Prelude for War (43 page)

He said through his
clenched teeth and rigid lips: “Never
mind.
We haven’t got much longer. When they fetch us out
again,
I’m going to try to break loose. You give way to all
your
impulses—scream your head off, and fight as hard as you can to break away.
Anything to keep their attention
occupied. Leave the rest to
me. I expect all we’ll get will be two bellyfulls of bullets, but I may be
able, to kill Luker and
Marteau first.”

She was quite still for a
moment, and then she said in a
strange strained voice:
“Okay. I’ll do everything I can.”

He laid his face against
hers as she leaned towards him,
and went on sawing his
wrists against the wall in a grim
fury of torment. He
spoke only once more.

“I’m sorry about
this, Valerie,” he said. “We might have
had
such a lot of fun.”

Five minutes was no time
at all. It seemed to be only a
few moments before the big
iron key rattled in the lock and
the door opened again.

Bravache bowed in the
doorway, his teeth shining in the
set sneering grin
that sat so naturally on his cold haughty
face.

“You are ready?”
he inquired.

It was a second or two
before Lady Valerie got up.

The Saint rose to his feet
after her. For all that he had
suffered, the cords still
held his wrists. But he had his
strength, saved and stored
up through all the hours when it had been useless to struggle: he had always
had the strength of two or three ordinary men, and at this time
when he had need of it all for one supreme effort his own
will might make it greater. If only that was enough… .
Now that the last sands were trickling away he was con
scious of a curious inward peace, a great stillness, an utter
carelessness in which his nerves were like threads of ice.

He let the girl go first,
and followed her back into the
big barren room from which
they had been taken.

Luker and Marteau still sat
at the long table under the
flag. Marteau was drawing
nervous figures on the bare wood
with a stub of pencil, but
Luker was outwardly untouched
by anxiety. Simon and
Valerie were marched up in front of
the table, and the
escort of Sons of France re-formed around
them;
and Luker looked up at them with nothing but confi
dence
on his square stony features.

“Have you made up your
minds?”

“Yes,” answered
the Saint.

“Well?”

“We made up our
minds,” said the Saint unhurriedly,
“that
besides the barrel organ you might do well with ice cream as a side line.”

Luker’s expression did
not change. It only became glassy
and lifeless, as if
it had been frozen into place.

He moved one of his hands
less than two inches.

“Tie up the
girl,” he ordered in French; and the two nearest Sons of France grabbed
Valerie by the arms.

Perhaps she was only
acting. Or perhaps her nerve really
broke then; perhaps
her brain in the stupidity of terror had
never quite grasped
what the Saint had said while they were
alone.
But she fought wildly, crazily, even with her hands
tied behind her back, bucking and staggering
against them
as they tried to drag
her over to the iron rings in the wall,
kicking out madly so that they cursed her until the third
Son of France had to go over and help them. And
that left
only one on guard beside the
Saint—the one who had
slammed his
fist into Simon’s face only a little while before.

“You can’t do this
to me !” she was shrieking deliriously.
“You
can’t … you filthy brutes … you can’t … !”

Perhaps she was only
acting. But the shrill shaky intensity of her voice stabbed through the
Saint’s brain with a
rending reminder of how
real it might have been.

He had half turned to watch
her; and as he stood still
no one was paying much attention to him. But in
that vol
canic immobility his arms hardened
like iron columns,
strained across
the fulcrum of his back like twisted bars
of tempered steel. The muscles writhed and swelled over
his back and shoulders, leapt up in knotted strands
like
leathery hawsers from his
shoulders down to his raw and
bleeding wrists; a convulsion of
superhuman power swept
over his torso like
the shock of an earthquake. And the ropes that held his hands together,
weakened by the loss
of the strands
that he had been able to rub away in the few
minutes that had been given him, were not strong enough
to stand against it. There was a faint snap as the
fibres
parted; and his arms sprang
apart with the jerk of unleashed
tension.
He was free.

Free but unarmed—for the
few instants in which an
unarmed man might move.

The guard beside him must
have sensed the eruption that
had taken place at his
elbow; or perhaps his ears caught
the thin crack of
separating cords—-too late. He began to
turn;
and that was his last conscious movement, the last
flash
of awareness in his little world.

He started to reach for the revolver in its
holster on his hip. But another hand was there before his, a hand of lean
sinewy fingers that whipped the weapon away from under
his belated groping. An ear-splitting detonation crashed out between the
cellar walls, and a shattering blow tore through
his chest and gave him only one instant’s anguish… .

Simon Templar turned
square to the room as the man
folded down to his feet
with an odd slowness. The barrel of his revolver swerved over the others in a
measured
quadrant.

“Any of you can have
what your friend got,” he said
generously.
“You’ve only got to ask.”

None of them asked. For
that brief precarious spell they
were incapable of any
movement. But he knew that every
passing second was against him. He spoke to the
girl, his
voice razor edged and brittle.

“Valerie, come over
here—behind me. And keep well out
of the line of
fire.”

