The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

by Leslie Charteris

  "I'm not a white-livered rat, Donnell!" he blustered.

  "You're a white-livered rat and a yellow cur at the same time," said Donnell without heat, testing the sights of his Colt on the whisky bottle.

  Weald lurched towards him.

  "Donnell, you take that back!"

  "Don't be a blasted nuisance," said Donnell im­patiently.

  He took Weald's shoulder in a huge hand and pushed him away. Then Jill Trelawney came into the room.

  "I've seen all I want to see," she said. "Donnell, will you go down and rouse up the boys?"

  "I was just going to, Miss Trelawney," said Donnell heavily.

  He went to the door and leered, behind her back, at Weald. Then he went out, and Weald heard him clumping heavily down the stairs.

  "I didn't say you were to drink a whole bottle," re­marked Jill, surveying Weald's unsteady balance.

  "You don't understand, Jill. I've been finding a way out."

  He walked rockily to the cupboard that Donnell had indicated and dragged open the doors. After some fumbling he was able to open the sliding door at the back, and then he found a switch. The light showed a flight of steps leading down into a damp and musty darkness.

  "Our way out!" declaimed Weald grandiosely.

  "Very interesting," said the girl, "but we don't happen to be going that way."

  He stared.

  "Not going that way?"

  "How the Angels of Doom would miss you!" she said caustically. "Without you they'd be absolutely helpless. The great brain, always clear and alert in times of crisis."

  "Jill!"

  "Oh, be quiet!" Her sarcasm turned to contempt sud­denly. "When you're sober you're futile, and when you're drunk you maunder. I don't know which is worse. Now pull yourself together. Donnell is ready to do his part, and his boys are with him, but he's looking to you and me to pull him through. The Angels have never failed yet, and they can't fail now."

  "But, Jill ——"

  "And a little less of the 'Jill,' " she cut in icily. "This place can stand a siege for a week, and we can still get out that way if we have to. But I'm going to let Templar in—right in—and there's going to be no mistake about him this time."

  He swayed towards her.

  "And I say we're going out this way—now!" he shouted. "I've had about enough of being ordered about by you, and being snubbed, and treated like a child. Now you're going to do what I say, for a change. Come on!"

  She regarded him with a calculating eye.

  "About one more drink," she said, "and you'd be dead drunk. On the whole, I think I'd prefer that to your present state."

  "Oh you would, would you?"

  The resentment which Weald had been afraid to let loose before Donnell he had no need to control now. He grasped her shoulders with clumsy hands.

  "That's the sort of talk I'm not standing from you any longer," he said shrilly. "You're going to stop it, right now, do you see? From now on I'm going to give the orders and you're going to obey them. I love you!"

  "You're mad," she said coldly. But for the first time in her life a little imp of fear plucked at her heart.

  He thrust his face down close to hers. She could smell the drink on his breath.

  "I'm not mad. I've been mad before, but I'm sensible now. I want to take you away—out of here—out of England—out into the world! I'm going to give you jewels, and beautiful clothes. And you're going to love me, and there's going to be no one else. You're going to forget all this nonsense abut your father. You're not going to think about it any more. It's going to be just you and me, Jill! Lovely Jill—"

  She flung him off so that he went reeling back against the wall and almost fell. Then she jerked from her bag the little automatic she always carried, but he leapt at her like a tiger and tore it out of her hands.

  "No, Jill, that's not the way. Not like that. Like this,"

  His arms went round her. She fought him back des­perately, but he was too strong for her. Once she was almost able to tear herself away, but he blundered after her, still clutching her sleeve, and caught her again. His lips were trying to find her mouth.

  Suddenly she went limp in his arms. It was the only thing she could do at that moment—to pretend to faint, and thus give herself a chance to catch him off his guard. And for a space Stephen Weald looked down at her stupidly. Then, with a sudden resolution, he swung her off her feet and carried, her through the open cupboard.

  Hampered by his burden, he could only feel his way down step by step. The direct light above was soon lost, and the stairs grew darker and darker. He went on. Then another light dawned below, and grew more powerful as he proceeded farther downward; at last the bulb which gave the light was on the level of his eyes. He went down beneath it, and presently found himself on level stone.

  A corridor stretched away before him, lighted at long intervals by electric bulbs. He went on down it and felt a faint breath of fresh air on his face. Presently the tunnel forked. Donnell had not told him about that. He hesitat­ed, and then plunged into the right-hand branch. In a few yards it took a turn, and a door faced him. He got it open and went into darkness. Groping round, he found a switch, and when he had clicked it over he discovered that he was in a dead end—the tunnel did not go on, but stopped in the room into which he had opened the door.

  There was a tattered carpet on the floor, and a table and a chair on the carpet. In one corner was a couch, in an­other were a pile of tinned foods and a beaker of water.

  He should have turned back and tried the left-hand branch of the tunnel, but he was not an athletic man, and the effort of carrying even such, a light weight as the girl for that distance had taxed his untrained muscles severely. He put her down on the couch and straightened up, mop­ping his streaming brow and breathing heavily.

