Simon relaxed his hold suddenly and dropped Weald unceremoniously to the floor; and then he hit Donnell accurately on the joint of the jaw.
Donnell went down, and the Saint was on him in a flash, wrenching the revolver out of his hand.
And then, as the Saint rose again, he laughed—a laugh of sheer delight.
"You know, Jill, the only real trouble about this game of ours is that it's too darned easy," he said; and there was a new note in his voice which she had never heard before, that made her look at him in a strange puzzlement and surprise.
3
But still for a moment the Saint seemed egotistically oblivious of every angle on the situation except his own. The gun he had taken covered Harry Donnell, who was crawling dazedly up to his feet; and the Saint had backed away to the table and was propping himself against it. His cigarette case clicked open, and a cigarette flicked into his mouth; his lighter flared, and a cloud of smoke drifted up through the gloom; he had his own private satisfaction. And Jill Trelawney said: "I suppose I ought "to thank you ..."
The Saint tilted his head.
"Why?" he inquired blankly.
"You know why."
Simon shrugged—an elaborate shrug.
"I hope it will be a lesson to you," he said solemnly. "You must be more careful about the company you keep. Oh, and thanks for helping me to get Harry," said the Saint incidentally. "What made you do that?"
She looked at him.
"I thought it might go a little way towards settling the debt."
"So that we could start fighting again—all square? . . . Yes, I should think we can call it quits."
"I suppose you'd like to take my gun?"
"Please."
She was fumbling in her bag, and the Saint was not watching her. He was smoking his cigarette and beaming with an infuriating smugness at Harry Donnell. About two seconds ago, his own weird intuition had raised an eyelid and wrinkled a thin hairline of clairvoyant light across his brain; and he knew exactly what was going to happen. There was just one little thing left that had to happen before the adventure took the twist that it had always been destined to take. And the Saint was not bothered about it at all, for he had his immoral views on these matters of private business. He had taken no further notice of Weald since he had dropped him to the floor. He had not even troubled to search Weald's pockets. And when he turned his head at the sound of the shot, he saw the automatic half-out of Weald's pocket, and the man lying still, and turned again to smile at another gun.
"Don't move," said Jill Trelawney quietly, and the Saint shook his head.
"Jill, you really mustn't commit murder in the presence of respectable policemen. If it happens again——"
"Never mind that," said the girl curtly.
"Oh, but I do," said the Saint. "May I smoke, or would you prefer to dance?"
The girl leaned against the wall, one hand on her hip, and the shining little nickelled automatic in the other.
"Your nerves are good, Simon Templar," she remarked coolly.
"I can say the same for yours."
She regarded him with a certain grim amusement.
"I suppose," she said, "it wouldn't be any use pleading that I shot Weald to save trouble? You can see that he was drawing when I fired. And saving the life of a valuable detective. . . . Would it be any use?"
"Not much, I'm afraid," answered the Saint, in the same tone. "You see, I've got a gun myself, and there wasn't really any call for you to butt in. You just had to say 'Oi!'—and I would have done the work. Besides, Harry would just love to be a witness for the Crown—wouldn't you, Harry?"
He saw the venomous darkening of Donnell's eyes, and laughed.
"I'm sure you would, Harry—being the four-flushing skunk you are."
He had not moved from the table, and his right hand, holding Donnell's revolver, still rested loosely on his knee.
"You aren't going to be troublesome, Templar?" asked the girl gently, and Simon shrugged.
"You don't get me, Jill. Personally, I'm never troublesome." He held her eyes. "Others may be," he said.
The silence after he spoke was significant; and the girl listened on. And she also heard, outside, the sound of heavy hurrying footsteps on the stairs.
"Excuse me," said the Saint.
He stepped quickly to the door, and turned the key in the lock. Then he picked the table up and jammed it into the defense for ballast, with one edge under the handle of the door and the other slanting into the floor.
"That'll hold Donnell's boys for three or four minutes," he said.
She smiled.
"While I slip out through the tunnel?"
"While we slip out through the tunnel."
He saw the perplexity that narrowed her eyes, the hesitant parting of her lips, but he saw these things only in a sidelong glimpse as he crossed to the side of Harry Donnell. And he saw the vindictive resignation that twisted Donnell's mouth, and laughed.
"Sorry to trouble you again," said the Saint.
His fist shot up like the hoof of a plunging cayuse. But this time the Saint had had one essential fraction of a second more in which to meditate his manoeuvre—and that made all the difference in the world. And this time Donnell went down and stayed down in a peaceful sleep.
"Which is O. K.," drawled the Saint, after one professional glance at the sleeper.
He turned briskly.
"Are you all set for the fade-away, Jill? Want to powder your nose or anything first?"
She was still staring at him. The new atmosphere that had crept into his personality from the moment of his first swipe at Donnell's jaw had grown up like the strengthening light of an incredible dawn, and the intervening interlude had merely provided circumstances to shape its course without altering its temper in the least. And the gun that she had been levelling at him half the time had made no difference at all.
"Aren't you going to try to arrest me?" she asked, with a faint rasp of contempt laid like the thinnest veneer on the bewildering beginnings of preposterous understanding that lay beneath.
