure," said the Saint briefly. "George Washington was the idol of my childhood." Every­thing he had planned had suffered a sudden rever­sal. Gwen Chandler had been caught, and so had Dicky. Their only hope was in Roger Conway-and how long would it be before he discovered the disas­ter and got busy?. . . The Saint made up his mind.

"How many of you are there?"

"Seventy-six," said the Saint. "Two from five- just like when you were at Borstal." There was no one behind him. He had got his legs well back under the chair. His arms were also reaching back, and he was edging his little knife out of its sheath. "You can save the rest of your questions," he said, "I'll tell you something. You'll never get away with this. You think you're going to find out all about my organiza­tion, the plans I've made, whether I've arranged for a squeal to the police. Then you'll countermove accordingly. Hold the line while I laugh!"

"I don't think so," said Hayn.

"Then you don't think as much as a weevil with sleepy sickness," said the Saint equably. "You must think I was born yesterday! Listen, sweetheart! Last night I posted a little story to Inspector Teal, which he'll get Monday morning. That letter's in the post now-and nothing will stop it-and the letter to friend Henri I enclosed with it will make sure the dicks pay a lot of attention to the rest of the things I had to say. You haven't an earthly, Edgarvitch!"

Hayn stepped back as if he had received a blow, and his face was horribly ashen. The Saint had never imagined that he would cause such a sensation.

"I told you he'd squeak!" Braddon was raging.

"You fool-I told you!"

"I told him, too," said the Saint. "Oh, Edgar- why didn't you believe your Uncle Simon?"

Hayn came erect, his eyes blazing. He swung round on Braddon. "Be quiet, you puppy!" he com­manded harshly. "We've all come to this-that's why we've got those aлroplanes. We leave to-night, and Teal can look for us tomorrow as long as he likes."

He turned on the Saint.

"You'll come with us-you and your friend. You will not be strapped in. Somewhere in mid-Channel we shall loop the loop. You understand?. . . Temp­lar, you've undone years of work, and I'm going to make you pay for it! I shall escape, and after a time I shall be able to come back and start again. But you-"

"I shall be flitting through Paradise, with a halo round my hat," murmured the Saint. "What a pleas­ant thought!" And as he spoke he felt his little knife biting into the cords on his wrists.

"We lose everything we've got," Braddon bab­bled.

"Including your liberty," said the Saint softly, and the knife was going through his ropes like a wire through cheese. They all looked at him. Something in the way he had spoken those three words, some­thing in the taut purposefulness of his body, some strange power of personality, held them spellbound. Bound and at their mercy, for all they knew, an unarmed man, he was yet able to dominate them. There was hatred and murder flaring in their eyes, and yet for a space he was able to hold them on a curb and compel them to listen.

"I will tell you why you have lost, Hayn," said the Saint, speaking in the same gentle, leisured tones that nevertheless quelled them as definitely as if he had backed them up with a gun. "You made the mistake of kidding yourself that when I told you I was going to put you in prison, I was bluffing. You were sure that I'd never throw away such an opening for unlimited blackmail. Your miserable warped temperament couldn't conceive the idea of a man doing and risking all that I did and risked for nothing but an ideal. You judged me by your own crooked standards. That's where you crashed, because I'm not a crook. But I'm going to make crooks go in fear of me. You and your kind aren't scared enough of the police. You've got used to them-you call them by their first names and swap cigarettes with them when they arrest you-it's become a game to you, with prison as a forfeit for a mistake, and bull-baiting's just the same as tiddlywinks, in your lives. But I'm going to give you something new to fear- the Unknown. You'll rave about us in the dock, and all the world will hear. And when we have finished with you, you will go to prison, and you will be an example to make others afraid. But you will tell the police that you cannot describe us, because there are still three left whom you do not know; and if we two came to any harm through you, the other three would deal with you and they would not deal gently. You understand? You will never dare to speak. ..."

"And do you think you will ever be able to speak, Templar?" asked Hayn in a quivering voice, and his right hand was leaping to his hip pocket.

And the Saint chuckled, a low triumphant mur­mur of a laugh. "I'm sure of it!" he said, and stood up with the cords falling from his wrists.

The little throwing-knife flashed across the room like a chip of flying quicksilver, and Hayn, with his automatic half out of his pocket, felt a pain like the searing of a hot iron across his knuckles, and all the strength went out of his fingers.

Braddon was drawing at that moment, but the Saint was swift. He had Edgar Hayn in a grip of steel, and Hayn's body was between the Saint and Braddon.

"Get behind him, Snake!" Braddon shrilled; but as Ganning moved to obey, the Saint reached a corner.

"Aim at the girl, you fool!" Hayn gasped, with the Saint's hand tightening on his throat.

The Saint held Hayn with one hand only, but the strength of that hold was incredible. With the other hand, he was fumbling with his cigarette-case.

Braddon had turned his gun into Gwen Chan­dler's face, while Ganning pinioned her arms. And the Saint had a cigarette in his mouth and was strik­ing a match with one hand.

"Now do you surrender?" Braddon menaced.

"Like hell I do!" cried the Saint.

His match touched the end of his cigarette, and in the same movement he threw the cigarette far from him. It made an explosive hiss like a launched rock­et, and in a second everything was blotted out in a swirl of impenetrable fog.

Templar pushed Hayn away into the opacity. He knew to a fraction of a square inch where his knife had fallen after it had severed the tendons of Hayn's hand, and he dived for it. He bumped against Tre­mayne's chair, and cut him free in four quick slashes.

Came, from the direction of the window, the sound of smashing glass. A shadow showed momen­tarily through the mist.

"Gwen!" It was Jerry Stannard's agonized voice. The girl answered him. They sought each other in the obscurity.

A sudden draught parted the wreathing clouds of the Saint's rapid-action smoke-screen. Stannard, with the girl in his arms, saw that the door was open. The Saint's unmistakable silhouette loomed in the oblong of light. "Very, very efficient, my Roger," said the Saint.

"You can always leave these little things to me," said Mr. Conway modestly, leaning against the front door, with Edgar Hayn, Braddon, and Snake Gan­ning herded into a corner of the hall at the un­friendly end of his automatic.

Chapter XIV

THEY took the three men into a room where there was no smoke.

"It was my fiancee," pleaded Jerry Stannard.

"That's so," said the Saint tolerantly. "Dicky, you'll have to be content with Braddon. After all, he sloshed you when your hands were tied. But no­body's going to come between the Snake and this child!"

It lasted half an hour all told, and then they gathered up the three components of the mess and trussed them very securely into chairs.

"There were two other men," said the Saint hope­fully, wrapping his handkerchief round a skinned set of knuckles.

"I stuck them up, and Jerry dotted them with a spanner," said Conway. "We locked them in a room upstairs."

The Saint sighed. "I suppose we'll have to leave them," he said. "Personally, I feel I've been done. These guys are rotten poor fighters when it comes to a straight-down."