The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

He did not see Cullis snatch up the bronze statuette from the table behind him, but if he had not turned his head—more by intuition than by calculation—it would certainly have cracked his skull. As it was, the glancing blow half stunned him and sent him reeling, with his hold on Cullis's wrist broken. Jill had let the man go as soon as the Saint grappled with him.

As he climbed dizzily to his feet, with his head singing, and wiped the blood out of his eyes, he saw the chief commissioner groping blasphemously for one of the fallen guns with his sound left hand—saw the open French win­dows, and Jill Trelawney vanishing through them.

'Come back, you fool!' yelled the Saint huskily.

But she could not have heard him. She was gone, and he followed, staggering.

There was a patter of footsteps down the gravel path along the side of the house, and he saw her white blouse as a pale blur in the darkness.

He caught her up at the corner of the house, and, stand­ing beside her, saw Cullis turning through the garden gate.

Then he started to run again, for he knew that if Cullis turned again at the next corner, as he would be likely to do, he would stumble straight upon the chief commis­sioner's car, which had been left standing there with the lights out.

And Cullis turned that way. Whether it was simply that he wanted to get clear of the principal road and attempt to shake off pursuit in the darkness and more open country, or whether it was that the luck which had been with him so long was disposed to help him yet a little while longer, could never be known. But he did come upon the car, and he was flinging himself into the driving seat as Simon turned the corner after him. An instant later the self- starter brought the engine to life, and the car was starting to move as the Saint flung himself at the luggage grid.

He hung there for a few seconds, getting his last resources of nerve and muscle together. He was still dazed, practically knocked out on his feet, after the murderous blow that he had taken on his head. And the blood that persisted in trickling into his eyes from a shallow scalp wound half blinded him. But he held on.

And then he pulled himself together and moved again. It had to be done, for his hold was precarious, and he could not have kept it for much longer in the state he was in. And by that time the car was travelling at forty miles an hour, and a slip, a fall in the road, would very easily have put an end to the adventure in quite a different way from which he had intended.

He got his hands over the furled top, hauled himself up, and tumbled over onto the cushions of the back seat.

With a sigh of relief, he eased his aching muscles; and for a while he lay there, dead beat, hardly able to move. His head felt as if it were splitting, and crimson specks danced in a grey haze before his eyes.

But the car drove on. The driver, intent only on the road that showed up ahead in the blaze of the headlights, never noticed his arrival.

Gradually the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach passed off. He was still weary from his reckless effort, but his brain was clearing. He mopped at his forehead with his handkerchief and opened his eyes.

Then he pulled himself up onto his knees. As his eyes came over the level of the front seat, the blaze of another pair of headlights that were racing over the road towards them flooded into his eyes.

'There's no more speed limit,' said  the Saint unhappily, in Cullis's ear, 'but you're still breaking it, and I shall have to arrest you, Cullis, really I shall. Driving to the danger of the public, that's what you're doing——'

As Cullis heard his voice the car swerved perilously, and then straightened up again.

'At least,' said Cullis over his shoulder, 'I'll take you with me.'

Simon took him by the throat, but Cullis's hands still clutched the steering wheel rigidly.