The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

Essenden fumbled in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper. He laid it on the desk beneath Cullis's eyes.

'What about that?' he asked.

Cullis looked at a little drawing that was already famil­iar to him—a childish sketch of a little skeleton man with a symbolical halo woven round his head. But beside this figure there was another such as neither Cullis nor Teal had ever seen before in that context—a figure that wore a skirt and had no halo. And under these drawings were three words: 'April the First.'

'What about that?' asked Essenden again.

Teal raised his sleepy eyes to the calendar on the wall.

'A week next Friday,' he said. 'Are you superstitious?'

Essenden was pardonably annoyed.

'If you're supposed to be in charge of this case, Mr. Teal,' he said testily, 'I don't think much of the way you do your job. Is this the way you train your men to work, Cullis?'

'I didn't train him,' said Cullis patiently. 'April the first is All Fool's Day, isn't it?'

'I don't see the joke.'

'It may be explained to you,' said Cullis.

He stood up with a businesslike air, meaning that, so far as he was concerned, the interview had served its purpose. As a matter of fact, this story was a mere varia­tion on a theme which Cullis was already finding wearisome. He had heard too much in a similar strain of late to be impressed by this repetition, although he was far from underestimating its significance. But he could not discuss that with Essenden, for there was something about Lord Essenden which sometimes made Cullis think seriously of murder.

'Let me know any developments,' he said with curt finality.

Lord Essenden, it should be understood, though impor­tant enough to be able to secure interviews with the assist­ant commissioner, was not important enough to be able to dictate the course which any interview should take, and this fact was always a thorn in Essenden's vanity.

'You treat it all very lightly,' he complained weakly. 'I do think you might make some sort of effort, Cullis.'

'Every policeman in England is looking for Simon Templar and Jill Trelawney,' said the assistant commissioner. 'If and when we find them they will be arrested and tried. We can't do more than that. Write down your story and give it to Sergeant Berryman downstairs on your way out, and we'll see that it's added to the dossier. Good-evening.'

'I tell you, Cullis, I'm scared——'

Cullis nodded.

'They certainly seem to have it in for you,' he said. 'I wonder why? Good-evening!'

Essenden felt his hand vigorously shaken, and then he found himself in the stone corridor outside, blinking at a closed door.

He went downstairs and wrote out his formal report, as he had been directed, but with a querulous lack of restraint which spoilt the product as a literary effort. Then he drove to his club and dined and wined himself well before he returned to his waiting car and directed a cold and sleepy chauffeur to take him home.

'Home' was on the borders of Oxfordshire, for Essen-den preferred to live away from the social life of London. Lady Essenden had objections to this misanthropy, of which Lord Essenden took no notice. In his way, he was almost as retiring a character as Mr. Cullis.

Through all that drive