His voice trailed away.
For the constable was staring at him as if he were a ghost; and a moment later he understood why. The constable held a sheet of paper in his hand—it was one of the bundle that he had taken from his pocket, but it was not a map—and he was looking from the paper to the Saint with bulging eyes. And the Saint knew what the paper was, and his right hand moved quietly to his hip pocket.
Yet his face betrayed nothing.
"What's the matter, officer?" he inquired curtly. "Aren't you well?"
Still staring, the policeman inhaled audibly. And then he spoke.
"Oi knew Oi'd seen your face befoor!"
"What the devil do you mean?"
"Oi knoo wot Oi mean." The policeman put the paper back on the table and thumped it triumphantly. "This is your phootograph, an' it says as you're wanted for murder!"
Simon stood like a rock.
"My good man, you're talking through your hat," he said incisively. "I've shown you my identity card ——"
"Ay, that you 'ave. But that's just wot it says 'ere." The constable snatched up the paper again. "You tell me wot this means: ' 'As frequently represented 'imself to be a police officer.' An' if callin' yourself a Secret Service agent ain't as good as callin' yourself a police officer, Oi'd loike to knoo wot's wot!"
"I don't know who you're mixing me up with ——"
"Oi'm not mixin' you up with anyone. Oi knoo 'oo you are. An' you called me a blistered boob, didn't you? Tellin' me the tale loike that—the worst tale ever I 'eard! Oi'll shoo you if Oi'm a blistered boob. ..."
The Saint stepped back and his hand came out of his pocket. After all, there was no crowd here to interfere with a straight fight.
"O.K. again, son," he drawled. "I'll promise to recommend you for promotion when I'm caught. You're a smart lad. . . . But you won't catch me. ... "
The Saint was on his toes, his hands rising with a little smile on his lips and a twinkle of laughter in his eyes. And suddenly the policeman must have realized that perhaps after all he had been a blistered boob—that he ought to have kept his discovery to himself until he could usefully reveal it. For the Saint didn't look an easy man to arrest at that moment. . . .
And, suddenly, the policeman yelled—once.
Then the Saint's fists lashed into his jaw, left and right, with two crisp smacks like a kiss-cannon of magnified billiard balls, and he went down like a log.
"And that's that," murmured the Saint grimly.
He reached the window in three strides, and stood there, listening. And out of the gloom there came to him the sound of hoarse voices and hurrying men.
"Well, well, well!" thought the Saint, with characteristic gentleness, and understood that a rapid exit was the next thing for him. If only the cop hadn't managed to uncork that stentorian bellow. . . . But it was too late to think about that—much too late to sit down and indulge in vain lamentations for the bluff that might have been been put over the villagers while the cop lay gagged and bound in the station master's office, if only the cop had passed out with his mouth shut. "It's a great little evening," thought the Saint, as he slipped over the sill.
He disappeared into the shadows down the platform like a prowling cat a moment before the leading pair of boots came pelting over the concrete. At the end of the platform he found a board fence, and he was astride it when a fresh outcry arose from behind him. Still smiling abstractedly, he lowered himself onto a patch of grass beside the road. The road itself was deserted—evidently all the men who had followed them to the station had rushed in to discover the reason for the noise—and no one challenged the Saint as he walked swiftly and silently down the dark street. And long before the first feeble apology for a hue and cry arose behind him he was flitting soundlessly up the cliff road, and he had no fear that he would be found.
4
IT WAS EXACTLY half-past four when he closed the door of Marius's library behind him and faced six very silent people. But one of them found quite an ordinary thing to say.
"Thank the Lord," said Roger Conway.
He pointed to the open window; and the Saint nodded.
"You heard?"
"Quite enough of it."
The Saint lighted a cigarette with a steady hand.
"There was a little excitement," he said quietly.
Sonia Delmar was looking at him steadfastly, and there was a shining pity in her eyes.
"You didn't get through," she said.
It was a plain statement — a statement of what they all knew without being told. And Simon shook his head slowly.
"I didn't. The telephone line's down between here and Saxmundham, and I couldn't get any answer from station telegraph. Angel Face knew about the telephone — that's one reason why he heaved his own at me."
"And they spotted you in the village?"
"Later. I had to break into the post office — the dames in charge were away — but I got away with that. Told the village cop I was a secret agent. He swallowed that at first, and actually helped me break into the station. And then he got out a map to find out how far it was to Saxmundham, and pulled out his Police News with my photograph in it at the same time. I laid him, of course, but I wasn't quite quick enough. Otherwise I might still have got something to take us into Saxmundham —
I was just fixing that when the cop tried to earn his medal."
"You might have told him the truth," Roger ventured.
He expected a storm, but the Saint's answer was perfectly calm.
"I couldn't risk it, old dear. You see, I'd started off with a lie, and then I'd called him a blistered boob when I was playing the Secret Service gag—and I'd sized up my man. I reckon I'd have had one chance in a thousand of convincing him. He was as keen as knives to get his own back, and his kind of head can only hold one idea at a time. And if I had convinced him, it'd have taken hours, and we'd still have had to get through to Saxmundham; and if I'd failed—"
He left the sentence unfinished. There was no need to finish it.
And Roger bit his lip.
"Even now," said Roger, "we might as well be marooned on a desert island.''
Sonia Delmar spoke again.
"That ambulance," she said. "The one they brought me here in ——''
It was Marius who answered, malevolently from his corner.
"The ambulance has gone, my dear young lady.
It returned to London immediately afterwards."
In a dead silence the Saint turned.
"Then I hope you'll go on enjoying your triumph, Angel Face," he said, and there was a ruthless devil in his voice. "Because I swear to you, Rayt Marius, that it's the last you will ever enjoy. Others have killed; but you have sold the bodies and souls of men. The world is poisoned with every breath you breath. . . . And I've changed my mind about giving you a fighting chance."
The Saint was resting against the door; he had not moved from it since he came in. He rested there quite slackly, quite lazily; but now his gun was in his hand, and he was carefully thumbing down the safety catch. And Roger Conway, who knew what the Saint was going to do, strove to speak casually.
"I suppose," remarked Roger Conway casually, "you could hardly run the distance in the time. You used to be pretty useful ——"
The Saint shook his head.
"I'm afraid it's a bit too much," he answered. "It isn't as if I could collapse artistically at the finish. . . . No, old Roger, I can't do it. Unless I could grow a pair of wings ——"
"Wings!"
It was Sonia Delmar who repeated the word— who almost shouted it—clutching the Saint's sleeve with hands that trembled.
But Simon Templar had already started up, and a great light was breaking in his eyes.
"God's mercy!" he cried, with a passionate sincerity ringing through the strangeness of his oath. "You've said it, Sonia! And I said it. ... We'd forgotten Angel Face's aëroplane!"