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Authors: Leslie Charteris

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BOOK: Saint's Getaway
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2

 

For a space of four or five seconds that haunting
cadence
quivered in the air; and then silence came blanketing down again upon the
castle—a silence throbbing with the blood-
chilling terror of
that awful cry.

The Saint loosed one hand and wiped a smear of
clammy perspiration from his forehead. He had never reckoned him
self to be
afflicted with an unduly sensitive set of nerves, but
there was something
about that scream which liquefied the marrow in his bones: He knew that only
one thing could have
caused it—the pitiless application of a
fiendish refinement of
torture which he would never have believed
existed. Recalling his flippant reflections on the subject of mediaeval dungeon
frolics, he found the theme less funny than it had seemed a
quarter of
an hour ago.

His heart was beating a little faster as he
worked his way
down the wall. He went down as quickly as he dared,
swinging
recklessly from hand-hold to hand-hold and praying
consist
ently as he descended.

Down in that lighted room below him things
were blowing up an eighty miles an hour for the showdown which he had
laboriously
arranged to attend in person. Down there was
being disentangled the
enigma of the sardine can, and he
wanted a front fauteuil for the climax.
He figured that he had
earned it Only with that tantalizing bait in
view had be been
able to deny himself the pleasure of picking up Rudolf
by the hoosits and punting him halfway to Potsdam. And the thought that he
might be missing the smallest detail of the unravelling
sent him slithering down the
scarp at a pace that would have
made a
monkey’s hair turn grey.

A dead strand of creeper snapped under his
weight, and for one vertiginous instant he pendulumed over the yawning jaws of
death by the fingers of his left hand. Looking down into the Stygian chasm as
he swung there, he sighted a nebulous shaft
of luminance just
underneath his feet and knew that he was
only a few inches
from his goal. He snatched at a fresh hand
hold, warped himself
featly sideways, and went on. A moment
later he was
steadying his toes on the broad sill of the open
window and peeping
into the room.

In a high-backed, carved-oak chair, at one
end of a long oak
table placed in the geometric centre of a luxuriously fur
nished
library, sat the prince. A thin jade cigarette holder was clamped between his
teeth, and he was sketching an intricate
pattern on the table
with a slim gold pencil. At the opposite end of the table a big flabbily built
man sat in an identical chair: he was clothed only in his trousers and shirt,
and his bare wrists were locked to the arms of the chair by shining
metal
clamps. And the Saint saw with a dumb thrill of horror
that his head was
completely enclosed in a spherical framework
of gleaming steel.

The prince was speaking in German.

“You must understand, my dear Herr Krauss, that I never
allow misguided stubbornness to interfere with my
plans. To
me, you are nothing but a
tool that has served its purpose. I
have only one more use for you: to
open this little box. That
must be a very
small service for you to do me, and yet you can console yourself with the
thought that it will be an exceedingly
valuable one. It will relieve me
of the trouble and delay of having it opened by force, and it will save you an
indefinite
amount of physical discomfort.
Surely you will see that it is
absurd
to refuse.”

The other twisted impotently in his chair.
There was a
trickle of blood running down his arm where one of the
clamps which held him had cut into the flesh.

“You devil! Is this what you did to
Weissmann?”

“That was not necessary. The egregious
Emilio—you remem
ber Emilio?—was careless enough to kill him. Weissmann
had
actually reached Innsbruck when the police waylaid him. He
was
rescued, curiously enough, by a young friend of mine—an
Englishman
who used to be extremely clever. Fortunately for
us, his powers are
declining very early in life, and it was a comparatively simple matter for me
to retrieve your property. You should visit my young friend one day—you will
find that
you have much in common. When a once brilliant man is
passing
into his second childhood, it must be a great relief to
be able to
exchange sympathy with another who is undergoing
the same unenviable
experience.”

The prisoner leaned forward rigidly.

“One day,” he said huskily, “I
will make you sneer with an
other face. One day when you have learned that
the old fox
can
still be the master of the young jackal——”

Prince Rudolf snapped his fingers.

“These ‘one days,’ my friend! How often
have I listened to prophecies of what the cheated fox would do ‘one day’! And
it
is a day which never comes. No, Herr Krauss—let us confine
ourselves
to the present, which is so much less speculative. You
have been very useful
to me—unwittingly, I know; but I ap
preciate your kindness just the same.
I appreciate it so much
that the most superficial courtesy on your
part would induce
me to let you leave this castle alive—after you have
performed
me this one service. I could even forget your threats and
in
sults, which have done me no great harm. I have no profound
desire to
injure you. Your dead body would only be an encumbrance; and even the mild form
of persuasion which you
have compelled me to apply does not amuse me—the noise you
make is so distressing. So let us have no more
delays. Do what
I ask you——

“Du

du
Schweinhund!”
The tortured man’s voice rose to a tremulous whine.
“You will have to wait longer than this——

“My dear Herr Krauss, I have already
waited long enough. Your plot to obtain the contents of this box was known to
me
three months ago. At first I was annoyed. I regret to say that for a time
I even contemplated the advantages of your meet
ing with a fatal
accident. And then I devised this infinitely
better scheme. Since
we both coveted the same prize, I would
retire gracefully. You
should have the field to yourself. Your own renowned cunning and audacity
should pull the chestnuts
out of the fire. It was sufficient for me to stand back and admire
your workmanship. And then, when your
organization had obtained the prize, and it had been successfully smuggled
across Europe to where you were waiting to receive it—when all the
work had been done and all the risks had been
survived—why,
then it would be quite early enough for any accidents to
happen. That was the plan I adopted, and it has been rewarded as
it deserved to be.” The prince removed the
cigarette holder
from his mouth and tapped the ash from it with an
elegant
forefinger. “Only one obstacle
now detains us: the secret of the
combination
which keeps our prize inside this rather cumber
some box which I really
do not require. And that secret, I am
sure,
you will not hesitate to share with me.”

