Saint's Getaway (31 page)

“How did you get in?”

“I walked in. The door was open.”

The two men remained motionless, continuing
to stare.
It was the Saint’s gun and the Saintly smile that had
paralyzed
them at first—their first thought had been that they were
deal
ing with a maniac, and the Saint knew that after the initial
shock of
his appearance had worn off they were both weighing
the chances of his
touching off the trigger if either of them
made an incautious
movement. Against that they were balanc
ing the alternative
potentialities of a tactful submission until
they could distract
the attention of those unwavering blue eyes.

Then Simon observed that the younger man was
studying his
face intently; he sensed the incredulous understanding
before
it was fully formed in the man’s own mind and forestalled it
cheerfully:

“I am Simon Templar—the Saint.”

The two men remained motionless—and now the
reason for
their stillness was concentrated entirely in his gun hand.
He
could feel every phase of the struggle that went on in their minds. The
most wanted man in Europe—the man for whom
the whole German
police force was scouring the country—the
man on whose head
extravagant rewards had been placed—
was standing coolly before them in
that room. The prize that
every man in the force would have given his
right hand to win was tempting them from a range of four yards. And the auto
matic in
his hand was held in the tremorless grip of a steel ro
bot The terse
information they had received had magnified
itself in their
imaginations to something almost fabulous. Whichever of them made the first
threatening move would be
doomed—the other might possibly survive to win
the glory.
The atmosphere stifled with the terrific pressure of
their inward
battle.

“I shall have to handcuff you,”
said the Saint quietly. “You
will turn your backs and put your hands
behind you—and keep
them well away from your bodies.” He saw their limbs
go tense
as the full meaning of his order became plain to them,
and
went on swiftly, with his voice tightened up in a crisp urgency
of menace:
“You think that any risk would be preferable to
the disgrace of
having been made prisoners in your own stronghold. You would be wrong. Both of
you would die before you could take a step towards me. You have heard of me—you
can
estimate your own prospects. I give you my word that no harm
will come to you.”

It was a war of wills, fought out silently in
that confined
space over the thrusting swords of their eyes. The Saint
had no
wish to shoot. And yet, if it had been forced upon him, he
would have
dropped those two men as mercifully as he could.
To him there was a bigger
issue at stake even than the lives of
two innocent martyrs to duty.

Perhaps the two men, by some strange
telepathy carried on
that clash of opposing wills, felt what was on
the Saint’s mind.
But the elder man bowed his head and turned slowly round.
His subordinate paused a moment before following his ex
ample, and
turned round at last with an unswerving glare of
defiance.

Simon sensed all the galling bitterness of
their surrender
as he fastened handcuffs on their wrists and linked their
ankles
similarly together; but he breathed again. He pocketed his
gun and
allowed them to turn round to their former positions. In another corner of the
room he saw an enormous steel cabi
net, with plenty of room for two men
to stand between the
shelves of documents that lined the walls. He
went over and examined it more closely; but, as he had feared, the great door
would seal it hermetically.

He faced his prisoners again.

“I do not want to make your position
more painful than my
own safety demands,” he said. “If
you will give me your pa
roles as gentlemen that you will make no
attempt to escape, or
to attract attention in any way, whatever
happens, I shall be
able to spare you further indignity.”

The chief gazed at him sombrely.

“You could scarcely do more than you have
done already,”
he remarked, with a trace of irony; “and it seems
that you have
taken
effective measures to protect yourself. What else do you
want?”

“I have still to enjoy the little talk I
spoke of,” said the Saint.
“But your part in it is silent. You must
not be allowed to in
terrupt. I assure you, it would distress me to have to
stun you
while you are defenseless, and then gag you, before I
placed
you in that cabinet. The alternative is in your own hands. I
shall
require you to stand inside the cabinet during my con
versation. You will
do nothing to betray your presence, whatever you hear, until five minutes
after I have finally left the
room.”

“May I know your object?”

“You will realize it soon enough.”

The white-haired soldier hesitated, and in
his hesitation the
younger man let loose a string of snarling protests.

The chief cut him short with a movement of his
head.

“We do not help ourselves by inviting
injury,
Inspecktor,”
he said. “I shall give my parole.”

The Saint bowed. In that self-possessed, white-haired chief of
police he recognized a quality of manhood which he
would
have been glad to meet at any
time.

“I am in your debt,
Herr Oberst”
he
said. “And you,
Inspektor?”

The younger man drew himself up stiffly.

“Since I am commanded,” he replied
shortly, “I have no
choice. I give you my word of honour.”

“You are very wise,” murmured the chief.

Simon smiled. He opened the door of the
cabinet wide and
ushered the two men in. As soon as they had settled
themselves
he closed it again, leaving only a two-inch gap which
would
give them plenty of air to breathe. He left them with a final
warning:

“Remember that you have given your
paroles. I shall be
back in a few moments. Whatever happens, you will remain
hidden.”

