With his ear pressed to the panels, he could make words out of the murmur that he had heard before. The conversation was in English—he heard Prince Rudolf's silkily faultless accent, commanding the scene as interpreter,
"Would it not be unusual, Miss Holm, if our friend showed no interest in your whereabouts?"
Then Patricia's unfaltering stone-walclass="underline"
"I really don't know."
"And yet you insist that he had made no arrangements about meeting you again."
"He isn't a nursemaid."
"But, my dear lady! You must remember that we have met before. I have had my experience of the esteem in which Mr. Templar holds you. Are we to understand that he has transferred his affections elsewhere? I must confess I had heard rumours——"
"As a matter of fact," said Patricia calmly, "we did quarrel."
"Ah! And was it because of another woman?"
"No."
"Will you tell us the reason?"
"Certainly. He said you were a slimy baboon, and I told him I wouldn't have him insulting baboons."
A guttural voice broke in with a rattle of short-tempered German. Prince Rudolf replied soothingly; then he spoke again in English, imperturbably as ever, but with the suave malignity razoring even more clearly through his voice.
"Miss Holm, you will be unwise to attempt to imitate your —er—friend's celebrated gift of repartee. Perhaps you have not yet realized the seriousness of your position. You are charged with being an accessory to three crimes. It would be a pity for you to waste your beauty in prison."
"Is that so?"
"I am instructed to tell you that there are two ways of turning State's Evidence, and only one of them is voluntary—or pleasant. One can be—persuaded."
There was a brief silence; and then another voice entered the discussion with the confidence of its own personality. It was Nina Walden's.
"Now you're getting interesting, Prince," she remarked. "That'll make a grand story at the trial. It'll be front page stuff. 'Crown Prince Practises Third Degree—Lady Killer In Real Life—Royal Exile Retains Torture Chamber!' Say, wait till I get this all down!"
"Miss Walden, I should advise you——"
"I didn't ask for advice," said the American girl coldly. "I'm here as a reporter. If it's your job to find three men to bully a woman, it's my job to tell the world."
There was another silence.
Then the German officer muttered something vicious and impatient. Simon heard a faint gasp—then the smack of a flat palm and a startled oath.
He turned the handle and kicked open the door.
The figures in that charge-room scene printed themselves on his eyes one by one in a second of unbroken immobility, just as his own image was stamped forever on their memories. They spun round together at the sound of his entry, those of them who had their backs to him, and froze on their feet all at once. His eyes went over them bleakly, like a camera panning round a group set. The sergeant standing by a high desk at the end of the room. The policeman who had brought Patricia in, with her wrist still half twisted in the grasp of one hand, while his other hand moved unbelievingly over the red brand of fingers on his cheek. Nina Walden standing close to him, just as she had been when she hit him. Marcovitch in the background, caught in the middle of his gloating as if he had taken a bullet in the stomach. The Crown Prince, poised with his unfailing grace, with his pale delicate features as reposeful as an alabaster mask, raising his long jade cigarette holer in tapering fingers that were as steady as a statue's. And Patricia Holm staring, with the leap of a bewildered hope coming to her lips. ...
"Good-evening, boys and girls," said the Saint softly.
They gazed at him speechlessly, striving to orient their intelligences to the astounding fact of his presence. And the Saint gave them all the time they needed. He lounged against the jamb of the doorway, smiling at them, circling his gun over them in a gentle arc. He was enjoying his moment. Such instances as that were the sky-signs of his career, the caviare that made all the rest of it worth while. He liked to linger over them, tasting every shade and subtlety of their rare flavour, writing them into the mental memoirs that would shed their light over his declining years—if he lived long enough to decline.
And then Patricia Holm broke the stillness with his name.
"Simon!"
The Saint nodded, looking at her. The conversation that he had heard before he came through the door was still in his mind. He saw the blind happiness in her face, the faith in her eyes, the eager courage of her slim body; and he knew that, whatever happened, whatever the price to be paid, he had taken the very best of life.
"I'm here, lass," he said.
The man who had hold of her roused out of his stupor. He let go the girl's wrist and grabbed for the Luger in his belt . . .
Crack!
Simon's automatic spat from a half-charged cartridge with a sound like two thin planks of wood slapped smartly together, and the Luger banged down to the stone floor. The policeman, with a limp right arm, stared foolishly at a dribble of blood that was running out of his sleeve down the back of his hand.
The Saint glanced aside and saw that Monty had advanced through the other door. Then he faced the group again.
"So long as you all behave yourselves," he murmured, "everything will be hunky dory. Rudolf, I've been looking for you everywhere!"
XII. HOW NINA WALDEN SPOKE, AND MONTY
HAYWARD LOOKED OUT OF A WINDOW
COMPARED with the silence there had been before, the taciturnity that greeted the Saint's affable announcement swelled up to deafening proportions. No one who might by any chance have associated himself with its scope succumbed to any irresistible desire to step forward and offer an illuminated address of welcome in reply. An aura of obstinate bashfulness draped itself over the scene like a pall—suspended from the swinging muzzle of the Saint's gun, and trimmed at its edges with the crimson smudge on the back of the policeman's hand. The sergeant at the desk shamelessly took the lesson of that single shot into his well nourished bosom and allowed it to incubate. He went puce to the end of his nose, and his neck flowed wrathfully over his collar, but he made no movement. Marcovitch tried to sidle away behind him. Even the prince said nothing. And the Saint's blue eyes flitted over them mockingly.
"Pat, you'd better take that Luger and toddle out of the line of fire."
Patricia picked up the fallen gun and came over to him. His left arm slipped around her shoulders, and for a moment he held her close to him. Then he set her quietly aside.
"Marcovitch, you mop that gaffed cod mouth off your face and keep well out in the open. I don't like being able to see you, but I don't feel safe when I can't. Jump to it! . . . Hands up over your head—and keep 'em there till your spine cracks I . . . That's better. Monty, you can go round behind 'em and take their artillery. Pat and I'll take care of any acrobatics they're thinking of."
Monty Hayward dropped his guns into his side pockets and went on the round. Simon looked at the American girl.
"I heard Rudy call you Miss Walden," he said, "and you mentioned being a reporter. Are those details correct?"
Nina Walden understood. He was not implicating her at all. She accepted her cue easily.
"That's right."
"What's the job here?"
"I came in for the story of your mail robbery, Mr. Templar. Maybe you can tell me some more about it."
The Saint swept her a bow.
"Sister, you came in at the right time. You're going out with more thrills than you ever thought you'd get. But I'm afraid this news isn't released yet. You can stay on if you give me your word not to interfere—or do anything else that might bother me."