Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

.'

She put her hand to her sweet head; and then, only then, Simon struck a match for his mauled cigarette, and laughed gently.

'Poor kid! It has been a thick night, hasn't it? ... But you'll feel heaps better in the morning; and I guess our council of war won't grow mould if it stands over till breakfast. I'll show you your room now; and Roger shall wade out into the wide world first thing to-morrow, and borrow some reasonable clothes for you off a married friend of mine.'

She stood up, staring at him.

'Do you mean that—you're going to keep me here?'

The Saint nodded.

'For to-night, anyway.''

'But the Embassy—'

'They'll certainly be excited, won't they?'

She took a step backwards.

'Then—after all—you're—'

'No, we aren't. And you know it.'

Simon put his hands on her shoulders, smiling down at her. And the Saint's smile, when he wished, could be a thing no mortal woman could resist.

'We're playing a big game, Roger and I,' he said. 'I've told you a little of it to-night. One day I may be able to tell you more. But already I've told you enough to show you that we're out after something more than pure soft roe and elephant's eggs. You've said it yourself.'

Again he smiled.

'There'll be no war if you don't go back to the Embassy to-night,' he said. 'Not even if you disappear for twenty-four hours—or even forty-eight. I admit it's a ticklish game. It's rather more ticklish than trying to walk a tight-rope over the crater of Vesuvius with two sprained ankles and a quart of bootleg hooch inside you. But, at the moment, it's the only thing I can see for us—for Roger and me—to take Marius's own especial battle-axe and hang it over his own ugly head. I can't tell you yet how the game will be played. I don't know myself. But I shall think something out overnight. . . . And meanwhile—I'm sorry— but you can't go home.'

'You want to keep me a prisoner?'

'No. That's the last thing I want. I just want your parole—for twelve hours.'

In its way the half-minute's silence that followed was perhaps as tense a thirty seconds as Simon Templar had ever endured.

Since he started talking he had been giving out every volt of personality he could command. He knew his power to a fraction—every inflection of voice and gesture, every flicker of expression, every perfectly timed pause. On the stage or the screen he could have made a fortune. When he chose he could play upon men and women with a sure and unfaltering touch. And in the last half-hour he had thrown all his genius into the scale.

If it failed ... He wondered what the penalty was for holding a millionaire's daughter prisoner by force. Whatever it was, he had every intention of risking it. The game, as he had told her, was very big. Far too big for any half-hearted player. . . .

But none of this showed on his face. Poised, quiet, magnificently confident, with that ghost of a swashbuckling smile on his lips, he bore her calm and steady scrutiny. And, looking deep into her eyes, he thought his own thoughts; so that a faint strange tremor moved him inwardly, in a way that he would not have thought possible.

But the girl could see none of this; and the hands that rested on her shoulders were as cool and firm as a surgeon's. She saw only the Saint's smile, the fineness of the clear blue eyes, the swift swaggering lines of the lean brown face. And perhaps because she was what she was, she recognized the quality of the man. . . .

'I'll give you my parole,' she said.

'Thank you,'' said the Saint.

Then Simon showed her to his own room.

'You'll find a very good selection of silk pajamas in the wardrobe,' he remarked lightly. 'If they aren't big enough for you, wear two suits. That door leads into the bathroom. ...' Then he touched her hand. 'One day,' he said, 'I'll try to apologize for all this.'

She smiled.

'One day,' she said, 'I'll try to forgive you.' .

'Good-night, Sonia.'

He kissed her hand quickly and turned and went down the stairs again.

'Just one swift one, Roger, my lad,' he murmured, picking up a tankard and steering towards the barrel in the corner, 'and then we also will retire. Something accomplished, something done, 'as earned a k-night's repose. . . . Bung-ho!'

Roger Conway reached morosely for the decanter.

'You have all the luck, you big stiff,' he complained. 'She only spoke to me once, and I couldn't get a word in edgeways. And then I heard you call her Sonia.'

'Why not?' drawled the Saint. 'It's her name.'

'You don't call a Steel Princess by her first name—when you haven't even been introduced.'

'Don't I!'

Simon raised his tankard with a flourish, and quaffed. Then he set it down on the table, and clapped Roger on the shoulder.

'Cheer up,' he said. 'It's a great life.'

'It may be for you,' said Roger dolefully. 'But what about me? If you'd taken the girl straight back to the Embassy I might have taken a few easy grands off papa for my share in the rescue.'

'Whereas all you're likely to get now is fifteen years—or a bullet in the stomach from Marius.' Simon grinned; then his face sobered again. 'By this time both Marius and Rudolf know that we're back. And how much the police know will depend on how much Heinrich has told them. I don't think he'll say much about us without consulting the Prince and Marius.'

'Well, you can bet Marius will spread the alarm.'

'I'm not so sure. As long as he knows that we've got Sonia, I think he'll prefer to come after us with his own gang. And he'll find out to­morrow that she hasn't been sent back to the loving arms of the Embassy.'

Roger Conway flicked some ash from his cigarette. Those who had known him in the old days, before his name, after the death of K. B. Vargan, became almost as notorious as the Saint's, would have been surprised at his stern seriousness. Fair-haired and handsome (though less beautiful now on account of the make-up that went with his costume) and as true to a type as the Saint was true to none, he had led a flippant and singularly useless life until the Saint enlisted him and trained him on into the perfect lieutenant. And in the strenuous perils of his new life, strange to say, Roger Conway was happier than he had ever been before. . . .

Roger said: 'How much foundation had you got for that theory you put up to Sonia?'

'Sweet damn all,' confessed the Saint. 'It was just the only one I could see that fitted. There may be a dozen others; but if there are, I've missed them. And that's why we've got to find out a heap more before we restore that girl to the bosom of the Ambassador's wife. But is was a good theory— a damned good theory—and I have hunches about theories. That one rang a distinct bell. And I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be the right one.'

'Nor do I. But what beats me is how you're going to use Sonia.'

'And that same question beats me, too, Roger, at the moment. I know that for us to hold her is rather less cautious than standing pat on a bob-tailed straight when the man opposite has drawn two. And yet I can't get away from the hunch that she's heavy artillery, Roger, if we can only find a way to fire the guns. ...'

And the Saint relapsed into a reverie.

Certainly, it was difficult. It would have been difficult enough at the best of times—in the old days, for instance, when only a few select people knew that Simon Templar, gentleman of leisure, and the Saint, of doubtful fame, were one and the same person, and he had four able lieutenants at his call. Now his identity was known, and he had only Roger—though Roger was worth a dozen. The Saint was not the kind of man to have any half-witted Watson gaping at his Sherlock—any futile Bunny balling up his Raffles. But, even so, with the stakes as high as they were, he would have given anything to be able to put back the clock of publicity by some fourteen weeks.