The Saint Closes the Case

'It is the end of the world,' he said quietly. 'Roger was my only reinforcement. If I didn't get back to Brook Street by a certain time, he was to come after me. But, obviously, Roger can't come now. ...'

'I know.'

'I won't let you be taken alive, Pat.'

'And you?'

He laughed.

'I shall try to take Marius with me. But—oh, Pat, I'd sell my soul for you not to be in it! This is my way out, but it isn't yours——'

'Why not? Shouldn't I want to see the last fight through with you?'

Her hands were on his shoulders then, and he was holding her face between his hands. She was looking up at him.

'Dear,' he said, 'I'm not complaining. We don't live in a magnificent age, but I've done my best to make life magnificent as I see it—to live my ideal of the happy warrior. But you made that possible. You made me seek and fight for the tre­mendous things. Battle and sudden death—yes, but battle and sudden death in the name of peace and life and love. You know how I love you, Pat. . . .'

She knew. And if she had never given him the ultimate depths of her heart before, she gave them all to him then, with a gladness in that kiss as vivid as a shout in silence.

'Does anything matter much beside that?' she asked.

'But I've sacrificed you! If I'd been like other men—if I hadn't been so fool crazy for danger—if I'd thought more about you, and what I might be letting you in for ——'

She smiled.

'I wouldn't have had you different. You've never apolo­gised for yourself before: why do it now?'

He did not answer. Who could have answered such a gener­osity?

So they sat together; and the battering on the door went on. The great door shook and resounded to each blow, and the sound was like the booming of a muffled knell.

Presently the Saint looked up, and saw that in the door was a hole the size of a man's hand. And suddenly a strange strength came upon him, weak and weary as he was.

'But, by Heaven, this isn't going to be the end!' cried the Saint. 'We've still so much to do, you and I.'

He was on his feet.

He couldn't believe that it was the end. He wasn't ready, yet, to pass out—even in a blaze of some sort of glory. He wouldn't believe that that was his hour at last. It was true that they still had so much to do. There was Roger Conway, and Vargan, and Marius, and the peace of the world wrapped up in these two. And adventure and adventure beyond. Other things. . . . For in that one adventure, and in that one hour, he had seen a new and wider vision of life, wider even than the ideal of the happy warrior, wider even than the fierce de­light of battle and sudden death, but rather a fulfilment and a consummation of all these things—and how should he die before he had followed that vision farther?

And he looked at the door, and saw the eyes of Marius.

'I should advise you to surrender, Templar,' said the giant coldly. 'If you are obstinate, you will have to be shot.'

'That'd help you, wouldn't it, Angel Face? And then how would you find Vargan?'

'Your friend Conway might be made to speak.'

'You've got a hope!'

'I have my own methods of persuasion, Templar, and some of them are almost as ingenious as yours. Besides, have you thought that your death would leave Miss Holm without a protector?'

'I have,' said the Saint. 'I've also thought that my surren­der would leave her in exactly the same position. But she has a knife, and I don't think you'll find her helpful. Think again!'

'Besides,' said Marius, in the same dispassionate tone, 'you need not be killed at once. It would be possible to wound you again.'

The Saint threw back his head.

'I never surrender,' he said.

'Very well,' said Marius calmly.

He snapped out another order, and again the axe crashed on the door. The Saint knew that the hole was being enlarged so that a man could shoot through it and know what he was shooting at, and he knew that the end could not now be long in coming.

There was no cover in the room. They might have flattened themselves against the wall in which the door was, so that they could not be seen from outside, but that would make little difference. A few well-grouped shots aimed along the wall by an automatic would be certain of scoring.

And the Saint had no weapon but the captured knife; and that, as he had said, he had given to Patricia.

The odds were impossible.

As he watched the chips flying from the gap which the axe had already made—and it was now nearly as big as a man's head—the wild thought crossed his mind that he might chal­lenge Marius to meet him in single combat. But immediately he discarded the thought. Dozens of men might have ac­cepted, considering the difference in their sizes: the taunt of cowardice, the need to maintain their prestige among their followers, at least, might have forced their hand and stung them to take the challenge seriously. But Marius was above all that. He had one object in view, and it was already proved that he viewed it with a singleness of aim that was above all ordinary motives. The man who had cold-bloodedly shot a way through the body of one of his own gang—and got away with it—would not be likely to be moved by any argument the Saint could use.

Then—what?

The Saint held Patricia in his arms, and his brain seemed to reel like the spinning of a great crazy flywheel. He knew that he was rapidly weakening now. The heroic effort which had taken him to that room and barricaded it had cost him much, and the sudden access of supernatural strength and energy which had just come upon him could not last for long. It was like a transparent mask of glittering crystal, hard but brittle, and behind it and through it he could see the founda­tions on which it based its tenacity crumbling away.

It was a question, as it had been in other tight corners, of playing for time. Arid it was also the reverse. Whatever was to be done to win the time must be done quickly—--before that forced blaze of vitality fizzled out and left him powerless.

The Saint passed a hand across his eyes, and felt strangely futile. If only he were whole and strong, gifted again with the blood that he had lost, with a shoulder that wasn't spreading a numbing pain all over him, and a brain cleared of the muzzy aftermath of that all-but-knock-out swipe on the jaw, to be of some use to Patricia in her need!

'Oh, God!' he groaned. 'God help me!'

But still he could see nothing useful to do—nothing but the forlorn thing that he did. He put Patricia from him and leapt to the door on to part of the barricade, covering with his body the hole that was being cut. Marius saw him.

'What is it now, Templar?' asked the giant grimly.

'Nothing, honey,' croaked the Saint, with a breathless little laugh. 'Just that I'm here, and I'm carefully arranging myself so that if anyone shoots at me it will be fatal. And I know you don't want me to die yet. So it'll keep you busy a bit longer— won't it?—making that hole big enough for it to be safe to shoot through. . . .'

'You are merely being foolishly troublesome,' said Marius unemotionally, and added an order.

The man with the axe continued his work.

But it would take longer—that was all the Saint cared about. There was hope as long as there was life. The miracle might happen . . . might happen. . . .

He found Patricia beside him.

'Simon—what's the use?'

'We'll see, darling. We're still kicking, anyway—that's the main thing.'

She tried to move him by force, but he held her hands away. And then she tore herself out of his grasp; and with dazed and uncomprehending eyes he watched her at the window— watched her raise the sash and look out into the night.