"I think I owe you an apology," said the prince quietly. "I underrated your abilities—it is a mistake I have made before."
Simon beamed at him.
"But it was so obvious, wasn't it? There was I with that bonny little box of boodle, and no means of opening it. And there were you announcing yourself as the guy who could open it or get it opened. At first I was annoyed. I regret to say that for a time I even contemplated the advantages of your meeting with a fatal accident. Since we both coveted the same prize——"
"Spare me," said the prince, with faint irony. "The point is already clear."
The Saint glanced whimsically at the open strong-box. Then his gaze flicked cavalierly back to the prince's face.
"Should I say—thank you?"
Their eyes clashed like crossed rapiers. Each of them knew the emotions that were scorching through the other's mind; neither of them betrayed one scantling of his own thoughts or feelings. The barrage of intangible steel seethed up between them in an interval of tautening silence. . . . And then the prince looked down at the glowing end of his cigarette.
"Your half-charged cartridges are very useful, Mr. Templar. But suppose I were to cry out—you would gain nothing by killing me——"
"I don't know. I should gain nothing by not killing you. And you'd look rather funny if you suddenly felt a piece of lead taking a walk through your appendix. It's that element of doubt, Rudolf, which is so discouraging."
The prince nodded.
"The psychology of these situations has always interested me," he said conversationally.
He had picked the stub of cigarette out of his holder, and the movement he made was so smooth and natural, so perfectly timed, that even Simon Templar was deceived. The prince was reaching languidly for the ash tray while he spoke . . . and then his hand shot past its mark. The lid of the open strong-box fell with a slam; and the prince was smiling.
"By the way," he said coolly, "my appendix is in Budapest"
He must have known that his life hung by a hair, but not a muscle of his face flinched. There was sudden death in the Saint's eyes, cold murder in the tenseness of his trigger finger; but the prince might have been talking polite trivialities at an Embassy reception. . . . And suddenly the Saint laughed. He couldn't help it. That exhibition of petrified nerve was the most breath-taking thing he had ever witnessed. He laughed, and scooped in the box with his left hand.
"Some day you'll sit on an iceberg and boil," he predicted flintly. "But you don't want to take another chance like that this evening, sweetheart. Get back against that wall and put your hands up!"
The prince obeyed unhurriedly. With his back to a bookcase and the Saint's gun focusing on his waistline, he spoke in the same passionless tone:
"My humane little invention is still at your disposal, my dear Mr. Templar. What a pity it is that it fails to meet with your approval. . . ."
"Believe me," said the Saint.
He hooked a chair round with his foot, and drew the telephone towards him. With one elbow propped on the table, and the strong-box parked alongside, he slid one eye onto the combination panel and kept the prince skewered on the other.
"Innsbruck achtundzwanzig neun dreizehn."
The number clacked back at him from the receiver. And a great wide grin of pure beatitude was deploying itself round his inside. Even Rudolf could still make his mistakes; and it seemed to Simon that the exchange of errors was piling itself up beautifully on the side of righteousness and the Public School Code. But for once he deliberately chose to let the op portunity pf chirruping go by. '
And then he was through to his own suite at the Königshof.
"Hullo, Pat, old angel! How's the world? . . . Where have I been? Oh, toddling here and there. Wonderful amount of Alp there is in Austria. The place is simply bulging with it. . . . Well, don't rush me. I've been touring the great open spaces. Pat, where men are men and women wear flannel next the skin. Rudolf has been doing the honours. But that'll keep. Shoot me the news from home, old darling. . . . Whassat? . . . Well, I will be teetotal and let it snow!"
His forehead was crinkling as he listened, while the receiver rattled and spluttered with a recital that began by making his hair stand on end. For fully five minutes his granitic silence was punctuated only by an infrequent monosyllable that sizzled into the transmitter like a splinter of hot quartz.
And then, as the tale went on, he began to smile. His interruptions wafted through the air on a breath of inward laughter. And the concluding sentence of the story fetched him half out of his chair.
"Did you say that? . . . Oh, Pat, my precious cherub—get me that scaly humbug on the wire!"
He looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes to five, with barely an hour to go before the dawn. Then another familiar accent answered him.
"H'lo, Monty!" The Saint's voice was sparkling. "So you're the man who wanted to be good! . . . Well, I've got something here for you to take back to the Bible class. You couldn't have arranged it better. This is Simon Templar speaking from a Grade A schloss with whiskers on its chest, and he also feels the emigrating urge. Your job is to push out and freeze onto the fastest automobile you can get your fists on, and meet me on the road to Jenbach. All I've got here is the second worst car in Europe, but I ought to get that far. Now jump to it——"
The Saint's gun cracked. He was a second late—his bullet split a thick wedge of wood out of the angle of the dummy bookcase that was closing behind the prince, and then the hidden door had slammed back into place. He heard Monty's sharp question and laughed shortly.
"That was Rudolf on his way, and I missed him. Don't worry —travel!"
He dropped the receiver on its hook and stood up. The strong-box fitted bulkily into his poaching pocket. He darted out into the empty passage and saw another room on the other side. From the window he could locate an eighteen-inch ledge of stone running just beneath it. He swung himself over the sill and went two-stepping along the brink of sticky death.
IV. HOW MONTY HAYWARD CARRIED ON
THE apotheosis of Monty Hayward did not actually trouble the attention of the Recording Angel until some time after the Saint had catapulted himself through the open windows and batted off into space on his own business.
Displaying remarkable agility for a man of his impregnable sang-froid, Monty Hayward possessed himself of the weapon which had fallen from the disabled gunman's hand, seized its badly winded owner by the collar; and lugged him vigorously into the sitting room, where the lights were still functioning. There he proceeded methodically to handicap the wounded warrior's recovery by dragging up a massive Chesterfield and laying it gently on the wounded warrior's bosom. Then he lighted a cigarette and looked gloomily at Patricia, who had followed him in.
"Why don't you scream or something?" he asked morosely. "It would help to relieve my feelings."
The girl laughed.
"Wouldn't it be more useful to do something about Ethelbert?"
"What—this nasty piece of work?" Monty glanced down at the gunman, whose groans were becoming a fraction less heartrending as his paralyzed respiratory organs creaked painfully back towards normal. "I suppose it might be. What shall we do—shoot him?"
"We might tie him up."
"I know. You tear the curtains into strips, and blow the expense."
"There's a length of rope in Simon's bag," said Patricia calmly. "If you'll wait a second I'll get it for you."
She disappeared into the bedroom and returned in a few moments with a coil of stout cord. Monty took it from her gingerly.