The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

English plain-clothes man than any thing in trousers. Which may account for the fact that Simon Templar, sallying forth one morning from Upper Berkeley Mews, and alert for waiting sleuths, observed two large men in very plain clothes on the other side of the road, and entirely overlooked Duodecimo Gugliemi.

These large men in very plain clothes were among the trials of his life which Simon Templar endured with the exemplary patience with which he faced all his tribula­tions. Ever since his first brush with the law, on and off, he had been favoured with these attentions; and the en­tertainment which he had at first derived from this silent persecution was beginning to lose its zest. It was not that the continual watching annoyed him, or even cramped his style to any noticeable extent; but he was starting to find it somewhat tiresome to have to shake off a couple of inquisitive shadowers every time he wanted to go about any really private business. If he made a private appoint­ment for midday, for instance, at a point ten minutes away from home, he had to set out to keep it half an hour earlier than he need have done, simply to give himself time to ditch a couple of doggedly unsuccessful blood­hounds; and this waste of time pained his efficient soul. More than once he had contemplated addressing a com­plaint to the Chief Commissioner of Police for the Me­tropolis on the subject.

That day, he had a private appointment at noon; and, as has been explained, he allowed himself half an hour to dispose of the watchers. He disposed of them as a matter of fact, in twenty minutes, which was good going. He did not dispose of Duodecimo Gugliemi—partly because Gug­liemi was rather more supple of intuition than the two detectives, and partly because he was unaware of Gug­liemi's existence. So soon as he found that the two large men had fallen out of the procession, he went on to his appointment by a direct and normal route, in ignorance of the fact that Duodecimo was still on his heels.

The return from Reading had presented no serious difficulty to a man of the Saint's ingenuity and brass neck, although he had known quite well that by the following morning there would be patrols of hawk-eyed men watch ing for him at every entrance to London. In a suit which had not been improved by the previous night's soaking, and which he had deliberately made no effort to smarten up, he had interviewed the proprietor of a garage and spun his yarn. He was an ex-serviceman down on his luck; he had been a haulage contractor, and a run of unsuccess­ful speculations had forced him to sell up his business; now a windfall had come his way in the shape of a trans­port job that was worth twenty-five pounds to him if he could only find the means to carry it out. And he secured the truck that he wanted, and the loan of a suit of overalls as well, and so drove boldly into London under the very noses of the men who were waiting for him at the Chis­wick end of the Great West Road, with Jill Trelawney under a tarpaulin in the back. And after that, it had been a childishly simple matter to smuggle her stealthily into the studio at dead of night; where he had indicated a cupboard plentifully stocked with unperishable foods, and marooned her. There he visited her frequently, to report news and replenish the larder—that morning, as a matter of fact, he carried a dozen kippers, a loaf of bread, half a pound of butter, and two dozen eggs with him in an attache case.

She met him at the door.

'Bless you,' she said. 'If you hadn't come to-day, I think I should have blown up in hysterics. You've no idea what it is to be stuck indoors with nothing to do but read and eat for twenty-four hours a day.'

Simon set up the attache case on an easel which had never carried a canvas.

'And I've only been away since the night before last,' he said. 'The girl's starting to love me, that's what it is.'

She offered him a cigarette, and took one herself.

'What's been happening?'

'Nothing much. Teal's been in again. Started by threat­ening, got the bird, tried to be cunning, got the bird, tried to be friendly, got the bird, tried to bribe me, got the bird, and went home. Now he's going to retire and start a poultry farm on that capital. Policemen disguised as gentlemen still follow me everywhere——'

'How can you be certain you've shaken them off?'

'When I can't hear their boots squeaking. I know I'm at least three blocks in the lead. Oh, and Records Office has