The Saint's Getaway

Rolls, upholstered in crimson leather, with the Crown Prince's coat of arms displayed prominently on the coach work. A liveried chauffeur held the door open—Simon recognized him as the man who had done his best to strangle him in the dark hours of that morning, and favoured him with a ray of that slight, sweet smile.

'Let me drive,' said the Saint.

He twitched the door from the man's hand and slammed it shut. In one more smooth movement he whipped open another door and dropped into the driving seat.

As he flicked the lever into gear, the man's hand clutched his shoulder. For an instant Simon let go the steering wheel. With the faintest widening of that Saintly smile, the Saint's steely fingers bracketed themselves lovingly round the man's prominent nose and flung him squealing back into the prince's arms. A second later the car was skimming down the street under the flanks of the most startled tram in Munich.

2

The journey which Monty Hayward made from the hotel to the station was one which he ranked ever afterwards as an entirely typical incident in the system of unpleasantness which had enmeshed him in its toils.

It would have made his scalp crawl uneasily even if nothing had happened to disturb his breakfast; but now the certain knowledge that his description had been circulated far and wide, and that it was graphic enough for him to have been identified from it three times already, made any excursion into the great outdoors seem tantamount to a lingering mortifica­tion of the flesh. He was certain to be hanged anyway, he felt, and it seemed painfully unnecessary to have to keep pushing his head into a series of experimental nooses just to get the feel of the operation.

Patricia laughed at him quietly. She produced one of the Saint's razors.

'You'll look quite different without your moustache,' she said, 'and horn-rimmed glasses are a wonderful disguise.'

Monty scraped off his manhood resignedly. He went out into the brightness of the afternoon with many of the sensations of a man who dreams that he is rushing through a crowded street with no trousers on. Every eye seemed to ferret out his guilt and glare ominously after him; every voice that rang out a semitone above normal pitch seemed like a yell of denunci­ation. His shirt clung to him damply.

If there were no detectives posted anywhere along the short route they had to take, there were two at the platform barrier. They stood beside the ticket inspector and made no attempt to conceal themselves. Monty surrendered the suitcases he car­ried into the keeping of a persistent porter and looked hope­lessly at the girl. With their hands free, they might stand a chance if they cut and run. . . . But the girl was stone blind to his mute entreaty. She dumped her bag on the porter's bar­row and strode on. A touch of black on her eyebrows, and an adroit use of lipstick, had created a complete new character. She walked right up to the ticket inspector and the two detec­tives, and stood in front of them with one arm akimbo and her legs astraddle, brazening them through tortoise-shell spectacles larger even than Monty's.

'Say, you, does this train go to Heidelberg?'

'In Mainz umsteigen.'

'Whaddas that mean, Hiram?'

Her accent would have carved petrified marrow-bones. It was actually one of the detectives who volunteered to inter­pret.

'In Mainz—exchange trains.'

'Bitte, die Fahrkarten,' said the inspector stolidly.

Monty swallowed, and delved in his pocket for the reserva­tions.

They were passed through without a question. Monty could hardly believe that it had been so simple. He stood by and watched the amused porter stowing their bags away in the compartment, tipped him extravagantly, and subsided weakly into a corner. He mopped his perspiring forehead and looked at Patricia with the vague embryo of a grin.

'Do you mean to tell me this is a sample of your everyday life?' he asked.

'Oh, no,' said the girl carelessly. 'Somtimes it's