Then he left the room and went down the stairs
again to re
lieve Monty Hayward’s vigil. His arteries were playing an
angelic symphony, and there was a new brightness in his eyes.
Perhaps
after all the running fight could become a triumph.
Thus far he had no
complaints to make. The gods were spilling
Eldorados on him with
both hands. If only the breaks held.
…
It
would be a worthy finish to one story and a merry over
ture to many more. Admittedly there was a price to
pay, and
those lost few minutes would
have boosted the bill against him
to
heights that would have made most men giddy to think of,
but he had learned that in his chosen way of life
there were
no bargain sales. It was
wine while it lasted. And he had never
really
wanted to be good.

He came upon Monty Hayward with a swinging
step and the
Saintly smile still on his lips. The automatic spun on
his first
finger by the trigger guard.

“I have cleaned up, Monty,” he
said. “Let’s make it a party.”

He burrowed through his overalls and produced
his own cigarette case. As he opened it, the polished interior showed
him a
reflection of his own face. He grinned and closed the
case again.

“Back along the corridor,” he said,
“I think I heard the
swishing song of a gents’ toilet. I should
hate Rudy to see us
like this—and we can still keep an ear on the charge room
from
there.”

If there was anything which finally emerged
as supremely nightmarish out of Monty Hayward’s memories of the cumula
tive
palpitations of that day, it was the wash and brush-up
which the Saint
thereupon ordained. Monty hadn’t proposed
himself for anything
quite so hair-raising as that. Battle, mur
der, and sudden death
were things immutable in themselves;
but to make oneself free of the
lavatories of a captured police
station in which an uncertain number of the
personnel were
still at large called for a granitic quality of nerve to
which only
a Simon Templar could have aspired. To the Saint it was a
pleasure with a pungent spice. He stripped off his greasy over
alls, threw
them into a corner, and abandoned himself to
the delights of warm
water and yellow soap as if he were in
his own home. As far
as he was concerned, the only visible
reminiscence of the things that waited
a couple of walls away was the blue-black shape of the automatic pistol placed
care
fully on the marble top of the wash basin beside him.

Monty sighed and made the best of it. Now
that he saw him
self in a mirror for the first time, he began to
understand how
he had been able to travel so far without being
identified. It
was
some relief to be able to divest himself of the stained blue
jeans and feel himself in a more accustomed garb;
it was even
better to be able to scrub
the oil and grime from his face and
hands
and feel clean. He looked up presently with a sort of
indefinite optimism—and saw the Saint coolly
manicuring his
nails.

“Ready for more, Monty?”

The Saint’s piratical eyes rested on him
humorously. Monty
nodded.

“Surely.”

They went back towards the office. The two
policemen still
slept. Simon expected them to be out to the world for all
of
another ten minutes—the handcuffs and gags were an addi
tional
precaution. He knew where he was when the blade of
his hand got home
with those tricky blows.

He took out his cigarette case again, offered
it to Monty,
and helped himself. The ratchet of his lighter scraped a
flame
out of the shielded wick. He stood there for a moment, drawing the
mellow smoke gratefully into his lungs to wipe away the last dry harshness of
the stuff that he had had to inhale in
his former r
ô
le. Monty watched him releasing the smoke
again
through his lips and nostrils with a slow widening of that new
born
Saintly smile. The tanned, rakish contours of that lean face, cleared now from
their coating of dust and dirt, were more reckless than he had ever seen them
before. The black hair was brushed back in one smooth swashbuckling sweep.
No one else
in the world could have been so steady-nerved
and at ease, so trim
and immaculate after the rough handling
of his clothes, so alive
with the laughing promise of danger, so
careless and debonair
in every way. The Saint was going to
his destiny.

“You take the corridor,” he said.
“Stand outside the door
and listen. Come in as soon as you hear my voice.”

“Right.”

Monty walked away.

Simon Templar drew at his cigarette again,
gazing back the
way
Monty had gone. He was still smiling.

Then he turned back to the office. He gave it one more glance
round to make certain that everything was in
order—policemen
securely bound,
telephone disconnected, windows barred. He
went rapidly through the drawers of the desks, taking over a bunch of
keys and a couple of spare automatics. Then he went
to the door of the charge room.

With his ear pressed to the panels, he could
make words
out of the murmur that he had heard before. The
conversation
was in English—he heard Prince Rudolf’s silkily faultless
ac
cent, commanding the scene as interpreter,

“Would it not be unusual, Miss Holm, if
our friend showed
no interest in your whereabouts?”

Then Patricia’s unfaltering stone-wall:

“I really don’t know.”

“And yet you insist that he had made no
arrangements about
meeting you again.”