The Saint's Getaway

with his sleeve to remove any fingerprints, and stood back to exam­ine his handiwork. It looked convincing enough. . . . And it was then that the Recording Angel shuddered on his throne and upset the inkpot; for Monty Hayward gazed at his handi­work and grinned. ...

Then he switched out the light. He hopped over the window sill and trotted down the escape with a briskness that was al­most rollicking. The glorious company of the Apostles held their breath.

He was three steps from the bottom when he saw a shadow move in the darkness just below, and a hoarse voice chal­lenged him:

'Wer da?'

Monty's stomach took a short stroll round his interior.

Then he stepped down to the ground.

'Hullo, ole pineapple,' he hiccoughed. 'Ishnit lovely night? Are you the lighthoushkeeper? Becaush if you are——'

A light was flashed in his face, and he heard a startled excla­mation:

'Gott im Himmel! Der Englander, der mich in den Fluss geworfen hat——'

Monty understood, and gasped.

And then, even as it had happened earlier to Simon Temp­lar, the tattered remnants of his virtue were swept into anni­hilation like chaff before a fire. If he were destined for the scaffold, so let it be. His boats had been burned for him.

He flung up his arm and knocked the light aside. As it flew into the air, he had a fleeting glimpse of the battered face of the man he had tackled on the bridge, with his one undam­aged eye bulging and his bruised mouth opening for a shout. He crowded every ounce of his strength into a left hook to the protruding chin, and heard the man drop like a poleaxed ox.

Monty picked him up and carried him into the sitting room. Monty was smiling. He considered that that left hook was a beauty.

'We were only just in time,' he said. 'This hotel is getting unhealthy.'

The girl looked at him open-mouthed.

'Where was he?'

'Standing at the bottom of the fire escape, waiting for me. He's one of the blokes we threw into the river. I think I can guess what happened. If the police were waiting to pinch Stanislaus, they may have been nearly as hot on the trail of the man upstairs. They came dashing along here as soon as they'd reported to headquarters and borrowed a change of clothes —you can see this chap's uniform is too tight for him. The other two are probably interviewing the management and prepar­ing to break in the door. This one was posted in the garden to see that their man didn't make a getaway through the win­dow.'

Patricia took a cigarette from her case and lighted it with a steady hand.

'If that bloke's uniform is too tight for him,' she remarked evenly, 'it should just about fit you.'

Monty raised one eyebrow.

After a moment's silence he bent a calculating eye on the unconscious policeman. When he looked up again there was a twinkle in his gaze.

'Is that what the Saint would do?' he asked quizzically.

She nodded.

'I can't see any other way out.'

'Then I expect I could manage it.'

He knelt down and began to strip off the policeman's uni­form and accoutrements. The trousers went on over his own, with his coattails inside—he foresaw possible difficulties in the way of parting permanently with his own garments—and then Patricia was ready for him with the tunic. Tailored for the more generous figure of a Teutonic gendarme, it fitted him perfectly over his own clothes. Monty was transformed.

He was buckling on the cumbersome sword belt when the telephone began to ring.

'If that's the Saint,' he said,