The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

'Are you taking her to the station?'

'I am,' said the Saint truthfully, and closed the door.

And then the Saint settled back and lighted another cigarette as the taxi drew away from the curb.

'We've just time to catch the next train to town with eighty seconds to spare,' he remarked; and the girl turned to him with the nearest thing to a straight-forward smile that he had seen on her lips yet.

'And after that?''

'I know a place near London where the train slows up to a walking pace. We can step off there, and the synthetic sleuths who will be infesting Paddington by the time the train gets in can wait for us as long as they like.'

She met his eyes steadily.

'You mean that?'

'But of course!' said the Saint. 'And you can ask me anything else you want to know. This is the end of my career as a policeman. I never thought the hell of a lot of the job, anyhow. I suppose you're wondering why?'

She nodded.

'I suppose I am.'

'Well, I butted into this party more or less by way of a joke. A joke and a promise, Jill, which I may tell you about one day. Or maybe I won't. Whether you were right or wrong had nothing to do with it at all; but from what the late lamented Weald was saying when I crashed his sheik stuff it seems you're right, and that really has got something to do with the flowers that bloom in the spring.'

There was another silence. She accepted a cigarette from his case, and a light.

Presently she said: 'And after we leave the train?'

'Somewhere in this wide world,' said the Saint, 'there's a bloke by the name of Essenden. He is going to Paris to-morrow, and so are we.'

Chapter V

HOW LORD ESSENDEN WAS PEEVED,

AND SIMON TEMPLAR RECEIVED A VISITOR

 

Now, once upon a time Lord Essenden had fired a revol­ver at Simon Templar with intent to qualify him for a pair of wings and a white nightie. Simon bore Lord Essenden no malice for that, for the Saint was a philosopher, and he was philosophically ready to admit that on that occasion he. had been in the act of forcing open Lord Essenden's desk with a burglarious instrument, to wit, a jemmy; so that Lord Essenden might philosophically be held to have been within his rights. Besides, the bul­let had missed him by a yard.

No, Simon Templar's interest in Essenden, and particu­larly in Essenden's trips to Paris, had always been com­monplace and practical. Simon, having once upon a time watched and pried into Lord Essenden's affairs conscien­tiously and devotedly for some months, knew that Essenden, on his return from every visit he paid to Paris (and these visits were more frequent than the visits of a respec­tably married peer should rightly have been), was wont to pay large numbers of French francs into his bank in London. And the Saint, who had been younger than he was at this time, knew that Englishmen who are able to pay large numbers of French francs into their London banks when they return from a short visit to Paris are curiosities; and collecting curiosities was the Saint's voca­tion.

So Simon Templar and Jill Trelawney went to Paris and stayed two days at the Crillon in the Place de la Concorde, which they chose because Lord Essenden chose it. Also, during