He gripped her shoulders.
"Carmen," he said quietly. "You must go away from here."
"He'd kill me."
"You must go away."
The headlamps threw back enough light for him to see her face, tear-streaked and desperate.
"He's mad," she said. "He must be Those horrible things . . . I'm afraid. I wanted to go away but he wouldn't let me. I can't go on. Something terrible is going to happen. One day I saw it catch a dog . . . Oh, my God, if you hadn't come when you did----"
"Carmen." He still held her, speaking slowly and deliberately, putting every gift of sanity that he possessed into the level dominance of his voice. "You must not talk like this. You're safe now. Take hold of yourself."
She nodded.
"I know. I'm sorry. I'll be all right. But----"
"Can you drive?"
"Yes."
He started the engine and turned the car round. Then he pushed the gear lever into neutral and set the hand brake.
"Drive this car," he said. "Take it down to the gates and wait for me there. You'll be close to the highway, and there '11 be plenty of other cars passing for company. Even if you do see anything, you needn't be frightened. Treat the car like a tank and run it over. Ivar won't mind--he's got plenty more. And if you hear anything, don't worry. Give me half an hour, and if I'm not back go to Ivar's and talk to him."
Her mouth opened incredulously.
"You're not getting out again?"
"I am. And I'm scared stiff." The ghost of a smile touched his lips, and then she saw that his face was stern and cold. "But I must talk to your uncle."
He gripped her arm for a moment, kissed her lightly and got out. Without a backward glance he walked quickly away from the car, up the drive towards the house. A flashlight in his left hand lanced the. darkness ahead of him with its powerful beam, and he swung it from left to right as he walked, holding his gun in his right hand. His ears strained into the gloom which his eyes could not penetrate, probing the silence under the soft scuff of his own footsteps for any sound that would give him warning; but he forced himself not to look back. The palms of his hands were moist.
The house loomed up in front of him. He turned off to one side of the building, following the direction in which he remembered that Dr Sardon's laboratory lay. Almost at once he saw the squares of lighted windows through the trees. A dull clang of sound came to him, followed by a sort of furious thumping. He checked himself; and then as he walked on more quickly some of the lighted windows went black. The door of the laboratory opened as the last light went out, and his torch framed Dr Sardon and the doorway in its yellow circle.
Sardon was pale and dishevelled, his clothes awry. One of his sleeves was torn, and there was a scratch on his face from which blood ran. He flinched from the light as if it had burned him.
"Who is that?" he shouted.
"This is Simon Templar," said the Saint in a commonplace tone. "I just dropped in to say hullo."
Sardon turned the switch down again and went back into the laboratory. The Saint followed him.
"You just dropped in, eh? Of course. Good. Why not? Did you run into Carmen, by any chance?"
"I nearly ran over her," said the Saint evenly.
The doctor's wandering glance snapped to his face. Sardon's hands were shaking, and a tiny muscle at the side of his mouth twitched spasmodically.
"Of course," he said vacantly. "Is she all right?"
"She is quite safe." Simon had put away his gun before the other saw it. He laid a hand gently on the other's shoulder. "You've had trouble here," he said.
"She lost her nerve," Sardon retorted furiously. "She ran away. It was the worst thing she could do. They understand, these creatures. They are too much for me to control now. They disobey me. My commands must seem so stupid to their wonderful brains. If it had not been that this one is heavy and waiting for her time----"
He checked himself.
"I knew," said the Saint calmly.
The doctor peered up at him out of the corners of his eyes.
"You knew?" he repeated cunningly.
"Yes. I saw it."
"Just now?"
Simon nodded.
"You didn't tell us last night," he said. "But it's what I was afraid of. I have been thinking about it all day."
"You've been thinking, have you? That's funny." Sardon chuckled shrilly. "Well, you're quite right. I've done it. I've succeeded. I don't have to work any more. They can look after themselves now. That's funny, isn't it?"
"So it is true. I hoped I was wrong."
Sardon edged closer to him.
"You hoped you were wrong? You fool! But I would expect it of you. You are the egotistical human being who believes in his ridiculous conceit that the whole history of the world from its own birth, all the species and races that have come into being and been discarded, everything--everything has existed only to lead up to his own magnificent presence on the earth. Bah! Do you imagine that your miserable little life can stand in the way of the march of evolution? Your day is over! Finished! In there"--his arm stiffened and pointed--"in there you can find the matriarch of the new ruling race of the earth. At any moment she will begin to lay her eggs, thousands upon thousands of them, from which her sons and daughters will breed--as big as she is, with her power and her brains." His voice dropped. "To me it is only wonderful that I should have been Nature's chosen instrument to give them their rightful place a million years before Time would have opened the door to them."
The flame in his eyes sank down as his voice sank and his features seemed to relax so that his square clean-cut efficient face became soft and beguiling like the face of an idiot child.
"I know what it feels like to be God," he breathed.
Simon held both his arms.
"Dr Sardon," he said, "you must not go on with this experiment."
The other's face twisted.
"The experiment is finished," he snarled. "Are you still blind? Look--I will show you."
He was broad-shouldered and powerfully built, and his strength was that of a maniac. He threw off the Saint's hands with a convulsive wrench of his body and ran to the sliding door at the end of the room. He turned with his back to it, grasping the handle, as the Saint started after him.
"You shall meet them yourself," he said hoarsely. "They are not in their cage any more. I will let them out here, and you shall see whether you can stand against them. Stay where you are!"
A revolver flashed in his hand; and the Saint stopped four paces from him.
"For your own sake, Dr Sardon," he said, "stand away from that door."
The doctor leered at him crookedly.
"You would like to burn my ants," he whispered.
He turned and fumbled with the spring catch, his revolver swinging carelessly wide from its aim; and the door had started to move when Simon shot him twice through the heart.
Simon was stretched out on the veranda, sipping a highball and sniping mosquitoes with a cigarette end, when Nordsten came up the steps from his car. The Saint looked up with a smile.
"My dear fellow," said Nordsten, "I thought you would be at the fire."
"Is there a fire?" Simon asked innocently.
"Didn't you know? Sardon's whole laboratory has gone up in flames. I heard about it at the club, and when I left I drove back that way thinking I should meet you. Sardon and his niece were not there, either. It will be a terrible shock for him when he hears of it. The place was absolutely gutted--I've never seen such a blaze. It might have been soaked in gasoline. It was still too hot to go near, but I suppose all his work has been destroyed. Did you miss Carmen?"
The Saint pointed over his shoulder.
"At the present moment she's sleeping in your best guest room," he said. "I gave her enough of your sleeping tablets to keep her like that till breakfast time."