The Saint's Getaway

Simon slewed round in his seat and watched the police car vanishing in a cloud of dust.

And then, very gravely, he leaned forward and engaged the gears. ...

They had travelled less than a quarter of a mile up the road before Monty Hayward could contain himself no longer. He sat forward on his perch, that imperturbable and law-abiding gentleman, and flung the bruised fragments of his conscience over the horizon with a stentorian bellow of jubilation that drowned even the ear-splitting racket of the six-wheeler's en­trails.

'Kolossal!' he bawled ecstatically. 'Tremendous affair! They legged it over the fields, they did, and we nearly ran over one of them. Tally-ho! And if they're caught we may qualify for a reward. Yoi!' Monty let out another whoop of rhapsody that should have made the welkin turn pale. 'Well, dear old sports­man and skipper—where shall we go and file our claim?'

'Treuchtlingen is the next stop, dear old mate and bloke,' said the Saint, raising his voice more modestly above the up­roar of the engine. 'They must have kept Marcovitch there to get his statement, but the train wouldn't wait for him. He'll have to wait for another—and we might be in time to buy him a bouquet!'

2

The lorry crashed on to the northwest at a sonorous twenty-five miles an hour; and Simon Templar settled himself as com­fortably as he could on the hard seat and pondered the prob­lem of the two girls behind.

He knew exactly what he had taken on, even if he refused to allow the knowledge to depress him. Hairbreadth odysseys had been made through hostile country before—by desperate men whose superlatively virile strength and speed and cunning kept them moving in a tireless rush that never let up until sanctuary was reached. He could remember no similar in­stance in which a woman had taken part. It had been tried often enough, and always it had been the woman who had proved the fugitive's undoing. Always it had been the woman's inferior wieldiness that had damped the spark of ruthless prim­itive momentum without which no such enterprise could ever succeed. It was she who negatived all the man's resources of strength and speed and left him with cunning as his only asset; and every time his wits had failed to carry the load.

Simon Templar reckoned himself something unique in the way of outlaws, and his restless imagination was bearing around the handicap as optimistically as if it had been thrust upon him in a friendly game of hide-and-seek. One thing at least was certain, and that was that Patricia Holm couldn't ride into Treuchtlingen on the lorry. Quite apart from the risk that they might be stopped again and subjected to a search, the rare spectacle of a Bond Street three-piece crawling out from under the tarpaulin of a six-wheeler in the middle of the main street could scarcely escape attention. Marcovitch would doubtless have given a photographic description of her in which the musical-comedy American disguise that had sailed her through the barriers at Munich Hauptbahnhof must have received due credit; therefore it was time for something bright and new to be thought up, and the Saint drove with one eye on the road and the other questing for his opportunity.

From time to time the gentle undulations of the scene gave him a vista of the Altmuhl winding like a silver snake be­tween the meadows; and twelve miles farther on it was that same river which provided him with his solution. It caught his wandering eye through a girdle of trees that ringed round a sheltered fold in the broad valley, and if he had not been in Germany he might have believed for a moment that some sorcery had transported him into a pastoral of Ancient Greece. The glimpse lasted for less than a second, but it looked prom­ising enough. He ran the truck another hundred yards up the road, kicked it out of gear, and jumped lightly down to the tarmac.

'Hold the fort for a minute, Monty,' he said. 'I've just seen a girl.'

Monty Hayward rolled over and grabbed the wheel. The elevation of his eyebrows was a five-furlong speech in itself.

'You've just seen a what?' he blurted, and the Saint chuck­led.

'A girl,' said the Saint. 'But she's much too nice for a mar­ried man like you.'

He flagged Monty a debonair au revoir, and slipped hope­fully off the road down a shallow bank that led round towards the hollow where he had seen his vision. It really was a very charming little scene; and in any other circumstances, not being afflicted with the Teutonic temperament, he could have waxed poetic over it for some time. It says much for his stern devotion to duty that he was back within ten minutes, sad­dened to think that the serpent of Eden would probably have viewed such vandalism as his with loathing, but bringing with him nevertheless a large bundle which he tossed into Monty's arms before he climbed back into the cockpit.

The lorry groaned in its intestines and moved