The Saint's Getaway

it to be a chair lying on its side. Peering puzzledly into the gloom, he made out the white outline of the bed. He strained his eyes at it for some seconds; and then, with a sudden inspiration, he walked straight across the room and switched on the light. ...

Three minutes later he was back in the suite below.

'I don't profess to understand anything that's happening to­night,' he said, 'but the bird upstairs has flown. Flown in a hurry, too, because he's gone without his coat and tie.'

Patricia stared.

'But—surely he must have gone to the bathroom.'

'Not unless he intends to spend the night there. His door was shut, and the key was on the table by the bed. That's what they call deduction.'

The girl sat down on the arm of the Chesterfield with a frown of perplexity wrinkling her forehead. The development required some thinking over.

One thing was as plain as a pikestaff, and she phrased it undemonstratively:

'If we sit around here doing nothing, we're just asking to be shot at.'

'Look here, Pat,' said Monty Hayward, buttressing himself against the mantelpiece, 'we're between several fires. Don't forget that the police have got it in for us as well. And one of the chief essentials in a mess like this seems to be to have the door open for a clean getaway. Now, what would be the Saint's idea about that?'

'He'd say that the main thing was to leave no evidence.'

'Right. Then the only serious piece of evidence is that stiff in the next room. Whatever happens, we can't leave him lying about. And since we know where he was going, and the coast is clear, I should think the best thing we could do is to help him finish his journey.'

Patricia looked at him thoughtfully.

'You mean, plant him in the room upstairs——'

'Exactly. And let the gang he belongs to take care of him. It's about time they had some worries of their own.'

'And what about Ethelbert?'—she indicated the prisoner with a movement of her cigarette.

'Put a knife beside him and let him do the best he can.

Even if they catch him, I don't think he'll have anything to say. For one thing, Stanislaus seems to have been no friend of his; and besides, if he wanted to clear up the mystery, he'd have to give an account of what he was doing in here, which wouldn't be too easy for him.'

The argument seemed flawless. Patricia herself could offer no improvements on the scheme; and she realized that every wasted minute increased the danger.

She led the way into the bedroom and produced an electric flashlamp to light Monty on his gruesome task. Luckily the external bleeding had been comparatively slight, and no blood had penetrated to the bedclothes. Monty picked up the rigid body in his arms and went out without another word, and she stayed behind to straighten the sheets and coverlet.

The feelings of Monty Hayward as he climbed the fire escape for the second time were somewhat disordered. He in­sisted to himself, on purely logical grounds, that he was scared stiff; but the emotion somehow failed to connect amicably with another stratum of his immortal soul which was having the time of its life. He began to ask himself whether perhaps he had been missing something by steadfastly burying himself in a respectable existence; and immediately he reflected that the prospect of being hanged by the neck for other people's murders was a damned good thing to miss anyway. He solemnly vowed that the next time he saw a harmless-looking little man being set on by a gang of thugs, he would raise his hat politely and pass by on the other side; and simultaneously he felt rather pleased with himself for the efficiency with which he had laid out his opponent. It was all very difficult; and he pushed himself and his grisly luggage through the first-floor window with some doubts of whether he was really the same man who had been placidly quaffing Pilsener at the Breinossl two hours ago.

After a moment's deliberation, he laid the little man artisti­cally down beside the overturned chair, rubbed the chair