The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

The girl opened the door. Dyson was outside.

'Here's your friend the Saint,' she said.

'Hullo, Slinky,' said the Saint. 'How's the eye?'

Dyson slouched into the room.

'Search him,' ordered Weald.

Dyson obeyed, doing the job with ungentle hands. Simon made no resistance. In the circumstances that would only have been a mediocre way of committing suicide.

'How true you run to type, Jill!' he murmured. 'This is just what I was expecting. And now, of course, you'll tell me that I'm going to be kept here as your prisoner until you choose to let me go. Or are you going to lock me in the cellar and leave the hose running? That was tried once. Or perhaps you're going to ask me to join your gang. That'd be quite original.'

'Sit down,' snapped Weald.

Simon sat down as if he had been meaning to do so all the time.

Jill Trelawney was at the telephone. The Saint ob­served her out of the corner of his eye while he selected and lighted a cigarette from his case. He waited quite patiently while she tried to make the call, but he feigned surprise when she failed.

'That really upsets me,' he said. 'Now you'll have to go to Birmingham yourself. I hate to think I'm putting you to so much inconvenience.'

He saw Budd busying himself with some loose rope, and when the ex-prize fighter came over with the obvious intention of binding him, the Saint put his hands behind him without being told to. Weald was talking to the girl.——

'Do you really mean to go to Birmingham?'

'Yes. It's the only thing to do. I can't get in touch with Donnell by telephone, and it wouldn't be safe to send a wire.'

'And suppose it's a trap?'

'You can suppose it's what you like. The Saint's clever. But I think I've got the hang of him now. It's just a repeti­tion of that posse joke. He's come to tell us that he's going to get Donnell just because he thinks we won't believe it. And if he does get Donnell, Donnell will squeal. If you've got cold feet you can stay here. But I'm going. Budd can go with me if you don't like it. He'll be more use than you, anyway.'

'I'll go with you.'

'Have it your own way.'

She came back to watch Budd putting the finishing touches to the Saint's roping.

'You'll be pleased to hear,' she said, 'that for once I'm going to believe you.'

'So I heard,' said the Saint. 'Hope you have a nice journey. Will you leave Dyson to look after me? I'm sure he'd treat me very kindly.'

She shook her head.

'Budd,' she said, 'will be even kinder.'

It was a blow at the very foundations of the scheme which the Saint had built up, but not a muscle of his face betrayed his feelings.

He spoke to her as if there were no one else in the room, holding her eyes in