The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

And knew it was the end.

 

Basil de Bathmat Dilswipe Boil

They brought upon a day,

And the King gave him the accolade

And turned his face away.

 

And saw beyond his windows

The tattered flags unfurled;

And on his brow was a crown of iron   

And the weariness of the world.'

 

'What's that supposed to be?' asked the girl blankly.

'If you don't recognize poetry when you hear it,' said the Saint severely, 'you are beyond salvation. But I'll admit it's rather an amorphous product—my feelings got too strong for gentle satire as I went along. If you saw a -paper the other day, you'll notice that a sometime pacifist has recently received a knighthood. A violent atheist will probably be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, and a confirmed teetotaller is going to be the chairman of the next Liquor Commission. After which I shall put my head in a gas oven.'

Jill Trelawney selected two lumps of sugar from a silver bowl.

'Something seems to have upset you,' she remarked.

'The bleary organization of this wall-eyed world is always upsetting me. It would upset anyone who hadn't been spavined from birth.'

'But apart from that?'

'Apart from that,' said Simon Templar luxuriously, 'I feel that life is very good just now. I have about a hun­dred thousand francs in my pocket, waiting to be trans­lated into English as soon as the banks open in the morn­ing. I have had a drive in the country. I have discovered that, if all else fails, I can always earn an honest living as an inspector of typewriters. I have bathed, changed, and refreshed myself from my toils and travels with a trio of truly superb kippers cooked with a dexterity that might have made me famous as a chef. My latest poetic masterpiece gives me great satisfaction. And finally, I have your charming company. What more could any man ask?'

He sat at ease in the comfortable little flat near Sloane Square, which he had established long ago as a reserve base against the day when a hue and cry might make his home in Upper Berkeley Mews too hot to hold him. A cup of coffee stood in front of him and a cigarette was be­tween his fingers; and, across the table, he looked into the golden eyes of Jill Trelawney, and made his speech.

'But, Jill,' he protested, 'there is a far-away look about you. Is it indigestion or love?'

She smiled abstractedly.

'I'm thinking about Essenden,' she said.

'So it's love,' said the Saint.

'I'm wondering——'

'Seriously, why? In the last twenty-four hours we've devoted ourselves entirely to Essenden. Personally, I'm ready to give the subject a rest. We've done our stuff, for the moment. The egg, so to speak, is on hatch. The worm is on the hook. All we can do now, for a while, is to sit tight and wait.'

'Do you think he'll rise?'