Featuring the Saint (12 page)

He replaced the document in his pocket, and bowed extravagantly.

The Saint, with a smile, surpassed the extravagance of the bow.

“Seńor polizante,” he said, “I regret that I cannot come.”

Now the word “polizonte,” while it is understood to mean “policeman,” is not the term with which it is advisable to address even an irascible guardia-much less a full-blown comisario. It brought to an abrupt conclusion the elaborate ceremony in which the comisario had been indulging.

He turned, and barked an order; and the escort mounted the steps and ranged themselves along the veranda.

“Arrest him!”

“I cannot stay,” said the Saint sadly. “And I refuse to be arrested. Adios, amigos!”

He faded away-through the open door of the dining room. The Saint had the knack of making these startlingly abrupt exits without any show of haste, so that he was gone before his audience had realized that he was on his way.

Then the guardias, led by the two outraged comisarios, followed in a body.

The bungalow was small, with a large veranda in front and a smaller veranda at the back. The three habitable rooms of which it boasted ran through the width of the house, with doors opening onto each veranda. The dining room was the middle room, and it had no windows.

As the guardias surged in in pursuit, rifles at the ready, with the comisarios waving their revolvers, the Saint reappeared in the doorway that opened onto the back of the veranda. At the same moment the doors to the front veranda were slammed and barred behind them by Archie Sheridan, who had been lying in wait in an adjoining room for that purpose.

The Saint’s hands were held, high above his head, and in each hand was a gleaming round black object.

“Senores,” he said persuasively, “I am a peaceful revolutionary, and I cannot be pestered like this. In my hands you see two bombs. If you shoot me, they will fall and explode. If you do not immediately surrender I shall throw them-and, again, they will explode. Is it to be death or glory, boys?”

He spoke the last sentence in English; but he had already said enough in the vernacluar to make the situation perfectly plain. The guardias paused, irresolute.

Their officers, retiring to a strategic position in the back ground from which they could direct operations, urged their men to advance and defy death in the performance of their duty; but the Saint shifted his right hand threateningly, and the guardias found the counter-argument more convincing. They threw down their arms; and the comisarios, finding themselves alone, followed suit as gracefully as they might.

The Saint ordered the arsenal to be thrown out of the door, and he stepped inside the room and stood aside to allow this to be done. Outside, the guns were collected by Archie Sheridan, and their bolts removed and hurled far away into the bushes of the garden. The cartridges he poured into a large bag, together with the contents of the bandoliers which the Saint ordered his prisoners to discard, for these were required for a certain purpose. Then the Saint returned to the doorway. “Hasta la vista!” he murmured mockingly. “Until we meet again!”

And he hurled the two gleaming round black objects he carried, and a wail of terror went up from the doomed men.

The Saint sprang back, slamming and barring the doors in the face of the panic-stricken stampede; and the two tennis balls, which he had coated with Kelly’s providential enamel for the purpose, rebounded off the heads of the cowering comisarios, leaving great splashes of paint on the gorgeous uniforms and the gorgeous mustachios of Santa Miranda’s Big Two, and went bouncing insolently round the room.

The Saint vaulted over the veranda rail and ran round to the front of the bungalow. Sheridan, his bag of cartridges slung over his shoulder, was already mounted on one of the police horses, and holding the other by the bridle. From inside the dining room could be heard the muffled shouting and cursing of the imprisoned men, and on the panels of the barred doors thundered the battering of their efforts to escape.

The Saint sprang into the saddle.

“Vamos!” he cried, and smacked his hand down on the horse’s quarters.

The pounding of departing hoofs came to the ears of the men in the locked room, and redoubled the fury of their onslaught on the doors. But the mahogany of which the doors were made was thick and well seasoned, and it was ten minutes before they broke out. And then, on foot and unarmed, there was nothing for them to do but to return to Santa Miranda and confess defeat.