And Simon Templar smiled at her.
"Arrest you for ferreting out and bumping off the bloke I've been wanting to get at myself for years? Jill, darling, you have some odd ideas about me! . . . But there really is a posse around this time—they're waiting at the other end of that there rat's hole, with the assistant commissioner himself in command, and you wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting through alone. D'you mind if I take over the artillery a moment?"
He detached the automatic from her unresisting hand, dropped it into his pocket, and swept her smoothly through the open door of the dummy cupboard. It was all done so calmly and quietly, with such an effortless ease of mastery, that all the strength seemed to ebb out of her. It was impossible to resist or even question him: she suffered herself to be steered down the stairs without a word.
"On the other hand," said the Saint, as if there had been no interruption between that remark and the conclusion of his last speech, "you'll have to consider yourself temporarily under arrest, otherwise there might be a spot of trouble which we shouldn't be in a position to deal with effectively."
She made no answer. In the same bewildered silence she found herself at the junction of the two forks in the tunnel; they took the left-hand fork this time, and went on for about a hundred yards before the light of the last electric bulb was lost behind them and they found themselves in darkness. She heard the crackle of the Saint's lighter, and saw another flight of steps on the right.
"Up here."
He took her arm and swung her round the turning and up the stairs. At the top, what appeared to be a blank wall faced them; the Saint's lighter went out as they reached it, and she heard him fumbling with something in the dark. Then a crack of light sprang into existence before her, widening rapidly, and she felt fresh air on her face as the Saint's figure silhouetted itself in the gap.
"Easy all," came the Saint's imperturbable accents;
and she followed him through the opening to find the assistant commissioner putting away his gun.
They had stepped into a poorly furnished parlour; besides Cullis there were a couple of plain-clothes detectives and four uniformed policemen crowded into it.
"The first capture," said the Saint, taking the girl's arm again. "I laid out Donnell and Weald, but I couldn't bring them along with me. You'll find them in the house, if you get there quick enough—the rest of Donnell's boys were chipping bits out of the door when we left."
Cullis nodded; and the uniformed men filed through the opening in the wall. The plain-clothes men hesitated, but the Saint signalled them on.
"I'll take Trelawney myself—my share of this job is over."
As the detectives disappeared, the Saint opened the door and led Jill Trelawney out into a small bare hall. Cullis followed. Outside, a taxi was waiting and Simon pushed the girl in.
Then he turned back to the commissioner.
"You might find it entertaining to take a toddle up that tunnel yourself," he said. "There's something amusing in the room at the other end which the boys should be discovering about now. Oh, and you might give my love to Claud Eustace next time you see him. Tell him I always was the greatest detective of you all—the joke should make him scream."
Cullis nodded.
"Are you taking her to the station?"
"I am," said the Saint truthfully, and closed the door.
And then the Saint settled back and lighted another cigarette as the taxi drew away from the curb.
"We've just time to catch the next train to town with eighty seconds to spare," he remarked; and the girl turned to him with the nearest thing to a straight-forward smile that he had seen on her lips yet.
"And after that?"'
"I know a place near London where the train slows up to a walking pace. We can step off there, and the synthetic sleuths who will be infesting Paddington by the time the train gets in can wait for us as long as they like."
She met his eyes steadily.
"You mean that?"
"But of course!" said the Saint. "And you can ask me anything else you want to know. This is the end of my career as a policeman. I never thought the hell of a lot of the job, anyhow. I suppose you're wondering why?"
She nodded.
"I suppose I am."
"Well, I butted into this party more or less by way of a joke. A joke and a promise, Jill, which I may tell you about one day. Or maybe I won't. Whether you were right or wrong had nothing to do with it at all; but from what the late lamented Weald was saying when I crashed his sheik stuff it seems you're right, and that really has got something to do with the flowers that bloom in the spring."
There was another silence. She accepted a cigarette from his case, and a light.
Presently she said: "And after we leave the train?"
"Somewhere in this wide world," said the Saint, "there's a bloke by the name of Essenden. He is going to Paris to-morrow, and so are we."
Chapter V
HOW LORD ESSENDEN WAS PEEVED,
AND SIMON TEMPLAR RECEIVED A VISITOR
Now, once upon a time Lord Essenden had fired a revolver at Simon Templar with intent to qualify him for a pair of wings and a white nightie. Simon bore Lord Essenden no malice for that, for the Saint was a philosopher, and he was philosophically ready to admit that on that occasion he. had been in the act of forcing open Lord Essenden's desk with a burglarious instrument, to wit, a jemmy; so that Lord Essenden might philosophically be held to have been within his rights. Besides, the bullet had missed him by a yard.
No, Simon Templar's interest in Essenden, and particularly in Essenden's trips to Paris, had always been commonplace and practical. Simon, having once upon a time watched and pried into Lord Essenden's affairs conscientiously and devotedly for some months, knew that Essenden, on his return from every visit he paid to Paris (and these visits were more frequent than the visits of a respectably married peer should rightly have been), was wont to pay large numbers of French francs into his bank in London. And the Saint, who had been younger than he was at this time, knew that Englishmen who are able to pay large numbers of French francs into their London banks when they return from a short visit to Paris are curiosities; and collecting curiosities was the Saint's vocation.