“Never!” gasped the man in the
opposite chair throatily.
“I would die first——

“On the contrary,” said the prince
calmly, “you would not die till afterwards. But that eventuality need not
concern us.
In order to refresh your memory, we will let Fritz turn
the
little screw again.”

He signed to the man who stood behind the
other’s chair,
and leaned back at his ease, lighting another cigarette.
His
face was absolutely barren of expression, and his unblinking
eyes were
fixed upon his captive with the dispassionate relent-
lessness of frozen
agates. As the man Fritz took hold of the steel
cage which encircled
the prisoner’s head, the prince raised one
hand.

“Or perhaps,” he suggested
smoothly, “the redoubtable Herr
Krauss would like to change his
mind.”

The prisoner’s breath came through his teeth
in a sharp hiss. The knuckles showed white and tense on his clenched hands.

“Nein.”
  

The prince shrugged.

Watching half-hypnotized through the window,
Simon Templar
saw Krauss stiffen in his chair as the screw control of
that
foul instrument was slowly tightened. A low groan broke
from the
man’s lips, and his heel kicked spasmodically against
the table. The prince
never moved.

Simon struggled to fight free from the trance
of horrible
fascination that held him spellbound. He pulled himself
further onto the sill, slipping
the automatic from his pocket,
and felt his
temples throbbing. And then the prince raised his hand again.

“Does your memory return, my dear Herr
Krauss?”

The other shook his head slowly, as if he had
to call on all
his forces to find strength to make the movement.

“Nein.”

The whisper was so low that the Saint could
scarcely hear it.
And the prince smiled, without the slightest symptom of
im
patience. He sat forward and pushed the strong-box along the table; and
then he leaned back again in his chair and replaced
the cigarette holder
in his mouth.

“You will find the box within your reach
as soon as you
are ready for it,” he said benevolently. “You
have only to say the word, and Fritz will release one of your hands. I should
prefer you
to do the actual opening, in case the lock should hold some unpleasant surprise
for the unpractised operator.
And directly the box is open you will be
free to go.”

Again the man Fritz twisted the screw; and
suddenly that
dreadful cry of agony rang out again.

The Saint gritted his teeth and balanced
himself squarely on
the sill. Ordinary methods of “persuasion” he
could under
stand; they were part of the grim game, and always would
be;
but to stand by in cold blood and watch the relentless tighten
ing of
that ghoulish machine was more than he could stomach.
His finger tightened
on the trigger, and he sighted the prince’s
face through a red
haze.

And then he saw the man Fritz step quickly
round from the
control screw, and Krauss’s hand clawed tremblingly at
the
box on the table. He was fumbling frantically with the wheels
of the
combination, and his shrieking had died down to a ghastly moaning noise. While
the Saint hesitated, the box sprang open with a click; and then Simon vaulted
into the
room.

The man Fritz spun round with an oath and
stepped towards him; and with a feeling akin to holy joy the Saint shot him in
the
stomach and watched him crumple to the floor.

Then he faced round.

“I should keep very still, if I were
you, Rudolf,” he stated
metallically. “Otherwise you might go
the same way home.”

The prince had risen to his feet. He stood
there without the
flicker of an eyelid while the Saint sidled round the
table to
wards Krauss, who had fallen limply sideways in his
chair; and the smoke went up from the long jade holder in a thin,
blue line
that never wavered.

Simon found the control wheel of that diabolical
mechan
ism and unscrewed it till it fell out of its socket.

“I assure you, my dear Mr. Templar,”
said the prince’s
satiny voice, “the device is really most humane.
There is no
lasting injury inflicted——

“Is that so?” Simon clipped his
answer out of a mouth like a
steel trap. “I thought it looked
interesting. The opportunity of
experimenting with it on the inventor is
almost too good to
miss,
isn’t it?”

The prince smiled.

“Was that the object of your
visit?”

“It was not, Rudolf—as you know. But
maybe you’re right.
Business is business, as the actress was always having
to remind
the bishop, and pleasure must come second.” A ray of
carefree
mockery came back into the Saint’s inclement gaze.
“What a
jolly chat you’ll be able to have with Comrade Krauss after
I’ve gone, won’t you? You will find that you have much in
common.
When a once brilliant man is passing into his second
childhood, it must be
a great relief to be able to exchange sympathy with another who is undergoing
the same unenvi
able experience—mustn’t it?”

BOOK: Saint's Getaway
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