Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

return. He shifted off the table. 'Come along, lass.'

She opened her eyes, smiling.

'I feel ever so much better now,' she said.

'Nothing to what you'll feel like when you've inhaled this Chateau Lipton,' said the Saint cheerfully. 'One or two lumps? Or three?'

'Only two.'

She spoke with the slightest of American ac­cents, soft and utterly fascinating.

Simon handed her the cup.

'Thank you,' she said; and then, suddenly: 'Oh, tell me how you found me. ...'

'Well, that's part of a long story,' said the Saint. 'The short part of it is that we were interested in Heinrich Dussel—the owner of the house where I found you—and Roger here was watching him. About midnight Roger saw an old man arrive in a car—drugged—'

'How did you know I was drugged?'

'They brought a wheel chair out of the house for you,' Roger explained. 'They seemed to be in rather a hurry, and as they lifted you out of the car they caught your head a frightful crack on the door. Now, even a paralyzed old man doesn't take a bang on the head like that without making some movement or saying something; but you took it like a corpse, and no one even apologized.'

The Saint laughed.

'It was a really bright scheme,' he said. 'A perfect disguise, perfectly thought out—right down to those gloves they put on you in case anyone noticed your hands. And they'd have brought it off if it hadn't been for that one slip— and Roger's eagle eye. But after that, the only thing for us to do was to interview Heinrich. ...'

He grinned reminiscently, and retailed the entire episode for Roger Conway's benefit. The latter half of it the girl already knew, but they laughed again together over the thought of the curtain to the scene—the Law ploughing heroically in to rescue other gray-beards from the flames, and finding Mr. Dussel. . . .

'The only thing I haven't figured out,' said the Saint, 'is how it was a man I heard cry out, when the window was smashed in the frolic before I came in.'

'I bit him in the hand,' said the girl simply.

Simon held up his hands in admiring horror.

'I get you. . . . You came to, and tried to make a fight of it—and you—you—bit a man in the hand?'

She nodded.

'Do you know who I am?'

'I do,' said the Saint helplessly. 'That's what makes it so perfect.'

2

SIMON TEMPLAR picked up the Bystander.

'I recognized you from your picture in here,' he said, and handed the paper to Roger. 'See if you can find it, sonny boy.'

The girl passed him her cup, and he took and replenished it.

'I was at a ball at the Embassy,' she said. 'We're staying there. ... It was very dull. About half-past eleven I slipped away to my room to rest—it was so hot in the ballroom. I'm very fond of chocolates'—she smiled whimsically—'and there was a lovely new box on my dressing table. I didn't stop to think how they came there—I supposed the Ambassador's wife must have put them in my room, because she knows my weakness—and I just naturally took one. I remember it had a funny bitter taste, and I didn't like it; and then I don't remember anything until I woke up in that house. ...'

She shuddered; then she laughed a little.

'And then you came in,' she said.

The Saint smiled, and glanced across at Roger Conway, who had put down the Bystander and was staring at the girl. And she laughed again, merrily, at Roger's consternation.

'I may be a millionaire's daughter,' she said, 'but I enjoyed your tea like anyone else.'

Simon offered his cigarette case.

'Those are the ones that don't explode,' he said, pointing, and helped himself after her. Then he said: 'Have you started wondering who was responsible?'

'I haven't had much time.'

'But now—can you think of anyone? Anyone who could do a thing like that in an Embassy, and smuggle you out in those clothes?'

She shook her head.

'It seems so fantastic.'

'And yet I could name the man who could have done it—and did it.'

'But who?'

'You probably danced with him during the evening.'

'I danced with so many.'

'But he would be one of the first to be presented.'

'I can't think—'

'But you can!' said the Saint. 'A man of medium height—slim—small moustache—very elegant.' He watched the awakening com­prehension in her eyes, and forestalled it. 'The Crown Prince Rudolf of—'

'But that's impossible!'

'It is—but it's true. I can give you proof. . . . And it's just his mark. It's worthy of him. It's one of the biggest things that have ever been done!'

The Saint was striding up and down the room in his excitement, with a light kindling in his face and a fire in his eyes that Roger Conway knew of old. Simon Templar's thoughts, inspired, had leaped on leagues beyond his spoken words, as they often did when those queer flashes of genius broke upon him. Roger knew that the Saint would come back to earth in a few moments and condescend to make his argument plain to less vivid minds; Roger was used to these moods, and had learned to wait patiently upon them, but bewildered puzzlement showed on the girl's face.

'I knew it!' Simon stopped pacing the room suddenly, and met the girl's smiling perplexity with a laugh. 'Why, it's as plain as the nose on your—on—on Roger's face! Listen. . . .'

He swung onto the table, discarded a half-smoked cigarette, and lighted a fresh one.

'You heard me tell Dussel that I was—the Saint?'

'Yes.'

'Hadn't you heard that name before?'

'Of course, I'd seen it in the newspapers. You were the leader of a gang.'

'And yet,' said the Saint, 'you haven't looked really frightened since you've been here.'

'You weren't criminals.'

'But we committed crimes.'

'Just ones—against men who deserved it.'

'We have killed men.'

She was silent.

'Three months ago,' said the Saint, 'we killed a man. It was our last crime, and the best of all. His name was Professor K. B. Vargan. He had invented a weapon of war which we decided that the world would be better without. He was given every chance—we risked everything to offer him his life if he would forget his diabolical invention. But he was mad. He wouldn't listen. And he had to die. Did you read that story?'

'I remember it very well.'

'Other men—agents of another country—were also after Vargan, for their own ends,' said the Saint. 'That part of the story never came out in the papers. It was hushed up. Since they failed, it was better to hush up the story than to create an international situation. There was a plot to make war in Europe, for the benefit of a group of financiers. At the head of this group was a man who's called the Mystery Millionaire and the Millionaire Without a Country—one of the richest men in the world—Dr. Rayt Marius. Do you know that name?'  She nodded.

'Everyone knows it.'

'The name of the greatest private war-maker in modern history,' said Simon grimly. 'But this plot was his