The professor chuckled.
“So simple, but so effective. And so safe. The Templars brought back many trophies from the Crusades, but this scroll was unique, and they kept it a secret. It was their treasure. They were accused of Devil worship, in the main it was a libel, but here at Ingare a cult must have developed around this unholy relic. And what greater prize for a Satanist than the words of the man who betrayed God?”
The Saint heard Norbert’s words and their meaning registered, but he was no longer consciously listening to the little man’s lecture. For a moment he was hardly aware of the present at all as his mind flooded with the images of the past.
He thought of the Knights whose name he carried going out to do battle, their ideals as bright as their armour, their standards billowing in the wind of the charge. Fighting and dying and winning respect and renown. But when the campaigns were over, when there were no more pilgrims to protect or battles to win or walls to storm, growing rich and complacent and eventually corrupt. Accepting a life of luxury and indulgence, playing politics, storing wealth, and then at last dabbling in strange heresies against the faith that had first inspired them.
Instantaneously he remembered his own beginnings — the ideals that had sent him and his own small band of crusaders out into a world grown stale and lifeless from what was called progress. Ideals they had fought for and one had died for. To deliver justice in a world that no longer understood the word. To wage their own private war against the men who grew bloated on the life-blood of the weak. Could it happen to him — a twentieth-century privateer akin to every soldier of fortune who had ever nailed his colours to the mast and set out to seek his destiny?
But that depressing prospect survived only a microsecond against the utterly gorgeous grandeur of the historic reality that had just exploded before his comprehension: a Templar treasure that could be truly priceless — and in ordinary terms completely unsaleable.
For a moment as his gaze swept over the lines of coffins he could wonder if one day he too would settle for a fading glory and the pleasures of the idle and the unconcerned. But only for that moment; and then he laughed. A deep, rich “to hell with it all” laugh. The sword was still bright, and ideal was still a spur, and the jest was magnificent. So there was no treasure, just the words of a traitor. Something for the academics and theologians to argue over while the rest of the world carried on — business as usual. And a Nobel Prize or something of that sort for somebody, perhaps Louis Norbert.
“Of course, Henri knows about this,” said the Saint.
“He refuses to believe it,” Norbert said. “He is still convinced of a treasure that can be counted or weighed and banked—”
At that same instant the key grated in the lock of the tunnel door. Before the startled professor realised what was happening he was engulfed in a whirlwind of action. The Saint killed the lamps, clamped a silencing hand over Norbert’s mouth, and in a continuation of the same hold threw them both down behind the tomb.
The door swung open and the beam of a powerful flashlight carved the darkness. The Saint peered cautiously around the farthest side of the tomb. Standing in the splash of light just inside the doorway was Mimette, and from the awkward way she stood with her hands behind her he could tell without seeing them that they must be tied together there. At her side, a gun pressing into her ribs, was Henri Pichot.
3
There were fifteen feet of darkness between the sarcophagus and the probing light source of Henri’s torch. Had the Saint been alone, he would have asked for nothing more and cheerfully pitted his speed and stealth against the quickness of the lawyer’s reactions. But even to attempt such a tactic now would have placed the girl in unacceptable danger, besides leaving Norbert free on his flank. Shielded by Mimette, within a pace of the open door and controlling the only light in the room, Henri’s position was impregnable.
Stalemate. Henri, with no way of knowing whether the Saint was armed, could not approach further without putting himself at risk. The Saint, restricted by his hold on the professor, could not make any move that would take Henri by surprise. There was only one way the impasse could be broken, and Simon waited calmly for the inevitable, only slightly reassured by the conviction that his nerves were the stronger, and therefore every second that limped past, every fractional increase in the tension, must be to his advantage.
Henri swept the beam of his torch wildly around the crypt; but, hidden by the tomb on one side and the thickness of a column on the other, Simon stayed safely hidden. Only when the light told him that the beam was pointed another way would he steal a quick peep around the sarcophagus to keep track of captor and captive.
He weighed with icy detachment the significance of what he saw. Pichot’s drawn features glimpsed in the dim illumination reflected by his flashlight from the walls, his too rigid stance offset by a slight trembling of the hand that gripped the automatic, revealed his inner desperation, and the Saint had found that there are few men more dangerous than a frightened amateur. By contrast, Mimette appeared almost relaxed. She stared straight ahead, her face calm and composed but her eyes wide and frozen. Grimly he recognized that shock would shield her for a short while, but if hysteria took over it would be a dangerous complication.
Still he waited.
Norbert began to wriggle, and the Saint was forced to shift his position slightly to straddle the professor’s body, pinning his arms and legs against the floor. It made only the thinnest scuff of cloth against stone, but it was enough. The light beam swung towards the tomb, and when Pichot spoke his voice faltered and he could not quite control a rising pitch.
“Templar. I am going to count to three. Come out into the light with your hands up or I shall shoot Mimette.”
He spotlighted the floor a dozen feet away and jabbed the muzzle of his gun into the girl’s side.
“One.”
Simon rolled off the professor and glided towards the other end of the tomb. Behind him he heard Norbert clambering to his feet. Henri started and swung his flashlight towards the noise.
“No, don’t shoot, it’s me!” Norbert shouted frantically, and superfluously, as the light pinned him.
For a second, Pichot lost his place in the countdown.
“What are you doing here?” he rasped.
“I just came to have another look—”
“N’importe,” Henri cut him off. “Templar, this is — two!”
Perhaps the professor’s appearance broke the spell or the first shock simply subsided, but at that moment Mimette snapped back into full personality.
“Simon?” she cried. “Simon — if you are there, don’t listen! This no-good—”
She began to strain furiously against the cord that bound her wrists. Henri grabbed her roughly around the waist and held her body against his own. His lips began to shape “Three.”
The Saint stepped out into the light.
He stood completely relaxed and regarded Henri Pichot with the ghost of a mocking smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“You’ve been watching too many old B movies, Henri. One, two, three, fire? How very unoriginal!”
Pichot ignored the taunt. The sight of the Saint apparently surrendering injected a new confidence into his voice and actions. He called to the professor to turn on the lamps, and when the crypt was fully lit he shoved the girl towards the Saint, at the same time side-stepping so that he could keep them both covered.
“So the great Simon Templar isn’t so clever after all,” he sneered, but the Saint only shook his head reproachfully.