The which they did, collaborating on the way down to invent a thrilling tale of a desperate and perilous battle, in which they had braved a hundred deaths, their heroism availing them naught in the face of Simon Templar’s evil cunning. But first, to restore their shattered nerves, they partook freely of three bottles of Sheridan’s whisky which they found. And it may be recorded that on this account the next day found them very ill; for, before he left, Archie Sheridan had liberally adulterated the whisky with Epsom salts. in anticipation of this very vandalism. But, since guardia and comisario alike were unfamiliar with the flavour of whisky, they noticed nothing amiss, and went unsuspecting to their hideous fate.

But when they returned to Santa Miranda they said nothing whatever about bombs, wisely deeming that the inclusion of that episode in their story could not but cover them with derision.

Meantime, Simon Templar and Archie Sheridan had galloped neck and neck to Kelly’s bungalow, and there Kelly was waiting for them. He had a kitbag already packed with certain articles that the Saint had required, and Simon took the bag and lashed it quickly to the pommel of his saddle.

Sheridan dismounted. The Saint shook hands with him, and took the bridle of the spare horse.

“All will be well,” said the Saint blithely. “I feel it in my bones. So long, souls I See you all again soon. Do your stuff- and good luck!”

He clapped his heels to his horse, and was gone with a cheery wave of his hand.

They watched him till the trees hid him from view, and then they went back to the bungalow.

“A piece of wood, pliers, screws, screwdriver, and wire, Kelly, my bhoy!” ordered Sheridan briskly. “I’ve got some work to do before I go to bed to-night. And while I’m doing it you can gather round and hear the biggest laugh yet in this revolution, or how the Battle of Santa Miranda was nearly won on the courts of Wimbledon.”

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” said the girl accusingly.

“I didn’t know whether I was or not,” answered the shameless Archie. “It all depended on whether the Saint’s plan of escape functioned or not. Anyway, a good-bye like you gave me was far too good to miss just because I might be coming back. And don’t look so disappointed because I got away. I’ll go down to the town and surrender, if that’s what you want.”

Towards sundown a squadron of cavalry galloped up to the bungalow, and the officer in command declared his intention of making a search. Kelly protested.

“You have no right,” he said, restraining an almost irresistible desire to throw the man down the steps and thus precipitate the fighting that his fists were itching for.

“I have a warrant from the Minister of the Interior, El Supremo e Ilustrisimo Seńor Manuel Conception de Villega,” said the officer, producing the document with a flourish.

“El Disgustado y Horribilisimo Seńor!” muttered Kelly.

The officer shrugged, and indicated the men who waited below.

“I do not wish to use force, Seńor Kelly,” he said significantly, and Kelly submitted to the inevitable.

“But,” he said, “I do not know why you should suspect me to be hiding him.”

“You are known to be a friend of the Seńor Sheridan,” was the brief reply, “and the Seńor Sheridan is a friend of this man. We are looking for both of them.”

Kelly followed the officer into the house.

“What did you say was the name of this man you are looking for?” he inquired.

“To the Seńor Shannet, whom he attacked,” said the officer, “he gave his name as Benito Mussolini.”

He was at a loss to understand Kelly’s sudden earthquaking roar of laughter. At last he gave up the effort, and put it down to another manifestation of the well-known madness of all ingleses. But the fact remains that the joke largely compensated Kelly for the indignity of the search to which his house was subjected.

The officer and half a dozen of his men went through the bungalow with a small-toothed comb, and not a cubic inch of it, from floor to rafters, escaped their attention. But they did not find Archie Sheridan, who was sitting out on the roof, on the opposite side to that from which the soldiers had approached.

At last the search party allowed themselves to be shepherded out, for barely an hour’s daylight was left to them, and they had already fruitlessly wasted much valuable time.

“But remember, Seńor Kelly,” said the officer, as his horse was led up, “that both Sheridan and Mussolini have been declared outlaws for resisting arrest and assaulting and threatening the lives of the guardia civiles sent to apprehend them. In the morning they will be proclaimed; and the Seńor Shannet, who has heard of the insolence offered to the Law, has himself offered to double the reward for their capture, dead or alive.”

