The Saint's Getaway

SIMON drove the lorry clear through Treuchdingen and out the other side. Pressed hard on its elephantine second gear, it rumbled through the streets with a din that shook the town on its foundations, and several scores of the population turned away from their jobs with representative emotions to see it go. Simon Templar had no objection. That part of the journey was one of those master strokes of strategy which mul­tiplied in his fertile inventiveness like a colony of rabbits with their souls in the business. He had plenty of time to give it rein, and the system of tactics tickled his sense of fun. Two po­licemen had marked his noisy passage; and if the theft of the lorry were prematurely discovered their statements ought to give the pursuit a fresh start in the wrong direction. What­ever happened, Treuchtlingen would still be the last place on earth in which the hue and cry would search for them.

He went eight kilometers beyond Treuchtlingen on the Ansback road, and abandoned the truck within sight of a cross­roads which would annoy the pursuit still more. They dou­bled back across country, for there were other travellers on the road, and the alarm would soon be spreading like a forest fire.

'This police force will just hate me before I'm through,' said the Saint lightly; and then he laughed. 'What'll you do with your share of the boodle, Monty?'

For once it never occurred to Monty Hayward to question whether that share would ever materialize.

'I haven't had time to think about it,' he said. 'I suppose I shall spend most of it on fares—trying to keep out of jail.'

The list of crimes for which he could be tried and almost certainly convicted had faded into the dim outskirts of his consciousness like a tally of old scars. The prospects for his future had gone the same way, Like a distant appointment with the dentist. And yet he knew, from the swift sidelong glance which answered his thoughtless remark, that the Saint had not forgotten. The Saint was thinking of the same thing, even then.

Monty fell into a kind of reverie as he walked. He knew that the Saint was quietly searching for a scheme that would clear up the tangle and allow Monty Hayward at least to go free, and for a while he allowed himself to fancy that even such a forlorn hope as that might be carried through by a man to whom no hope seemed too forlorn for a dice with the gods. Suppose the miracle had been worked, and the hue and cry spumed past him like a turning tide, leaving him to dry his wings far up on the shore? . . . Then there would be silence for a week or so, broken at length by a characteristic message of salutation to announce that a worthy proportion of the boodle, mysteriously converted into sterling, had been credited to him through his bank—and tell Ann to have a large plateful of those cakes hot from the oven for him next time he called. That would be the Saintly method—a conclusive share-out that precluded all possibility of refusal. And an un-regenerate patchwork of a letter in which every vigorous line would bring back the tang of a ridiculous glamour. . . . And what then? The Consolidated Press, the snug office, the regular hours, the respectable week-ends, the everlasting discussion or rough-neck plots with swan-necked authors, the barometric eye on the circulation figures every Monday. Or an even dead­lier retirement, with a sports car and a yacht for toys, Medi­terranean summers, luxury cruises, and the bromidic gossip of other douce, unambitious parasites who had the whole world for their playground and could only see it as a race track or a tennis court. In either alternative, the same end­less quest for a meaning in life that he had come near to grasping on one wild drive through the Bavarian hills. It gave him a queer feeling of emptiness and futility; and he said very little more during that walk back into the town.

Simon Templar also was silent. There had been times when he had deliberately tried to shut out from his mind the respon­sibility for Monty Hayward's predicament, and yet it had never been very far below the surface of his thoughts. He had ig­nored it, joked with it, passed it over; but now, with the tight­ening of the net round them, it was brought home to him as another debt that was still to be paid.

He picked their route with an unerring instinct: to Monty Hayward it seemed almost inconceivable that such a journey could be made in broad daylight without at least one casual observer to see them pass, but the Saint achieved it. There was a spring in his stride and a fighting line to his mouth that told their own tale. For him the story could have only one denoue­ment; but the precious minutes were ticking up against them, and the time he had to play with was hacked sharp and square out of the schedule of destiny. Three hours, perhaps, he might allow for the local gendarmerie to amuse themselves with their squad cars and bloodhounds; but inside that limit the Higher Command would get its circus licked into shape. The Higher Command, with its coat off and the arrears of Lowenbrau oozing out of its stagnant pores, would be fusing telephone wires in all directions with the coordinating groundwork of a cordon that would demand identification papers from a mi­grating tapeworm. The Higher Command, with its ineffable moustachios fairly bristling to avenge the affronts which had been sprayed upon them, would be winnowing through the enclosed area in an almighty clean-up that would fan the pants of every citizen in that peaceful community. The Higher Command, in short, would be taking a personal interest in the gala; and when that time came Simon Templar had no de­sire to be around.

It was six o'clock when Treuchtlingen received