11 The Brighter Buccaneer

next day. And suitable tenants were becoming considerably harder to find than they had been.

'Certainly I'll come over at half past ten, if that'll help you at all, Captain Bourne. What is the address?'

'Number eight-o-one, Belgrade Square,' said the Saint, and rang off happily.

Major Bellingford Smart was punctual if he was nothing else. It was exactly half past ten when he arrived in Belgrade Square, and Simon Templar himself opened the door to him as he came up the steps.

'I'm afraid we're having a bit of trouble with the lights,' remarked the Saint genially. 'The hall light's just fizzled out. Can you see your way into the sitting-room?'

He had an electric torch in his hand, and with it he lighted Major Bellingford Smart into the nearest room. Bellingford Smart heard him clicking the switch up and down, and cursing under his breath.

'Now this one's gone on strike, Major. I'm awfully sorry. Will you take the torch and make yourself at home while I go and look at the fuses? There's a decanter over in the corner- help yourself.'

He bumped into Bellingford Smart in the darkness, recovered his balance, apologised, and thrust his flashlight into the Major's hand. The door closed behind him.

Major Bellingford Smart turned the beam of the torch around the room in search of a chair-and, possibly, the de­canter referred to. In another second he was not thinking of either, for in one corner the circle of light splashed over a safe whose door hung drunkenly open, half separated from its hinges: lowering the beam a trifle, he saw an array of gleam­ing tools spread out on the floor beside it.

He gasped, and instinctively moved over to investigate. Out­side in the hall he heard the crash of a brass tray clattering on the floor, and straightened up with a start. Then heavy feet came pounding along the passage, the door burst open, and the lights were switched on. The hall lights outside were also on-nothing seemed to be the matter with them. For a few moments they dazzled him; and then, when he had blinked the glare out of his eyes, he saw that the doorway was filled by a black-trousered butler, with his coat off, and a footman with his tunic half buttoned. They looked at him, then at the open safe, and then back at him again; and there was no friendliness in their eyes.

'Ho,' said the butler at length, appearing to swell visibly. 'So that's hit. Caught in the very hact, eh?'

'What the devil do you mean?' spluttered Major Bellingford Smart. 'I came here at Captain Bourne's invitation to see Mrs. Bourne --'

'Not 'alf you didn't,' said the butler austerely. 'There ain't no Mrs. Bourne 'ere, and never 'as been. This is the Countess of Halbury's 'ouse, an you don't 'ave to tell me what you are.' He turned to the footman. 'James, you go hout and fetch a copper, quick. I can look hafter this bloke. Just let 'im try something!'

He commenced to roll up his right sleeve, with an anticipa­tory glint in his eye. He was a very large butler, ever so much larger than Major Bellingford Smart, and he looked as if he would like nothing better than a show of violence. Even the best butlers must yearn sometimes for the simple human pleas­ure of pushing their fists into a face that offends them.

'You'll be sorry for this,' fumed Major Bellingford Smart impotently. 'If this is the Countess of Halbury's house there must be some mistake --'

'Ho, yes,' said the butler pleasantly. 'There his a mistake, and you made it.'

There followed a brief interval of inhospitable silence, until the footman returned with a constable in tow.

'There 'e is,' announced the footman; but the butler quelled him with a glance.

'Hofficer,' he said majestically, 'we 'ave just caught this person red-'anded in the hact of burgling the 'ouse. 'Er lady­ship is at present hout dining with Lady Hexmouth. 'Earing the sound of footsteps, we thought 'er ladyship 'ad returned, halthough James remarked that it was not 'er ladyship's cus­tom to let 'erself hin. Then we 'eard a crash as if the card tray in the 'all 'ad been hupset, and we noticed that the lights were hout, so we came along to see what it was.'

'I can explain everything, officer,' interrupted Major Bel­lingford Smart. 'I was asked to come here to get a Mrs. Bourne's signature to the lease of a flat --'

'You was, was you?' said the constable, who had ambitions of making his mark in the C.I.D. at some future date. 'Well, show me the lease.'

Major Bellingford Smart felt in his pocket, and a sudden wild look came into his eyes. The lease which he had brought with him was gone; but there was something else there-some­thing hard and knobbly.

The constable did not miss the change of expression. He came closer to Major Bellingford Smart.

'Come on, now,' he ordered roughly. 'Out with it-what­ever it is. And no monkey business.'

Slowly, stupidly, Major Bellingford Smart drew out the hard knobbly object. It was a very small automatic, and looped loosely round it was a diamond and sapphire pendant-one of the least valuable items in the Countess of Albury's vanished collection. He was still staring at it when the constable grabbed it quickly out of his hand.

'Carrying firearms, eh? And that talk about 'aving a lease in your pocket-just to get a chance to pull it out and shoot me! You've got it coming to you, all right.'

He glanced round the room with a professional air, and saw the open window.

'Came in through there,' he remarked, with some satisfac­tion at the admiring silence of his audience of butler and footman. 'There'd be a lot of dust outside on that sill, wouldn't there? And look at 'is trousers.'

The audience bent its awed eyes on Major Bellingford Smart's nether garments, and the Major also looked down. Clearly marked on each knee was a circular patch of sooty grime which had certainly not been there before the Saint cannoned into him in that very helpful darkness.

On the far side of the square, Simon Templar heard the constable's whistle shrilling into the night, and drifted on towards the refreshment that waited for him.

The New Swindle

MR. ALFRED TILLSON ('Broads' Tillson to the trade) was only one of many men who cherished the hope that one day they might be privileged to meet the Saint again. Usually those ambitions included a dark night, a canal,