The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

from his hip pocket.

'Well, that ought to be easy,' he said. He looked at Essenden. 'Guess we'd better go down and fetch them in.'

Essenden nodded. He could hardly believe his good fortune.

'You'd better all go,' he said. 'They may be armed. Here, tie this man up first.'

He took a length of cord out of a drawer and brought it over. Harver seized the prisoner's arms and twisted them roughly behind him. Keld performed the roping with a practised hand. The prisoner was then dropped in­to a corner like a sack of coals.

'He won't get out of that in a hurry,' said Matt Keld.

Ganning hitched himself round the table.

'C'mon,' he said.

The four men trailed out through the French windows.

Lord Essenden, left alone, went and helped himself again from the decanter. This time it seemed that Fate had played right into his hand. Jill Trelawney was clever —he admitted that—but, for once, he had been cleverer. He gazed contemplatively at the unkempt figure which lay huddled in the corner, just where it had been dropped. It struck him that the Saint had showed an astounding lack of discrimination in sending such a man to 'slosh him one.'

He was at a loss to divine completely what might be the object of these attacks. It was not so long ago that he had been severely beaten up at the instigation of Jill Trelawney by a member of the Donnell gang. Here, apparently, yet another tough had been hired for the same purpose. From her point of view he could see nothing that these attacks might achieve. But, from his point of view, he had to admit that the prospect of being beaten up and sent to hospital at regular intervals was, in a general way, discouraging. He still carried a fresh pink scar on his fore­head as a memento of the last occasion, and it burned with reminiscent hatred whenever he thought of Jill Trelawney.

He put down the glass and wiped his lips on a silk handkerchief. Albert George lay huddled in the corner, his chin drooped upon his chest, and his whole pose one of lifeless resignation. Essenden went over and stirred him with the toe of a patent-leather shoe.

'How much were you getting for this?' he barked, and the shaky staccato of his voice was an indication of the strain of anxiety that was racking his mind.

The man looked up at him with one furtive eye.

' 'Undred quid,' he said, and lapsed again into his stupor.

Essenden went back and poured another two fingers of whisky into his glass. A hundred pounds was a large sum of money to pay for a bashing. There were many men available, he knew, who would undertake such a task for much less, and if this seedy, down-at-heel specimen was being paid a hundred quid for the job, Harry Donnell must have picked up at least twice that amount. Of course, there were varying rates for these affairs. A man can be put in hospital for a week for a fairly reasonable charge. More is asked for breaking a limb, and corre­spondingly more for breaking two limbs. These facts are very well known in some circles of which Lord Essenden had more than once touched the fringe. Even so ...

Even so, that night's incident was but another confir­mation of the fact that Jill Trelawney was at no loss for funds to carry on her campaign. So much the police had already observed, when her- previous exploits at the head of the Angels of Doom had set them by the ears and roused screams of condemnation for their inefficiency from a hysterical press. And if the Angels of Doom were dispersed, and Jill Trelawney was herself a hunted criminal with a price on her head and the shadow of the gallows on her path, it seemed that she was still able to keep control of the finances which had made her such a formidable outlaw in the past. Of course, the Saint was with her now, and the Saint's resources were popularly believed to be inexhaustible. And there was also the minor detail of the two