The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

She fought him back des­perately, but he was too strong for her. Once she was almost able to tear herself away, but he blundered after her, still clutching her sleeve, and caught her again. His lips were trying to find her mouth.

Suddenly she went limp in his arms. It was the only thing she could do at that moment—to pretend to faint, and thus give herself a chance to catch him off his guard. And for a space Stephen Weald looked down at her stupidly. Then, with a sudden resolution, he swung her off her feet and carried, her through the open cupboard.

Hampered by his burden, he could only feel his way down step by step. The direct light above was soon lost, and the stairs grew darker and darker. He went on. Then another light dawned below, and grew more powerful as he proceeded farther downward; at last the bulb which gave the light was on the level of his eyes. He went down beneath it, and presently found himself on level stone.

A corridor stretched away before him, lighted at long intervals by electric bulbs. He went on down it and felt a faint breath of fresh air on his face. Presently the tunnel forked. Donnell had not told him about that. He hesitat­ed, and then plunged into the right-hand branch. In a few yards it took a turn, and a door faced him. He got it open and went into darkness. Groping round, he found a switch, and when he had clicked it over he discovered that he was in a dead end—the tunnel did not go on, but stopped in the room into which he had opened the door.

There was a tattered carpet on the floor, and a table and a chair on the carpet. In one corner was a couch, in an­other were a pile of tinned foods and a beaker of water.

He should have turned back and tried the left-hand branch of the tunnel, but he was not an athletic man, and the effort of carrying even such, a light weight as the girl for that distance had taxed his untrained muscles severely. He put her down on the couch and straightened up, mop­ping his streaming brow and breathing heavily.

His back was towards her when she opened her eyes, but she saw the bulge of the gun in his coat pocket. She raised herself cautiously and put out her hand. Her fingers were actually sliding into his pocket when he turned and saw her.

'Not that either, you little devil!' he snarled.

He caught her wrist and wrenched it away from the gun she had almost succeeded in grasping.

'You'd like to shoot me, wouldn't you?' he said thickly. 'But you're not going to have the chance. You're going to love me. You're going to love me in spite of everything— even if I am Waldstein!'

She shrank away from him with wide eyes.

'Yes, even if I am Waldstein,' he babbled. 'Even if I did help to break your father. He was an officious nuisance. But you're quite different. You're going to settle with me in my way, Jill!'    

 

2

 

There had been another man on the train to Birming­ham, whom Simon Templar had not seen. He did not meet him until he had disembarked and was hailing a taxi; and, seeing him, the Saint was not pleased. But this was the kind of displeasure about which Simon Templar never let on, and it was the assistant commissioner who stared.

'Good Lord, Templar, how did you get here?'

'I came on a tricycle,' said the Saint gravely. 'Did you use a motor-scooter?'

'I got your message——'

'What message?'

Cullis tugged at his