'Of course, that's an important consideration,' he murmured. 'But I think you ought to do the thing in style while you're about it. There's a tradition in these matters, you know. I've never been executed before, and I'd like this to be something I 1can remember. It's too late for breakfast, and I suppose it'd delay you too much to ask you to let me eat a final dinner, but at least you can give me a couple of bottles of beer.'
Crantor came up the stairs again, and was visibly relieved when he saw that the Saint was still holding up his hands.
'Why don't you send him along down,' Professor?' he demanded. 'We haven't got a lot of time to waste.'
'The conventions must be observed,*' said Raxel. 'Mr. Smith has asked the privilege of being allowed to consume two bottles of beer, and I shall let him do so. Tope!'
Basher Tope came shambling out of the bar, and the Professor gave the order. The beer was brought. Simon poured it out himself, and drank the two glasses with relish. Then he picked up the bottles.
'I'll take these with me,' he said, 'as mementoes. Right away, Professor!'
Crantor led the way down the stairs, and the Saint followed. Raxel brought up the rear.
At the foot of the stairs was a short flagged passage, ending in a door. Crantor opened the door and motioned to the Saint to enter. Raxel came up, and the two men stood in the doorway, Crantor lighting up the cellar with his torch.
It was fairly large, and at one end was a row of barrels. The floor was covered with stqne paving, and the roof was supported by wooden buttresses. But the house was an old one, and Simon had banked everything on the walls not being bricked up, and his hopes went up a couple of miles when he saw that there was nothing but bare earth on three sides of the room.
He turned with a smile.
'Good-bye, Professor,' he said.
'Good-bye,' said Raxel.
His left hand swung up with the glass globe, and the green liquid it contained caught the light of the torch, and it shone like a monstrous jewel.
The next instant the bowl had smashed on the floor, and before the light of the torch was taken away Simon saw the green vapor boiling up from the stone.
Then the door slammed, and the key turned in the lock. The footsteps of Raxel and Crantor could be heard hurrying down the echoing passage and stumbling up the stairs; and Simon Templar, holding his breath, was knocking the bottoms off the bottles he carried, and packing them with earth torn from the walls of the cellar with desperate speed.
With the first bottle packed with earth, the Saint put the neck in his mouth, and used it to breathe through, closing his nostrils with his fingers. It had been a forlorn hope, but it had been the only thing he had been able to think of; and he remembered having read in a book that such a device formed one of the most efficient possible respirators. It was something to do with molecular velocity--the Saint was no profound scientist, and he did not profess to understand the principle. The main point was whether it would work effectively. He waited, breathing cautiously, while the luminous dial on his wrist watch indicated the passing of ten minutes. At the end of that time he felt no distress other than that caused by the difficulty of squeezing air through the packed earth, and decided that his improvised gas mask was functioning satisfactorily.
He turned his attention to the door. Hampered as he was by having to take care not to draw a single breath of air which did not pass through his packed bottle, he was not able to fling his whole weight against it, but the efforts he was able to make seemed to produce no impression. He felt all round the door, but the wall in which it was set was the only one which was bricked up. Then he went down on his hands and knees, and tested the stone flags. Two of them, right beside the door, were loose. Handicapped though he was by having only one free hand, he succeeded in getting his fingers under each slab in turn, and dislodging it, and dragging it away. The earth underneath was moist and soft.
Simon Templar began to dig.
It took him three hours by his watch to burrow under the door, but at last he achieved an aperture large enough to worm his way through. He leaned against the wall on the other side for a few moments, to rest himself, and then felt his way down the corridor and up the stairs.
Mercifully, the door at the top of the stairs was unlocked, and it opened at once. Manifestly, Raxel had had no doubt that the Saint would not live long enough to find any way out of the cellar. Simon burst through, and rushed for the nearest window. He had not even time to open it--he smashed it with his respirator bottle, and filled his aching lungs with great gasping breaths of frosty fresh air.
After a short time he was able to breathe more easily, and then he made a round of the ground floor, opening every window and door to give free passage to the sea breeze, which was soon blowing strongly enough through the house to sweep away any of the gas which filtered up from the cellar.
It was in the kitchen that he found Detective Duncarry securely trussed up and gagged in a chair. Simon cut him loose, and heard the story.
'I don't know how it happened. One minute I was cleaning up a saucepan, and then I got a sickening welt on the back of the head that knocked me right out. Next thing I knew, I was tied up like a Christmas turkey,'
'And I suppose if I'd died, as I was meant to, you'd have sat here till you starved to death,' said the Saint. 'It's a great life if you don't weaken,'
He lighted a cigarette and paced the room feverishly, refusing to talk. Raxel, Crantor, and Basher Tope had gone--he did not have to search the inn to know that. And the ship had gone. Looking out of the window, he could see nothing but blackness. Nowhere on the sea was visible anything like a ship's lights. But then they'd had a long start while he was sapping under that cellar door.
And now he knew exactly what the Professor's scheme was, and the magnitude of it took his breath away.
He wasted only a few minutes in coming to a decision; and then, with Duncarry to help him,, he went round to the garage and examined the dilapidated Hildebrand. It had not been touched-- but, of course, Raxel could not have foreseen that the Saint would be in a position to use it. Anyway, it didn't look up to much, as cars went, and Simon eyed it disparagingly.
'Now, why did I ever think it might be a comic stunt to arrive here in this ruin?' he wanted to know.
But certainly that car was the only vehicle which would take him out of Llancoed that night, for there would be no trains running .from a one-horse village like that, at that hour.
'Where are you making for?' asked Duncarry, as Simon let in the clutch and the car moved off with a deafening rattle.
'Gloucester,' said the Saint briefly. 'And Hildebrand is going to touch the ground in spots, like he's never skipped before. Now get down on your knees in front of the dashboard. Dun, and pray that nothing busts!'
Duncarry pulled his nose.
'This show will be all over before I even know what it's about,' he said. 'I've followed you right from the beginning without asking a single question, and I've never beefed about it. I've waltzed around looking villainous-- left to starve--and you haven't heard me complain. But now--'
'Know anything about the Megantic, son?' asked the Saint; and Duncarry, who was an earnest student of the newspapers, nodded.
'Sure--she's carrying another instalment of your War Debt over to the States. Just a few million pounds' worth of gold,' he said, and the Saint's eyebrows moved slowly northwards.
It was the one item of information that he lacked, and the revelation made his hair curl. 'Up-to-date piracy,' he had diagnosed without revving his brain up to any point where it would have been liable to seize, but that the subject of the piracy should be such a colossal sum, in the shape of such an easily negotiable metal, was a factor of which he had never dreamed.
And then he laughed.
'There's nothing much for you to know, old dear,' he drawled. 'It's only that the Professor has arranged to lift that little flock of ingots on the way.'
Duncarry revolved his long-nosed face towards the Saint, and inhaled sibilantly.
'What's that?' he demanded.
'Exactly what I told you,' murmured Simon, and passed on what he had seen and what he had