  His back was towards her when she opened her eyes, but she saw the bulge of the gun in his coat pocket. She raised herself cautiously and put out her hand. Her fingers were actually sliding into his pocket when he turned and saw her.

  "Not that either, you little devil!" he snarled.

  He caught her wrist and wrenched it away from the gun she had almost succeeded in grasping.

  "You'd like to shoot me, wouldn't you?" he said thickly. "But you're not going to have the chance. You're going to love me. You're going to love me in spite of everything— even if I am Waldstein!"

  She shrank away from him with wide eyes.

  "Yes, even if I am Waldstein," he babbled. "Even if I did help to break your father. He was an officious nuisance. But you're quite different. You're going to settle with me in my way, Jill!"

  2

  There had been another man on the train to Birming­ham, whom Simon Templar had not seen. He did not meet him until he had disembarked and was hailing a taxi; and, seeing him, the Saint was not pleased. But this was the kind of displeasure about which Simon Templar never let on, and it was the assistant commissioner who stared.

  "Good Lord, Templar, how did you get here?"

  "I came on a tricycle," said the Saint gravely. "Did you use a motor-scooter?"

  "I got your message——"

  "What message?"

  Cullis tugged at his moustache.

  "Dyson rang up to say you were caught at Belgrave Street. He said he was to tell me that you wanted to be left there, and I was to come to Birmingham and take Donnell."

  The Saint looked at him thoughtfully.

  "Is this another of the old Trelawney touches of humour?" he murmured. "I never sent you that message. What's more, I'll swear Dyson never sent it, either. He was never out of my sight from the time I was stuck up in Belgrave Street until a few seconds before I left. Some­one's been pulling your leg!"

  He bent his eyes on the commissioner's nether limbs as if he really entertained a morbid hope that he would find one of them longer than the other. . Cullis pushed his hat back from his forehead.

  "Just what's the idea?"

  "There's some funny scheme behind it," said
the Saint, with the air of a man announcing an epoch-making dis­covery, "and we've yet to learn what it is. However, since you're here, you can be of some use. Beetle round to the local police and make what arrangements you like. They can surround the block and be ready to take over Donnell when I bring him out. That'll save me some time."

  "You're going in alone?"

  "I'm afraid I've got to go in alone," said the Saint sadly. "You see, this is my nurse's afternoon off. . . . See you at a dairy later, old pomegranate."

  He tapped Cullis encouragingly in the stomach, climbed into the taxi, and closed the door, leaving the commissioner standing there with a blank look on his face.

  He did not drive directly up to the mouth of the alley­way which admitted to the front door of Donnell's fortress. That would have been too blatant even for Simon Templar. Besides, reckless as he might be, he did not be­lieve in suicide, and the long, straight alleyway which he would have to traverse if he approached in the ordinary way would leave even the worst of marksmen very little chance of missing him. And the Saint had no interest in any funeral festivities in which he could not occupy a vertical position.

  He drove instead to a tobacconist's shop round the corner, and there he discharged the taxi. He went in and bought a packet of cigarettes, and then he showed his police identity card.

  "Do you live in the rooms over here, or do they belong to someone else?"

  "No, sir. I live there."

  "I'll go right up," said the Saint. "Don't bother to show me the way. You stay right here and carry on business as usual. I shan't come back by this route, so don't wait up late for me."

  He went through the shop and up the stairs.

  From a window on the landing of the first floor he was able to survey the battleground.

  It was unpromising. Donnell's house formed, as has been explained, a kind of island site in the centre of the block, separated by a matter of about fourteen feet from the houses that surrounded it. The four pairs of walls which surrounded the square canyon thus formed were bare of any convenience for passing between them except the solid ground at the bottom. And that was certain to be watched and covered from the windows of Donnell's house. From the window where he looked out, Simon Templar might, if he had been that kind of a lunatic, have considered the possibility of running a plank across to the window opposite and entering the house that way. It is interesting to record that he was not that kind of lunatic—he had, amongst other weaknesses, a distinct urge towards being buried in one piece, when his time came.

  There was, however, one other solution.

  He went on up the stairs. On the third floor the stairs came to an end, but above his head were a trap-door and a swinging ladder. He pulled the ladder down and mounted it.

  He found himself in a kind of attic, lumbered with boxes and odds and ends of broken furniture. It had one cobwebbed window, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through; but Simon squeezed through it and emerged on the leads. At that point, from where he stood with his heels in the gutter, leaning back against the tiles of the roof with a sixty-foot drop in front of him, the flat roof of Donnell's house, with a high embrasured wall running round it and a kind of penthouse in the centre, was about six feet below him, and still fourteen feet away. But it was in the convenient position of not being over­looked by any of the windows from which his attack was likely to be watched for.

  The Saint bent his knees and braced himself. He tested the strength of the gutter, found it firm, and without further hesitation launched himself into space.

