The Saint Meets His Match (24 page)

He laughed again, a shrill giggle that pricked
the hairs
on the nape of the girl’s neck.

“But he isn’t
moving!”

“Of course he
isn’t,” leered Essenden. “It has a very
strong
spring, my little contrivance—and yet the turn of
a
small key will release it. I have the key in my pocket.
But until the key is used, it will go on hurting.”

“You—devil!”

The Saint turned his head
with a set twisted smile on
his lips.

“No vulgar abuse,
Jill,” he said huskily. “I haven’t
used
any—and I’ve been lying here ten minutes, and I dropped my gun in the stream
and couldn’t find it again.”

“My dear!”

“God bless you,” said the Saint
through his teeth, “for
those kind
words.”

She ran to him, falling on her knees beside
him, care
less of what Essenden might do.
The Saint’s face was
white with pain,
but he kept smiling.

And he said, in a ghost of
a whisper: “Liar—gun—left-
hand coat pocket—you have
it. Your need may yet be
greater than mine, sister.
… Watch your chance
——”

Essenden came closer. He
flung out his left hand in a
grandiose gesture.

“My little cave!” he cackled.
“Look at it well, because
it’s the last
thing you’ll ever see. The tunnel was bricked
up once, but I opened it up again—and this is what I
found. But I’ve never explored it properly. You
might
get lost, and then if you were
caught by the tide ——
”

He shook to another burst
of maniacal merriment.

“You see, this is one
shore of a huge underground lake,
and it has its own
tides, twice a day. When the tide comes
up,
it reaches nearly to the low part of the roof over
your
head. That’s why the last few steps are so worn away. The water does that…
. It’s long past low tide
now. In less than two hours the tide will be
up. Oh, yes,
and you’ll be here to see it
…
creeping up
…
while
you’re
chained here. Till it comes right over your heads
…
up
and up
…
and up——
”

“And up,”
murmured the Saint.

“And you will be
here—both of you.” Essenden turned
his pale eyes upon the
girl. “Both of you. I’d have saved
you,
Jill, but you’re too dangerous. You’ll have to stay
here, too. And I
shall wall up the tunnel again, with my
own
hands, and no one will ever know.”

The girl knelt beside the
Saint. With one hand she
stroked the damp hair back from his forehead;
the other
hand crept slowly, infinitely
slowly, towards his pocket.
But the
gun that Essenden held still covered them both, and there was the cunning of
madness in his eyes.

“I shall chain you
up here, and leave you,” he rambled
on.
“Then I shall go upstairs and send the others home.
I shall pay them well, and they will ask no questions.
… Aaaaah!”

He pounced, suddenly, like
a tiger; and the girl let out an involuntary cry. Her hand was in the Saint’s
pocket, but it had encountered the muzzle instead of the
butt of his automatic. Foolishly, she tried to work round
to the butt.
The gun came out of the Saint’s pocket as Essenden tore at her wrist; then it
fell onto the rock.

Simon rolled over and
snatched at it. Essenden kicked.
The gun shot away from under the Saint’s
fingers, spun
clattering over the uneven
floor, and plopped into the
stream a
dozen feet away.

“You must have
played football for Borstal,” said the
Saint
appreciatively.

He grabbed swiftly at
Essenden’s ankle, and Essenden kicked backwards. His heel struck the Saint
between the
eyes, half stunning him.
…

Jill felt herself hurled
backwards. She caught Essen
den’s right wrist, and he stumbled and tripped.
They fell together into the shallow stream. Then, with the strength
of madness, he pinioned her arms and heaved her up
against the rock face. He groped around with one hand,
holding her there with his other hand and the
weight of
his body. A chain was
brought across her body; then she heard it grate metallically through a socket.
There was a click, and he stepped back, panting.
“That’s got you!”

She kicked savagely at him;
but he dropped on one
knee and gathered in her legs. A second chain
snapped about her knees, holding her helpless. And Simon Tem
plar, with the whole world still reeling about him
from
that savage kick between the
eyes, was straining at the relentless grip on his ankle with the strength of a
prisoned
giant.

“Got you!”
babbled Essenden. “Got you both! But I
dropped
my gun——
”

He splashed about in the
stream on all fours, mutter
ing to himself, searching. Then presently he
stood up,
empty-handed.

“It doesn’t matter. I
don’t need a gun now.”

“You do!” rapped
the Saint. “I’ve got another some
where—”

He was straining at
something that seemed to have
caught in his hip pocket.

Essenden screamed, and
leapt on him.
And the Saint laughed.
This time he did not miss his hold.
As
Essenden fell on him, Simon fastened two sinewy hands upon the peer’s throat.

On the floor, the two men
rolled and fought together
like wild beasts. Simon
Templar had the strength and
speed of a tiger, but insanity had suddenly
made Essenden superhuman. Pinned to the floor by the steel trap as
effectively as if he had been anchored to a
mountain, the
only chance that the
Saint had lay in keeping his hold
on Essenden’s windpipe, and on that
effort alone he con
centrated, while
Essenden kicked and writhed and tore
at
face and fingers with claw-like hands. They rolled
over and over,
gasping. Simon knew it could not last.

