'Give us a kiss to be getting on with, like a good girl.'
'Sit — down — Maggs!'
Bittle was on his feet, and there was death in his hand. Grumbling, Mr. Maggs lurched into a. chair and sat staring at Patricia in his ugly way.
Bloem went round to the chair opposite Maggs, but Bittle remained standing at one end of the table. The Saint sat at the other end.
Bittle paused for a moment, and the men grouped round the walls fidgeted into stillness. A macabre atmosphere of fiendish cold-bloodedness began to fill the room. It came from the hate-smouldering eyes of all those silent men, and k clouded malevolently behind the stocky figure of John Bittle. Bittle was posing at the end of the table, waiting for the theatrical effect of the gathering to tense up to a nerve-tearing pitch, and a sensitive man could have felt the silence keying up to the point at which unreasoning terror crowds in like a foul vapour. Seconds throbbed away in that pulsating suspense....
The Saint cleared his throat.
'Rising to address this general meeting at the close of such a successful year,' he prompted, 'I feel — Go on, Bittle. Declare the dividend, and make sure all your braces buttons are safe before you bow to the applause.'
His gently mocking tones broke down Some of the tension. He looked across at the girl, and she smiled back.
'I'm not taking any notice,' she said in a clear voice. 'He's only indulging his love for melodrama.'
'Melodrama,' replied Bittle, 'is a thing for which I have an instinctive loathing. Yet, in a situation such as this, it is very hard to avoid overstepping the bounds of banality. However, I will try to be as precise and to the point as possible.' He fixed his malignant gaze on the Saint. 'This man, Templar, whom you see, has elected to interfere in matters which do not concern him. By a succession of miracles, he has so far managed to avoid the various arrangements which we have made for disposing of him; but now, on the open sea, I hardly think he can escape. He has put us to great inconvenience, and I don't think anyone here has any cause to bear him any good will. While he lives, no one here is safe. I believe I am merely the spokesman of everyone present when I say that he must die.'
He looked from face to face, and there was a mutter of assent. He looked at the Saint again.
'I indorse that verdict,' he said.
'Blatherskite and brickdust!' said the Saint disparagingly.
Bittle continued:
'Then there is this man — Orace. He is also a man against whom some of you will bear a personal grudge. In any case, he is in Templar's confidence, and therefore I say that he too must die,'
'Pure banana oil,' jeered the Saint.
'Finally,' said Bittle, 'there is the girl. I propose to marry her myself, and Maggs will conduct the service as soon as the sentence has been carried out upon Templar and Orace.' He picked up a revolver from the table and waved it meaningly. 'If there is anyone here — Maggs included — who objects to that, he can speak now.'
Nobody moved.
'Scat!' remarked the Saint.
'Is that all the protest even our redoubtable Mr. Templar can make?' Bittle sneered. 'I'm disappointed — you've talked so much about what you were going to do to all of us that I was expecting something interesting.'
Simon yawned.
'Before I die,' he said, 'may I tell you my celebrated joke about a man called Carn? I wonder if you've heard it before? There was once a physician called Carn, but nobody cared worth a dam — if a man said 'By heck! That bloke might be a 'tec!' the others would simply say 'Garn!' And yet it happens to be true. Isn't it odd?'
'Patricia' — Bittle rolled the name out with rel-ish — 'has already told me that story. If it is any comfort to you, I can assure you that it will only make me more careful of her health. The same ultimatum which brought you into my power will, I think, discourage Carn. It will certainly be an awkward dilemma for him, but I imagine that his humanity will triumph over his sense of duty.'
'If that is so,' said Simon slowly, 'I think he will be sure to give the order to fire — and blow this ship and everyone on board to smithereens.'
Bittle shrugged, and signed to one of the men whom Orace had floored.
'We will start with the servant,' he said.
'Yah!' gibed Orace. 'Yer a lotter thunderin' 'eroes, you are! Undo me 'ands, an' cummaht on the deck, any sixeryer, an' I'll showyer wotter rough-'ouse feels like!'
Beads of perspiration broke out on the man's face as he slowly raised the revolver.
'Sorlright, sir,' Orace ground out. 'Don't think I care a damn fer wot ennyer these bleedin' barstids do.... Shoot, yer maggot! Wotcha skeered of? 'Fraid I'll bite yer?... Git on wiv it, an' be blarsted to yer!'
'Wait!'
The Saint's mildest voice scarcely masked the whiplash crack of his command, and the man lowered his gun. Bittle turned to him.
'Have you, after all, something to say before the sentence is carried out?' he inquired ironically. 'Perhaps you would like to go down on your knees and beg me to spare you? Your prayers will not move me, but the spectacle of Mr. Templar grovelling at my feet would entertain me vastly…”
'Not this journey,' said the Saint.
Already he had worked the cigarette case from his pocket and cut through the cords which had bound his hands, though it had been a long and difficult feat. Now he had slid forward in the chair and tucked his legs well back, and he was patiently sawing away at the ropes which pinioned his ankles.
'You see,' said the Saint, in the same leisured tone, 'we are all, as you recently observed, liable to make our mistakes, and you have made three very big ones. You must understand, my seraph, that your own loathing for melodrama is only equalled by my love for it, and I think I can say that I staged this little conversazione simply for my own diversion. It seemed to me that this adventure ought to finish off in a worthily dramatic manner, and if all goes well you'll have to bear the agony of watching enough melodrama concentrated into the next few minutes to fill a book. Things, from approximately now onward, will go with a kick strong enough to set the Lyceum gasping. How does that appeal to you, beloved?'
'I'll tell you when I hear,' said Bittle brusquely, but the Saint declined to be hurried.
'This speechifying,' he remarked, 'will now come from the principal shareholder, so please don't fluster me. Sit down and listen — you've had your turn.... Well, here we all are, just like a happy family, and exactly where I wanted you all. I grant you I took a big risk, but I had to do it to get the scene nicely set and the audience all worked up and palpitating in their pews. Also, it happened to be necessary to pass a little time before the moment was ripe for trotting out the big thrill. Now, if you're ready, I'll send up the first balloon.' The Saint paused, and smiled from Bloem to Bittle. 'Where is Harry the Duke?'
If he had detonated a charge of thermite under their feet he could not have produced a greater sensation. The men looked from one to another, suspicion and rage and fear chasing over their faces deliriously. For a space there was an electric silence, while the Saint leaned back in his chair, smiling beatifically, and felt the last strand of rope break away from his ankles.
Then the storm broke loose. Bittle reached forward and pawed at Bloem's shoulder frenziedly.
'What's happened to Harry? he snarled.
Bloem jumped to his feet and struck down Bittle's hand.
'Leave me alone!' Bloem's nerves were raw and jagged. 'It isn't my fault — you never asked me» and you've been too busy talking yourself for me to tell you.' He glared round at the Saint. 'That meddling puppy got me — I was just taking Harry some food — the door was open, and he got me. I know he'd found Harry!'
Bittle sprang at the Boer like a wild beast, his face contorted with demoniac fury, and Bloem reeled back from a vicious blow. In an instant Bit-tie had grabbed a couple of revolvers, and was holding them threateningly in his quivering hands, and Bloem cowered sullenly back from the flaming passion that blazed in Bittle's eyes. Bittle, in that towering paroxysm, would have murdered the other where he stood, given the slightest provocation, and the Boer knew it.
'Search the ship!' Bittle shrilled. 'Tou-Vfl of you! Get out and search the ship!'
