"If you would explain ——?"
"I'm good-looking," said the Saint easily, and centred his tie with elegance.
Kuzela leaned back.
"Your name is known to me, of course; but I think this is the first time we have had the pleasure of meeting."
"This is certainly the first time you've had the pleasure of meeting me," said the Saint carefully.
"Even now, the responsibility is yours. You have elected to interfere with my affairs——"
Simon shook his head sympathetically.
"It's most distressing, isn't it?" he murmured. "And your most strenuous efforts up to date have failed to dispose of the interference. Even when you sent me a pair of gloves that would have given a rhinoceros a headache to look at, I survived the shock. It must be Fate, old dear."
Kuzela pulled himself forward again.
"You are an enterprising young man," he said quietly. "An unusually enterprising young man. There are not many men living who could have overcome Ngano, even by the method which you adopted. The mere fact that you were able to enter this house is another testimony to your foresight—or your good luck."
"My foresight," said the Saint modestly.
"You moved your chair before you sat down—and that again showed remarkable intelligence. If you had sat where I intended you to sit, it would have been possible for me, by a slight movement of my foot, to send a bullet through the centre of your body."
"So I guessed."
"Since you arrived, your hand has been in your pocket several times. I presume you are armed ——"
Simon Templar inspected the finger-nails of his two hands.
"If I had been born the day before yesterday," he observed mildly, "you'd find out everything you wanted to know in approximately two minutes."
"Again, a man of your reputation would not have communicated with the police——"
"But he would take great care of himself." The Saint's eyes met Kuzela's steadily. "I'll talk or fight, Kuzela, just as you like. Which is it to be?"
"You are prepared to deal?"
"Within limits—yes."
Kuzela drummed his knuckles together.
"On what terms?"
"They might be—one hundred thousand pounds."
Kuzela shrugged.
"If you came here in a week's time——"
"I should be very pleased to have a drink with you," said the Saint pointedly.
"Suppose," said Kuzela, "I gave you a cheque which you could cash tomorrow morning——"
"Or suppose," said the Saint calmly, "you gave me some cash with which I could buy jujubes on my way home."
Kuzela looked at him with a kind of admiration.
"Rumour has not lied about you, Mr. Templar," he said. "I imagine you will have no objection to receiving this sum in— er—foreign currency?"
"None whatever," said the Saint blandly.
The other stood up, taking a little key from his waistcoat pocket. And the Saint, who for the moment had been looking at the delicately painted shade of the lamp that stood on one side of the desk, which was the sole dim illumination of the room, slewed round with a sudden start.
He knew that there was going to be a catch somewhere— that, with a man of Kuzela's type, a man who had sent those gloves and who had devised that extremely ingenious bell-push on the front door, a coup could never be quite so easy. How that last catch was going to be worked he had no idea; nor was he inclined to wait and learn it. In his own way, he had done as much as he had hoped to do; and, all things considered——
"Let me see that key!" he exclaimed.
Kuzela turned puzzledly.
"Really, Mr. Templar——"
"Let me see it!" repeated the Saint excitedly.
He reached over the desk and took the key out of Kuzela's hands. For a second he gazed at it; and then he raised his eyes again with a dancing devil of mischief glinting out of their blueness.
"Sorry I must be going, souls," he said; and with one smashing sweep of his arm he sent the lamp flying off the desk and plunged the room into inky blackness.
Chapter VI
The phrase is neither original nor copyright, and may be performed in public without fee or licence. It remains, however, an excellent way of describing that particular phenomenon.
With the extinction of the single source of luminance, the darkness came down in all the drenching suddenness of an unleashed cataract of Stygian gloom. For an instant, it seemed to blot out not only the sense of sight, but also every other active faculty; and a frozen, throbbing stillness settled between the four walls. And in that stillness the Saint sank down without a sound upon his toes and the tips of his fingers. . . .
He knew his bearings to the nth part of a degree, and he travelled to his destination with the noiseless precision of a cat. Around him he could hear the sounds of tensely restrained breathing, and the slithering caress of wary feet creeping over the carpet. Then, behind him, came the vibration of a violent movement, the thud of a heavy blow, a curse, a scuffle, a crashing fall, and a shrill yelp of startled anguish . . . and the Saint grinned gently.
"I got 'im," proclaimed a triumphant voice, out of the dark void. "Strike a light, Bill."
Through an undercurrent of muffled yammering sizzled the crisp kindling of a match. It was held in the hand of Kuzela himself, and by its light the two bruisers glared at each other, their reddened stares of hate aimed upwards and downwards respectively. And before the match went out the opinions of the foundation member found fervid utterance.
"You perishing bleeder," he said, in accents that literally wobbled with earnestness.
"Peep-bo," said the Saint, and heard the contortionist effects blasphemously disentangling themselves as he closed the door behind him.
A bullet splintered a panel two inches east of his neck as he shifted briskly westwards. The next door stood invitingly ajar: he went through it as the other door reopened, slammed it behind him, and turned the key.
In a few strides he was across the room and flinging up the window. He squirmed over the sill like an eel, curved his fingers over the edge, and hung at the full stretch of his arms. A foot below the level of his eyes there was a narrow stone ledge running along the side of the building: he transferred himself to it, and worked rapidly along to the nearest corner. As he rounded it, he looked down into the road, twenty feet below, and saw a car standing by the kerb.
Another window came over his head. He reached up, got a grip of the sill, and levered his elbows above the sill level with a skilful kick and an acrobatic twist of his body. From there he was able to make a grab for the top of the lower sash. . . . And in another moment he was standing upright on the sill, pushing the upper sash cautiously downwards.
A murmur of dumbfounded voices drifted to his ears.
"Where the 'ell can 'e 'ave gorn to?"
"Think 'e jumped for it?"
"Jumped for it, yer silly fat-'ead? . . ."
And then the Saint lowered himself cat-footed to the carpet on the safe side of the curtains in the room he had recently left.
Through a narrow gap in the hangings he could see Kuzela replacing the shattered bulb of the table-lamp by the light of a match. The man's white efficient hands were perfectly steady; his face was without expression. He accomplished his task with the tremorless tranquility of a patient middle-aged gentleman whom no slight accident could seriously annoy—tested the switch . . .
And then, as the room lighted up again, he raised his eyes to the convex mirror panel on the opposite wall, and had one distorted glimpse of the figure behind him.
Then the Saint took him by the neck.
Fingers like bands of steel paralysed his larynx and choked back into his chest the cry he would have uttered. He fought like a maniac; but though his strength was above the average, he was as helpless as a puppet in that relentless grip. And almost affectionately Simon Templar's thumbs sidled round to their mark—the deadly pressure of the carotid arteries which is to crude ordinary throttling what foil play is to sabre work. . . .