The keen gaze of the detective who had done all the talking searched his face.
"Were you travelling with Mr. Ingram?" he inquired.
"Yeah."
The Saint picked up his glass and turned the stem between his fingers. The hand that held it was rock-firm, and he returned the chief detective's direct stare without a tremor; and yet his heart was putting in perhaps two extra beats per minute above its normal rhythm. He knew to the millionth part of an inch how slender was the thread by which their getaway still hung. The crisis of their bluff was pelting into them with less than a handful of split seconds left to run—and he had known all the time that it was coming. It had been on its way from the first word with all the inevitablity of an inrushing tide. Simon had expected nothing else. He had won the only stakes it had been played for—the fifteen minutes' grace which had been given, the awakening of doubts in the detectives' minds, the vital cue to Monty and the two police officers sitting there quietly at the table.
"You came here from Siegertsbrun together?"
The eyes had never wavered from the scrutiny. Neither had Simon Templar's.
The Saint raised his glass.
"Cheerio," he said.
Almost mechanically the other groped around and took up his own drink. His colleague did the same. Both of them were looking at the Saint. He could see the ideas that were working simultaneously through their minds. They had recovered from the first stunning confusion of the bluff, and now in the reaction they were thinking on top gear—turning the defense over under the searchlights of habitual incredulity, probing remorselessly into its structure, reading behind it into the balance of probabilities.
And yet they drank. They ignored the customary clinking of glasses, and their perfunctory bows were so slight as to be almost imperceptible.
"Ihre Gesundheit!"
Simon put down his glass and drew thoughtfully on his cigarette. At that moment he could have laughed.
"No, brother," he said gently. "We missed Siegertsbrun. But we had a swell time in Innsbruck." He smiled sweetly at the startled bulging of the detectives' eyes, and on the tablecloth their empty glasses seemed to rise on tiptoe and cheer for him. "It's been lovely meeting you, and I hope this chat won't get you into trouble at headquarters."
The nearest man half rose from his chair, and the Saint stepped swiftly up and caught him as he went limp.
Simon wrung him affectionately by the hand. He slapped him on the back. He gripped him by the shoulders and bade him an exuberantly cordial farewell. And in so doing he settled the man carefully back into his chair, lumped him forward, propped his chin up on his hand, and left him huddled in a lifelike pose of contemplation.
"Be good, brother," said the Saint, "and remember me to auntie. Give my love to Rudolf"—out of the corner of his eye the Saint saw that Monty had arranged the other detective in a similar position—"and tell him I hope it chokes him. Tootle pip."
They walked quickly across the dining room and paused to glance backwards from the door. The two detectives at the far corner table, with their backs turned to the room, appeared like a couple of Bavarian Buddhas wrapped in immortal meditations.
Simon smiled again.
"Such is life," he whispered.
Then he moved out into the vestibule. As they emerged into the hall the Saint glanced casually about him, and in that same casual way his glance rested for a long moment on the back of a man who was leaning over the janitor's desk by the main doors. He was talking earnestly to the head porter, and a long jade cigarette holder was tilted up in the fingers of one sensitive white hand.
VII. HOW SIMON TEMPLAR BORROWED A CAR
AND AGREED TO BE SENSIBLE
SIMON'S long arm shot out and grabbed Monty by the shoulder, halting him in his stride and spinning him half round. The Saint's eyes were debonair.
"Steady, old scout," murmured the Saint blithely. "This is where you go home!"
Monty's brow crinkled. And the Saint laughed. The laugh was almost silent; and not one syllable of what he said could have been heard a yard away.
"Buzz up and collect Pat and all the luggage," said the Saint quietly. "Get down by the fire escape—you're good at that. And I'll see you at the station." He jerked a thin sheaf of reservations from his pocket and thrust them neatly into Monty's hand. "If you want to know why, you can peep back on your way up the stairs. You might even listen for a bit—but I shouldn't wait too long. The train goes in fifteen minutes. Happy landings!"
The same shoulder-hold sped Monty on; and the Saint circled slowly on his heel and continued his stroll across the floor.
Looking back from a flight of stairs that was partly screened by the iron grille of the elevator shaft, Monty had an angle view of him coming up behind the man who was still standing by the porter's desk. The Saint's hands were in his pockets, and his step was airy. He stopped just one pace from the desk, and his voice floated softly up across the hall.
"What ho!" said the Saint.
The man at the desk turned.
It was typical of his iron self-restraint that he placed the tip of the long cigarette holder between his teeth before he moved. He turned round without a trace of hurry or excitement, and his recognition of the Saint was the merest flutter of a pencilled eyebrow.
"My dear Mr. Templar!"
The Saint's hands sank deeper into his pockets.
"My dear Rudolf!" There was a suggestion of sardonic mimicry in the Saint's reply. "Are you staying here?"
The cigarette glowed evenly in its jade setting.
"I was looking for a friend," said the Crown Prince.
