The Saint's Getaway

ourselves?' he mur­mured; and the change in his voice was so contrasting that the other two stared at him.

Monty recovered the use of his tongue first.

'That's the most sensible thing I've heard you say for a long time,' he remarked, as if he still doubted whether he should believe his ears. 'You can't be feeling well.'

'But, Simon——'

Patricia broke in with a different incredulity. And the Saint dropped a hand on her shoulder.

His other hand went out in a grim gesture that travelled straight to the hole in the partition.

'Let's keep our heads, Pat.' The smile was filtering back into his voice, but it was so gentle that only the most sensitive ear could have picked it out. 'Monty's the moderating influence— and he may be right. We don't want to make things unneces­sarily difficult. There's a long journey in front of us, and I'm not sure that I should object to a little rest. I'm not so young as I was.'

He subsided heavily into his corner with a profound sigh; and the visible part of his audience tore their eyes from the tell-tale perforation in the wall and looked at him in the tense dawning of comprehension.

'Good-night, my children,' said the Saint sleepily.

But he was reaching to his feet again as he said it, and there was not a trace of sleepiness in one inch of the movement. It was like the measured straightening of a bent spring. And it was just as he came dead upright that a dull thud seemed to bump itself on the partition, clearly audible above the mo­notonous rattling of the wheels.

'And happy dreams,' said the Saint, in the softest of all whispers.

He slid out soundlessly into the corridor. Down towards the end of it he saw the back of a man lurching from side to side in a clumsy attempt to run, and instinctively the Saint's step quickened. Then he glanced sidelong into the next compart­ment as he passed it—he was merely satisfying a professional desire to see the other end of the listening-hole which had tapped through into his private business, but what he saw there made him pull up with his fingers hooking round the edge of the sliding door. Without another thought he shot it back along its grooves and let himself in. He went in quietly and without fear, for the eyes of the man who was crumpled up in the far corner looked at him with the calm greeting of one who has already seen beyond the Curtain. It was Josef Krauss, with one hand clutched to his side and the grey pallor of death in his face.

VIII.    HOW SIMON TEMPLAR CONTINUED TO BE

DISCREET, AND MONTY HAYWARD IMPROVED

THE SHINING HOUR

 

SIMON TEMPLAR pulled the door shut behind him and went over to the dying man. He started to fumble with the buttons of the stained black waistcoat, but Krauss only smiled.

'Lassen Sie es nur,' he said huskily. 'It is not worth the time. The old fox has finished his journey.'

Simon nodded. The first glance had told him that there was nothing he could do. He sat down beside the stricken thief and supported him with an arm round his shoulders; and Krauss looked at him with the same calm and patient eyes.

'I have only seen you once before, Herr Templar. That was when you saved me from the screw.' A shiver passed over the man's bulky frame. 'If I had lived, I should have repaid that kindness by robbing you. You know that?'

'Does it matter?' asked the Saint.

Krauss shook his head. There were beads of perspiration starting through the pink grease paint on his face, and each breath cost him an effort.

'Now the time is too short for these things,' he said.

Simon eased him up a few inches, settling him more com­fortably into the corner. He knew that the end could be no more than a few minutes away, and he had time to spare. The man who had fired the shot, whose back he had seen scuttling down the corridor, could wait those few minutes for his turn. However the killer