The Saint Closes the Case (28 page)

“But we won’t cry over spilt milk, my
lads, we won’t cry
over spilt milk,” went Simon’s thoughts in a kind of
refrain
that harmonised with the rush of the big car. “We ought to
have the
best part of a day to play with, and that’s the hell of
a lot to
me. So we won’t cry over spilt milk, my lads—and so
say all of us!”

But Roger Conway wasn’t saying it.

He was saying: “We shall have to clear
out of Maidenhead
to-morrow—with or without Vargan. Have you any ideas
about
that?”

“Dozens,” said the Saint cheerfully.
“As for Vargan, by to-
morrow evening there’ll either be no more
need to keep him
a prisoner, or—well, there’ll still be no need to keep him
a
prisoner.
…
As for ourselves, there’s my Desoutter at
Han
worth. Teal won’t have had time to find out about that, and I
don’t
think he’ll allow anything to be published about us in
the papers so long as
he’s got a chance of clearing up
the trouble without any publicity. To the
ordinary outside
world we’re still perfectly respectable citizens. No one
at Han
worth will say anything if I announce that we’re pushing off
to Paris by
air. I’ve done it before. And once we’re off the deck
we’ve got a big
cruising range to choose our next landing out
of.”

And he was silent again, revolving schemes
further ahead.

In the back of the car, Patricia’s head had
sunk on to
Norman’s
shoulder. She was asleep.

The first pale streaks of dawn were lightening
the sky when
they ran into the east of London. Roger put the Hirondel
through the City as quickly as the almost deserted streets
would
allow.

He turned off on to the Embankment by New
Bridge Street, and so they came to pass by Parliament Square on their way
westwards. And it was there that Norman Kent had a strange
experience.

For some while past, words had been running
through his
head, so softly that he had not consciously been aware of
them—words with
which he was as familiar as he was with his
own
name, and which, nevertheless, he knew he had not heard
for many years. Words to a kind of chanting tune
that was
not a tune… . And at that
moment, as the Hirondel was murmuring past the Houses of Parliament, he became
con
sciously aware of the words that
were running through his
head, and
they seemed to swell and become louder and clearer,
as if a great choir took them up; and the illusion
was so per
fect that he had looked
curiously round towards the spires of
Westminster
Abbey before he realised that no service could be
proceeding there at that hour.

“To give light to them that sit in
darkness, and in the shadow
of death: and to guide our feet into
the way of peace… .”

And, as Norman Kent turned his eyes, they
fell upon the
great statue of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, which stands
outside
the House. And all at once the voices died away. But Norman
still
looked back, and saw Richard Coeur-de-Lion riding there,
the last
of his breed, huge and heroic against the pale dawn
sky, with his right
hand and arm hurling up his great sword
in a gesture. And for
some reason Norman Kent suddenly felt himself utterly alone and aloof, and very
cold. But that might
have been the chill of the dawn.

15. How Vargan gave his answer,

and
Simon Templar wrote a
letter

It was full daylight when they came to
Maidenhead.

Orace was not in bed. Orace was never in bed
when he
could be useful, no matter at what unearthly hour that might
be. But
whether it was because he never went to bed at all, or
whether it was because
some strange clairvoyance always
roused him in time to be ready for all
emergencies, was his
own mysterious secret.

He produced a great dish of sizzling bacon
and eggs and a
steaming
pot of coffee as if by the waving of a magic wand.

Then the Saint gave orders.

“We will sleep till lunch-time,” he
said. “The difference it’ll
make to our strength will be worth the waste
of time.”

He himself was feeling ready to drop.

He took Orace with him to his room, and swore
him to si
lence before he allowed him to see the wound. But Orace,
seeing it,
said: “Wot the thunderinell——
”

Simon fluttered a tired hand.

“Don’t swear, Orace,” he rambled
vaguely. “I didn’t swear
when it happened. And Miss Patricia doesn’t
know yet… . You’ll look after Miss Patricia and the boys, Orace, if I conk
out. Keep
them out of mischief and so forth… . And if you
see Angel Face, you’ll
shoot him through the middle of his
ugly mug, with my compliments, Orace.
…”

He slid sideways off the chair suddenly, but
Orace’s strong
arms
caught him as he fell.

Orace put him to bed as tenderly as if he had
been a child.

And yet, next morning, the Saint was up and
dressed before
any of the others. He was rather pale under his tan, and
his
lean face seemed leaner than ever; but there was still a spring
in his
step. He had slept like a healthy schoolboy. His head
was as clear as his eyes, and a cold
shower had sent fresh life
tingling through
his veins.

“Learn a lesson from me,” he said
over his third egg. “If
you had constitutions like mine, invigorated
by my spiritual purity, and unimpaired, like mine, by the dissipation and riot
ous living that has brought you
to the wrecks you are——”

And in this he was joking less than they
thought. Sheer ruth
less will-power had forced his splendid physique on to the
road of an almost
miraculously swift recovery. Simon Templar had no time to waste on picturesque
convalescences.

