The Saint Closes the Case Read Online Free PDF Page A

been
a goat was nothing but the shape of a goat starkly outlined in
shuddering orange-hued flame. For an instant, only the fraction of
a second, it lasted, that vision of a dazzling glare in the shape of
a goat; and then, as if the power that had produced it was spent,
the shape became black. It stood of itself for a second; then it toppled slowly
and fell upon the concrete. A little black dust hung in the air, and a
little wreath of bluish smoke drifted up towards the roof. The violet cloud
uncoiled slothfully, and smeared fluffily over the floor in a widening
pool of mist.
    Its force was by no means spent—that was an illusion
belied by the flickering lights that still glinted through it like a host of tiny
fireflies. It was only that the controlling rays had been diverted.
Looking round again, Simon saw that the white- haired man had put
down the thing of shining metal with which he had directed the cloud, and
was turning to speak to the three men who had watched the
demonstration.
    The Saint stood like a man in a dream.
    Then he drew Patricia away, with a soft and
almost frantic laugh.
    “We’ll get out of here,” he said.
“We’ve seen enough for one night.”
    And yet he was wrong, for something else was
to be added to the adventure with amazing rapidity.
    As he turned, the Saint nearly cannoned into
the giant who stood over them; and, in the circumstances, Simon Templar did not feel
inclined to argue. He acted instantaneously, which the giant was
not expecting. When one man points a revolver at another, there is, by
convention, a certain amount of backchat about the situation before
anything is done; but the Saint held convention beneath contempt.
    Moreover, when confronted by an armed man
twice his own size, the Saint felt that he needed no excuse for
employ ing any damaging foul known to the fighting game, or even a speciality
of his own invention. His left hand struck the giant’s gun arm aside, and at
the same time the Saint kicked with one well-shod foot and a clear conscience.
    A second later he was sprinting, with
Patricia’s hand in his.
    There was a car drawn up in front of the
house. Simon had not noticed it under the trees as he passed on his way
round to the back; but now he saw it, because he was looking for it; and it
accounted for the stocky figure in breeches and a peaked cap which
bulked out of the shadows round the gate and tried to bar the
way.
    “Sorry, son,” said the” Saint
sincerely, and handed him off with some vim.
    Then he was flying up the lane at the girl’s
side, and the sounds of the injured chauffeur’s pursuit were too far behind to be
alarming.
    The Saint vaulted into the Furillac, and came
down with one foot on the self-starter and the other on the clutch
pedal.
    As Patricia gained her place beside him he
unleashed the full ninety-eight horse-power that the speedster could put forth when
pressed.
    His foot stayed flat down on the accelerator
until they were running into Putney, and he was sure that any attempt to give chase
had been left far astern; but even during the more sedate drive through London
he was still unwontedly taciturn, and Patricia knew better than to try to
make him talk when he was in such a mood. But she studied, as if she had
never seen it before, the keen, vivid intentness of his profile as he steered the
hurtling car through the night, and realised that she had never felt him
so sheathed and at the same time shaken with such a dynamic savagery of
purpose. Yet even she, who knew him better than anyone in the world,
could not have explained what she sensed about him. She had seen, often
before, the inspired wild leaps of his genius; but she could not know that
this time that genius had rocketed into a more frantic flight
than it had ever taken in all his life. And she was silent.
    It was not until they were turning into Brook
Street that she voiced a thought that had been racking her brain for
the past hour.
    “I can’t help feeling I’ve seen one