The Saint Meets His Match (39 page)

“Come back, you
fool!” yelled the Saint huskily.

But she could not have
heard him. She was gone, and
he followed, staggering.

There was a patter of footsteps down the gravel
path
along the side of the house, and he saw
her white blouse as a pale blur in the darkness.

He caught her up at the
corner of the house, and, stand
ing beside her, saw Cullis
turning through the garden
gate.

Then he started to run again, for he knew that
if Cullis
turned again at the next corner,
as he would be likely to
do, he would stumble straight upon the chief
commissioner’s car, which had been left standing there with the
lights out.

And Cullis turned that way.
Whether it was simply
that he wanted to get
clear of the principal road and attempt to shake off pursuit in the darkness
and more
open country, or whether it was that the luck which had
been with him so long was disposed to help him yet
a little
while longer, could never be
known. But he did come
upon the car,
and he was flinging himself into the driving
seat as Simon turned the corner after him. An instant
later the self-starter brought the engine to life,
and the
car was starting to move as
the Saint flung himself at the
luggage
grid.

He hung there for a few
seconds, getting his last re
sources of nerve and muscle
together. He was still dazed,
practically knocked out on
his feet, after the murderous
blow that he had taken on
his head. And the blood that persisted in trickling into his eyes from a
shallow scalp
wound half blinded him. But he held
on.

And then he pulled himself
together and moved again.
It had to be done, for his
hold was precarious, and he
could not have kept it for
much longer in the state he was
in. And by that time the
car was travelling at forty miles an hour, and a slip, a fall in the road,
would very easily
have put an end to the adventure in
quite a different way
from which he had intended.

He got his hands over the
furled top, hauled himself up,
and tumbled over onto the
cushions of the back seat.

With a sigh of relief, he
eased his aching muscles; and
for a while he lay there,
dead beat, hardly able to move.
His head felt as if it
were splitting, and crimson specks danced in a grey haze before his eyes.

But the car drove on. The
driver, intent only on the
road that showed up ahead
in the blaze of the headlights,
never noticed his arrival.

Gradually the sick feeling
in the pit of his stomach
passed off. He was still
weary from his reckless effort, but
his brain was
clearing. He mopped at his forehead with
his
handkerchief and opened his eyes.

Then he pulled himself up
onto his knees. As his eyes came over the level of the front seat, the
blaze of another pair of headlights that were racing over
the road towards them flooded into his eyes.

“There’s no more speed
limit,” said
 
the Saint un
happily, in Cullis’s ear, “but you’re still breaking it, and
I shall have to arrest you, Cullis, really I shall. Driving to
the danger of the public, that’s what you’re doing——
”

As Cullis heard his voice
the car swerved perilously,
and then straightened up
again.

“At least,” said
Cullis over his shoulder, “I’ll take you
with
me.”

Simon took him by the
throat, but Cullis’s hands still clutched the steering wheel rigidly.

The oncoming car was less
than twenty yards away. In
any other circumstances,
with the road to themselves,
Simon might have been able
to shoot Cullis, or even
simply hit him over the
back of the head with the butt of
his gun, and trust
to being able to keep the car straight while he clambered over and pushed the
man out of the
way and took the wheel. But there and
then there was no
chance to do that. In another second
or two they would
smash head on into the other car.
…

Cullis’s intention was
obvious.

With a desperate wrench the
Saint rammed Cullis’s face down between the spokes of the steering wheel; and
for a
moment the car was out of control. Then, pushing
Cullis
sideways, Simon grabbed the wheel and wrenched the
car round.

The oncoming headlights
blazed straight into his eyes,
hurtling towards them. The
driver of the other car
swerved, but he could
hardly manoeuvre on that narrow
road, and there was no
time for him to pull up.

Simon heard the futile
scream of brakes violently applied
,
and thought
he would die smiling.

“Here we go,” he
thought, and held the wheel round
on a reckless lock.

He only just failed. For
one horrible instant he saw
the off-side wing light of
the approaching car leaping
directly into the off-side
wing light of the car in which he rode. Even so, he might have succeeded if
Cullis had not
got a hand back on the wheel and fought
to turn it the
other way.

Simon lashed at him with
one elbow, but it was too late
for that to be any good.
The running board of the other
car slashed their front
wing like a knife; and there was a
grating, tearing,
shattering noise of tortured metal.

Simon was shot over the
steering wheel by the impact.
The car seemed to heave
itself into the air, and for one blinding, numbing second he seemed to hang
suspended
in space. Then the road hit him a
terrible blow across the
shoulder blades; there was
a splintering clatter, another
and more violent jar, and
dead silence.

He did not know how long
he lay there on his back with
his feet propped up
somewhere in the air, bruised and
aching in every
limb, and only wondering whether he
was really dead at
last—and if not, why not… . A colos
sal
weight seemed to be pressing into his chest… .

