He knew that his eyes were open, but all he could see was one blurred segment of her face, as he might have seen her picture in a badly-focused fade-out that had gone askew. And to that isolated scrap of vision in the overwhelming blackness he found the blessed strength to croak two words:
"Drive on."
And then a second surge of blackness welled up around him and blotted out every sight and sound, and he fell away into the infinite black void.
Chapter VII
"So even your arrangements can break down, Templar— when your accomplice fails you," Kuzela remarked silkily. "My enterprising young friend, when you are older you will realise that it is always a mistake to rely upon a woman. I have never employed a woman myself for that reason."
"I'll bet that broke her heart," said the Saint.
Once again he sat in Kuzela's study, with his head still throbbing painfully from the crashing welt it had received, and a lump on the back of it feeling as if it were growing out of his skull like a great auk's egg. His hair was slightly disarranged, and straps on his wrists prevented him from rearranging it effectively; but the Saintly smile had not lost one iota of its charm.
"It remains, however, to decide whether you are going to be permitted to profit by this experience—whether you are going to live long enough to do so. Perhaps it has not occurred to you that you may have come to the end of your promising career," continued the man on the other side of the desk dispassionately; and the Saint sighed.
"What, not again?" he pleaded brokenly, and Kuzela frowned.
"I do not understand you."
"Only a few months ago I was listening to those very words," explained the Saint. "Alas, poor Wilfred! And he meant it, too. 'Wilf, old polecat,' I said, 'don't you realise that I can't be killed before page three hundred and twenty?' He didn't believe me. And he died. They put a rope round his neck and dropped him through a hole in the floor, and the consequences to his figure were very startling. Up to the base of the neck he was not so thin—but oh, boy, from then on. ... It was awfully sad."
And Simon Templar beamed around upon the congregation —upon Kuzela, and upon the two bruisers who loafed about the room, and upon the negro who stood behind his chair. And the negro he indicated with a nod.
"One of your little pets?" he inquired; and Kuzela's lips moved in the fraction of a smile.
"It was fortunate that Ngano heard some of the noise," he said. "He came out of the house just in time."
"To sock me over the head from behind?" drawled the Saint genially. "Doubtless, old dear. But apart from that——"
"Your accomplice escaped, with my property. True. But, my dear Templar, need that prove to be a tragedy? We have your own invaluable self still with us—and you, I am quite sure, know not only where the lady has gone, but also where you have hidden a gentleman whom I should very much like to have restored to me."
Simon raised languid eyebrows.
"When I was the Wallachian Vice-Consul at Pfaffenhausen," he said pleasantly, "our diplomacy was governed by a picturesque little Pomeranian poem, which begins:
Der Steiss des Elephanten
Ist nicht, ist nicht so klein.
If you get the idea——"
Kuzela nodded without animosity. His deliberate, ruthless white hands trimmed the end of a cigar.
"You must not think that I am unused to hearing remarks like that, Templar," he said equably. "In fact, I remember listening to a precisely similar speech from our friend the Duke of Fortezza. And yet——" He paused to blow a few minute flakes of tobacco leaf from the shining top of the desk, and then his pale bland eyes flicked up again to the Saint's face. . . . "The Duke of Fortezza changed his mind," he said.
Simon blinked.
"Do you know," he said enthusiastically, "there's one of the great songs of the century there! I can just feel it. Something like this:
The Duke of Fortezza
Quite frequently gets a
Nimpulse to go blithering off on to the blind,
But the Duchess starts bimbling
And wambling and wimbling
And threatens to wallop his ducal behind;
And her Ladyship's threats are
So fierce that he sweats
And just sobs as he pets her
With tearful regrets—Ah!
The Duke of Fortezza
Is changing his mind.
We could polish up the idea a lot if we had time, but you must admit that for an impromptu effort——"
"You underrate my own sense of humour, Templar." Unemotionally Kuzela inspected the even reddening of the tip of his cigar, and waved his match slowly in the air till it went out. "But do you know another mistake which you also make?"
"I haven't the foggiest notion," said the Saint cheerfully.
"You underrate my sense of proportion."
The Saint smiled.
"In many ways," he murmured, "you remind me of the late Mr. Garniman. I wonder how you'll get on together."
The other straightened up suddenly in his chair. For a moment the mask of amiable self-possession fell from him.
"I shall be interested to bandy words with you later—if you survive, my friend." He spoke without raising his voice; but two little specks of red burned in the cores of his eyes, and a shimmering marrow of vitriolic savagery edged up through his unalteringly level intonation. "For the present, our time is short, and you have already wasted more than your due allowance. But I think you understand me." Once again, a smooth evanescent trickle of honey over the bitingly measured syllables. "Come, now, my dear young friend, it would be a pity for us to quarrel. We have crossed swords, and you have lost. Let us reach an amicable armistice. You have only to give me a little information; and then, as soon as I have verified it, and have finished my work—say after seven days, during which time you would stay with me as an honoured guest—you would be as free as air. We would shake hands and go our ways." Kuzela smiled, and picked up a pencil. "Now firstly: where has your accomplice gone?"
"Naturally, she drove straight to Buckingham Palace," said the Saint.
Kuzela continued to smile.
"But you are suspicious. Possibly you think that some harm might befall her, and perhaps you would be unwilling to accept my assurance that she will be as safe as yourself. Well, it is a human suspicion after all, and I can understand it. But suppose we ask you another question. . . . Where is the Duke of Fortezza?" Kuzela drew a small memorandum block towards him, and poised his pencil with engaging expectancy. "Come, come! That is not a very difficult question to answer, is it? He is nothing to you—a man whom you met a few hours ago for the first time. If, say, you had never met him, and you had read in your newspaper that some fatal accident had overtaken him, you would not have been in the least disturbed. And if it is a decision between his temporary inconvenience and your own promising young life . . ." Kuzela shrugged. "I have no wish to use threats. But you, with your experience and imagination, must know that death does not always come easily. And very recently you did something which has mortally offended the invaluable Ngano. It would distress me to have to deliver you into his keeping. . . . Now, now, let us make up our minds quickly. What have you done with the Duke?"