Follow the Saint

for a moment, and then turned thought­fully back to the room.

'Talking of this taking away,' he said, 'I did notice something screwy about it. I didn't waste much time getting upstairs after I heard the commotion. And starting from the same commotion, our kidnapping guy or guys had to dash into the bedroom, grab Mr Chase, shove him out of the window, and lower him to the ground. All of which must have taken a certain amount of time.' He looked at the doctor. 'Well, I wasted a certain amount of time myself in the cor­ridor, finding out whether you were hurt, and so forth. So those times begin to cancel out. Then, when I got in the bed­room, I saw at once that the bed was empty. I looked in the cupboard and the bathroom, just making sure the old boy was really gone; but that can't have taken more than a few seconds. Then I went straight to the window. And then, almost immediately, I climbed out of it and climbed down to the ground to see if I could see anything, because I knew Marvin Chase could only have gone out that way. Now, you remember what I told you ? I didn't hear a sound. Not so much as the dropping of a pin.'

'What do you mean ?' asked the girl.

'I mean this,' said the Saint. 'Figure out our time­tables for yourselves—the kidnappers' and mine. They can't have been more than a few seconds ahead of me. And from below the window they had to get your father to a car, shove him in, and take him away—if they took him away. But I told you! I walked all round the house, slowly, listening, and I didn't hear anything. When did they start making these com­pletely noiseless cars ?'

Quintus half rose from his chair.

'You mean—they might still be in the grounds ? Then we're sure to catch them! As soon as the police get here—you've sent for them, of course——'

Simon shook his head.

'Not yet. And that's something else that makes me think I'm right. I haven't called the police yet because I can't. I can't call them because the telephone wires have been cut. And they were cut after all this had happened—after I'd walked round the house, and come back in, and told Rose­mary what had happened!'

The girl's lips were parted, her wide eyes fastened on him with a mixture of fear and eagerness. She began to say: 'But they might——'

The crash stopped her.

Her eyes switched to the left, and Simon saw blank horror leap into her face as he whirled towards the sound. It had come from one of the windows, and it sounded like smashing glass ... It was the glass. He saw the stir of the curtains, and the gloved hand that came between them under a shining gun-barrel, and flung himself fiercely backwards.

X

 

HE CATAPULTED himself at the main electric light switches beside the door—without conscious decision, but knowing that his instinct must be right. More slowly, while he was moving, his mind reasoned it out: the unknown man who had broken the window had already beaten him to the draw, and in an open gun battle with the lights on, the un­known had a three-to-one edge in choice of targets.... Then the Saint's shoulder hit the wall, and his hand sliced up over the switches just as the invader's revolver spoke once, deafeningly.

Blam!

Simon heard the spang of the bullet some distance from him, and more glass shattered. Quintus gasped deeply. The Saint's ears sang with the concussion, but through the buzzing he was trying to determine whether the gunman had come in.

He moved sideways, noiselessly, crouching, his Luger out in his hand. Nothing else seemed to move. His brain was working again in a cold fever of precision. Unless the pot-shot artist had hoped to settle everything with the first bullet, he would expect the Saint to rush the window. Therefore the Saint would not rush the window.... The utter silence in the room was battering his brain with warnings.

His fingers touched the knob of the door, closed on it and turned it without a rattle until the latch disengaged. Gather­ing his muscles, he whipped it suddenly open, leapt through it out into the hall, and slammed it behind him. In the one red-hot instant when he was clearly outlined against the lights of the hall, a second shot blasted out of the dark behind him and splintered the woodwork close to his shoulder;