06 Alias the Saint

"The conventions must be observed,*' said Raxel. "Mr. Smith has asked the privilege of being allowed to consume two bottles of beer, and I shall let him do so. Tope!"

Basher Tope came shambling out of the bar, and the Professor gave the order. The beer was brought. Simon poured it out himself, and drank the two glasses with relish. Then he picked up the bottles.

"I'll take these with me," he said, "as mementoes. Right away, Professor!"

Crantor led the way down the stairs, and the Saint followed. Raxel brought up the rear.

At the foot of the stairs was a short flagged passage, ending in a door. Crantor opened the door and motioned to the Saint to enter. Raxel came up, and the two men stood in the doorway, Crantor lighting up the cellar with his torch.

It was fairly large, and at one end was a row of barrels. The floor was covered with stqne paving, and the roof was supported by wooden buttresses. But the house was an old one, and Simon had banked everything on the walls not being bricked up, and his hopes went up a couple of miles when he saw that there was nothing but bare earth on three sides of the room.

He turned with a smile.

"Good-bye, Professor," he said.

"Good-bye," said Raxel.

His left hand swung up with the glass globe, and the green liquid it contained caught the light of the torch, and it shone like a monstrous jewel.

The next instant the bowl had smashed on the floor, and before the light of the torch was taken away Simon saw the green vapor boiling up from the stone.

Then the door slammed, and the key turned in the lock. The footsteps of Raxel and Crantor could be heard hurrying down the echoing passage and stumbling up the stairs; and Simon Templar, holding his breath, was knocking the bottoms off the bottles he carried, and packing them with earth torn from the walls of the cellar with desperate speed.

10

With the first bottle packed with earth, the Saint put the neck in his mouth, and used it to breathe through, closing his nostrils with his fingers. It had been a forlorn hope, but it had been the only thing he had been able to think of; and he remembered having read in a book that such a device formed one of the most efficient possible respirators. It was something to do with molecular velocity--the Saint was no profound scientist, and he did not profess to understand the principle. The main point was whether it would work effectively. He waited, breathing cautiously, while the luminous dial on his wrist watch indicated the passing of ten minutes. At the end of that time he felt no distress other than that caused by the difficulty of squeezing air through the packed earth, and decided that his improvised gas mask was functioning satisfactorily.

He turned his attention to the door. Hampered as he was by having to take care not to draw a single breath of air which did not pass through his packed bottle, he was not able to fling his whole weight against it, but the efforts he was able to make seemed to produce no impression. He felt all round the door, but the wall in which it was set was the only one which was bricked up. Then he went down on his hands and knees, and tested the stone flags. Two of them, right beside the door, were loose. Handicapped though he was by having only one free hand, he succeeded in getting his fingers under each slab in turn, and dislodging it, and dragging it away. The earth underneath was moist and soft.

Simon Templar began to dig.

It took him three hours by his watch to burrow under the door, but at last he achieved an aperture large enough to worm his way through. He leaned against the wall on the other side for a few moments, to rest himself, and then felt his way down the corridor and up the stairs.

Mercifully, the door at the top of the stairs was unlocked, and it opened at once. Manifestly, Raxel had had no doubt that the Saint would not live long enough to find any way out of the cellar. Simon burst through, and rushed for the nearest window. He had not even time to open it--he smashed it with his respirator bottle, and filled his aching lungs with great gasping breaths of frosty fresh air.

After a short time he was able to breathe more easily, and then he made a round of the ground floor, opening every window and door to give free passage to the sea breeze, which was soon blowing strongly enough through the house to sweep away any of the gas which filtered up from the cellar.

It was in the kitchen that he found Detective Duncarry securely trussed up and gagged in a chair. Simon cut him loose, and heard the story.

"I don't know how it happened. One minute I was cleaning up a saucepan, and then I got a sickening welt on the back of the head that knocked me right out. Next thing I knew, I was tied up like a Christmas turkey,"

"And I suppose if I'd died, as I was meant to, you'd have sat here till you starved to death," said the Saint. "It's a great life if you don't weaken,"