The troopers rode off on their quest, but in those latitudes the twilight is short. They scoured the countryside for an hour, until the fall of night put an end to the search, and five miles away they found the horses of the two comisarios grazing in a field, but of the man Mussolini there was no trace. The Saint had had a good start; and what he did not know about the art of taking cover in the open country wasn’t worth knowing.

He was stretched out on a branch of a tall tree a mile away from where the horses were found when the troop of cavalry reined in only twelve feet beneath him.

“We can do no more now,” said the officer. “In the morning we shall find him. Without horses he cannot travel far. Let us go home.”

The Saint laughed noiselessly in the darkness.

5
That night there came into Santa Miranda a peón.

He was dirty and disreputable to look upon. His clothes were dusty, patched in many places, and threadbare where they were not patched; and his hair was long, and matted into a permanent thatch, as is the slovenly custom of the labourers of that country.

Had he wished to do so, he might have passed unnoticed among many other similarly down-at-heel and poverty-stricken people; but this he did not seem to want. In fact, he went out of his way to draw attention to himself; and this he found easy enough, for his poverty-stricken appearance was belied by the depth of his pocket.

He made a fairly comprehensive round of the inferior cafes in the town, and in each he bought wine and aguardiente for all who cared to join him. Naturally, it was not long before he acquired a large following; and, since he seemed to account for two drinks to everybody else’s one, there was no surprise when he became more and more drunk as the evening wore on.

It was not to be expected that such display of affluence on the part of one whose outward aspect argued against the probability that he would have more than a few centavos to his name could escape comment, and it was not long before the tongues that devoured the liquor which he bought were busy with rumour. It was whispered, as with authority, that he was a bandit from the Sierra Maduro, over the border beyond Esperanza, who had crossed into Pasala to spend his money and rest until the rurales of Maduro tired of seeking him and he could return to his old hunting grounds with safety. Then it was remarked that on his little finger was a signet ring bearing a heraldic device, and with equal authority it was said that he was the heir to a noble Mexican family indulging his hobby of moving among the peones as one of themselves and distributing charity where he found it merited. Against this, an other school of thought affirmed that he was a peón who had murdered his master and stolen his ring and his money.

The peón heard these whisperings and laughingly ignored them. His manner lent more support, however, to either of the two former theories than to the third. He was tall for a peón, and a man of great strength, as was seen when he bought a whole keg of wine and lifted it in his hands to fill his goblet as if it had weighed nothing at all. His eyes were blue, which argued that he was of noble descent, for the true peón stock is so mixed with the native that the eyes of that sea-blue colour are rare. And again, the bandit theory was made more plausible by the man’s boisterous and reckless manner, as though he held life cheap and the intense enjoyment of the day the only thing of moment, and would as soon be fighting as drinking. He had, too, a repertoire of strange and barbarous songs which no one could understand.

“Drink up, amigos!” he roared from time to time, “for this is the beginning of great days for Pasala!”

But when they asked him what they might mean, he turned away their questions with a jest, and called for more wine.

Few of his following had seen such a night for many years.

From house to house he went, singing his strange songs, and bearing his keg of wine on his shoulder. One or two guardias would have barred his way, or, hearing the rumours which were gossiped about him, would have stopped and questioned him; but the peón poured them wine or flung them money, and they stood aside.

Towards midnight, still singing, the man led his procession up the Calle del Palacio. The crowd followed, not sure where they were going, and not caring, for they had drunk much.

Now, the Calle del Palacio forms the upright of the T which has been described, and halfway down it, as has been stated, is the palace from which it takes its name.

In the street opposite the palace gates the peón halted, set down his keg, and mounted unsteadily upon it. He stood there, swaying slightly, and his following gathered round him… “Viva! Viva!” they shouted thickly.

The peón raised his hands for silence.

“Citizens!” he cried, “I have told you that this is the beginning of great days for Pasala, and now I will tell you why. It is because at last we are going to suffer no more under this Manuel Conception de Villega. May worms devour him alive, for he is a thief and a tyrant and the son of a dog! His taxes bear you down, and you receive nothing in return. The President is his servant, that strutting nincompoop, and they are both in the pay of the traitor Shannet, who is planning to betray you to Maduro. Now I say that we will end this to-night.”