Simon gazed at him mockingly. He had hardly expected to renew his acquaintance with the prince quite so soon; and yet the conversation he had had with the detectives who now slept peacefully in the dining room had illuminated many mysteries. It had indicated, amongst other things, that Rudolf was a worker with a classic turn of speed in his own class—if the Saint had required any enlightenment on that subject. Certain facts had been mentioned in that conversation which could never have been known to the police without Rudolf's assistance. And Simon was wondering what new subtleties were being corkscrewed into the delicate tangle—what new stratagems were unwinding themselves behind the statuesque placidity of the smiling chevalier opposite him. But the Saint's face showed nothing.
"Have you any friends?" he asked guilelessly.
The prince laughed. He took Simon engagingly by the arm.
"There is a quiet corner over there where we can talk. It would be worth your while."
"D'you think so?" drawled the Saint.
He sauntered indulgently towards an alcove adorned with three glass-topped tables and a litter of old newspapers, and the prince stayed beside him. As they went, the Saint sidled an eye up the stairway and saw that Monty had disappeared. In the same glance, the hands of a clock hanging on one wall came into his field of view; and the position of them printed itself on his memory in a sector of remorseless warning. Two minutes had ticked by since he left the dining room, which gave him six minutes more at the outside before the effects of the dope which had splashed a lurid semicolon into the purplest passage of the official pursuit would be wearing off—even if no interfering waiter uncovered the deception before that. Six hazardous minutes in which to squeeze what he had to learn out of the brain of that man of polished marble, and to select his own riposte. . . . And then Simon felt the light hand of the prince stroking up inside his arm into his armpit and slipping back to his elbow just as lightly, and he knew that the possible hiding-places for jewels on his own person had been comprehensively investigated. Rudolf also had much to learn. It would be a cake-walk of a race with a whirlwind sprint at the finish, but the Saint could find nothing to complain about in that. He chuckled and sank into an armchair.
"Must you do these things?" he inquired mildly. "You know, I'm rather ticklish, and I might scream."
The prince settled down and crossed hi
s legs.
"You must not let me detain you too long," he remarked solicitously. "Your time must be valuable."
"Have you anything really interesting to say?" murmured the Saint bluntly.
The prince looked at him.
"This is the third time that you have chosen to meddle in my affairs, Mr. Templar. I have told you before that your persistence might compel me to think of methods of permanent discouragement Believe me, my dear friend, it will only be your own obstinacy which may cause me to take steps which I should genuinely regret."
"Such as—handing over the vendetta to a couple of overfed policemen? You don't know how disappointed I am about you, Rudolf."
"That was an unfortunate necessity. You had to be found without delay, and the police have facilities which are denied to ordinary people like ourselves."
The Saint smiled.
"I see. While you hang around in the offing as the righteous citizen what's been robbed. Well, well, Rudolf," said the Saint tolerantly, "the notion was passably sound, though I won't say I hadn't heard of it before. And what would you have done if I'd actually been collared with the boodle—gone home and burst into tears?"
"That possibility had been considered," admitted the prince calmly. "In fact, I had anticipated it. You may have forgotten that my name carries some weight in this country. I do not think I should have found my task difficult." He shrugged. "But you were always enterprising, my dear Mr. Templar."
"That past tense makes me feel all Tolstoy," said the Saint plaintively.
The prince fingered his moustache.
"You are the unknown quantity which is always disconcerting," he said; and Simon blew out two leisured smoke rings.
"Have you lost your voice, Rudolf?"
"Why?"
"There must be some more policemen in Munich. From what I've seen I shouldn't think there was room for many, but you might find one or two. You could try yodelling for 'em."
"I doubt whether that would be so expedient," said the prince, tapping a length of ash from his cigarette—"now that we know that the jewels are no longer in your possession."
Simon sat up. That was a new one on him—straight from the bandbox and dolled out with ribbons. It caught him slap in the middle of his complacency and made him blink.
"Yeah?" he said automatically. "I haven't seen any corpses carried out"
"Would that be a corollary?"
"It would be if any of your birds tried to go scratching round my room. There's not only two guns in it—there's a girl who can shoot the pips out of a razzberry keeping 'em warm, and she doesn't sleep on her feet. Now think up something else that'll cure hiccoughs!"
The prince showed a glimmer of pearly teeth.
"In that case," he said imperturbably, "we must feel thankful that the porter is an observant man with a good memory."
"Meaning exactly?"
"You went out at eleven o'clock this morning with a parcel, and you came back without it."
Simon raked him with crystalline blue eyes. He had an instant recollection of the scene in which he had surprised the prince, and in the same flash he understood the significance of it. The very words that must have been spoken trickled almost verbatim through his imagination. His Sublime Eminence's dear young friend had promised to deliver a small package for him. It was vitally important that it should be sent off before midday. Had anything been done about it? The package would be about so big. His dear young friend was inclined to be forgetful. Could the porter remember if he had seen the gentleman leaving the hotel with such a package as had been described? . . . The interrogation would have been simplicity itself to a man of the Crown Prince's magnetic geniality, once he had realized that such a contingency was on the cards. And if it had proved fruitless there would have been no harm done. Mentally the Saint raised his hat to that effort of inductive speculation.
"I won't deceive you," said the Saint. "We have ceased to hold the baby."
"Others have also found it dangerous," murmured the prince.
