The Saint's Getaway

'Do I understand that you have been with us all the time?'

Simon nodded.

'Sweetheart, I hope you do.' He smiled again, with capti­vating sweetness. 'Well, well, well—we none of us grow younger, do we? But how the old Borstal boys will chortle over this! Turn round, Rudolf, and let me have your gun—there's a nasty look in your eye which makes me think you might do something foolish at any moment.'

He whizzed the prince's automatic neatly from his pocket and went on to disarm the chauffeur in the same way. With their artillery transferred to his own person, he leaned on the side panel of the limousine and regarded the two men affec­tionately.

'This has been what I call a really jolly little evening,' he drawled. 'I suppose we've all lost a certain amount of sleep, but you can't have it both ways.' He tapped the strong-box which he carried under his left arm. 'Would you like me to send you a priced catalogue of the boodle when I've had time to look it over? You might like to buy one of the items as a souvenir.'

For a while the prince stared at him in silence. And then he also smiled.

'You win, my dear Mr. Templar. Accept my congratula­tions.' After a moment's hesitation, he drew a crocodile-skin case from his breast pocket. 'If I were not afraid you would laugh at me,' he said apologetically, 'I should ask you to ac­cept a cigar as well.'

'Don't tempt me, Rudolf,' said the Saint amiably. 'You know my sense of humour.'

The prince laughed.

'All the same,' he said, 'I wish you could believe that there are depths of childishness to which even I have not yet de­scended.' He extended the case diffidently. 'In the circum­stances, this is the only sporting gesture I can make.'

Simon glanced down disparagingly.

And at that instant, before he could make a movement to protect himself, a jet of liquid ammonia struck him squarely between the eyes, and everything was blotted out in an agon­izing intensity of blindness. It seared his eyeballs like the ca­ress of red-hot irons, and his gasp of pain sucked the acrid fumes chokingly down into his lungs. He staggered sideways and fired twice as he did so; and then the gun was torn out of his hand and he was flung to the ground under a crushing weight

A vise-like constriction of thick, powerful fingers fastened on his windpipe. He struck out savagely and tore at the throttling hands; but he was half paralyzed with pain, and his chest seemed to be filled with nothing but the stinging vapour of ammonia. The blood roared in his ears, and he felt everything receding from him. . . .

And then he heard the prince's infinitely distant voice.

'That will be sufficient, Ludwig.'

Almost imperceptibly, it seemed, the pressure was loosened from his throat, and the air flowed back into his lungs. The weight lifted from his chest, and he rolled away with his hands covering his eyes.

Presently, out of the spangled darkness, he heard the prince speaking again.

'An unfortunate necessity, my dear young friend. I have never felt comfortable in such a position as the one in which you placed me. But your distress, I assure you, is only temporary.'

Simon lay still, with his lungs heaving. He heard the strik­ing of a match and thought he could distinguish the light of it from the pungent flashes of colour that kaleidoscoped across his optic nerves.

'I think you had better enter the car,' said the prince ur­banely—and Simon could visualize him vividly, with his ciga­rette glowing in the long jade holder and his dark eyes satiri­cally veiled. 'I fear that your present attitude might provoke undue curiosity.'

It was the chauffeur who dragged Simon to his feet and hus­tled him into the limousine.

The Saint went without resistance. He knew the futility of squandering any more of his strength at that moment, while he was still half blinded and unarmed. He allowed himself to be bundled roughly into a comer, and felt the prince's weight sinking onto the cushions beside him, and the muzzle of the prince's gun