"What was the truth of it?" asked Monty.
Simon put his hands on his hips and continued to gaze up at the drama on the line.
"We were bounced off," he said simply. "Marcovitch rode us out on a rail. I'm not bragging about it. He'd cleaned up the van when I got there—and my guess was right The jewels were travelling with us. His pockets were stuffed with 'em, and I saw a diamond he'd dropped wedged between the floor boards to make it a cinch. And right there when I blew in it was a choice of death or get from under. We got from under— just."
The smile on the Saint's lips was as superficial as a reflection in burnished bronze. There was something of the implacable immobility of a watching Indian about him as he stood at gaze with his eyes narrowed against the sun. The staccato sentences of his synopsis broke off like a melody cut short in the middle of a bar, leaving his listeners in midair; but the conclusion was carved deep into the unforgetting contours of his face. He wasn't complaining. He wasn't saying a word about the run of the cards. He wasn't even elaborating one single vaporous prophecy about what might happen when he and Marcovitch got together again over a bottle of vodka to yarn over old times. Not just at that moment But the indomitable purpose of it was etched into every facet of his unnatural quiescence, sheathing him like a skin of invisible steel. And once again the parting riddle of Josef Krauss went ticking through the core of his stillness like a gramophone record that has jammed its needle into one hard-worn groove. . . .
And then the gas picnic up on the track began to sort itself out. One of the officials tore himself away from the centre of rhetoric and started to urge the passengers back into their carriages. The empurpled lady lifted her yapping paladin tenderly into the last coach, and was in her turn assisted steatopygously upwards. The second official, brandishing a large notebook vaguely in his left hand, pressed the still voluble Marcovitch after her. Gradually the train re-absorbed its jabbering debris like a large and sedate vacuum cleaner. The locomotive, succumbing at last to the force of overwhelming example, let out a mighty cloud of steam and wagged its tail triumphantly. Somebody blew a whistle; and the northbound express resumed its interrupted journey.
Simon Templar turned away from the emptying landscape with an imperceptible shrug. He had not expected any impromptu search party to be organized. A trio of armed and desperate mail bandits would have very few attractions as a quarry to a trainload of agitated tourists, and transcontinental expresses cannot be left lying about the track while their passengers play a game of hare and hounds. The incident would be reported at the next station, twenty miles up the line, and the whole responsibility turned over to the police. And the getaway would have to find its own way on.
The Saint threw himself down on a bank of grass, and lay back with his hands behind his head, staring up into the sky through the soft green tracery of the leaves.
"After all," he said profoundly, "life is just a bowl of cherries." Patricia leaned on the trunk of the great tree and kicked at a stone.
"You might have borrowed Monty's gun and plugged Marcovitch while he was talking," she said wistfully.
"Sure. And then I don't suppose they'd even have had to bother to turn out his pockets. The minute he became horizontal he'd 've cascaded diamonds like a dream come true. I don't know how you feel about it, old girl, but I should just hate those jools to fall into the hands of the police. It might be kind of difficult to establish our claim and get 'em back."
Monty Hayward produced a pipe and began to scrape it out with his penknife.
"Getting them back from Marcovitch," he observed, "will be comparatively child's play."
"As Simon said," murmured Patricia softly, "it seems a lot of fuss to make over one little blue diamond."
She spoke almost without thinking; and after she had spoken there was a silence.
And then, very firmly and distinctly, the Saint said: "Hell! . . ."
"I know how you feel about it, old man," said Monty Hay-ward sympathetically; and there he stopped, with the rest of his speech drying up in a hiatus of blank bewilderment. For the Saint had rolled over on one elbow in a sudden leap of volcanic energy, and his eyes were blazing.
"But that's just what you don't know!" he cried. "We've been bounced off a train—chucked out on our ears and darned glad to be let off as lightly as that. And why? God of battles, what have we been thinking about all this time? What have we been daydreaming about Rudolf?"
"I thought he was a crook," said Monty rationally.
"I know! That's the mistake we've all been making. And yet you can't say you ever heard me speak of Rudolf as a crook. He never had to be. It wasn't so long ago when Rudolf could have bought us both up every day for a week and never missed it. It wasn't so long ago when Rudolf and Rayt Marius were playing for bigger chips than a few coloured stones. It was war in those days, Monty—death rays and Secret Service men, spies and Bolsheviks and assassinations—all the fun of the fair. Naturally there was money in it, but that was all coming to Rayt Marius. Marius was a crook, even if he was dealing in millions. But Rudolf was something that seems much stranger in these days. Something a damned sight more dangerous."
"And what's that?"
"A patriot," said the Saint.
Patricia kicked at her stone again, and It tumbled out of reach. She hardly noticed it.
"Then when we found we were up against Rudolf again——"
"We ought to have been wide awake. And we weren't. We've been fast asleep I We've watched Rudolf moving heaven and earth to get his hands on those jewels—killing and torturing for them—even coming down to offering me a partnership while his men had orders to shoot us on sight—and we took it all as part of the game. We've been on the spot ever since Stanislaus went home with us. Up in that brake van—I've never seen anything so flat-and-be-damned in my life! Marcovitch was primed to put me out of the way from the beginning. It was written all over his face. And after that he'd 've shot up anyone else who butted in for a witness, and taken you and Monty for a dessert—made a clean sweep of it, and shovelled the whole mortuary out onto the line." The Saint's voice was tense and vital with his excitement. "I thought of it once myself, right in the first act; but since then there doesn't seem to have been much spare time. When Rudolf walked into our rooms at the Königshof, I was wondering what new devilment we'd stumbled across. I was telling myself that there was one thing we weren't going to find in this adventure—and that was ordinary boodle in any shape or form. And then, just because a quarter of a million pounds' worth of crystallized minerals fell out of that sardine tin, I went soft through the skull. I forgot everything I ever knew."
"Do you know any more now?" asked Monty skeptically. Simon looked at him straightly.
"I know one thing more, which I was going to tell you," he answered. "Josef Krauss gave me the hint before he died. He said: 'Take great care of the blue diamond. It is really priceless.' And just for the last few minutes, Monty, I've been thinking that when we know what he meant by that we shall know why Rudolf has made up his mind that you and I are too dangerous to live."
IX. HOW SIMON HAD AN INSPIRATION, AND
TRESPASSED IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN
MONTY HAYWARD dug out his tobacco pouch and investigated, the contents composedly. His deliberately practical intelligence refused to be stampeded into any Saintly flights of fancy.
"If it's any use to you," he said, "I should suggest that Josef was trying to be helpful. Perhaps he didn't know you were a connoisseur of blue diamonds."
"Perhaps," said the Saint.
He came to his feet with the lithe swiftness of an animal, settling his belt with one hand and sweeping back the other over his smooth hair. The cold winds of incredulity and common sense flowed past his head like summer zephyrs. He had his inspiration. The flame of unquenchable optimism in his eyes was electric, an irresistible resurgence of the old Saintly exaltation that would always find a new power and hope in the darkest thunders of defeat. He laughed. The stillness had fallen from him like a cloak—fallen away as if it had never existed. He didn't care.