The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

with blatant appreciation of her beauty.

'No,' he said, 'there is ho one here. We are in Lam­beth, and this is the caretaker's room over an empty warehouse. You can cry out if you like, but no one will hear you. And as soon as you promise me that you will behave yourself, I will take those straps away and you will be free.'

'So,' she said calmly, 'Mr. Templar hasn't been ar­rested?'

He spread out his hands.

'How should I know? That was a story I made up. When he left your house, I did not follow him any more. I was not interested in him. Perhaps he has been arrested, perhaps he has not. Who can say?'

She grasped that one fact as a drowning man might clutch at a straw.

And then, as if in answer to her thoughts, somewhere down in the depths below there was & thunder of knocking on the door.

 

Chapter XI

HOW  SIMON  TEMPLAR  INTERRUPTED  A PARTY,

AND MR. CULLIS WAS AT HOME

 

GUGLIEMI must have thought that it was his friend return­ing, for his dark eyes opened wide when he saw Simon Templar.

'What do you want?' he demanded.

'Who are you?' inquired the Saint, inspecting him from crown to toe with a disparaging eye.

'I am the caretaker.'

'Then I hope you will take great care,' said the Saint.

The Italian was starting to push the door in his face, but Simon pushed harder, and walked in.

'What do you want?' asked Gugliemi again, and this time he asked it more dangerously.

Simon carefully detached a fragment of cobweb from his sleeve. He was in his dinner jacket, without hat or overcoat, and his shirt gleamed snowy white in the dim light.

'I really don't want you to think me interfering, Signor Oleaqua,' said the Saint diffidently. 'But don't you think it's time you let Miss Trelawney go home?'

'I know nothing about Mees Trelawney.'

'But, my dear Signor Gazebo,' protested the Saint, in accents of shocked innocence, 'think of the proprieties! Think of what the bishop would say if he knew that you were alone with a fair lady at this hour!'

'I do not understand,' said Gugliemi stubbornly. 'I know no Mees Trelawney, I tell you.'

The Saint's eyebrows lifted half an inch.

'Really?' he said. 'But a friend of yours has just told me that he brought her here with you.'

Gugliemi shrugged eloquent shoulders.

'Perhaps you make the fairy tale?' he said.

'Perhaps,' agreed the Saint, 'But of course you'll let me have a look round, just to make sure, won't you?'

'I shall not.'