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Now he knew. She couldn't have gasped and wept like that, otherwise; wouldn't
have needed to, no matter how well she was playing a part.
It was worth something to be sure o£ that.
The Saint smiled grimly as he inspected the section of rope that he had been
working on. He had done a good job, in spite of everything. It wasn't anything
like the rope it had been before.
"I forgot to mention," he murmured, "that when I was in the circus I also
used to break chains and tow tanks around with one hand."
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Then with an abrupt and feral outburst of titanic effort he threw all his
weight and strength together against the partly severed cords, dropping his
weight on them with a plunging jerk, and simultaneously thrusting himself away
from the wall with his feet and contracting his arms together with all the
power of his torso. The veins swelled in his neck, and the muscles rippled
over his body in quivering waves. For an instant it felt as if his wrists were
being bitten off. . . .
And then, with a suddenness that was physically sickening, the frayed and
slashed portion of rope parted with a snap that flung him whirling outward and
around.
He heard the girl sob again; but this time it was with a note of almost
hysterical laughter.
He regained his balance without a waste motion, and fell to attacking the
knots that bound his right hand.
"I must be slipping," he said. "I used to do things like that just to warm
up."
The knots weren't so easy. His hands were numb, and he had to drive
deliberate commands through for every movement of his fingers. He worked as
fast as he could through that nightmarish impediment.
At last he was free. His wrists were chafed and bleeding a little. But that
was nothing. The sense of freedom, of triumph, was like an intoxicating wind
blowing through the reviving spaces of his soul.
He scooped up his knife, a little awkwardly because of the cramp in his
hands, and cut Olga loose. She almost fell against him, and he had to hold her
up for a moment. Until her clinging grew up from the weakness of reaction into
something else.
Then he steadied her on her feet and left her standing while he went back to
put on his shoes and socks. The return of circulation was filling his hands
with pins and needles; but gradually, with the relentless exertion, his
fingers began to feel less like swollen frozen sausages.
"There is a way out of here without going through the house," she was saying
breathlessly. "We can slip out without them ever knowing that we've gone."
"Slip out?" He glanced up at her. "Darling, that would be a hell of an
anticlimax. I'm going upstairs now and get Matson's notes and Vaschetti's
diary away from dear old Joe!"
"But how can you?" she cried. "He'll shoot you like a dog. They took your
gun. I saw them. We can call the police  "
Simon straightened up, and looked down in silent reckless laughter at her
desperate imploring face.
"I've got my knife," he said; "but I haven't got any guarantee that the
police would get here in time. And meanwhile Maris and Co might find out that
we'd got away, and decide to take the brakes off themselves. We don't want to
risk that now. And besides, we've got to deliver you as a certified heroine.
Remember?" Her soft scarlet lips were only a few inches away, turned up to him
below the liquid pools of her eyes; and once again he was aware of their
distracting provocation. He said: "Thanks just the same for being so concerned
about me. It ought to be worth at least ..."
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Then she was in his arms, her breath warm against his cheek, and all of her
asking for him; and then he was bruising her moist mouth with his own, and it
would never be like that again, but there was no time for that now and perhaps
there never had been. It was like so many things in his life: they were always
too late, and there was never any time.
He disengaged himself very gently.
"Now," he said, "we will have the last word with Joe."
The door on the other side of the cellar was not locked. Simon went up the
crude wooden stairs, very quietly, and was conscious of Olga Ivanovitch
following him. But he didn't look back. He came out through another unlatched
door into the hall of the house. There was no guard there either. Obviously,
Maris and his crew had great faith in the durability of manila hemp and the
efficacy of their trussing system.
Which was reasonable enough; just as the Saint's faith in his knife was
reasonable. He knew what it could do, and what he could do with it. He knew
how it could transform itself into a streak of living quicksilver, swift as
the flash of light from its polished blade, true as a rifle, deadly as any
bullet that was ever launched by erupting chemicals.
He held it delicately in his resensitised fingers, frail and strong as a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]