It was from that moment, probably, that the ruin of all his resolutions could be dated.
Psychologists, from whom no secrets are hidden, tell us that certain stimuli may possess such ancient and ineradicable associations that the reactions which they arouse are as automatic and inevitable as the yap of a trampled Peke. A bugle sounds, and the old war horse snorts with yearning. A gramophone record is played, and the septuagenarian burbles wheezily of an old love. A cork pops, and the mouths of the thirsty water. Such is life.
And even so did it happen to the Saint.
After all, he had done nothing desperately exciting for a long time. About twenty-one days. His subconscious was just ripe for the caressing touch of a few seductive stumuli. And then and there, when his resistance was at its lowest ebb, he heard and felt the juicy plonk of his fist sinking home into a nose.
The savour of that fruity squish wormed itself wheedlingly down into the very cockles of his heart. He liked it. It stirred the deepest chords of his being. And it dawned persuasively upon him that at that moment he desired nothing more of life than an immediate repetition of that feeling. And, seeing the nose once more conveniently poised in front of him, he hit it again.
He had not been mistaken. His subconscious knew its stuff. With the feel of that second biff a pleasant kind of glow centred itself in the pit of his stomach and tingled electrically outwards along his limbs, and the remainder of his doubts melted away before its spreading warmth. He was punching the nose of an ugly man, and he was liking it. Life had no more to offer.
The ugly man went sprawling back across the bridge. Then he came in again with his arms flailing, and the Saint welcomed him joyfully with a crisp half-arm jolt to the ribs. As he fetched up with a gasp, Simon picked a haymaker off the ground and crashed him in a limp heap.
The Saint straightened his coat and looked around for further inspiration.
The party had begun to sort itself out. A couple of paces away, Monty Hayward was giving the second thug a whole-time job; and right beside him the third hoodlum was kneeling on the inoffensive little man's chest, squeezing his windpipe with one hand and fumbling in his pocket with the other.
Some of which may help to explain why the third hoodlum was so utterly and devastatingly surprised by the next few things that happened to him. Undoubtedly his impression of the events that crowded themselves into the following eight seconds was a trifle hazy. A pair of sinewy hands locked themselves together beneath his chin, and he was conscious of a tall, lean shape leaning affectionately over him. And then he was hurled backwards into the air with a jerk that nearly dislocated his spine. He rolled dizzily over on his knee, reaching for his hip pocket; and the Saint laughed. It was the one move that had not till then been made—the move that Simon had been waiting and hoping for with all the concentrated power of his dismantled virtue—the move that flooded the one missing colour into the angelic beauty of the night.
"Dear heart!" said the Saint, and leapt at him like a panther.
The man was halfway to his feet when the Saint hit him, and his hand was less than halfway out of his pocket. The blow clicked his head back with a force that rocked his cervical vertebræ in their sockets, and he slumped blindly up against the parapet.
Simon piled smotheringly on top of him. Over the man's shoulder he caught a fleeting glimpse of the dark waters of the river hurtling sleekly past and breaking creamily against the broad piers of the bridge—for the Inn is none of your dignified and stately streams, it comes pelting down from the Alps like a young tidal wave—and the little fighting smile that played round the Saint's lips slowly widened to an unholy grin. His right arm circled lovingly round the man's legs. After all—why not?
"Saturday night is bath night, brother," said the Saint.
His left hand pushed the man's face down, and his right arm hauled upwards. The parapet was squarely in the small of his victim's back, and it was easy. The man pivoted over the masonry with an airy grace to which he had contributed no effort at all, and disappeared from view with a faint squawking noise. . . .
For a second or two the Saint gazed beatifically down upon the bubbles that broke the surface of the icy torrent, letting the sweetest taste of battle soak lusciously into his palate. The die was cast. The last, least hope of salvation that he might have had was shredded up and scattered to the winds. He felt as if a great load had been lifted from his mind. The old days had come back. The fighting and the fun had come back of their own accord, without his seeking, because they were his allotted portion—the rescuing of small men in distress, and the welting of the ungodly on the boko. And it was very good that these things should be so. It was a beautiful and solemn thought for a man who had been good for three whole weeks.
He turned around with a happy little sigh, nebulously wondering whether he had by some mischance overlooked any other opportunities of nailing down the coffin of his virtue. But a temporary peace had settled on the scene of strife. The man with the exceptionally villainous face was still in no condition to continue with the argument. The harmless-looking little man was sitting weakly in the gutter with his head in his hands. And on the head of the remaining tough sat Monty Hayward, licking a skinned set of knuckles. He looked up at the Saint with an air of quiet reflection.
"You know," he said, "I'm not sure that a cold bath would do this bird a lot of harm, either."
The Saint laughed suddenly.
"Let's go," he said.
He stooped and grasped the man's ankles. Monty took the shoulders. The man shot upwards and outwards into space like a clay pigeon from a trap. ...
They turned again. In the middle of the road, the last of the Mohicans was crawling malevolently to his feet; and his hand also, like the hand of his predecessor, was fetching something from his pocket. . . . For the third time, Simon looked at Monty, and Monty looked at the Saint. Their attitudes were sober and judicial; but neither was able to read in the other's eyes the bashfullest suggestion that the good work should go unfinished. . . . The Saint nodded, and they streaked oft the mark as one man. The hoodlum was borne away towards the wall. There was a wild whirl of arms and legs, a splash, and a silence. . . .
Simon Templar dusted his coat.
"Somehow or other," he remarked, after a short interval of contented rumination, "we seem to have disposed of the opposition. Let's have a look at Little Willie."
He walked over and hitched the cause of all the trouble to its feet. In the clear light of one of the standard lamps mounted on the parapet, he saw a thin, sallow face from which two dull brown eyes blinked at him dazedly. Simon studied the little man curiously. On closer inspection, the prize he had collected from the lucky dip seemed a rather inadequate reward for the expenditure of so much energy and mental stress; but the Saint had a sublime faith in his good fortune.
"Where were you on your way to, George?" he inquired affably.
The little man shook his head.
"Ich verstehe nicht."
"Wohin wollten Sie gehen?" repeated the Saint, translating.
To his surprise, the little man's lips tightened, and a sullen glaze came over his eyes. He almost snarled out his reply.
"Ich will gar nichts sagen."
Simon frowned.
Somewhere a new shrill noise was drifting through the stillness of the night, and he realized that both Monty and Patricia were standing rather tensely at his side; but he paid no attention. His brain registered the impressions as if it received them through a fog. He had no time to think about them then.