The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

hundred thousand odd francs that had disappeared in Paris.

The memory of Paris produced an unpleasant feeling of emptiness in the pit of his stomach, and he sent a gulp of whisky down to anaesthetize the void. For the wallet and notebook which had been taken from him at the same time, and the contents of which either Jill Trelawney or the Saint had successfully decoded, contained scraps of information which, adroitly pieced together and studious­ly followed up, were not incapable of bringing his own name into dangerously close connection with a traffic upon which the law frowns in a most unfriendly way; and which it can, without difficulty, be moved to punish with five years' penal servitude and twenty-five strokes of a nine-thonged whip.

He glanced at his watch again, wondering how much longer it would be before his men returned. And at that moment he heard a bell ring in the depths of the house.

He was so keyed up that the sudden disturbance of the silence, faint as it was, made his hand jerk so that some of the liquor in his glass splashed onto the carpet at his feet. He put the glass down carefully, and touched the heavy metallic shape in his jacket pocket to reassure himself. Then, half hesitantly, and uncertain of the impulse which prompted him to go and investigate, he went out into the dark hall. As he switched on the lights, the summons was repeated.

He opened the door.

Jill Trelawney stood on the threshold, straight and slim in a plain tweed travelling costume, with her own soft hair, freed from the black wig that had so effectively baulked Chief Inspector Teal's celebrated memory, peeping from under the small brown hat that framed her exquisite face. At the sight of Essenden her eyes gave no more than the most cursory flicker of recognition.

'Good-evening,' she said quietly.

He stepped back falteringly, perplexed, but without hesitation she swept past him into the hall; and, with the world reeling about his ears, he turned to close the door.

It has been said that she swept past him into the hall. That, in fact, was Lord Essenden's own impression, but actually she was almost on his heels—close enough to press into the small of his back something round and hard which he knew could only be one thing—and when she spoke her voice Came from a point close behind his ear.

'Put them up,' she commanded, in the same quiet tone in which she had said 'Good-evening.'

Lord Essenden put them up. His brain seemed to have gone dead—and must, he knew now, have gone dead at least two minutes ago.

She saw the light beyond the door of a room farther down the hall and urged him towards it. He led on, helplessly, his hands held high above his head, back into the room he had just left.

In the centre of the room she stopped him and flung a glance over her shoulder at the bound figure in the corner.

'Hullo, Saint!' she said.

 

2

 

Simon Templar smiled with his lips and his one visible eye.

'Hullo, Jill!' he murmured. 'And how have you been keeping all these years?'

The girl backed towards him, still covering Essenden with her little gun; and there was a knife in her left hand. The Saint turned over, and Jill stooped and hacked swiftly and accurately at the cords that held him. In a moment he was free, scrambling to his feet and stretching himself.

'That's better,' he remarked. 'Brother Matthew has efficient but violent ideas on the subject of roping people. Pull the knots as tight as you can without breaking the rope—that's Matthew. Very sound, but uncomfortable for the