Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

4

THERE HAD BEEN silence before; but now for an instant there was a silence that seemed to Roger's overwrought nerves like the utter dreadful stillness before the unleashing of a hurricane, that left his throat parched and his head singing. He could hear the beating of his own heart, and the creak of the chair as he moved shrieked in his ears. Once before he had known the same feeling—had waited in the same electric hush, his nerves raw and strained with the premonition of peril, quiveringly alert and yet helpless to guess how the blow would fall. . . .

And yet the tension existed only in himself. The silence was for a mere five seconds—just such a silence as might reasonably greet the. proposition he had put forward. And not a flicker of expres­sion passed across the face he watched—that rough-hewn nightmare face like the face of some abominable heathen idol. Only, for one sheer scin­tilla of time, a ferine, fiendish malignance seared into the gaze of those inhuman eyes.

And Lessing was speaking quite naturally.

'That seems a sensible way of settling the mat­ter, Marius.'

Marius turned slowly.

'It is an admirable idea,' he said. 'If that will satisfy you—although it is a grotesque hour at which to disturb my friends.'

'I shall be perfectly satisfied—if the answer is satisfactory,' returning Lessing bluntly. 'If I've been misled I'm ready to apologize. But Mr. Conway persists with the charge, and I'd be glad to have it answered.'

'Then I should be delighted to oblige you.'

In another silence, deeper even than the last, Roger watched Marius cross to the telephone.

He knew—he was certain—that the giant was cornered. Exactly as Marius had swung the scale over in his own favour during the first innings, so Roger had swung it back again, with the inspired challenge that had blazed into his brain at the mo­ment of his need. And Lessing had swung back with the scale. The millionaire was looking at Roger, curiously studying the stern young profile; and the grimness was gone again from the set of his jaw.

'A trunk call to London, please. . . . Hanover eight five six five.. . . Yes.. . . Thank you.'

Marius's voice was perfectly self-possessed.

He put down the instrument and turned again blandly.

'The call will be through in a few minutes,' he said. 'Meanwhile, since I am not yet convicted, perhaps you will accept a cigar, Sir Isaac?'

'He might if you kept well away from that desk,' said Roger relentlessly. 'Let him help him­self; and he can pass you one if you want it.'

Lessing shook his head.

'I won't smoke,' he said briefly

Marius glanced at Roger.

'Then, with your permission, perhaps Mr.—er—Conway ——''

Roger stepped forward, took a cigar from the box on the desk, and tossed it over. Marius caught it, and bowed his thanks.

Roger had to admire the man's self-control. The giant was frankly playing for time, gambling the whole game on the hope of an interruption before the call came through that would inevitably damn him beyond all redemption; his brain, behind that graven mask, must have been a seething ball-race of whirling schemes; yet not by the most infinitesi­mal twitch of a muscle did he betray one scantling of concern. And before that supernatural im­passivity Roger's glacial vigilance keyed up to aching pitch.. . .

Deliberately Marius bit off the tip of the cigar and removed the band; his right hand moved to his pocket in the most natural way in the world, and Roger's voice rang out like the crack of a whip.

'Stop that!'

Marius's eyebrows went up.

'But surely, my dear young friend,' he protested mildly, 'you will permit me to light my cigar!'

'I'll give you a light.'

Roger fished a match out of his pocket, struck it on the sole of his shoe, and crossed the room.

As he held it out, at arm's length, and Marius carefully put his cigar to the flame, their eyes met.. . .

In the stillness, the shout from the hall outside came plainly to their ears.. . .

'Lessing—we'll see this through!' Roger Conway stood taut and still; only his lips moved. 'Come over here.. . .! Marius, get back ——'

And then, even as he spoke, the door behind him burst open, and instinctively he looked round. And the explosion of his own gun came to him through a bitter numbness of despair, for the hand that held it was crushed and twisted in such a grip as he had never dreamed of; and he heard the giant's low chuckle of triumph too late.

He was flung reeling back, disarmed—Marius hurled him away as if he had been a wisp of thistle­down. And as he lurched against the wall he saw, through a daze of agony, the Saint himself stand­ing within the room, cool and debonair; and be­hind the Saint was Sonia Delmar, with her right arm twisted up behind her back; and behind Sonia was Hermann, with an automatic in his hand. 'Good-evening, everybody,' said the Saint.

CHAPTER ELEVEN How Simon Templar entertained the congregation, and Hermann also had his fun

1

'Love, your magic spell is everywhere . . .'

GAY, MOCKING, cavalier, the old original Saintly voice! And there was nothing but a mischievous laughter in the clear blue eyes that gazed so de­lightedly at Marius across the room—nothing but the old hell-for-leather Saintly mirth. Yet the Saint stood there unarmed and at bay; and Roger knew then that the loss of his own gun made little differ­ence, for Hermann was safely sheltered behind the girl and his Browning covered the Saint without a tremor.

And Simon Templar cared for none of these things. . . . Lot's wife after the transformation scene would have looked like an agitated eel on a hot plate beside him. By some trick of his own in­imitable art, he contrived to make the clothes that had been through so many vicissitudes that night look as if he had just taken them off his tailor's de­livery van; his smiling freshness would have made a rosebud in the morning dew appear to wear a positively debauched and scrofulous aspect; and that blithe, buccaneering gaze travelled round the room as if he were reviewing a rally of his dearest friends. For the Saint in a tight corner had ever been the most entrancing and delightful sight in all the world. . . .

'And there's Roger. How's life, sonny boy? Well up on its hind legs—what? . . . Oh, and our one and only Ike! Sonia—your boy friend.'

But Lessing's face was gray and drawn.

'So it was true, Marius!' he said huskily.

'Sure it was,' drawled the Saint. 'D'you mean to say you didn't believe old Roger? Or did Uncle Ugly tell you a naughty story?' And again the Saint beamed radiantly across at the motionless giant. 'Your speech, Angel Face: 'Father, I can­not tell a lie. I am the Big Cheese.' . . . Sobs from pit and gallery. But you seem upset, dear heart— and I was looking to you to be the life and soul of the party. 'Hail, smiling morn,' and all that sort of thing.'

Then Marius came to life.

For a moment his studied impassivity was gone altogether. His face was the contorted face of a beast; and the words he spat out came with the snarl of a beast; and the gloating leer on the lips of the man Hermann froze where it grimaced, and faded blankly. And then the Saint intervened.

'Hermann meant well, Angel Face,' he mur­mured peaceably; and Marius swung slowly round.

'So you have escaped again, Templar,' he said.

'In a manner of speaking,' agreed the Saint modestly. 'Do you mind if I smoke?'

He took out his cigarette case, and the giant's mouth writhed into a ghastly grin.

'I have heard about your cigarettes,' he said. 'Give those to me!'

'Anything to oblige,' sighed the Saint.

He wandered over, with the case in his hand, and Marius snatched it from him. The Saint sighed again, and