The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

change to lift the bandage for a moment was not given her, for both her wrists were firmly grasped.

'There are some steps down——'

He guided her along what seemed to be a passage, up a few more steps that grated like bare stone under her shoes, round a corner.

'Now there are some stairs.'

She climbed them with his hand on her arm guiding her—four flights—and then he opened a door and led her through. In a few more paces he checked her, and she felt something hard pressed against the back of her knees.

'Sit down.'

She obeyed. She felt his hands at her wrists, the rough contact of tightening leather straps, and the cold touch of a metal buckle. . . . Then the same thing at her ankles. . . . Four straps held her as firmly as steel chains; and then the handkerchief was untied.

The room in which she found herself was small and dingily furnished. The paper was peeling off the walls, and the carpet was patched and frayed at the edges. There was a truckle bed in one corner, and on a rickety table stood a bottle, a few glasses, and the remains of a sand­wich reposing on a piece of newspaper.

She was sitting in a solid oaken chair which seemed to have no place in that room and might even have been acquired for the occasion. The straps which he had just fastened pinned her wrists to the arms of it, and her ankles to the legs, and she knew at once that she would never be able to free herself unaided if she sat there for the rest of her life. So much she knew even before she pitched all her strength against the seasoned leather, and found the little Italian watching her with a kind of de­tached amusement.

'I do not think you will escape, Mees Trelawney,' he said, 'so I will excuse myself. I will send my friend away, and then I will come back and talk to you.' The bright little eyes gleamed under the brim of his hat. 'I have very interesting things to say to you—very interesting.'

And as the door closed behind him something like a cold ghostly hand seemed to touch the back of her neck, sending a clammy tingle over her scalp and an icy numb­ness sinking down into the pit of her stomach.

Now that she knew he had nothing to do with the Saint, she wondered if the Saint knew anything about him—— if it were possible that the Saint might have noticed him at some time. It meant, at least, that the story of the Saint's arrest was probably untrue, mere bait for the trap into which she had walked so blindly. But how soon would the Saint find out, and, even then, what could he do? Such a little time could make so much difference. . . . And on the upturned dial of her wrist watch, almost under her eyes, three impersonal hands traced the crawling of time into eternity.

She watched their remorseless movements with a dull apathy of fascination, and saw the plodding minutes lengthen into an hour. She had no idea what Gugliemi could be doing; it did not seem to be useful to wonder. Probably he was drinking. . . . One hour became two. Something seemed to snap in her brain and make her insensible to the passage of time. What would the Saint be doing? . . . She was getting cramp and her nose was tickling. . . .

And then footsteps sounded outside, and the handle of the door turned with a rattle that made her heart leap into her mouth and flop back into a furious hammering. A crazy hope that it might even be the Saint himself swept through her head—she had unconsciously attained to such a faith in the Saint, had fallen so deeply under his spell, without knowing it at the time, that she could have be­lieved him capable of any miracle. . . . But the sound heralded only the return of the dapper Gugliemi, now lightened of his hat and coat.

He came into the room and locked the door behind  him, and the girl raised her head.

'You've been a long time with your friend,' she re­marked.

'Yes.' He smiled. 'He was a little difficult. But I have sent him away now, and he will not come back for two hours. That will give me plenty of time. I hope you are becoming interested.'