The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

find something I could put on the Saint? I've had men he's beaten up, in the old days, and he's told me himself he did it, and I couldn't make one of them say a word against him—not a word we could have acted on, I mean. I've had the Saint on the run, once, with a bundle of evidence against him all tied up in my office and a real warrant in my pocket, and then he went and saved a royal train and had all his sins forgiven. I've stood and watched him blow a man to blazes, and I haven't been able to prove it to this day. I'm not a miracle man, and I'm not even a convinc­ing liar. I'll tell the world the Saint has beaten me in every game I know and some I'd never heard of before I met him, and I'll try to smile while I'm saying it. But I won't even try to tell a deaf-and-dumb half-wit that I could pull the Saint in to-morrow and have him sent down for so much as seven days in the second division, be­cause I know all I should get would be the horse laugh.'

'But he's known to be an associate of Trelawney's.'

'And what then?'

'He was Trelawney's accomplice at Essenden's.'

'Accomplice?' queried Teal patiently.

'He was with her. He must know where she's hiding now.'

'Of course he must. But who's going to prove that in a court of law? We shouldn't do anything by pulling him in, even if we could. No, our best hope is to go on watching him and hoping that sooner or later he'll lead us to Jill Trelawney. And I can't help thinking that that's not much of a hope—with a man like Simon Templar.'

Cullis's eyes returned to the ransacked dossier.

'The chief will have to be told about this,' he said.

'I've already told him,' said Teal. 'He was all set to turn Scotland Yard inside out, only I was able to per­suade him not to. I'd like a chance to do something on my own before the whole world hears what fools we are.'

He stood up. He had been seated in the assistant com­missioner's chair throughout the interview, leaning back and chewing gum as if the office belonged to him; for Mr. Teal was a very privileged person. His extraordinarily apathetic acceptance of that morning's startling discovery puzzled his chief. It is not every day that important papers are abstracted without trace from the Records Office, yet Teal seemed as wearily resigned to the fact as if he had only had to inform the commissioner that a plumber had been arrested the previous night for being drunk and disorderly in the Old Kent Road. Cullis was puzzled, for he seemed to detect a thread of melancholy fatalism behind the few remarks that Teal had made on the subject.

'I'll be getting along,' Teal said glumly.

Cullis stood by the window with three deep furrows of thought in his forehead. As Teal reached the door he roused out of his abstracted concentration.

'That man Gugliemi?' he said.

'He's being shipped off to-morrow. The deportation order came through this morning. What about him?'

'Where is he now?'

Teal raised his mournful eyebrows.

'Brixton, I think. I'll find out for you. Why?'

'I've got an idea.'

'I had one of those myself, once,' said Teal reminis­cently. 'What is this idea?'

'I'm thinking of taking a leaf out of the Saint's book. Dyson was useful to him, if you remember, and I have an idea that Gugliemi may be useful to me. Every one of the men we've got on to watch Trelawney and Weald has been worse than useless.