"Dis is like de good old days," Hoppy said contentedly; and the Saint smiled in sympathy.
"It is, isn't it? But I never thought I'd be doing it in England."
Suddenly the haze of light down the road flared up, blazed into blinding clarity as the headlights of the lorry swung round a bend like searchlights. It was still some distance away, but the road ran practically straight for a mile in either direction, and they were parked in the lee of almost the only scrap of cover on the open moor.
Simon held up one hand to shield his eyes against the direct glare. He was not looking at the headlights themselves but at a point in the darkness a little to the right of them, waiting for the signal that would identify the lorry beyond any doubt. And while he watched the signal came — four long equal flashes from a powerful electric torch, strong enough for him to see the twinkle of them even with the lorry's headlights shining towards him.
The Saint drew a deep breath.
"Okay," he said. "You know your stuff, Hoppy. And don't use that Betsy of yours unless you have to."
He flicked his lighter and touched it to the end of the cigarette clipped between his lips. The light thrown upwards by his cupped hands brought out his face for an instant in vivid sculpture — the crisp sweep of black hair, the rakehell lines of cheekbone and jaw, the half smile on the clean-cut reckless mouth, the glimmer of scapegrace humour in the clear and mocking blue eyes. It was a face that fitted with an almost startling perfection, as faces so seldom do, not only into the mission that had brought him there that night but also into all the legends about him. It was a face that made it seem easy to understand why he should be called the Saint and why some people should think of him almost literally like that, while others called him by the same name and thought of him as a devil incarnate. It might have been the face of a highwayman in another age, waiting by the roadside on his black horse for some unsuspecting traveller — only that the power of a hundred horses purred under the bonnet waiting for the touch of his foot and the travellers he was waiting for were not innocent even if they were unsuspecting.
The flame went out, dropping his face back into the darkness; and as he slipped the lighter back into his pocket he sent the car whirling forward in a short rush, spinning the wheel to swing it at right angles across the road, and stopped it there, with the front wheels a foot from the grass verge on the other side.
"Let's go," said the Saint.
Hoppy Uniatz was already halfway out of the door on his side. This at least was something he understood. To him the higher flights of philosophy and intellectual attainment might be forever barred; but in the field of pure action, once the objects of it had been clearly and carefully explained to him in short sentences employing only the four or five hundred words which made up his vocabulary, he had few equals. And the Saint grinned as he disembarked on to the macadam and melted soundlessly into the night on the opposite side of the road from the one Mr Uniatz had taken.
The driver of the lorry knew nothing of these preparations until his headlights flooded the Saint's car strongly enough to make it plain that the roadway was completely blocked. Instinctively he muttered a curse and trod and hauled on the brakes; and the lorry had groaned to a standstill only a yard from the obstacle before he realized that he might have been unwise.
Even so, there was nothing much else that he could have done unless he had driven blindly on off the road onto the open heath, with the chance of landing himself in a ditch. Belatedly it dawned on him that even that risk might have been preferable to the risk of stopping behind such a suspicious-looking barricade, and he groped quickly for a pocket in his overalls. But before he could get his gun out the door beside him was open, and another gun levelled at his middle was dimly visible in the reflected light of the head lamps.
"Would you mind stepping outside?" said a pleasant voice; and the driver set his teeth.
"Not on your mucking life—"
He had got that far when a hand grasped him by the front of his clothing. What followed was something that puzzled him intermittently for the rest of his life, and he would brood over it in his leisure hours, trying to reconcile his own personal impressions with the logical possibilities of the world as he had previously known it. But if it had not been so manifestly impossible he would have said that he seemed to be lifted bodily out of his seat and drawn through the door with such force that he sailed through the air almost to the edge of the road in a graceful parabola comparable to the flight of the cruising flamingo before a large portion of the county of Dorset rose up and hit him very hard in several places at once.
As he crawled painfully up onto his hands and knees he saw the performer of this miracle standing over him.
" 'Ere," he protested dazedly, "wot's the idear?"
"The idea is that you ought to be a good boy and do what you're told."
The voice was still cool and genial, but there was an undertone of silky earnestness in it which the driver had overlooked before. Staring up in an effort to make out the details of the face from which it came, the driver realized that the reason why it seemed so curiously featureless was that a dark cloth mask covered it from brow to chin, and something inside his chest seemed to turn cold.
Simon took hold of him again and lifted him to his feet; and as he did so a shrill yelp and a thud came from the other side of the lorry.
"That will be your mate going to sleep," said the Saint cheerfully. "Will you have one of our special bedtime stories, or will you just take things quietly?"
His left hand had been sliding imperceptibly over the man's clothing while he spoke, and before the driver knew what was happening the automatic which he carried in his overalls had been whisked away from him. All he saw of it was the glint of metal as it vanished into one of the Saint's pockets, but he clutched at the place where it had been and found nothing there. The Saint's soft laugh purled on his eardrums.
"Come along, sonny boy — let's see what you've got in that beautiful covered wagon."
With that stifling lump of ice swelling under his ribs the driver felt himself being propelled firmly towards the rear of the van. Simon slipped a tiny flashlight out of his pocket as they went; and as they reached the back of the lorry the masked face of Mr Uniatz swam round from the other side into the bright beam.
"I heard music," said the Saint.
Hoppy nodded.
"Dat was de udder guy. He tries to make a grab at my mask, so I bop him on de spire wit' my Betsy, an' he dives."
"That's what I love about you," murmured Simon. "You're so thoughtful. Suppose he'd got your mask off. He might have died of heart failure, and that would have been bloody awkward. You ought to keep that face-curtain on all the time — it suits you."
He gave the driver a last gentle push that almost impaled him on the muzzle of Mr Uniatz's ever-ready Betsy and turned his attention to the rear doors of the van. While he was fumbling with them footsteps sounded on the road behind him, and another flashlight split the darkness and focussed on the lock from over his shoulder.
"What ho," said Peter Quentin.
"Ho kay," said the Saint. "The operation went off without a hitch, and one of the patients has a bent spire. Keep that light steady a minute, will you?"
Actually it was not a minute but only a few seconds before the lock surrendered its share of the unequal contest with a set of deft fingers that could have disposed of the latest type of burglar-proof safe in rather less time than an amateur would have taken to empty a can of asparagus with a patent tin opener. Simon pocketed the instrument he had been using, swung the doors wide and hauled himself nimbly up into the interior of the van.