"That's just how it struck me," said the Saint with equanimity. "So I got rid of it. I went out and bought three fat packets of German cigarettes. I came home and loaded the swag into 'em, and jammed it tight with cotton wool. I tied the boxes up in brown paper and stuck on a label. And then I went out and shoved the whole works into the post office across the way —just ordinary parcel post, and no registration or anything. It'll be waiting for me where I want it." The Saint pushed his hands back in his pockets and stared at the prince seraphically through a veil of smoke. "Got any more to say?" he purred.
Up on the wall the clock gathered its creaking springs and chimed the quarter. The margin of time was dosing in; and Simon had learned nearly everything he required to know. There was only one thing more to come—an inkling of the counter attack which must have been spinning its swift web between the lines of that entertaining little chat. And the Saint was keyed up for it like a tiger crouching for the kill.
The Crown Prince leaned forward.
"My friend, we are in danger of cutting our own throats. You have disposed of the jewels temporarily, but you will have still to recover them. It would be awkward for you if you were arrested—and I admit that it would be inconvenient for me. For the time being we have your interests in common. And yet you must acknowledge that you have not one chance in ten thousand of making your escape."
"That sounds depressing," said the Saint.
"It is a matter of fact. In England you have your Scotland Yard, which is the model of the whole world. Perhaps you are tempted to think that our European police organizations are inferior. You would be foolish—very foolish. You have many hundreds of miles still to travel, and every frontier will be watched for you. Every mile, every minute, will see the dice loaded more heavily against you. You have temporarily disposed of the detectives who were sent here; I do not ask how you accomplished it, but I assure you they were only a beginning. Our police do not easily forget being made to look stupid. Your arrest will be a point of honour with every detective in Germany."
"Well?"
Simon's prompting monosyllable rapped into the prince's silence like the crack of an overstrained fiddle string.
The prince, tapped his cigarette holder thoughtfully on a pink-tinted thumbnail. He met the Saint's eyes with a survey of deliberate appraisal.
"I offer you an alliance. I offer you protection, hiding, influence, a practical certainty of escape. I have told you that in this country I am a person of some importance. Mr. Templar, we have been enemies too long. I offer you friendship and security—at the price of a division of the spoils."
The Saint's eyes never moved; but his lips smiled.
"And how would this partnership begin?" he queried.
"My car is outside. It is at your disposal. I promise you safe conduct out of Munich—for yourself and your friends."
For two seconds the Saint gazed at the red tip of his cigarette, with that tentative half-smile playing round his mouth.
And then he screwed the cigarette into an ash tray and stood up.
"I think I should like to use your car," he said.
He drifted towards the street doors with his quick, swinging stride, and the prince went beside him. As they stepped out into the blazing sunshine of the Bayerstrasse the Saint's hardened vigilance scanned the street, left and right, expertly dissecting the appearance of every loiterer within sight. He eliminated them all. There was a man selling newspapers, another sweeping the street, a one-armed beggar with a tray of toys, a weedy specimen idling in front of a shop window—no one who could by any stretch of imagination be invested with the aura of bull-necked innocence which to the initiated observer fizzles like a mantle of damp squibs around the elaborately plain-clothed man in every civilized corner of the globe. It was just a little more than the Saint had seriously hoped for: it showed that the full measure of his iniquity had not yet been fully revealed to the phlegmatic myrmidons of the German police, and in
any other circumstances he would have felt that the fact paid him no compliments. He had been ready for further opposition—squads of it—and his right hand had never left the gun in his pocket. The risk had to be taken.
"You are very wise," said the prince suavely.
Simon nodded curtly, without turning his head.
His eyes swept the car that was drawn up by the curb with its engine pulsing almost inaudibly—an open, cream-coloured Rolls, upholstered in crimson leather, with the Crown Prince's coat of arms displayed prominently on the coach work. A liveried chauffeur held the door open—Simon recognized him as the man who had done his best to strangle him in the dark hours of that morning, and favoured him with a ray of that slight, sweet smile.
"Let me drive," said the Saint.
He twitched the door from the man's hand and slammed it shut. In one more smooth movement he whipped open another door and dropped into the driving seat.
As he flicked the lever into gear, the man's hand clutched his shoulder. For an instant Simon let go the steering wheel. With the faintest widening of that Saintly smile, the Saint's steely fingers bracketed themselves lovingly round the man's prominent nose and flung him squealing back into the prince's arms. A second later the car was skimming down the street under the flanks of the most startled tram in Munich.
2
The journey which Monty Hayward made from the hotel to the station was one which he ranked ever afterwards as an entirely typical incident in the system of unpleasantness which had enmeshed him in its toils.
It would have made his scalp crawl uneasily even if nothing had happened to disturb his breakfast; but now the certain knowledge that his description had been circulated far and wide, and that it was graphic enough for him to have been identified from it three times already, made any excursion into the great outdoors seem tantamount to a lingering mortification of the flesh. He was certain to be hanged anyway, he felt, and it seemed painfully unnecessary to have to keep pushing his head into a series of experimental nooses just to get the feel of the operation.
Patricia laughed at him quietly. She produced one of the Saint's razors.
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