"I see," said the Saint softly. "And if I told you what you want to know, I suppose we should be murdered just the same, only without the trimmings."
Marteau's face grew colder and more distant.
"I should like you to understand, monsieur, that the Sons of France do not commit murder. Although your guilt is perfectly evident, you will receive a fair trial by court-martial; naturally, if you are found guilty, you must expect to suffer the due penalty."
"Exactly." Luker spoke in English and the old ironical gleam was back in his eyes. "You'll get a fair trial by court-martial, and you'll be shot immediately afterwards. The day after tomorrow we shall probably start court-martialling traitors in batches of twenty. I'll try to arrange for you both to be in the first batch. But you must agree that that will be far preferable to the same inevitable result with the preliminary addition of what I think you called the trimmings."
"Of course," said the Saint. "You're so generous that it brings a lump into my throat."
But his smile was very tight and cold.
His shoulders ached with a weary hopelessness. No one except himself, not even Luker, could guess what dregs of defeat he had to taste. Death he could have met carelessly: he had lived with it at his elbow for so long that it was almost a friend. He had fenced and bantered with it, and lightheartedly made rendezvous and broken them, but never without the calm knowledge that the day must come, however distant, when they would have to sit down together and talk business. Death with trimmings, even, would not have made him cringe; he had faced that, too, and other men had gone through it, men many of them forgotten and nameless now, who had endured their brief futile agony that was swept away and obliterated like a ripple in the long river of time. But here he was not alone. He had to sentence the girl in the acceptance of his own fate.
And there was nothing to give it even a plausible ultimate glory. They died, anyway. And if he died, and let the girl die, without speaking under any torture, it achieved no more than just that. It was not a question of keeping the photograph safe for what might be done with it. There would be no one left to do anything with it, after Patricia and the others had been rounded up in the morning. And even if they escaped, there would be nothing to be done. The negative would remain where it was hidden, in his fountain pen, and would probably be destroyed along with his body and the clothes he was wearing; or at the best someone would appropriate it, and the most likely person to appropriate it was one of the Sons of France, and even if he found it it would alter nothing. If the Saint was silent and it was never found, it would only mean that Luker and Marteau would be worried about it for some time, but nothing would happen, and their anxieties would ease with every day that went by, and soon they would be too strong to care. How could he condemn the girl to that extra unspeakable ugliness of death for no better reason than to leave Luker and Marteau with a little unnecessary trepidation, and to give his pride the boast that they had never been able to make him talk?
But the bitterness of surrender fought against letting him speak.
He saw Luker watching him steadily, and knew that the other was following almost every step in his inevitable thoughts. Luker's eyes were hardening with the cold certainty of triumph.
"Perhaps you would like to discuss it with your fiancee, Mr Templar," he said. "I shall arrange for you to be given five minutes alone. I'm sure that that will be sufficient for you to reach the only conclusion that two sensible people can come to."
4
They were in a tiny box of a cell furnished with a small wooden table, a wooden chair and a wooden cot with a straw paillasse; all the articles of furniture were securely bolted to the floor. It smelt sour and musty. A faint dismal light came through an iron grille over the door which seemed to be the only means of ventilation.
Valerie dropped limply on to the cot and leaned back against the wall in an attitude of supreme weariness.
"Alone at last," she said. And then: "My God, I'm tired."
"You must be," said the Saint. "Why don't you go to sleep?"
She smiled weakly.
"With a man in my room? What would the dear vicar say?"
"Probably the same thing that the Bishop said to the actress."
"What was that?"
" 'It is a far far bedder thing—' "
"'—I do now than I have ever done,'" she said; and then her voice broke. She said huskily: "Simon… will it hurt dreadfully?"
The Saint's mouth felt dry, but the palms of his hands were wet. He knew exactly how cruelly shrewd Luker had been in giving them those few minutes to think. If he had had any doubts before, he could not have kept them long.
The only thing left to discover was what else might be done with the postponement.
He went over and sat down on the end of the cot, beside her, and against the wall. The wall was of naked bricks, roughly laid, and age had mouldered the mortar in many of the courses and neglect had let it crumble away. He felt the surface behind him with his numbed finger tips. It seemed to be harsh and abrasive…
"Does dying frighten you very much?" he asked gently.
Her head was tilted back against the wall and her eyes were half closed.
"I don't know… Yes, I'd always be terrified. But I don't think I'd mind so much just being shot. This… being flogged — to death — it makes me go sort of shuddery deep inside. I want to scream and howl and weep with terror, and I can't… I'm afraid I'd never have been any good to you, Simon. I suppose your girl friend would go to it with a brave smile and her head held high and all that sort of thing, but I can't. I'm afraid I'm going to disgrace you horribly before it's over…"
He was rubbing his bound wrists against the brickwork behind him, tentatively at first, then with a more determined concentration. He could feel the dragging resistance against each movement, could hear the slurred grating sounds that it produced. He bent his head towards her until his lips were almost touching her ear.
"Listen," he whispered. "You're not going to be flogged. We can prevent that, at least. But you heard what Luker said. Whatever else happens, we're booked for the firing squad within the next couple of days. So we have to be shot, anyway. Personally I'd rather be shot on the run, and at least give them a fight for their money. I'm going to try to make a getaway. I don't suppose it'll make a damn bit of difference, but I'm going to try it."
She looked at him, quickly, as if all her muscles had stiffened. And then they relaxed again.
"Of course — you couldn't take me with you," she said wistfully. "I'd only be in the way."
It was hard to keep the rope pressed firmly enough against the brick and at the same time keep his flesh away. There seemed to be more protruding bones in his hands and wrists than he had ever dreamed of, and his skin was much less tough than the rope. Fierce twinges of rasping agony stabbed up his arms, but he could not allow himself to heed them.
He said: "If you feel the same way that I do, and you'd like to take a chance, we'll have a shot at it together."
She had begun to stare at the curious rhythmic twitching of his shoulders.
"What are you doing?"
The sweat was standing out in beads on his forehead although she could not see that; and his teeth were clamped together in stubborn endurance of the torture that he was inflicting on himself while he tore the flesh off his bones as he fought to fray off the strands of hemp that tied his hands. But his heart was blazing with a savage exaltation that partly deadened pain.