Vendetta for the Saint. (36 page)

“Eventually they must run out of
gas,” Ponti
said, not
too optimistically, as he watched the tail
light weaving down the road ahead of them.

“And so must we. Of course, if it
happens to
them first, you
and I can surround them.”

Simon Templar was in much better spirits,
perhaps because he had had more opportunities in his
life to become acclimated to tiger-tail-holding.
From his point of view, the night so far had been
a
howling success. The Ungodly were
on the run,
and he was right behind
them, goosing them along.
The next
move might be a problem; but so long as nothing as yet had positively gone
wrong, everything should be considered to be going well. The
dying
autocrat whom he had seen was probably
dead
by now: even if nature had not taken its
course, he would have been in no condition to be
moved, and could likely have been helped over the
last step out of this vale of tears
rather than left to
be captured.
Certainly the men in the scudding car
riage
ahead could only be the most vigorous and
determined aspirants to the throne. And among
them was surely Al Destamio—or Dino Cartelli—
the man who was the main reason for Simon’s in
volvement in the affair.

He refused to believe that Fate would cheat
him
of a show-down
now …

There was a faint smile on the Saint’s lips,
and a
song in his
throat that only he could hear above the
drone of the motor.

Crossroads flashed by, and occasional tricky
forks, but Simon followed the limousine through
them all. It could not outdistance him or shake
him
off. Most of the time he stayed
maddeningly just
out of hand-gun
range, but he always managed to
creep
up when it counted most and when the
rough-riding
swings of the pursued car made it
least
risky. What he feared most was a lucky hit on
a tire or the Bugatti’s
radiator, but none of the fugitive’s erratic shots found such a mark. It did
not seem to occur to the Saint that he could be
hit
himself, though one bullet did
nick the metal frame
of the
windshield and whine away like a startled
mosquito with hi-fi amplification.

Another
village loomed up, lining a straight
stretch of road that the limousine’s headlights
showed clear for a quarter of a mile ahead.
The limousine seemed to slacken speed instead of ac
celerating, and Simon eased up on the
throttle and
fell even
farther behind.

“What’s the matter?” Ponti fumed.
“This is your
chance to
pass them!”

“And have them nudge us into the side of
a
building?” Simon
said. “Either that, or have a nice
steady shot at us as we catch up. No, thank
you. I think that’s just what they want to tempt us to do.”

But for the first time his intuition seemed
to have
lost its edge.

The car in front braked suddenly, and swung
into a turning in the middle of the village
which
made a
right-angle junction with the main road—if
such a term could be applied to the one they
were
on.

Simon raced the Bugatti towards the corner,
but
slowed up again
well before he reached it and made
the turn
wide and gently, for it was an ideal spot
for
an ambush. The side road was empty, but in a
hundred yards it made another blind curve to the
left, and again Simon negotiated the turning with
extreme caution. Again there was no
ambush, but
the black limousine was
less than fifty yards ahead
and
putting on speed up a grade that started to
wind up into the mountains. Simon could judge its
acceleration by his own, as he revved up in
pursuit
and yet at first failed to
narrow the gap between
them.

Then as he whipped the Bugatti around
another bend, and began to gain a yard or two, something
clicked in his mind, and he laughed aloud
with ex
ultation.

Ponti
stared at him in amazement.

“May
I ask what is so funny?”

“The
weird whims of Providence, and the philosophical principle of the Futility of
Effort,” said the Saint. “Here we are racking our brains to find a
way to end the stalemate, and forgetting that the Ungodly must have been doing
the very same thing. Now they have made their move, and I think I know what it
was. Let us catch up and make sure.”

“You
are crazy! Just now you would not catch up because they would fill us with
bullets!”

“But
now I don’t think they will. However, the only way to be sure is to try it—as
the actress said to the bishop.”

“I
was a fool to ever have anything to do with you,” Ponti said, taking out
his gun and preparing to die with honor.

In a
minute they screamed out of another turn only a couple of lengths behind the
limousine, but there were no shots and the firing port remained closed. The
full beam of the Bugatti’s headlights blazed into the rear window of the car
ahead as the road straightened.

“They
are gone!” Ponti shouted incredulously. “It is empty except for the
driver! Unless they are crouching down—”

Taking
advantage of the straight stretch, Simon poured on the gas, and the Bugatti
surged forward as if a giant hand had slapped it from behind.

“No,
there is only the driver,” he said calmly, as they thundered alongside.
“And 1 think he is making the fatal mistake of lowering his window so he
can shoot at us.”

Ponti
was prepared. He sat sideways, his left
hand cupped under his right elbow to steady it, and
took careful aim. When the
bullet-proof glass had
dropped
far enough, while the driver was still rais
ing his own gun, Ponti’s pistol barked once. The
driver’s head was slammed sideways and
he
flopped over the
wheel. Simon braked quickly as
the limousine veered wildly across the road, rolled
over, and somersaulted crazily out of sight.