He opened one eye, and
discerned brake and clutch and
accelerator pedals mysteriously suspended over
his head.

There was something else
on his chest. He made this
out to be the front
seat—and the body of a man.

He tried to raise one hand,
and found that it moved
in a pool of something
warm and sticky; and he wondered
whether the blood was
Cullis’s or his own.

Then there was a thunder of
knocking on the ship
wrecked coachwork beside
his ear, and a voice said, rather
foolishly:

“Are you all right in
there?”

“Can’t see how anyone
can be alive in this mess,”
said another voice.
“They must have been doing over
fifty.”

But the Saint had
recognized the first voice, and a husky croak of a chuckle came from his lips.

“Dear old Claud
Eustace,” he said. “Always ten minutes
too
late!”

Chapter XIV

HOW SIMON TEMPLAR PUT
ON HIS HAT

C
HIEF INSPECTOR
TEAL
reverently unwrapped his fourth wafer of gum. Simon
Templar had bought it specially for
him, and Teal was
doing himself proud.

“Though why you aren’t
dead,” said Mr. Teal, “is
more than anyone
will ever know.”

The Saint, with a bandaged
head and nothing more,
grinned cheerfully.

“You can’t keep a good man down,” he
said.

“It was sheer luck
you didn’t get me down,” said Teal.
“And
that would have been a good man lost to the
C.
I. D., though I says it myself. I shall never be able to make out why none of
us was hurt. It may have been
because we’d almost
stopped when you hit us; but our car
was spun round
broadside to the road—off-side front
wheel knocked off as
if it had been cut with a knife,
chassis tied in a knot,
both axles bust, gear box all over
the road, and a
worse shaking for all of us than any of us
want
to have again.”

“Will you be sending
in the bill?” drawled the Saint.

They were at Upper
Berkeley Mews, where they had
repaired for a very late
supper, but it was more like
breakfast than anything
else.

Then the story of Lord Essenden
was told, and also the
story of Waldstein, and
the chief commissioner’s verdict
was given. He looked at the girl and smiled.

“I believe
you,” he said. “There’s the Saint to back you
up in the
story of Essenden, and now that I know you a
little
better I’m not sure that I should question it even
without that. As for the rest, outside of our four
selves
there is no one left alive who
knows anything worth
knowing. And I
don’t think any of us will ask for trouble.
We’ve had enough of the
Angels of Doom.”

He looked across at Teal
for confirmation, and Chief Inspector Teal nodded drowsily. He seemed to be on
the
point of falling asleep.

“And the ‘Wanted for
Murder’ business?” asked the
Saint.

“That can be
forgotten. Fresh evidence has come to
light, and the
charge has been withdrawn. That can be
arranged
without any fuss. And if Miss Trelawney is
going back to the
States——”

“I want,” said
Chief Inspector Teal, with a sudden and startling loudness, “to wash my
hands.”

Three pairs of eyes
revolved slowly in their sockets and
centred on him with
an intentness that would have shat
tered the nerve of
a lesser man, but Chief Inspector Teal
suffered his blushing
honours without visible emotion.

And then the Saint laughed.

“But of course,”
he said. “There’s a barrel of very good
beer
in the kitchen—you might try that. Duodecimo’s out
there blowing himself
tight with Chianti, but Orace will
move him
on if you say the word… . Will you want any
soap?”

“I think,” said
Sir Hamilton Dorn mildly, “that we
shall
be able to find what we want.”

The Saint watched the door
close behind them; and
then he loafed back to the
fireplace, lighted a cigarette,
and stood there with his hands in his pockets.

“Only the epilogue is left,” he said.

“And a joke to
explain,” said Jill Trelawney.

Simon regarded her with
his cigarette in one corner of a
smiling mouth and his
eyebrows aslant—rather like a blue-eyed and boyish Mephistopheles. Suddenly she
un
derstood all his charm.

“Most of it’s
explained,” he said. “I was pulled into the
Secret
Service to keep me good, but the job never meant as
much
to me as it might have once. And then, when I was on the very point of
quitting, your father’s case developed
into
the Angels of Doom. I remember the night when I
was
talking it over with Auntie Ethel, and I was shown
a
photograph of you. And I made myself a promise.”

She stood up and came
towards the fireplace.

“What was it?”

“That you were a
girl I was going to kiss before I died.
And I did it halfway
through the story, which spoils the
ending;
but even now——
”

And suddenly, with his
quick light laugh, he swept her
into his arms and captured
her red lips.

In a little while she said:
“Are you sure you haven’t
made a mistake?”

“No,” said the
Saint, “I’ve made a friend.”

His arm lay lightly round
her shoulders.

“I’m the fool who
never grows old,” he said. “But the
manner
of folly changes. Yesterday it was battle, murder,
and
sudden death; to-morrow—who knows? But while there’s a boy you love waiting for
you, and a song and a story for me—who cares?
…”