The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

'I've told you,' said the Saint extravagantly, 'he'll rise like a loaf overloaded with young and vigorous yeast. He'll rise so high that pheasants and red herrings won't be in the same street with him. When he's finished rising, he'll have such an altitude that he'll have to climb a lad­der to take his shoes off. That's what I say. Take it from me, Jill.'

The girl stirred her coffee reflectively.

'All the same,' she said, 'like all fishing, it's a gamble.'

'Not with that fish and that bait, it isn't,' answered the Saint. 'It's a cinch. Look here. We put the wind up his lordship. We fan into his pants a vertical draught strong enough to lift him through his hat. There's no error about that. So what can he do? He must either (a) sit tight and get ready to face the music, (b) go out and get run over by a bus, or (c) prepare a counter-attack. Well, he's not likely to do (a). If he does (b), we're saved a lot of trouble and hard work. If he does (c) ——'

'Yes,' said the girl. 'If he does (c) ——'

'He plays right into our hands. He comes out of balk. And once he's in play, we can make our break. Burn it——!'

Simon put out his cigarette and leaned forward.

'This isn't like you, Jill,' he said. 'It isn't like any­thing I've ever heard about you; and it certainly isn't a bit like the form you were showing this time last week. Don't tell me your nerve's going soft in the small of the back, because I shan't believe you.'

'But what's he likely to do?'

Simon shrugged.

'Heaven knows,' he said. 'I tell you, our job is just to stand around the landscape and wait. And who cares?'

Jill Trelawney lighted a cigarette and smiled.

'You're right, Simon Templar,' she said. 'I'm getting morbid. I'm starting to get the idea that things have been just a bit too easy for me—all along. You know how much I've got away with already, and you ought to know that nobody ever gets away with the whole works for ever.'

'I do,' said the Saint cheerfully.

She nodded absently. For a moment the tawny eyes looked right through him. It was extraordinarily humili­ating, and at the same time provocative, that feeling which, the eyes gave him for an instant—that, for a mo­ment, he was not there at all, or she was not there at all. Although she heard him, she was quite alone with what she was thinking.

And then she saw him again.

'Do you know, you're the last partner I ever thought I should have,' she said; and the Saint inhaled gently.

'I shouldn't be surprised.'

'And yet . . . you remember when you reminded me of that boy of mine back in the States?' The golden eyes absorbed his smile. 'That was a mean crack ... I sup­pose I deserved it.'

'You did.'

'It made a difference.'

Simon raised his eyebrows; but the mockery was with­out malice.

'After which,' he murmured, 'you shot Stephen Weald.'

'Wouldn't you have done the same?'

'I should. Exactly the same. And that's the point. You might have left it to me, but I stood aside because I figured he was