He was weak with pain. He
thought his left ankle
might be broken, and
certainly his left leg seemed to
have severed connection
with his body from the knee
downwards. Unless
Essenden weakened soon … Well, there would be plenty of opening for other
candidates for
the distinction of being the two most
unpopular plagues inflicted upon Scotland Yard. The Saint held on des
perately, feeling his strength ebbing with every second of
that nightmare struggle; but Essenden, a man possessed, seemed to be
breaking every known law of human endurance. He fought on, when anyone else
should have been
unconscious.

And then one of his
flailing fists caught Simon in the
face.

It was not for the first
time in that fight. But this time
it so happened that
Simon was on his back, his head lifted a bare inch from the floor. And the
blow dashed the
Saint’s head with sickening force
against the stone.

A wave of spangled
blackness swept over his vision,
and all the remaining
strength went out of him. He felt
his fingers torn
easily away from Essenden’s throat, and
heard
Essenden draw breath in one long, quavering sob.
The
Saint was rolled away like a child.

As his sight cleared, he
saw Essenden crawling away
out of his reach.

He lay still, his chest
heaving, utterly done in, and
watched Essenden scramble
to his feet at a safe distance.

“Beaten you—again…
. And you won’t—get—anoth
er chance!”

Essenden gasped out the
words in a rasping clamour
of triumph. He reeled
towards Jill Trelawney, one hand
caressing his larynx
jerkily, and stood swaying before her
with his face
contorted.

“You too, my beauty!
You don’t know what a lot of
trouble you’ve given me.
You ought to pay for my trouble. I meant to leave you here and go back at once.
But there’s plenty of time before the tide comes up——
”

“You fool! D’you think
you can get away with this?”

Jill Trelawney stood with
her head held high, the con
tempt undimmed in her
imperious eyes, and her beauty
made more vivid by its
unwonted pallor. Her voice never faltered.

“Why not?”
demanded Essenden hazily.

“Because the police
are coming here. Because I told the
police to come here
in time to arrest you——”

“Arrest me?”
Essenden chuckled. “There’s nothing to
arrest
me for. There aren’t any papers. You didn’t be
lieve
that story, did you? The only evidence there is is
here!”
He tapped his forehead. “But I’ll never give it.
I could clear your father’s name, but I never will.
He
was a meddler, and he had to go. Now you’ve started
meddling as well, and you’ve got to go, too.”

“The police will search the house,”
said Jill steadily.
“They can’t help
finding this place. And then they will
take
you and hang you.”

And even as she spoke, she
knew that her bluff fell on deaf ears. Essenden paused to let her speak, but
her words
made no impression on his brain.
Probably he never
even heard them.

“Now you’ve got to
go,” he mouthed. “But not—before
—I’ve
made you—pay for my—trouble!”

He lurched forward,
reaching out pawing hands.

And Simon Templar, lashing
himself to the last bitter
effort, tore futilely at
the chain that held him.

In so doing, he rolled
over on his face. And right under
his nose was a
little cluster of gleaming metal shapes.

A bunch of keys!
   

2

He stared at them like a
man in a trance. And then,
like a man in a trance, he
gathered them into his hand
and felt them, felt the smooth hard cold
contact of them,
wondering if that ghastly
adventure had unhinged his
brain.

But the keys might have
fallen out of Essenden’s pocket
in the fight.

He shot a sidelong glance
at Essenden; but for the mo
ment Essenden had forgotten
his existence.

Even so, he could not take
a chance.

He rolled away, still
seeming to wrestle with his chain,
and splashed into
the little stream.

Under cover of the water,
he could try every key on
the bunch without being
observed.

“Hold on, Jill!”

His voice rang in the cave
with the old unconquer
able Saintly lilt as clear in it as sunlight,
and Essenden
turned to bare his teeth again
and laugh.

“You’ll never get away, Templar! I made
sure of that
when I anchored the trap. But you
can try… .”

His hands pawed again at
the girl’s dress.

“But you,
Jill,” he crooned—“Jill! Such a pretty name,
Jill!
Pretty Jill—do you still hate me? You shouldn’t
hate
me… .”

The Saint worked
frantically.

The icy water in which he
was half immersed did more than cover his movements. The chill of it stung his
aching
wearied body into new life.

He found a key that
fitted, and felt a fresh surge of
hope.

Jill Trelawney had not once
cried out. She had not
spoken. She had not even answered his
encouragement.
But as the key he tried turned
in the lock, and the steel
jaws
snapped away from his ankle, he heard her choke
back a little moan.

The sound made him forget
that for half an hour his
left ankle had been locked
in the crushing grip of Essenden’s
man trap. He tried
to leap at Essenden, and
felt stupidly surprised when his leg gave under
him and
sent him sprawling.

Essenden whipped round in
a flash.