The Saint's Getaway

Monty rationally.

'I know! That's the mistake we've all been making. And yet you can't say you ever heard me speak of Rudolf as a crook. He never had to be. It wasn't so long ago when Rudolf could have bought us both up every day for a week and never missed it. It wasn't so long ago when Rudolf and Rayt Marius were playing for bigger chips than a few coloured stones. It was war in those days, Monty—death rays and Secret Service men, spies and Bolsheviks and assassinations—all the fun of the fair. Naturally there was money in it, but that was all coming to Rayt Marius. Marius was a crook, even if he was dealing in millions. But Rudolf was something that seems much stran­ger in these days. Something a damned sight more dangerous.'

'And what's that?'

'A patriot,' said the Saint.

Patricia kicked at her stone again, and It tumbled out of reach. She hardly noticed it.

'Then when we found we were up against Rudolf again——'

'We ought to have been wide awake. And we weren't. We've been fast asleep I We've watched Rudolf moving heaven and earth to get his hands on those jewels—killing and torturing for them—even coming down to offering me a partnership while his men had orders to shoot us on sight—and we took it all as part of the game. We've been on the spot ever since Stan­islaus went home with us. Up in that brake van—I've never seen anything so flat-and-be-damned in my life! Marcovitch was primed to put me out of the way from the beginning. It was written all over his face. And after that he'd 've shot up anyone else who butted in for a witness, and taken you and Monty for a dessert—made a clean sweep of it, and shovelled the whole mortuary out onto the line.' The Saint's voice was tense and vital with his excitement. 'I thought of it once my­self, right in the first act; but since then there doesn't seem to have been much spare time. When Rudolf walked into our rooms at the Konigshof, I was wondering what new devilment we'd stumbled across. I was telling myself that there was one thing we weren't going to find in this adventure—and that was ordinary boodle in any shape or form. And then, just be­cause a quarter of a million pounds' worth of crystallized min­erals fell out of that sardine tin, I went soft through the skull. I forgot everything I ever knew.'

'Do you know any more now?' asked Monty skeptically. Simon looked at him straightly.

'I know one thing more, which I was going to tell you,' he answered. 'Josef Krauss gave me the hint before he died. He said: 'Take great care of the blue diamond. It is really priceless.' And just for the last few minutes, Monty, I've been think­ing that when we know what he meant by that we shall know why Rudolf has made up his mind that you and I are too dangerous to live.'

IX.    HOW  SIMON HAD AN INSPIRATION,  AND

TRESPASSED  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN

MONTY HAYWARD dug out his tobacco pouch and investi­gated, the contents composedly. His deliberately practical in­telligence refused to be stampeded into any Saintly flights of fancy.

'If it's any use to you,' he said, 'I should suggest that Josef was trying to be helpful. Perhaps he didn't know you were a connoisseur of blue diamonds.'

'Perhaps,' said the Saint.

He came to his feet with the lithe swiftness of an animal, settling his belt with one hand and sweeping back the other over his smooth hair. The cold winds of incredulity and com­mon sense flowed past his head like summer zephyrs. He had his inspiration. The flame of unquenchable optimism in his eyes was electric, an irresistible resurgence of the old Saintly exaltation that would always find a new power and hope in the darkest thunders of defeat. He laughed. The stillness had fallen from him like a cloak—fallen away as if it had never existed. He didn't care.

'Let's be moving,' he said; and Monty Hayward stowed his pipe away again with a sigh.

'Where do you think we could move to?' he asked.

And once again it seemed to Patricia Holm that the breath of Saintly laughter in the air was like the sound of distant trumpets rallying a forlorn venture on the last frontiers of outlawry.

'We can move out of here. It won't be fifteen minutes after that train gets into Treuchtlingen before there'll be a cordon of gendarmerie packing around this neighbourhood closer than fat women round a remnant counter. And I've got a date with Marcovitch that they mightn't want me to keep.'