She started towards him,
staying close against the walls.
He didn’t watch her. His
eyes were darting like wasps over
the six men that he had to deal with,
probing with nerve-
racked alertness for the
point where the fight would start.
The
three remaining members of the escort grouped fairly
close together where they had been struggling with
the girl.
Bravache, further away,
with a skeletal grin pinned and forgotten on his face. Colonel Marteau, white
lipped and rigid.
Luker, heavy and
petrified, but with his brain still working
behind unblinking eyes.

And in his mind the Saint
did ruthless arithmetic. Six
men. And unless he was
holding a five-chambered gun he
should have five shots
left. Even if he could drop one man
stone cold with
every single shot, that would still leave one
armed
man against him at the end. Even if no other Son
of
France elsewhere in the building had heard his first shot
and would be coming in at any moment to investigate …
It couldn’t be much longer now before other heads made
the same calculation. Whatever happened, if they called
for a showdown, he couldn’t win. The only choice he had
left was where he should place his shots—while he had time
to choose.

And yet he didn’t want to
take that suicidal vengeance
while there was still even
a spider thread of hope.

He said to the room at
large: “Which is the way out of
here?”

Nobody had time to answer,
even if anyone had decided to.

Colonel Marteau stood up.

“Anyone who tells
him,” he stated harshly, “is a coward
and
a traitor.”

“Will you set the
example?” asked the Saint silkily. “Or
would
you rather be a dead hero ?”

“I shall not tell
you.”

Simon knew that he had lost
an infinitesimal point, but
his face gave it no
acknowledgment. The steel hardened in
his eyes.

“Maybe we can change your mind for
you,” he said, with
out a flicker of
apprehension in his voice. “Valerie, slip
round behind these guys and bring me their guns.”

He did not hear any
movement.

“Go on,” he
rapped.

“But how can I?”

“If you try it, I
think you’ll be able to twist your hands
round
enough.”

But he had lost another
point. Those few words between
them must only make plainer
the ultimate hopelessness of
his position. And with
every point lost the score was creep
ing up against him
with frightful speed. He would fight
every inch of the
way with the stubbornness of despair, but
he
knew in his heart that the battle could only end one way.
If he could have made one of the men tell him the way out at once, they
might have made a dash for it with a faint
sporting
chance of shooting their way through; but that
had
always been a far-fetched hope. They would never be made to talk so easily. And
every delay was on their side. Sooner or later their confidence would return.
It could only
be a matter of seconds now. It was
already returning.
Sooner or later, with the eyes of his
commandant upon him and his brain swimming with dreams of glory, one Son of
France would screw up his nerve to the crucial fatal heroism
that would point the way to a swift inevitable ending… .

Valerie had moved round on
the Saint’s left. She was
beside the nearest Son of
France, twisting her hands round
to reach the revolver in
his holster.

Simon’s eyes raked the
man’s face. Was this the one who
would first find the
courage to take his chance ? If not, with
two
guns instead of one in the Saint’s hands, the odds might
be altered again. Or would it be one of the others? Other
faces loomed on the outskirts of the Saint’s vision. Which o
f them had the courage to call for a showdown?
And
then a door opened stealthily on the Saint’s right.
He
saw the movement out of the corner of his eye at the
same
time as the soft sound reached his ears; and irresistibly
he turned partly towards it. The muzzle of his revolver
turned with him. He saw a tall scrawny figure, a vacant
idiot’s face lighted by pale maniacal eyes, and knew at once
where he had seen it before. It was the face and figure
of the killer in Kennet’s photograph; and it had an automatic
clutched in one bony hand.

And at that moment Lady
Valerie cried out, and the Saint knew what must have happened in the fractional
instant while his vigilance was drawn away.
He fired before he turned.

He knew that his shot
scored, but he could not be certain
where. A glimpse of
the killer sagging in the middle flashed
across
his retina as he whirled to the left. Then he could
see
only the scene that was waiting for him there.

The Son of France whose gun
Lady Valerie was trying
to take had seized his
chance while he had it, and made
a grab at her, trying to
throw her in front of him to shield
his body. But her
backward start had momentarily marred
the completion of his manoeuvre, and
there was about twelve
inches of space
between them. Through those twelve inches
the Saint sent a bullet smashing into the man’s breastbone, so that he
staggered and let go and drooped back until the
wall kept him from falling. But by that time, in the grace
that they had been given, four other guns were out.
Every
gun except Luker’s—if Luker had
a gun. And the Saint
knew that he
could never silence them all.

Quite coolly and
deliberately he levelled his sights be
tween
Luker’s eyes. Other gun muzzles were settling upon
him,
other eyes crisping behind the sights, other fingers
tightening
on triggers; but he seemed to have all the time in the world. Perhaps he had
all the time in eternity… .
But whatever happened he
must make no more mistakes.
This was the last thing
that he could do. His body was
braced against the shock
of lead that must soon be plough
ing from four directions
through his flesh and bone; but
none of that must stir his
aim by as much as a summer
breeze. Not until he had
placed exactly where he wanted
them the two shots that had
to stand as the last witnesses
to everything to which he
had given his tempestuous
life… . He did not
feel any doubt or any fear.