The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

smudged scrawl:

 

Wait in car outside Scotland Yard ten o'clock.

S.        

 

'Why didn't you come before?' she snapped. 'If this was only just after he left here—-'

'I had to get a car. It is outside now. A friend of mine is driver. Meester Templar, he know my friend also.'

'Wait a minute.'

She left him at the door and was back in a moment, slipping into her coat and cramming her hat onto her head. Her little gun was in its holster at her side, under her coat.

'Now we'll go.'

The Italian was scuttling down the stairs in front of her, and she followed quickly. There was a closed car standing by the curb, and Gugliemi opened the door for her. She stepped in, and he followed, and the car began to move off almost at once.

It was only then that she saw that thin gauze blinds were drawn across all the windows. She sat quite still.

'What are those curtains doing?'

'You must not see where we go. It would be dangerous for you to see.' 

She sat in silence, with a delirious kaleidoscope of con­flicting speculations whirling over in her brain. She was sure only of one thing, and that was that she had been incredibly stupid. She peered at the man beside her, but he was gazing steadily ahead, and seemed to have tem­porarily forgotten her existence.

Presently, when her watch told her they had been driv­ing for nearly half an hour, Gugliemi spoke:

'We arrive. You must let me put this over your eyes.'

There was a flash of a white handkerchief in his hand.

'Is—that—so?'

'I am afraid you cannot refuse. I must tie this over your eyes, and you must not make me be violent about it, because I do not like being violent.'

She waited. The blur of white moved towards her, and she felt the soft caress of silk on her face. And then she twitched her automatic from its holster and rammed it into the man's ribs.

'You're moving too fast, Duodecimo,' she said softly. 'Think again—and think quickly!'

The Italian continued imperturbably with his task.

'I'll count three,' she rapped. 'You can start saying your prayers now. One—'

'And then the car stop, the police come, and you are arresting,' he replied calmly. 'But do not trouble, Mees Trelawney, I have already unloaded your gun.'

She realized that the car had stopped, and could have wept with rage against herself.

'Will you get out?'

She could feel rather than see the stronger light that entered as the door was opened; but she had been well blindfolded. She could not even get a glimpse of the ground under her feet. Even a