Free The Saint Closes the Case by Leslie Charteris

guard who had
fired at him down the lane; the build, though hefty, was nothing like
Angel Face’s gigantic proportions. Besides, Angel Face, or any of his men,
would have touched off the trigger ten seconds ago.
    The automatic nosed into the Saint’s chest,
and he felt his pocket deftly lightened of its gun. The man exhaled his
satis faction in a long breath.
    “That’s one of you, anyway,” he
remarked grimly.
    “Pleased to meet you,” said the
Saint.
    And there it was.
    The Saint’s voice was as unperturbed as if he
had been conducting some trivial conversation in a smokeroom,
instead of talking with his hands in the air and an unfriendly detective
focussing a Smith-Wesson on his diaphragm. And the corner was
undoubtedly tight. If the circumstances had been slightly different,
the Saint might have dealt with this obstacle in the same way as he had dealt with
Marius on their first en counter. Marius had
had the drop on him just as effectively as this. But Marius had been expecting a walk-over, and had therefore
been just the necessary fraction below concert pitch; whereas this man was obviously expecting trouble. In view of what he
must have been through already that night, he would have been a born fool if he
hadn’t. And something told Simon that the man wasn’t quite a born fool. Something
in the busi nesslike steadiness of
that automatic …
    But the obstacle had to be surmounted, all the
same.
    “Get Vargan away, Roger,” sang the
Saint cheerfully, coolly. “See you again some time… .”
    He took two paces sideways, keeping his hands
well up.
    “Stop that!” cracked the detective,
and the Saint promptly stopped it; but now he was in a position to
see round the back of the sedan.
    The red tail-light of the Hirondel was
moving—Norman Kent was backing the car up closer to save time.
    Conway bent and heaved the Professor up on to
his shoulder like a bag of potatoes; then he looked back hesitantly at Simon.
    “Get him away while you’ve got the
chance, you fool!” called the Saint impatiently.
    And even then he really believed that he was
destined to sacrifice himself to cover the retreat. Not that he was
going quietly. But …
    He saw Conway turn and break into a trot, and
sighed his relief.
    Then, in a flash, he saw how a chance might be
given, and tensed his muscles warily. And the chance was given him.
    It wasn’t the detective’s fault. He merely
attempted the im possible. He was torn between the desire to retain his
prisoner and the impulse to find out what was happening to the man it was his duty to guard. He knew that that man was being taken away,
and he knew that he ought to be trying to do something to prevent
it; and yet his respect for the despera tion of his captive
stuck him up as effectively as if it had been the captive who held
the gun. And, of course, the detective ought to have shot
the captive and gone on with the rest of the job; but he
tried, in a kind of panic, to find a less blood thirsty solution, and
the solution he found wasn’t a solution at all. He tried to divide his mind and
apply it to two things at once; and that, he ought to have known, was a fatal
thing to do with a man like the Saint. But at that moment he didn’t know the
Saint very well.
    Simon Templar, in those two sideways steps
that the de tective had allowed him to take, had shifted into such a
posi tion that the detective’s lines of vision, if he had been able to look two
ways at once, at Conway with one eye and at the Saint with the other,
would have formed an obtuse angle. Therefore, since the detective’s optic
orbits were not capable of this feat, he could not see what Conway was doing
without taking his
eyes off Simon Templar.
    And the detective was foolish.
    For an instant his gaze left the Saint. How
he imagined he would get away with it will remain a mystery. Certainly
Simon did not inquire the answer then, nor discover it afterwards. For in that
instant’s grace, ignoring the menace of the auto