The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

The constable turned, and suddenly a gleam of recog­nition came into his eyes. He peered at the Saint more closely, and then he released a blasphemous ejaculation.

'I know you!'

'You're honoured,' said the Saint affably.

'You're the gentleman who told me that funny story about that very flat the week before last, and got me the worst dressing down I ever 'ad from the divisional inspec­tor!'

He did not call Simon a gentleman.

'Am I?' said the Saint.

'You'll come along with me to the station right now.'

Simon turned to him with a bland smile.

'Why?'

'I shall take you into custody——'

'On what charge?'

'Suspicious loitering, an' committing a breach of the peace.'

'Oh, for the love of Pete!' said the Saint. 'Why not throw in arson and bigamy as well?'

But he had to submit to the arrest, because a humble constable—especially one with good reason to remember him—could not be expected to appreciate the same argu­ments as Chief Inspector Teal had followed only too clearly.

It took Simon another hour to obtain his liberty, and more than another hour after that to get the last traces of the gas out of his apartment.

It did not take him anything like so long to discover the means by which it had been introduced. There were pieces of glass on the floor which had not come from either of the broken windows. He was able to piece a few of them together into the curved shape which they had originally had. And in the frame of his front door, level with the keyhole of the Yale lock, had been bored a neat hole no thicker than a knitting needle—almost invisible to the casual glance, but as obvious as the neck on a giraffe to the Saint's practised eye.

'Another of the old gags that never fail—sometimes,' he murmured. 'And glass bulbs of the stuff in an attache case ready to heave in. He'd probably just got back from this job when Jill met him. . . . Our Mr. Cullis is waking up. If he hadn't had to shut the windows, or I hadn't remembered how I'd left them, I might have been cold mutton draped on the umbrella stand by this time. Oh, it's a great life!'

The first pallor of dawn was lightening the sky when he eventually pulled the sheets up to his chin and closed his eyes; but even then it seemed that he was not to have the undisturbed rest he so badly needed. He seemed to have slept hardly ten minutes before he was roused by the ring of his front-door bell; but when he opened protesting eyes, his watch told him that it was eleven o'clock.

He tumbled sulphurously out of bed pulled on a dress­ing gown, and went to the door.

The cherubic visage of Chief Inspector Teal confront­ed him on the threshold.

'You again?' sighed the Saint, and turned on his heel without another word, leaving the door open behind him.

Teal followed him into the sitting room.

'Had a thick night?' inquired Teal sympathetically. 'Sorry I had to disturb you.'