Simon went down the stairs again like a ghost. It was the key from the chain which turned the lock, and the heavy steel door swung back at a touch with the smooth acquiescence that even Simon Templar could never feel without a thrill. He propped his flashlight over one instep so that its light filled the interior of the safe, and went to work with quick white-gloved hands. Once he heard a board crack overhead and froze into seconds of granite immobility, but he knew that he had made no noise, and presently he went on.
The plans were dissected into a thick roll of sheets tied up with tape; the specifications were packed in a long fat envelope with “Pegasus Variable Gear” roughly scrawled on it — that, he had been told, was the name which had been provisionally given to the invention — and a short epic on legal paper was enclosed with them. There were also some letters from various automobile manufacturers.
The Saint was so busily engaged for the next ten minutes, and so absorbed in his labors, that he missed certain faint sounds which might otherwise have reached his ears. The first hint of danger came just as he had finished, in the shape of a cautious scuffle of feet on the terrace outside, and a hoarse whisper which was so unexpected that he raised his head almost incredulously.
Then his eyes dropped half instinctively to the safe which he had just closed. He saw something that he had not noticed before — a flat leaden tube which rose a bare inch from the floor and disappeared into the crack under the lowest hinge, an obvious conduit for alarm wires. The girl had told him that there were no alarms, but that was one which Northwade had probably preferred to keep secret, and it had taken the Saint off his guard.
The narrow beam of the flashlight snapped out like a silent explosion. Simon leapt through the blackness to the windows, slammed them together, and secured the catch. He was knotting a handkerchief over the lower part of his face as he crossed the room again. In the darkness his hand closed on the doorknob, turned it stealthily; at the same time his fingers stretched downwards, and could feel no key in the lock. It looked as if it might be a tight corner, a crisp and merry getaway while it lasted, but those were the moments when the Saint’s brain worked at its swiftest.
He opened the door with a quick jerk and took one step into the hall. On his right, covering the retreat to the back of the house, stood an outsize butler in a nightshirt with a rolling pin clutched in one hand. On his left, barring the way to the front door, was a wiry youth in trousers and undershirt. A little way up the stairs stood Burt Northwade himself, with a candle in one hand and a young cannon of a revolver in the other. The Saint’s most reckless fighting smile touched his lips under the concealing handkerchief.
“Bon soir, messieurs,” he murmured politely. “It appears that you were not expecting me. I am accustomed to being received in formal dress. I regret that I cannot accept you in this attire.”
He stepped back rapidly through the door, closing it after him. The butler and the wiry youth took a few seconds to recover, then they made a concerted dash for the door. They burst in together, followed by Burt Northwade with the candle. The spectacle of a completely deserted library was the last thing they were expecting, and it pulled them up short with bulging eyes.
In an abruptly contrasting silence, the night shirted butler returned to life. He tiptoed gingerly forward, and peered with a majestic air behind and under a large settee in a far corner of the room. The wiry youth, inspired by his example, made a dash to the nearest window curtains and pulled them wide apart, disclosing a large area of glass with the round goggling faces of two other servants pressed against it from the outside, like startled fish in an aquarium. Burt Northwade discreetly remained a scant yard inside the doorway with his sputtering candle held helpfully aloft.
On the top of a massive ladder of bookshelves beside the door, Simon Templar rose like a panther from his prone position and dropped downwards. He fell squarely behind Northwade, easing his fall with a hand applied to the crown of Northwade’s head, which drew from the tycoon a sudden squeal of terror. The same hand pushed Northwade violently forward, and the candle which supplied the only illumination of the scene flickered and went out.
In the darkness the door banged.
“We might even get back in time to have a dance somewhere,” said the Saint.
He materialized out of the gloom beside her like a wraith, and she gasped.
“Did you have to scare me?” she asked, when she had got her breath.
He chuckled. Back towards the Northwade mansion there were sounds of muffled disturbance, floating down to his ears like the music of hounds to an old fox. He slipped into the driving seat and touched the starter. The engine purred unprotestingly.
“Did something go wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing that wasn’t taken care of.”
The car gathered speed into the blaze of its own headlights. Simon felt for a cigarette and lighted it from the dashboard gadget.
“Did you get everything?” she asked.
“I am the miracle man who never fails, Judith,” he said reproachfully. “Hadn’t I explained that?”
“But that noise—”
“There seems to have been some sort of alarm that goes off when the safe is opened, which you didn’t know about. Not that it mattered a lot. The ungodly were fatally slow in assembling, and if you’d seen their waist measurements you wouldn’t have been surprised.”
She caught his arm excitedly.
“Oh, I can’t quite believe it!..Everything’s all right now. And I’ve actually been on a raid with the Saint himself! Do you mind if I give way a bit?”
She reached across him to the button in the middle of the steering wheel. The horn blared a rhythmic peal of triumph and defiance into the night: “Taaa ta-ta, taaa ta-ta, taaa ta-ta!” Like a jubilant trumpet. Simon smiled. Nothing could have fitted better into the essential rightness of everything that had happened that evening. It was true that there had been a telephone in the library, and if there was an extension upstairs there might be gendarmes already watching the road, but they would be an interesting complication that could be dealt with in its proper turn.
Then he coaxed the car around a sharp bend and saw a row of red lights spring up across the road. He dropped his hand thoughtfully to the brake.
“This wasn’t here when we came by first,” he said, and realized that the girl had gone tense and still.
“What do you think it is?” she whispered.
The Saint shrugged. He brought the car to a standstill with its bumper three yards from the red lights, which appeared to be attached to a long plank rigged squarely across his path — he could not see what was beyond the plank.
Then he felt a hard cold jab of metal in the side of his head, and turned quickly. He looked down the barrel of a gun in the hand of an overcoated man who stood beside the car.
“Take it easy,” advised the man with grim calmness.
The Saint heard a rustle of movement beside him, and glanced around. The girl was getting out. She closed the door after her, and stood on the running board.
“This is as far as I ride, stranger,” she said.
“I see,” said the Saint gently.
The man with the gun jabbed again.
“Let’s have those papers,” he ordered.
Simon took them from his breast pocket. The girl received them, and turned on the dashboard light to squint down the roll of plans and read the inscription on the long envelope. Her golden-yellow hair stirred like a shifting halo in the slight breeze.