Still braking, Simon spotted a cart track on
his
right, spun into
it, and backed out to face the
way
they had come. He stopped again, and got
out.

“You can send for the body later,”
he said. “But now slide over and take the wheel. You are getting
a second chance to enjoy driving this
marvelous
car.”

“Why?” Ponti asked blankly, as
Simon got in on
the other side.

“Because two can play the trick that they
thought of. Did you notice
that it took them entire
ly
too long to make that double jog out of the village, and how close we were
behind them even
though I
deliberately slowed up? That was because they stopped for a moment while they
were out of sight, and the passengers piled out, counting on the driver to lead
us on a wild-goose chase through the
hills.”

Ponti had the Bugatti in gear and moving
again
by that time.

“Then they are probably still hiding in
the vil
lage! We only have to locate the
house—”

“And get mowed down when we do it. At
one
time I saw at
least four passengers in that car, and
wherever they went to earth is bound to be a
nest
of more
mafiosi.
No, you will have to go back and
meet Fusco’s
scout car, and radio for reinforce
ments.”

“And
give those
fannulloni
time to slip away!”

“That is why I made you take the wheel.
You
will go through
the village in low gear, making a
terrific noise, and skidding your tires around the
corners, so that they will hear everything
and have
no doubt that
you went through without stopping.
But actually as you come into the main street you
will only be doing about fifteen kilometers
an hour,
and that is
when I shall leave you. If they do try to slip away, I shall either follow them
or try to detain
them.”

“It is an insane plan. What chance
would you
have?”

“What better chance do
we
have?
Try to apply the power of positive thinking, Marco
mio.
Look
on the bright side. This may be where the
Ungodly
are delivered
right into our hands. And I feel lucky
tonight!”

Running downhill, the dark outskirts of the
vil
lage were
before them surprisingly quickly, and the
curve into the side street that would
intersect the
main road.

“Down into second gear,” snapped
the Saint.
“Give them
the full sound effects. With enough
tire-squealing, exhaust-roaring, and gear-grinding,
they should be convinced that you went
through
here like a
maniac, and it will never occur to them
that we are plagiarizing their
brainstorm.”

“I only hope,” Ponti said gloomily,
“That
you know some
rich industrialist who will give a
job to an ignominiously discharged police of
ficer, if there is not a happy ending to this
night’s work.”

But he obeyed his instructions, taking the
bend
on two
protesting wheels and slipping the clutch to
get an extra howl out of the engine. Simon un
latched the door on his side and braced himself,
holding it ready to let it fly open at the right
mo
ment as they blatted down the
narrow street. With
the main street
junction rushing towards them,
Ponti
added the extra touch of a blast on the horn
which raised stentorian
echoes from the sleepy walls, and which Simon could only hope would
give pause to any other vehicle which might hap
pen to be on a collision course on the main road.
Then came another screech of rubber,
and the Bugatti broadsided around the corner.

Ponti took the clutch out again as soon as
he had
steadied the
car, but kept the throttle open to
maintain the level of exhaust noise, and during that
instant of minimum speed Simon threw the door
open and jumped. He had not touched the ground
when Ponti let the clutch in again and set
the red
monster racing
away.

The Saint landed running, the slap of his
feet
drowned in the
departing reverberations of the mo
tor, and in five long strides he was sheltered in the
darkness of a doorway. The Bugatti vanished
down
the road, its
uproar died away, and stillness de
scended again like a palpable blanket.

3

He was alone once
more, in a citadel of potential
enemies.

For five minutes he stood in the doorway, un-
moving and silent as the ancient walls. He
saw no
lights and
heard no sounds, and the windows of the buildings opposite from which he might
have been
observed
remained shuttered and dark. A scrawny
cat stalked down the sidewalk, paused to
gaze at
him
speculatively, and hurried on. Other than that
there was no sign of life. It was impossible
that the
tumultuous
passage of automobiles had not dis
turbed anyone, but either the inhabitants had
learned that discretion was the better part of
curiosity in those
Mafia-dominated hills or they
were
more bucolically interested in getting back to
sleep for the last hour or two of rest
before another
morning’s toil.

With the luminous dial of his watch turned to
the inside of his wrist so
that its glow would not
betray
him to any hidden watcher, if there were
one, he verified that it was twenty minutes past three. So much
had happened that night that it
seemed as
if it should already have been completely
spent, yet he estimated that there must still be
about an hour of darkness left. An hour which
would give him the most concealment, before the
early risers began to stir and the gray pre-dawn
ex
posed him to their view.

Which was either plenty of time, or nothing
like
enough …