"I wish to see Prince Rudolf," said the Saint; and he said it in such a way that the lackey almost grovelled.
"What name, sir?"
"You may send up my card."
The Saint fumbled in his waistcoat pocket; he had a very fine selection of visiting cards, and the ones he had brought with him on this expedition bore the name of Lord Craithness. On the back of one, he wrote: "Maidenhead, June 28."
It was the day on which he had last seen the prince—the day on which Norman Kent had died. "Will you take a seat, your lordship?" His lordship would take a seat. And he waited there only five minutes, a grave and patient old aristocrat, before the man returned to say that the prince would see him—as Simon had known he would say.
It was a perfect little character study, that performance—the Saint's slow and sober progress down the first-floor corridor, his entrance into the prince's suite, the austere dignity of his poise in the moment that he waited for the servant to announce him.
"Lord Craithness."
The Saint heard the door close behind him, and smiled in his beard. And yet he could not have told why he smiled; for at that moment there came back to him all that he had to remember of his first and last meeting with the man who now faced him—and those were not pleasant memories. Once again he saw the friendly house by the Thames, the garden cool and fresh beyond the open French windows, the sunlit waters at the end of the lawn, and Norman Kent with a strange peace in his dark eyes, and the nightmare face of Rayt Marius, and the prince . . . Prince Rudolf, calmest of them all, with a sleek and inhuman calm, like a man of steel and velvet, impeccably groomed, exquisite, impassive—exactly as he stood at that moment, gazing at his visitor with his fine eyebrows raised in faint interrogation . . . not betraying by so much as the flicker of an eyelid the things that must have been in his mind. He could not possibly have forgotten the date that had been written on that card, it could not by any stretch of imagination have omened good news for him: and yet he was utterly master of himself, utterly at his ease. . . .
"You're a wonderful man," said the Saint; and the prince shrugged delicately.
''You have the advantage of me."
"Have you forgotten so quickly?"
"I meet many people."
The Saint put up his hand and removed his gray wig, his glasses, his beard . . . straightened up.
"You should remember me," he said.
"My dear Mr. Templar!" The prince was smiling. "But why such precautions? Or did you wish to make your call an even greater surprise?"
The Saint laughed.
"The precautions were necessary," he said— "as you know. But I'll say you took it well—Highness. I never expected you to bat an eye-lash, though—I remembered so well that your self-control was your greatest charm."
"But I am delighted to see you."
"Are you?" asked Simon Templar, gently.
2
THE PRINCE proffered a slim gold case.
"At least," he said, "you will smoke."
"One of my own," said the Saint affably. "I find that these are the only brand I can indulge in with safety—my heart isn't what it was."
The prince shrugged.
"You have missed your vocation, Mr. Templar," he said regretfully. "You should have been a diplomat."
"I could have made a job of it," said Simon modestly.
"I believe I once made you an offer to enter my own service."
"You did."
"And you refused."
"I did."
"Perhaps you have reconsidered your decision."
The Saint smiled.
"Listen," he said. "Suppose I said I had. Suppose I told you I'd forgotten the death of my dearest friend. Suppose I said that all the things I once believed in and fought for—the things that he died for—meant nothing more to me. Would you welcome me?"
"Candidly," said the prince, "I should not. I admire you. I know your qualities, and I would give much to have them in my service. But that is an ideal—a daydream. If you turned your coat, you would cease to be what you are, and so you would cease to be desirable. But it is a pity. ..."
Simon strolled to a chair. He sat there, watching the prince through a curling feather of cigarette smoke. And the prince, sinking onto the arm of another chair, with a long thin cigarette holder between his perfect teeth, returned the gaze with a glimmer of amusement on his lips.
Presently the prince made one of his indescribably elegant gestures.
"As you have not come to enlist with me," he remarked, "I presume you have some other reason. Shall we deal with it?"
"I thought we might have a chat," said the Saint calmly. "I've discovered a number of obscure odours in the wind during the last twenty-four hours, and I had an idea you might have something to say which would clear the air. Of course, for one thing, I was hoping our dear friend Marius would be with you."
The prince glanced at his watch.
"I am expecting him at any moment. He was responsible for your friend's unfortunate—er—accident, by the way. I fear that Marius has never been of a very even temper."
"That is one thing I've been wanting to know for many weeks," said the Saint quietly; and for a moment something blazed in his eyes like a sear of blue flame.
And then, once again, he was smiling.
"It'll be quite a rally, won't it?" he murmured. "And we shall have such a lot to tell each other. . . . But perhaps you'd like to open the palaver yourself—Highness? For instance, how's Heinrich?"
'' I believe him to be in good health."
"And what did he tell the police?''
"Ah! I thought you would ask that question."
"I'm certainly curious."
The prince tapped his cigarette fastidiously against the edge of an ashtray.
"If you wish to know, he said that his uncle—an invalid, and unhappily subject to violent fits—had arrived only yesterday from Munich. You entered the house, pretending to be a doctor, before he could disclaim you; and you immediately threatened him with an automatic. You then informed him that you were the Saint, and abducted his uncle. Dussel, naturally, had no idea why you should have done so—but, just as naturally, he considered that that was a problem for the police to solve.''
Simon nodded admiringly.
"I'm taking a distinct shine to Heinrich," he drawled.
"You will admit that it was an ingenious explanation."
"I'll tell the world."
"But you own strategy, my dear Mr. Templar— that was superb! Even if I had not been told that it was your work, I should have recognized the artist at once."
"We professionals!" sighed the Saint.
"'And where did you take the lady? "
The question was thrown off so carelessly, and yet with such a perfect touch, that for an instant the Saint checked his breath. And then he laughed.
"Oh, Rudolf, that wasn't worthy of you!"
"I am merely being natural," said the prince, without annoyance. "There was something you wanted to know—you asked me—I answered. And then I followed your example."
Simon shook his head, smiling, and sank deeper into his chair, his eyes intent upon an extraordinarily uninteresting ceiling. And he wondered, with a certain reckless inward merriment, what thoughts were sizzling through the brain of the imperturbable hidalgo opposite him.
He wondered . . . but he knew that it would be a waste of time to attempt to read anything in the prince's face. The prince was his match, if not more than his match, at any game like that. If Simon had come there to fence—that would have been a duel! Already, in the few words they had exchanged, each had tested afresh the other's mettle, and each had tacitly recognized that time had fostered no illusions about the other: neither had changed. Weave and feint, thrust, parry, and riposte—each movement was perfect, smooth, cool, effortless . . . and futile. . . . And neither would yield an inch of ground. . . . And now, where cruder and clumsier exponents would still be ineffectually lunging and blundering, they had admitted the impasse. The pause was of mutual consent.