The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

'I shall chain you up here, and leave you,' he rambled on. 'Then I shall go upstairs and send the others home. I shall pay them well, and they will ask no questions. . . . Aaaaah!'

He pounced, suddenly, like a tiger; and the girl let out an involuntary cry. Her hand was in the Saint's pocket, but it had encountered the muzzle instead of the butt of his automatic. Foolishly, she tried to work round to the butt. The gun came out of the Saint's pocket as Essenden tore at her wrist; then it fell onto the rock.

Simon rolled over and snatched at it. Essenden kicked. The gun shot away from under the Saint's fingers, spun clattering over the uneven floor, and plopped into the stream a dozen feet away.

'You must have played football for Borstal,' said the Saint appreciatively.

He grabbed swiftly at Essenden's ankle, and Essenden kicked backwards. His heel struck the Saint between the eyes, half stunning him. ...

Jill felt herself hurled backwards. She caught Essenden's right wrist, and he stumbled and tripped. They fell together into the shallow stream. Then, with the strength of madness, he pinioned her arms and heaved her up against the rock face. He groped around with one hand, holding her there with his other hand and the weight of his body. A chain was brought across her body; then she heard it grate metallically through a socket. There was a click, and he stepped back, panting. 'That's got you!'

She kicked savagely at him; but he dropped on one knee and gathered in her legs. A second chain snapped about her knees, holding her helpless. And Simon Tem­plar, with the whole world still reeling about him from that savage kick between the eyes, was straining at the re­lentless grip on his ankle with the strength of a prisoned giant.

'Got you!' babbled Essenden. 'Got you both! But I dropped my gun——'

He splashed about in the stream on all fours, mutter­ing to himself, searching. Then presently he stood up, empty-handed.

'It doesn't matter. I don't need a gun now.'

'You do!' rapped the Saint. 'I've got another some­where—'

He was straining at something that seemed to have caught in his hip pocket.

Essenden screamed, and leapt on him. And the Saint laughed. This time he did not miss his hold. As Essenden fell on him, Simon fastened two sinewy hands upon the peer's throat.

On the floor, the two men rolled and fought together like wild beasts. Simon Templar had the strength and speed of a tiger, but insanity had suddenly made Essen­den superhuman. Pinned to the floor by the steel trap as effectively as if he had been anchored to a mountain, the only chance that the Saint had lay in keeping his hold on Essenden's windpipe, and on that effort alone he con­centrated, while Essenden kicked and writhed and tore at face and fingers with claw-like hands. They rolled over and over, gasping. Simon knew it could not last.

He was weak with pain. He thought his left ankle might be broken, and certainly his left leg seemed to have severed connection with his body from the knee downwards. Unless Essenden weakened soon . . . Well, there would be plenty of opening for other candidates for the distinction of being the two most unpopular plagues inflicted upon Scotland Yard. The Saint held on des­perately, feeling his strength ebbing with every second of that nightmare struggle; but Essenden, a man possessed, seemed to be breaking every known law of human endur­ance. He fought on, when anyone else should have been unconscious.

And then one of his flailing fists caught Simon in the face.

It was not for the first time in that fight. But this time it so happened that Simon was on his back, his head lift­ed a bare inch from the floor. And the blow dashed the Saint's head with sickening force against the stone.

A wave of spangled blackness swept over his vision, and all the remaining strength went out of him. He felt his fingers torn easily away from Essenden's throat, and heard Essenden draw breath in one long, quavering sob. The