He sent Orace out for newspapers, and read
them all. Far
too much that should have been said was still left unsaid.
But he could glean a hint here, a warning there, a confirmation
everywhere;
until at the end of it he seemed to see Europe ly
ing under the shadow
of a dreadful darkness. But nothing was said in so many words. There were only
the infuriating inadequate clues for a suspicious man to interpret according
to
his suspicions. It seemed as if the face of the shadow was
waiting for
something to happen, before which it would not
unveil itself. The
Saint knew what that something was, and
doubted himself for
the first time since he had gathered his
friends together
under him to serve the ends of a quixotic
ideal.

But still nothing whatever was said in the
newspapers about
the affair at Esher; and the Saint knew that this silence
could
only mean one thing.

It was not until three o’clock that he had a
chance to discuss Vargan again with Roger and Norman; for it had been agreed
that,
although Patricia had to know that Vargan was a pris
oner, and why he was
a prisoner, and although his possible
fate had once been mentioned before
her, the question should
not be raised again in her presence.

“We can’t keep him for ever,” said
Simon, when the chance
came. “For one thing, we look like
spending a large part of
the rest of our lives on the run, and you
can’t run well with
a load of unwilling luggage. Of course, we might get away
with it if
we found some lonely place and decided to live like hermits for the rest of our
days. But, either way, there’d still
always be the risk that he might
escape. And that doesn’t amuse
me in the least.”

“I spoke to Vargan last night,”
said Norman Kent soberly.
“I think he’s mad. A megalomaniac. His
one idea is that his
invention will bring him worldwide fame. His
grievance
against us is that we’re holding up his negotiations with
the
Government, and thereby postponing the front-page head
lines. I
remember he told me he was naming a peerage as part
of the price of his secret.”

The Saint recalled his lunch with Barney
Malone, of the
Clarion,
and the conversation which had
reinforced his in
terest in Vargan, and found Norman’s analysis easy to
accept.

“I’ll speak to him myself,” he said.

He did so shortly afterwards.

The afternoon had grown hot and sunny, and it
was easy
to arrange that Patricia should spend it on the lawn with
a
book.

“Give your celebrated impersonation of
innocent English
girlhood, old dear,” said the Saint. “At this
time of year, and
in this weather, anyone searching Maidenhead for a suspici
ous-looking
house, and seeing one not being used in the way
that houses at Maidenhead
are usually used, will be after
it like a cat after kippers. And now you’re
the only one of us
who’s in balk—bar Orace. So you’ll just have to give the
local
colour all by yourself. And keep your eyes skinned. Look out
for a fat
man chewing gum. We’re shooting all fat men who chew gum on sight, just to make
sure we don’t miss Claud
Eustace… .”

When she had gone, he sent Roger and Norman
away also.
To have had the other two present would have made the
affair
too like a kangaroo court for his mood.

There was only one witness of that interview:
Orace, a stolid
and expressionless sentinel, who stood woodenly beside the
prisoner like a sergeant-major presenting a defaulter to his
orderly
officer.

“Have a cigarette?” said the Saint.

He knew what his personality could do; and,
left alone to
use it, he still held to a straw of hope that he might
succeed
where Norman had failed.

But Vargan refused the cigarette. He was
sullenly defiant.

“May I ask how much longer you propose to
continue this
farce?” he inquired. “You have now kept me here
three days.
Why?”

“I think my friend has explained that to
you,” said Simon.

“He’s talked a lot of nonsense—-“.

Simon cut the speech short with a curt
movement of his
hand.

He was standing up, and the professor looked
small and
frail beside him. Tall and straight and lean was the
Saint.

“I want to talk to you seriously,”
he said. “My friend has
appealed to you once. I’m appealing to you
now. And I’m
afraid this is the last appeal we can make. I appeal to you
in
the name of whatever you hold most sacred. I appeal to you in the name of
humanity. In the name of the peace of the
world.”

Vargan glared at him short-sightedly.

“An impertinence,” he replied.
“I’ve already heard your
proposition, and I may say that I’ve never
heard anything so
ridiculous in my life. And that’s my answer.”

“Then,” said Simon quietly, “I
may say that I’ve never in my life heard anything so damnable as your attitude.
Or can
it be that you’re merely a fool—an overgrown child playing
with
fire?”

“Sir——
”

The Saint seemed to grow even taller. There
was an arro
gance of command in his poise, in an instant, that brooked
no denial. He stood there, in that homely room, like a king of
men. And
yet, when he continued, his voice was even milder
and more reasonable
than ever.

“Professor Vargan,” he said,
“I haven’t brought you here to
insult you for my amusement. I ask you
to try for the moment
to forget the circumstances and listen to me
as an ordinary
man speaking to an ordinary man. You have perfected the
most
horrible invention with which science has yet hoped to
torture a world
already sickened with the beastliness of scientific warfare. You intend to
make that invention over to hands
that would not hesitate to use it. Can
you justify that?”