Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

revelation could possibly be was more than Simon Templar could divine. That there could be any revelation at all, other than the obvious one of revenge, Simon would not have believed of anyone but Marius. The game was smashed—smithereened—blown to ten different kinds of Tophet. There couldn't be any way of evading the fact— unless Marius, with Lessing in his power, had conceived some crazy idea of achieving by torture what cunning had failed to achieve. But Marius couldn't be such a fool. . . .

The rope expert finished his task, tested the knots, and passed on to Roger Conway; and the Saint shifted over to the nearest wall and lounged there elegantly. Marius had seated himself at the desk, and nothing about him encouraged the theory that he was merely plotting an empty ven­geance. After a brief search through a newspaper which he took from the wastebasket beside him, he had spread out a large-scale map on the desk in front of him and taken some careful measure­ments; and now, referring at intervals to an open time-table, he was making some rapid calculations on the blotter at his elbow. The Saint watched him thoughtfully; and then Marius looked up, and the sudden sneering glitter in his eyes showed that he had misconstrued the long silence and the furrows of concentration that had corrugated the Saint's forehead.

'So you are beginning to realize your foolish­ness, Templar?' said the giant sardonically. 'Per­haps you are beginning to understand that there are times when your most amusing bluff is wasted? Perhaps you are even beginning to feel a little— shall we say—uneasy?'

The Saint beamed.

'To tell you the truth,' he murmured, 'I was composing one of my celebrated songs. This was in the form of an ode on the snags of life which Angel Face could overcome with ease and grace. The limpness of asparagus meant nothing to our Marius: not once did he, with hand austere, drip melted butter in his ear. And with what maestria did Rayt inhale spaghetti from the plate! Pursuing the elusive pea ——'

For a moment the giant's eyes blazed, and he half rose from his chair; and then, with a short laugh, he relaxed again and picked up the pencil that had slipped from his fingers.

'I will deal with you in a moment,' he said. 'And then we shall see how long your sense of humor will last.'

'Just as you like, old dear,' murmured the Saint affably. 'But you must admit that Ella Wheeler Wilcox has nothing on me.'

He leaned back once more against the wall and watched Broken Nose getting busy with the girl. Roger and Lessing had already been attended to. They stood side by side—Lessing with glazed eyes and an unsteady mouth, and Roger Conway pale and expressionless. Just once Roger looked at the girl, and then turned his stony gaze upon the Saint, and the bitter accusation in that glance cut Simon like a knife. But Sonia Delmar had said nothing at all since she entered the room, and even now she showed no fear. She winced, once, momentarily, when the rope expert hurt her; and once, when Roger was not looking at her, she looked at Roger for a long time; she gave no other sign of emotion. She was as calm and queenly in defeat as she had been in hope; and once again the Saint felt a strange stirring of wonder and admiration. . . .

But—that could wait. ... Or perhaps there would be nothing to wait for. ... The Saint be­came quietly aware that the others were waiting for him—that there was more than one reason for their silence. Even as two of them had followed him blindly into the picnic, so they were now look­ing to him to take them home. . . . The fingers of the Saint's right hand curled tentatively up towards his left sleeve. He could just reach the hilt of his little knife; but he released it again at once. The only chance there was lay in those six inches of slim steel, and if that were lost he might as well ask permission to sit down and make his will: he had to be sure of his time.. . .

At length the rope expert had finished, and at the same moment Marius came to the end of his calculations and leaned back in his chair. He looked across the room.

'Hermann!'

'Ja, mein Herr?'

'Give your gun to Lingrove and come here.'

Without moving off the bookcase the Bowery Boy reached out a long arm and appropriated the automatic lethargically; and Hermann marched over to the desk and clicked his heels.

And Marius spoke.

He spoke in German; and, apart from Hermann and the somnolent Bavarian, Simon Templar was probably the only one in the room who could fol­low the scheme that Marius was setting forth in cold staccato detail. And that scheme was one of such a stupendous enormity, such a monstrous in­humanity, that even the Saint felt an icy thrill of horror as he listened.

4

HE STARED, FASCINATED, at the face of Hermann, taking in the shape of the long narrow jaw, the hollow cheeks, the peculiar slant of the small ears, the brightness of the sunken eyes. The man was a fanatic, of course— the Saint hadn't realized that before. But Marius knew it. The giant's first curt sentences had touched the chords of that fanati­cism with an easy mastery; and now Hermann was watching the speaker raptly, with one high spot of colour burning over each cheek-bone, and the fanned flames of his madness flickering in his gaze. And the Saint could only stand there, spell­bound, while Marius's gentle, unimpassioned voice repeated his simple instructions so that there could be no mistake. . . .

It could only have taken five minutes altogether; yet in those five minutes had been outlined the bare and sufficient essentials of an abomination that would set a torch to the powder magazine of Europe and kindle such a blaze as could only be quenched in smoking seas of blood. . . . And then Marius had finished, and had risen to unlock a safe that stood in one corner of the room; and the Saint woke up.

Yet there was nothing that he could do—not then. . . . Casually his eyes wandered round the room, weighing up the grouping and the odds; and he knew that he was jammed—jammed all to hell. He might have worked his knife out of its sheath and cut himself loose, and that knife would then have kissed somebody good night with unerring accuracy; but it wouldn't have helped. There were two guns against him, besides the three other hoodlums who were unarmed; and Belle could only be thrown once. If he had been alone, he might have tried it—might have tried to edge round until he could stick Marius in the back and take a lightning second shot at the Bowery Boy from behind the shelter of that huge body—but he was not alone. . . . And for a moment, with a deathly soberness, the Saint actually considered that idea in despite of the fact that he was not alone. He could have killed Marius, anyway—and that fiendish plot might have died with Marius— even if Lessing and Roger and Sonia Delmar and the Saint himself also died. . . .

And then Simon realized, grimly, that the plot would not have died. To Hermann alone, even without Marius, the plot would always have been a live thing. And again the Saint's fingers fell away from his little knife.. . .

Marius was returning from the safe. He carried two flat metal boxes, each about eight inches long, and Hermann took them from him eagerly.

'You had better leave at once.' Marius spoke again in English, after a glance at the clock. 'You will have plenty of time—if you do not have an accident.'

'There will be no accident, mein Herr.'

'And you will return here immediately.'

'Jawohl!'

Hermann turned away, slipping the boxes into the side pockets of his coat. And, as he turned, a new light was added to the glimmering madness in his eyes; for his turn brought him face to face with the Saint.

'Once, English swine, you hit me.'

'Yeah.' Simon regarded the man steadily. 'I'm only sorry, now, that it wasn't more than once.'

'I have not forgotten, pig,' said Hermann purringly; and then, suddenly, with a bestial snarl, he was lashing a rain of vicious blows at the Saint's face. 'You also will remember,' he screamed, 'that I hit you—pig—like that—and that—and that. . . .'

It was Marius who caught and held the man's arms at last.

'Das ist genug, Hermann. I will attend to him myself. And he will not hit you again.'

'Das ist gut.' Panting, Hermann drew back. He turned slowly, and his eyes rested on the girl with a gloating leer. And then he marched to the door. 'I shall return, werter Herr,' he said thick­ly; and then he was gone.

Marius strolled back to the desk and picked up his cigar. He gazed impassively at the Saint.

'And now, Templar,' he said, 'we can dispose of you.' He glanced at Roger and Lessing. 'And your friends,'' he