The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

home late that night. For although Teal was humanly inclined to spread himself on the subject of his pet aversion, there was no doubt even in Cullis's mind that the Saint was a factor to be reckoned with, and anyone might have been pardoned for wondering what was going to happen next.

But the next morning there seemed to be no more reason to wonder, for when Cullis arrived at the Yard and went up to his office he found Chief Inspector Teal waiting for him there, and there was something in Teal's lugubrious countenance which foreboded bad news; and, since Cullis's mind was full of Jill Trelawney, he was not so surprised as he might have been when he discovered what that bad news was.

'Weren't you the last man to handle that Trelawney dossier?' asked Teal, coming straight to the point.

Cullis nodded.

'I should think so. I had it out all yesterday afternoon.'

'I believe you returned it to Records yourself?'

'That's right,' said Cullis. 'It was late when I left, and I turned it in on my way out.'

Teal jerked his thumb at the commissioner's desk.

'Take a look,' he said.

The folder was there, with its neat label. Cullis opened it and was moved to a profane exclamation.

The first thing that met his eye was a sheet of paper bearing a sketch like many others that he had seen before, and one line of writing:

 

With  compliments and  thanks.

 

Under the note was a blank sheet of paper. Under the blank sheet the third was also blank. There were twenty-seven blank sheets altogether—he counted them.

'When was this discovered?'

'About an hour ago,' said Teal. 'I sent down for the file myself to look something up. You'll find that every sheet relating to the original Trelawney affair has been taken. The rest has been left, and the bulk made up with those blank sheets.'

'But it's impossible!' snapped Cullis.

'Absolutely,' agreed Teal acidly. 'And yet it's been done.'

The trials that it had been enduring of late had not improved the detective's temper.

'No one could raid Scotland Yard,' Cullis persisted. 'Was there any sign of the files having been tampered with?'

'None at all.'

'Then it must have been someone in the building---somebody actually in the Records Office.'

Teal extracted a battered piece of gum from his mouth as if he disliked the taste of it. Or it may have been some­thing else that he disliked.

'If we go on making progress at this rate,' he said mor­bidly, 'one of the stunt newspapers will be running us as modern reincarnations of Sherlock Holmes.'

Cullis scowled.

'That doesn't get us much further. Even if someone in the Records Office was responsible, it might have been any one of a dozen men you could name.'