So Simon Templar and Jill Trelawney went to Paris and stayed two days at the Crillon in the Place de la Concorde, which they chose because Lord Essenden chose it. Also, during those two days the Saint held no conversation with Lord Essenden beyond once begging his pardon for treading on his toes in the lift.
It was during the forty-ninth hour of their residence at the Crillon that Simon learnt that Essenden was leaving by the early train next morning.
His room was on the same floor as Essenden's. He retired to it when Essenden retired, bidding the peer an affable good-night in the corridor, for that night the Saint had met Essenden in the bar and relaxed his aloofness. In fact, they had drunk whisky together. This without any reference to their previous encounter. On that occasion the Saint had been masked; and now, meeting Essenden in more propitious circumstances, he had no wish to rake up a stale quarrel.
So they drank whisky together, which was a dangerous thing for anyone to do with Simon Templar; and retired at the same hour. Simon undressed, put on pajamas and a dressing gown, gave Essenden an hour and a half in which to feel the full and final benefit of the whisky. Then he sauntered down the corridor to Essenden's room, knocked, received no answer, sauntered in, and found the peer sleeping peacefully. Essenden had not even troubled to undress. The Saint regarded him sadly, covered him tenderly with the quilt, and went out again some minutes later, closing the door behind him.
And that was really all that happened on that trip to Paris which is of importance for the purposes of this chronicle; for, on the next day Lord Essenden duly went back to London, and he went with a tale of woe that took him straight to an old acquaintance.
Mr. Assistant Commissioner Cullis, of Scotland Yard, disliked having to interview casual callers. Whenever it was possible he evaded the job. To secure an appointment to see him was, to a private individual, a virtual impossibility. Cullis would decide that the affair in question was either so unimportant that it could be adequately dealt with by a subordinate, or so important that it could only be adequately coped with by the chief commissioner, for he was by nature a retiring man. In this retirement he was helped by his rank; in the days when he had been a more humble superintendent, it had not been so easy to avoid personal contact with the general public.
To this rule, however, there were certain exceptions, of which Lord Essenden was one.
Lord Essenden could obtain audience with Mr. Assistant Commissioner Cullis at almost any hour; for Essenden was an important man, and had occupied a seat on more than one royal commission. Indeed, it was largely due to Essenden that Mr. Cullis held his present appointment. Essenden could not be denied. And so, when Essenden came to Scotland Yard that evening demanding converse with Mr. Cullis, on a day when Mr. Cullis was feeling more than usually unfriendly towards the whole wide world, he was received at once, when a prime minister might have been turned away unsatisfied.
He came in, a fussy little man with a melancholy moustache, and said, without preface: "Cullis, the Angels of Doom are back."
He had spoken before he saw Teal, who was also present, stolidly macerating chicle beside the commissioner's desk.
"What Angels of Doom?" asked Cullis sourly.
Essenden frowned.
"Who is this gentleman, Cullis?" he inquired. He appeared to hesitate over the word "gentleman."
"Chief Inspector Teal, who has taken charge of the case."
Cullis performed the necessary introduction briefly, and Essenden fidgeted into a chair without offering to shake hands.
"What angels of what doom?" repeated Cullis.
"Don't be difficult," said Essenden pettishly. "You know what I mean. Jil
l Trelawney's gang ——"
"There never has been a gang," said Cullis. "Trelawney and Weald and Pinky Budd were the only Angels of Doom. Three people can't be called a gang."
"There were others——"
"To do the dirty work. But they weren't anything."
Essenden drummed his finger tips on the desk in an irritating tattoo.
"You know what I mean," he repeated. "Jill Trelawney's back, then—if you like that better. And so is the Saint."
"Where?"
"I came back from Paris yesterday——"
"And I went to Brixton last night," said Cullis annoyingly. "We do travel about, don't we? But what's that got to do with it?"
"The Saint was in Paris—and Trelawney was with him."
"That's better. You actually saw them?"
"Not exactly—"
Cullis bit the end off a cigar with appalling restraint.
"Either you saw her or you didn't," he said. "Or do you mean you were drunk?"
"I'd had a few drinks," Essenden admitted. "Fellow I met in the bar. He must have been the Saint—I can see it all now. I'm certain I drank more than whisky. Anyway, I can only remember getting back to my room, and then—I simply passed out. The next thing I knew was that the valet was bringing in my breakfast, and I was lying on the bed fully dressed. I don't know what the man must have thought."
"I do," said Cullis.
"Anyhow," said Essenden, "they'd taken a couple of hundred thousand francs off me—and a notebook and wallet as well, which were far more important."
Cullis sat up abruptly.
"What's that mean?" he demanded.
"It was all written up in code, of course——"
"What was written up in code?"
"Some accounts—and some addresses. Nothing to do with anything in England, though."
The assistant commissioner leaned back again.
"Someone's certainly interested in you," he remarked.
"I've told you that before," said Essenden peevishly. "But you never do anything about it."
The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady) Page 8