The Saint Closes the Case (26 page)

“When there are grey skies,” said
the Saint, after the man
ner of Al Jolson, “I don’t mind the grey
skies. You make them
blue, sonny boy.
…
By the
way, how did you leave my
friend?”

Marius’s sneering chuckle curdled through the
door.

“He is still at Brook Street, in charge
of Hermann. You re
member Hermann, the man you knocked out? … But I am
sure
Hermann will be very kind to him.
…
Is there any
thing
else you wish to know?”

“Nothing at the moment,” said the
Saint.

Marius spoke in his own language, and the axe
struck again.

Then Patricia would no longer be denied. The
Saint met
her eyes, and saw that she understood. But she showed no
fear.

Quite quietly they looked at each other; and
their hands
came together quite gently and steadily.

“I’m sorry,” said Simon in a low
voice. “I can never tell you
how sorry I am.”

“But I understand, Simon,” she said;
and her voice was still
the firm, clear, unfaltering voice that he
loved. “The gods
haven’t forgotten you, after all. Isn’t this
the sort of end you’ve
always prayed for?”

“It is the end of the world,” he
said quietly. “Roger was my only reinforcement. If I didn’t get back to
Brook Street by a certain time, he was to come after me. But, obviously, Roger
can’t come
now.
…”

“I know.”

“I won’t let you be taken alive,
Pat.”

“And you?”

He laughed.

“I shall try to take Marius with me.
But—oh, Pat, I’d sell
my soul for you not to be in it! This is my
way out, but it isn’t yours——”

“Why not? Shouldn’t I want to see the
last fight through
with
you?”

Her hands were on his shoulders then, and he
was holding
her face between his hands. She was looking up at him.

“Dear,” he said, “I’m not
complaining. We don’t live in a
magnificent age, but I’ve done my best to
make life magnificent
as I see it—to live my ideal of the happy
warrior. But you
made that possible. You made me seek and fight for the
tre
mendous things. Battle and sudden death—yes, but battle and
sudden
death in the name of peace and life and love. You
know how I love you,
Pat… .”

She knew. And if she had never given him the
ultimate
depths of her heart before, she gave them all to him
then, with
a gladness
in that kiss as vivid as a shout in silence.

“Does anything matter much beside
that?” she asked.

“But I’ve sacrificed you! If I’d been
like other men—if I
hadn’t been so fool crazy for danger—if I’d thought more
about
you,
and what I might be letting
you
in for——
”

She smiled.

“I wouldn’t have had you different.
You’ve never apolo
gised
for yourself before: why do it now?”

He did not answer. Who could have answered
such a gener
osity?

So they sat together; and the battering on the
door went on.
The great door shook and resounded to each blow, and the
sound was like the booming of a
muffled knell.

Presently the Saint looked up, and saw that
in the door
was a hole the size of a man’s hand. And suddenly a
strange
strength
came upon him, weak and weary as he was.

“But, by Heaven, this isn’t going to be
the end!” cried the
Saint. “We’ve still so much to do, you
and I.”

He was on his feet.

He couldn’t believe that it was the end. He
wasn’t ready,
yet, to pass out—even in a blaze of some sort of glory.
He
wouldn’t believe that that was his hour at last. It was true that
they still
had so much to do. There was Roger Conway, and
Vargan, and Marius,
and the peace of the world wrapped up
in these two. And adventure and adventure
beyond. Other
things… . For in that one adventure, and in that one
hour,
he had seen a new and wider vision of life, wider even than
the ideal
of the happy warrior, wider even than the fierce de
light of battle and
sudden death, but rather a fulfilment and a
consummation of all
these things—and how should he die
before he had followed that vision
farther?

And he looked at the door, and saw the eyes
of Marius.

“I should advise you to surrender,
Templar,” said the giant
coldly. “If you are obstinate, you will
have to be shot.”

“That’d help you, wouldn’t it, Angel
Face? And then
how
would you find Vargan?”

“Your friend Conway might be made to
speak.”

“You’ve got a hope!”

“I have my own methods of persuasion,
Templar, and some
of them are almost as ingenious as yours. Besides, have
you
thought that your death would leave Miss Holm without a
protector?”
   

“I have,” said the Saint. “I’ve
also thought that my surrender would leave her in exactly the same position.
But she has
a knife, and I don’t think you’ll find her helpful. Think
again!”

“Besides,” said Marius, in the same
dispassionate tone,
“you need not be killed at once. It would be possible
to wound
you
again.”

The Saint threw back his head.

“I never surrender,” he said.

“Very well,” said Marius calmly.

He snapped out another order, and again the
axe crashed
on the door. The Saint knew that the hole was being
enlarged
so that a man could shoot through it and know what he was
shooting
at, and he knew that the end could not now be long
in coming.

There was no cover in the room. They might
have flattened
themselves against the wall in which the door was, so
that they
could not be seen from outside, but that would make
little
difference. A few well-grouped shots aimed along the wall by
an
automatic would be certain of scoring.

