The Saint launched it. Snowdrop, the Rose of Peckham, was never very clear in his mind about what happened. He was not by nature addicted to physical violence of the cruder sort; and no experience of that kind had ever come his way before to give him a standard of comparison. He saw a bony fist a few inches from his face, travelling towards him with appalling speed; and his mouth opened. The fist shut it again for him, impacting on the point of his chin with a crack that seemed to jar his brain against the roof of his skull. And beyond that there was nothing but a great darkness filled with the hum of many dynamos. . . .
Simon caught him by the coat lapels and eased him silently to the floor, gathering up the automatic as he did so. As he did so, the door burst open and the rounded rabbit features of Mr. Neville Yorkland looked into the room.
'Hullo,' he stuttered. 'What's happened? Got Lord Iveldown's message. Said he'd caught our man.' His weak blinking eyes travelled all over the room and came to rest on the prostrate form of the slumbering Nassen. He pursed his lips. 'Oh. I see. Is this------'
The Saint straightened up; and a slow godless gleam came into his blue gaze.
'That's the guy,' he said, in the accents of Pete the Blood. 'Hoppy an' me was just waitin' to see ya before we scram. We gotta get on to London-- Lord Iveldown wants us there!'
IX
PATRICIA Holm was waiting for the Saint when the telephone bell rang to announce the penultimate round of that adventure.
'It's that detective again, miss,' said Sam Outrell hoarsely. 'Mr. Teal. An' he's got another detective with him. They wouldn't wait for me to ask if they could go up.'
The girl's heart missed a beat; and then she answered quite quietly:
'All right, Sam. Thanks. Tell Mr. Templar as soon as you see him--if they haven't gone before he comes in.'
She put down the receiver and picked up the cigarette which she had been about to light. She looked about the room while she put a match to it --her hand was steady, but her breath was coming a little faster. She had walked with Simon Templar in the ways of lawlessness too long to be flung into panic; but she knew that she was on trial. The Saint had not come back, and he had sent no message: his habits had always been too erratic for a thing like that to frighten her, but this time she was left to hold the fort alone, with no idea of what he had done or was doing or what his plans might be. The only thing she could be sure of was that Chief Inspector Teal had not! arrived for the second time that day, bringing another detective with him, on a purely social call. The book, Her Wedding Secret, lay on the table. Patricia picked it up. She had to think--to think quickly and calmly, building up deduction and prophecy and action, as the Saint himself would have done. Simon had left the book there. He had not troubled to move it when Hassen came. But Teal--Teal and another man. . . 1 The bell of the apartment rang while she was still trying to reach a conclusion. There was an open bookcase beside the fireplace, and with a sudden tightening of her lips she thrust the book in among the row of novels on the bottom shelf. She had no time to do anything more; but she was desperately conscious of the inadequacy of what she had done.
Chief Inspector Teal did not know it. He looked across the threshold with affectedly weary eyes at the slim startling beauty of the girl who even to his phlegmatic unimpressionable mind was more like a legendary princess than any other woman he had ever seen, who for reasons not utterly beyond his understanding had chosen to give up the whole world that she might have queened to become the companion in outlawry of a prince of buccaneers; and he saw in her blue eyes, so amazingly like the Saint's own, the same light of flickering steel with which Simon Templar had greeted him so many times.
'Good-evening, Miss Holm,' he said sleepily. 'I think you know me; and this is Sergeant Barrow. We have a warrant to search this apartment.'
He held out the paper; and she glanced at it and handed it back.
'Mr. Templar isn't in,' she said coolly. 'Hadn't you better call back later?'
'I don't think so,' said Mr. Teal and walked past her into the hall.
She closed the door and followed the two detectives into the living room. Mr. Teal took off his bowler hat and put it on the table--it was the only concession he made to her presence.
'We may as well start here,' he said to Barrow. 'Go over the usual places first.'
'Would you like to borrow the vacuum cleaner,' inquired Patricia sweetly, 'or will you just use your heads?'
'We'll manage,' said Teal dourly.
He was more keyed up than he would have cared to admit. The assistant commissioner's parting speech still rang in his ears; the resentment of many other similar interviews rang carillons through his brain. He was a man of whom Fate had demanded many martyrdoms. In doing his duty he had to expose himself to the stinging shafts of Saintly irreverence; and afterwards he had to listen to the acidulated comments of the assistant commissioner; and there were days when he wondered whether it was worth it. Sometimes he wished that he had never been a policeman.
Patricia stood around and watched the progress of the search with a triphammer working under her ribs and a sinking sensation in her stomach. And in a frightful hopeless way she realized that it was not going to fail. It was not a hurried haphazard ransacking of drawers and cupboards such as Nassen and his colleague had conducted. It was thorough, systematic, scientific, ordered along the rigid lines of a training that had reduced hiding places to a tabulated catalogue. It would not glance at the cover of a book and pass on. . . . She knew that even before Barrow came to the] bookcase and began to pull out the books one byj one, opening them and flicking over the pages] without looking at the titles. . . .
What would the Saint have done?
Patricia didn't know. Her face was calm, almost unnaturally calm; but the triphammer under her ribs was driving her into the clutches of a maddening helplessness that had to be fought off with all her willpower. There was an automatic in the bedroom: if she could only put over some excuse to reach it ... But the Saint would never have done that. Teal had his warrant. He was within his rights. Violence of any kind would achieve nothing--nothing except to aggravate the crash when it came.
Barrow had reached the second row of books. He was halfway through it. He had finished it. The first two shelves were stripped, and the books were heaped up untidily on the floor. He was going on to the third.
