The Saint Closes the Case

kind.

Norman Kent's eye fell on a knobkerry. It hung very con­veniently to his hand.

He took it down.

12. How Simon Templar parted with Anna, and took Patricia in his arms

To attempt to locate, in a strange part of the country and on a dark night, a house distinguished by nothing but the fact of being situated on 'the' hill—particularly in a district where hills are no more than slight undulations —might well have been considered a hopeless task even by the most op timistic man. As he began to judge himself near the village, the Saint realised that.

But even before he could feel despair, if he would have felt despair, his hurtling headlights picked up the figure of a belated rustic plodding down the road ahead. The Saint, no stranger to country life, and familiar with its habit of retiring to bed as soon as the village pub has ejected it at ten o'clock, knew that this gift could only have been an angel in corduroys, sent direct from heaven. The Saint's gods were surely with him that night.

'Do you know the house on the hill?' demanded Simon brazenly.

'Ay, that Oi doo!'

Then the Saint understood that in the English country dis­tricts all things are possible, and the natives may easily con­sider 'the house on the hill' a full and sufficient address, just as a townsman may be satisfied with 'the pub around the corner.'

'Throo the village, tourrn round boi the church, an' keep straight as ever you can goo for 'arf a moile. You can't miss ut.' So the hayseed declared; and the Saint sped on. But he ran the car into a side turning near the crest of the hill, parked it with lights out, and continued on foot. He might be ex­pected, but he wasn't advertising his arrival unnecessarily.

He had been prepared to break into and shoot up every single house in the district to which the description 'on the hill' might possibly have applied, until he came to the right one. But he had been saved that; and it remained to capitalise the godsend.

The gun in his pocket bumped his hip as he walked; and in the little sheath on his forearm he could feel the slight but reassuring weight of Anna, queen of knives, earned with blood and christened with blood. She was no halfling's toy. In blood she came, and in blood that night she was to go.

But this the Saint could not know, whatever presentiments he may have had, as he stealthily skirted the impenetrable blackthorn hedge that walled in the grounds of the house he had come to raid. The hedge came higher than his head; and impenetrable it was, except for the one gap where the gate was set, as he learned by making a complete circuit. But, standing back, he could see the upper part of the house loom­ing over it, a black bulk against the dark sky; and in the upper story a single window was lighted up. He could see nothing of the ground floor from behind the hedge, so that he had no way of knowing what there might be on three sides of it; but in the front he could see at least one room alight. Standing still, listening with all the keyed acuteness of his ears, he could pick up no sound from the house.

Then that lighted upper window gave him an idea.

On the face of it, one single lighted upper window could only mean one thing—unless it were a trap. But if it were a trap, it was such a subtle one that the Saint couldn't see it.

What he did see, with a crushing force of logic, was that the garrison of a fortified house, expecting an attempt to rescue their prisoner, would be likely to put her as far away from the attacker's reach as possible. Prisoners are usually treated like that, almost instinctively, being ordinarily confined in attics or cellars even when no attempt at rescue is expected. And a country house of that type would be unlikely to have a cellar large enough to confine a prisoner whose value would drop to zero if asphyxiated. Patricia could surely be in but one place —and that lighted window seemed to indicate it as plainly as if the fact had been labelled on the walls outside in two-foot Mazda letters.

The Saint could not know that this was the simple truth— that the same fortune that had watched over him all through the adventure had engineered that breakdown on the long?distance wire to prevent Marius communicating with the house on the hill. But he guessed and accepted it (except for the breakdown) with a force of conviction that nothing could have strengthened. And he knew, quite definitely, without any re­course to deduction or guesswork, that Marius by that time must be less than ten minutes behind him. His purpose must be achieved quickly if it were to be achieved at all.

For a moment the Saint hesitated, standing in a field on the wrong side of the blackthorn hedge. Then he bent and searched the ground for some small stones. He wanted very small stones, for they must not make too much noise. He found three that satisfied his requirements.

Then he wrote, by the light of a match cupped cautiously in one hand, on a scrap of paper he found in his pocket:

I'm here, Pat darling. Throw Anna back over the hedge and then start a disturbance to divide their attention. I'll be right in.—SIMON.

He tied the scrap to the handle of Anna with a strip of silk ripped from his shirt, and straightened up.

Gently and accurately he lobbed up two stones, and heard each of them tap the lighted pane. Then he waited.

Now, if there were no response—suppose Pat had been tied up, or was doped, or anything like that. . . . The thought made his muscles tighten up so that he felt them quivering all over his body like a mass of braced steel hawsers. . . . He'd have to wade in without the help of the distracting disturbance, of course. . . . But that wasn't the thought that made his pulse beat quicker and his mouth narrow down into a line that hardly smiled at all. It was the thought of Patricia herself— the thought of all that might have happened to her, that might be happening. . . .

'By God!' thought the Saint, with an ache in his heart, 'if any of their filthy hands . . .'

But he wanted to see her once more before he went into the fight that he was sure was jeopardised against him. In case of accidents. Just to see her blessed face once more, to take the memory of it as a banner with him in to the battle. . . .

Then he held his breath.

Slowly the sash of the window was being raised, with in­finite precautions against noise. And the Saint saw, at the same time, that what he had taken, in silhouette, to be leaded panes, were, in fact, the shadows of network of closely set bars.

Then he saw her.

She looked out, down into the garden below, and along the side of the house, puzzledly. He saw the faltered parting of the red lips, the disordered gold of her hair, the brave light in the blue eyes. ...

Then he balanced Anna in his hand and sent her flickering through the dark. The knife fell point home, quivering in the wooden sill beside the girl's hand.

He saw Patricia start, and stare at it with a wild surmise. Then she snatched it out of the wood and disappeared into the room.

Half a minute ticked away whilst the Saint waited with a tingling impatience, fearing at any moment to hear a car, which could only belong to one man, come purring up the hill. But, fearfully as he strained his ears, he found the stillness of the night unbroken.

And at last he saw the girl again. Saw her hand come through the bars, and watched Anna swooping back towards him like a scrap stripped from a moonbeam. . . .

He found the little knife, after some difficulty, in a clump of long grass. His slip of paper was still tied to the handle, but when he unrolled it he found fresh words pencilled on the other side.

Eight men here. God bless you, darling.—PAT.

The Saint stuffed the paper into his pocket and slid Anna back into her sheath.

'God bless us both, Pat, you wonderful, wonderful child!' he whispered to the stillness of the night; and, looking up again, he saw her still at the window, straining her eyes to find him.

He waved his handkerchief for her to see, and she waved back. Then the window closed again. But she had smiled. He had seen her. And the ache in his heart became a song. . . .