At each end of the jetty were fixed wooden posts about four feet high that had once supported a gate designed to prevent sacks slipping into the canal. He grasped the top of the nearest one, spreading his legs apart and bending his knees to brace himself, and applied every ounce of his strength as he pulled. The post tore free of its fastening, and he toppled backwards and only just managed to stop himself tumbling off the platform.
He slipped the post through the door handle, placed one foot against the door, and threw his whole weight backwards.
The handle took a jagged square of wood with it as it came away with a crash that splintered the still night air like a gunshot, at the same time dragging the door open.
The Saint slipped through the gap and into the factory, drawing his gun as he went.
He found himself in a high-ceilinged room that appeared to take up the whole of the ground floor. The only light was provided by the pale rays of the moon that filtered through the glassless windows high above his head. Beside the jetty doors a stone staircase curved upwards to link with the floors above, and he waited at the foot of it until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom.
It was impossible for the noise of his entrance not to have been heard by the men in the building. But there was a fair chance that they would attribute it to the spontaneous collapse of one of the rotting timbers, or to some outside happening, instead of to a break-in. Harry had indicated the third floor at the front, and if they were still there they might not have been able to identify the sound accurately. At any rate, that was what he had to hope for.
He climbed the stairs to the next floor without incident. It was similar to the one below, except that the ceiling was lower and he could just make out partitioned sections at one end that had previously served as offices.
In the second floor, the staircase led to a corridor, and he followed it to the front of the building. The boards creaked as he moved although he kept close to the wall, unable in the half light to determine whether the darker patches in the centre of the passage were merely pools of shadow or holes. He glanced into the rooms on either side, but all were empty and derelict and in many the floor had partially collapsed and he could see through to the floor below. The corridor merged into another wider one that ran the length of the front of the building to a staircase at either end. His watch showed 8:05 as he turned left and quickened his step.
If punctuality was any virtue of guerillas, the Waterloo Bridge contact should already have been made.
He took the stairs two at a time and was on the halfway landing when the noise of a door slamming somewhere immediately above made him freeze in mid-stride. The beam of a torch stabbed a circle of light on the wall above his head and grew wider as the man approached. Bending almost double, Simon leapt up the remaining steps. The man was no more than a dozen feet from the top of the stairs. Crouched by the wall, the Saint held his breath as he waited for him to draw level.
A rat scuffled somewhere in the darkness below, and the man stopped and turned his head. The Saint needed no better invitation.
He stepped out directly into the man’s path.
“Good evening,” he said courteously.
The man’s mouth opened, but whether to emit an equally well-mannered reply or shout the Saint did not wait to find out. His fist swung upwards with a force that lifted the recipient off his feet, and the Saint caught him as he fell and lowered him gently to the ground, prising the torch from his grasp in the process.
“And then there were two,” he observed to his strictly personal audience.
A ribbon of light beneath a door at the far end of the passage indicated his destination. Now he did not bother to muffle the sound of his approach, confident that the men inside would assume that it was their colleague returning. He turned the handle and entered as casually as if he were in his own home.
Leila sat in a chair in the centre of the room, her arms and legs tightly bound. Khaldun was at the window looking down into the courtyard, while another man whom the Saint had not seen before sat on an upturned packing case cleaning a rifle.
Khaldun turned as the door opened, and at the sight of the Saint recoiled as if he had been hit. The rifleman dropped his cloth and stared in amazement. Only Leila managed to contain her surprise.
“I thought you were never going to get here,” she said calmly.
The Saint smiled.
“You didn’t leave a forwarding address,” he complained. “Excuse me...”
His automatic barked, and the rifle flew from its cleaner’s grip and clattered to the floor with the Saint’s bullet embedded in its stock.
“That was your first and only warning,” he said quietly. “Both of you face down on the floor, now. Move!”
The men did as they were told, and he knelt between them to relieve Khaldun of a revolver and his companion of a small, snub-nosed automatic. He put both guns in his pockets as he stood up. Without taking his eyes off the two men, he untied Leila’s wrists and gave her the automatic to control the situation while he freed her legs.
“Have either of these specimens done anything to you?” he asked gently.
Leila shook her head as she vigorously rubbed the circulation back into her arms and flexed her legs.
“No. I think they were keeping that for later.”
“What was the plan?”
“When Hakim arrived, I was to walk across the courtyard towards him so that it would look as if they were keeping their bargain. As soon as we met in the middle they were going to start shooting — Khaldun and this one up here with rifles, another of them downstairs, plus the two in the car.”
“Quite an ambush,” Simon observed reflectively. “It seems almost a pity to spoil it.”
While she kept the two Arabs covered, he picked up the lengths of rope that had bound her, and expertly tied the new captives together, passing the cords from their ankles and wrists behind their backs to finish around their necks. He regarded his handiwork with grim satisfaction.
“You can have great fun trying to unravel yourselves,” he told them, “though I wouldn’t try too hard if I were you. One pull in the wrong direction, and you’ll find that breathing is only a memory.”
The two men lay perfectly still, and the Saint’s smile widened as he bowed and touched his forehead and lips in the traditional salute.
“Maha-ssaldama,” he murmured with genial derision, and turned back to Leila. “Come on, darling — let’s keep that date.”
He led the way down the stairs to the front door and pulled it open, and they stood together just inside the opening.
“Simon,” she said huskily, “I don’t know how you got here, but it was so wonderful—”
The roar of two approaching cars cut off her words. The station wagon swung into the courtyard, but the Hirondel stopped just outside the entrance. Yakovitz and Hakim climbed out and stood beside it; Garvi himself got out of the driving seat. The Red Sabbath car pulled up a few yards from the factory door.
The Saint pressed his lips to Leila’s ear.
“Do just as they told you,” he whispered. “And good luck.”
Leila took his hand off her shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze, and began to walk towards the centre of the courtyard as Hakim approached awkwardly from the other side. The converging headlights of the Hirondel and the wagon lit up the scene like a macabre stage set.