The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

said diffidently, 'that the constable meant well.'

Teal turned on him. The detective's heavy-lidded eyes glittered on the dangerous verge of fury.

The Saint smiled.

Slowly, deliberately, Teal's mouth closed upon the word it had been about to release. Slowly Teal's heavy eyelids dropped down.

'Saint,' said Teal, 'I told you you were a bright boy.'

'So did Auntie Ethel,' said the Saint.

 

2

 

Simon Templar, refreshed by a good night's sleep, set out for the Ritz at 9.30 next morning.

He had not been kept up late the night before. Teal, gathering himself back into the old pose of mountainous sleepiness out of which he had so nearly allowed himself to be disturbed, had gone very quietly. In fact, Simon had been sound asleep three quarters of an hour after the detective's return visit.

Teal hadn't a leg to stand on. True, the Saint had be­haved very curiously; but there is no law against men behaving curiously. The Saint had lied; but lying is not in itself a criminal offense. It is not even a misdemeanour for a man to arrange a dummy in a chair in such a way that a realistic silhouette is thrown upon a blind. And there is no statute to prevent a man claiming a Lithuanian princess for an aunt, provided he does not do it with intent to defraud. ... So Teal had gone home.

Suspicion is not evidence—that is a fundamental prin­ciple of English law. The law deals in fact; and a thousand suspicious circumstances do not make a fact.

No one had seen the Princess Selina von Rupprecht. No one could even prove that her real name was Jill Trelawney. Therefore no charge could ever be substan­tiated against Simon Templar for that night's work. And Teal was wise enough to know when he was wasting his time. There was a twinkle in the Saint's eye that discouraged bluff.

'And yet, boys and girls,' murmured Simon to himself, the next morning, as he went down the stairs, 'Claud Eustace Teal is reputed to have a long memory. And last night's entertainment ought to make that memory stretch from here to the next blue moon. No, I don't think we're going to find life quite so easy as it was once.'

The house was watched, of course. As he turned out into the street, he observed, without appearing to observe, the two men who stood immersed in conversation on the opposite pavement; and as he walked on he knew, without looking round, that one of the men followed him.

There was nothing much in that, except as an omen.

It made no difference to the Saint's intention of breakfasting at the Ritz as Mr. Joseph M. Halliday, of Boston, Mass. In fact, it was to allow for exactly that event that he had left his flat earlier than he need have done.It was nothing new in Simon Templar's young life to be shad­owed by large men in very plain clothes, and such minor persecutions had long since ceased to bother him.

He left the sleuth near Marble Arch, and took a taxi to the Ritz with the comfortable certainty of being temporarily lost to the ken of the police; and the pair of horn­rimmed glasses which he donned in the cab effectively completed his simplest disguise.

He arrived on the stroke of ten, entering behind the breakfast tray. Taking advantage of the presence of the waiter, he kissed Jill like a dutiful husband, and sat down feeling that the day was well begun.

As soon as they were alone—

'The self-control of the police,' said the Saint hur­riedly, 'is really remarkable.'