And the Saint had no weapon but the captured
knife; and
that, as he had said, he had given to Patricia.

The odds were impossible.

As he watched the chips flying from the gap
which the axe
had already made—and it was now nearly as big as a man’s
head—the
wild thought crossed his mind that he might chal
lenge Marius to meet
him in single combat. But immediately
he discarded the thought. Dozens of
men might have ac
cepted, considering the difference in their sizes: the
taunt of
cowardice, the need to maintain their prestige among
their
followers, at least, might have forced their hand and stung them to take
the challenge seriously. But Marius was above
all that. He had one
object in view, and it was already proved
that he viewed it
with a singleness of aim that was above all
ordinary motives. The
man who had cold-bloodedly shot a
way through the body of one of his own
gang—and got away
with it—would not be likely to be moved by any argument
the Saint
could use.

Then—what?

The Saint held Patricia in his arms, and his
brain seemed
to reel like the spinning of a great crazy flywheel. He
knew
that he was rapidly weakening now. The heroic effort which
had taken
him to that room and barricaded it had cost him much, and the sudden access of
supernatural strength and
energy which had just come upon him could not
last for long. It was like a transparent mask of glittering crystal, hard but
brittle,
and behind it and through it he could see the founda
tions on which it based
its tenacity crumbling away.

It was a question, as it had been in other
tight corners, of
playing for time. Arid it was also the reverse. Whatever
was to
be done to win the time must be done quickly——before that
forced
blaze of vitality fizzled out and left him powerless.

The Saint passed a hand across his eyes, and
felt strangely futile. If only he were whole and strong, gifted again with the
blood that
he had lost, with a shoulder that wasn’t spreading
a numbing pain all
over him, and a brain cleared of the muzzy aftermath of that all-but-knock-out
swipe on the jaw, to be of
some use to Patricia in her need!

“Oh, God!” he groaned. “God
help me!”

But still he could see nothing useful to
do—nothing but the
forlorn thing that he did. He put Patricia from him and
leapt
to the door on to part of the barricade, covering with his body
the hole that was being cut.
Marius saw him.

“What is it now, Templar?” asked
the giant grimly.

“Nothing, honey,” croaked the Saint,
with a breathless little
laugh. “Just that I’m here, and I’m
carefully arranging myself
so that if anyone shoots at me it will be
fatal. And I know you don’t want me to die yet. So it’ll keep you busy a bit
longer—
won’t it?—making that hole big enough for it to be safe to
shoot
through… .”

“You are merely being foolishly troublesome,” said
Marius
unemotionally, and added an order.

The man with the axe continued his work.

But it would take longer—that was all the
Saint cared
about. There was hope as long as there was life. The
miracle
might happen … might happen… .

He found Patricia beside him.

“Simon—what’s the use?”

“We’ll see, darling. We’re still
kicking, anyway—that’s the main thing.”

She tried to move him by force, but he held
her hands away. And then she tore herself out of his grasp; and with dazed and
uncomprehending
eyes he watched her at the window—
watched her raise the sash and look
out into the night.

“Help!”

“You fool!” snarled the Saint
bitterly. “Do you want them
to have the last satisfaction of hearing us
whine?”

He forgot everything but that—that stern
point of pride
—and left his place at the door. He reached her in a few
lurching strides, and his hands fell roughly on her shoulders to drag
her away.

She shouted again:
“Help!”

“Be quiet!” snarled the Saint
bitterly.

But when he turned her round he saw that her
face was
calm and serene, and not at all the face that should
have gone
with those cries.

“You asked God to help you, old
boy,” she said. “Why
shouldn’t I ask the men who have come?”

And she pointed out of the window.

He -looked; and he saw that the gate at the
end of the
garden, and the drive within, were lighted up as with
the light of day by the headlights of a car that had stopped in the road beyond.
But for the din of the axe at the door he would have
heard its approach.

And then into that pathway of light stepped
a man, tall and dark and trim; and the man cupped his hands about his mouth
and
shouted:

“Coming, Pat! … Hullo, Simon!”

“Norman!” yelled the Saint.
“Norman—my seraph—my
sweet angel!”

Then he remembered the odds, and called
again:

“Look out for yourself! They’re armed——
”

“So are we,” said Norman Kent
happily. “Inspector Teal and his merry men are all round the house. We’ve
got ‘em
cold.”

For a moment the Saint could not speak.

Then:

“Did you say Inspector Teal?”

“Yes,” shouted Norman. And he
added something. He added
it brilliantly. He knew that the men in the
house were for
eigners—that even Marius, with his too-perfect English,
was a
foreigner—and that no one but the Saint and Patricia could
be
expected to be familiar with the more abstruse perversions
and
defilements possible to the well of native English. And he
made the
addition without a change of tone that might have
hinted at his
meaning. He added:
“All breadcrumbs and
breambait. Don’t
bite!”