  He cleared the wall and landed on the flat concrete of Donnell's roof, stumbling forward and saving himself with his hands. Then he picked himself up and released the safety catch of his automatic.

  He circumnavigated the penthouse warily. It was square and solidly built, with narrow barred windows, and had obviously been designed as a point of vantage from which any attempt to reach the house over the roofs could be repelled. On that occasion, however, the possi­bility seemed to have been overlooked, for no shots came from it to greet him.

  He worked his way round it and came to a massive door faced with iron. There was no handle on the outside, and the Saint tried to open it without success.

  He gave up the task after a few seconds, and went and looked over the wall down the face of the building.

  There was a window directly below him, about six feet down, at the point where he had chanced to look over. He climbed up on the wall and looked down at it, consider­ing the lie of the land.

  The wall was about five feet high. Lowering himself over it, he was able to rest his toes on a ledge about three inches wide which ran round the outside. Then he had to stoop quickly and allow himself to fall literally into space, catching at the ledge with his fingers as he did so. For one hair-raising second he, had the awful sensation of hurtling downwards to certain death; but Simon Tem­plar's nerves were like ice, and he knew the strength of his hands. His hooked fingers on the ledge brought him up with a jerk at the full stretch of his arms, and he hung there for a few seconds while he recovered his breath. His feet were then, he judged, at the level of the centre of the window which he had made his objective. And then he had to let go his hold again and drop another couple of feet down the side of the building, landing on his toes on the out-jutting sill and clutching at the window frame to recover his balance. He did so.

  Then stooping a little, he was able to pull down the upper sash as quietly as it could be done, and climb down into the room.

  There was no one there. He had not seriously expected that there would be, for the attention of the garrison would naturally be concentrated on the ways by which he might more ordinarily have been expected to attempt to enter. Certainly if there had been anyone in the room it would have meant the end of Simon Templar's useful career, for he could hardly have made any active resist­ance against being pushed off his unstable foothold into space. But there had been no one there to do it.

  He crossed the room cautiously in the semidarkness, placing his feet with infinite precautions against making a noise which might be heard by anyone in a room below, and thus gained the door. The door was ajar. He opened it a little farther, slowly and with respect for its creaking hinges, and crept out onto the narrow landing.

  The stairs faced him. He went down them like a cat, keeping close to the wall, where he would be least likely to make a loose board creak. In that way he came down to the second floor, and there the choice of four doors was open to him. He selected one at random, turned the knob silently, and entered with a rush that was swift and sud­den without being noisy.

  There was no one there. He saw that in his first light­ning glance round. Then, reassured upon that point, his interest was taken by the sight of the open cupboard that seemed to lead through to a lighted flight of stairs.

  This was not quite what he had expected—he had not credited Donnell with the provision of any such melodramatic devices as concealed doors and secret passages. And the look of things seemed to indicate that someone had recently passed that way in a hurry—and in such a hurry that he had forgotten to disguise his retreat by closing the cupboard doors behind him.

  The Saint went quickly through to the hidden stairway, his gun in his hand. '

  He listened there and heard nothing. And then he went down into the darkness, and came at length upon the tun­nel which Weald had found.

  He could see no one ahead, and his steps quickened. Presently he came to the fork at which Weald had hesitated. As he paused there irresolute, his eye fell on some­thing that sparkled on the stone flags. He bent and picked it up. It was a small drop earring.

  And he was putting it in his pocket when he heard a muffled cry come faintly down the branch on his right. The Saint broke into a run.

  Stephen Weald, with his back to the door, and so intent upon the object of his madness that he could notice noth­ing else, did not hear the Saint's entrance; and, indeed, he knew nothing whatever of the Saint's arrival until two steel
y hands took him by the scruff of the neck and liter­ally bounced him off his feet.

  Then he turned and saw the Saint, and his right hand dived for his pocket. But Simon was much too quick. His fist crashed up under Weald's jaw and dropped him in his tracks.

  He turned to find the girl beside him. "Did you hear what he said—that he was Waldstein?" The Saint nodded.

  "I did," he said, and bent and seized Weald by the collar and jerked him half upright. Then he got his arms under the man's limp body and hoisted him up in a lump, as he might have picked up a child. "Where are you going?"

  The girl's voice checked him on his way to the door, and Simon glanced back over his shoulder.

  "I'm going to collect Donnell and fill the party," he said. "We policemen have our jobs to hold down. D'you mind?"

  Then he went on his way. He seemed totally unconscious of having performed any personal service for the girl, and he utterly ignored the sequel to the situation into which a hackneyed convention might pardonably have lured any other man. That sublimely bland indiffer­ence would have been as good as a blow between the eyes to anyone but Jill Trelawney. He went on up the stairs carrying Weald. He heard the girl following behind him; but she did not speak, and Simon appeared to take no notice of her presence.

  And thus he stepped through the open cupboard, and found Harry Donnell waiting for him on the other side of a Colt.

  Simon stood quite still.

  Then——

  "It's all right, Donnell," spoke the girl. "I've got him covered."

  She was standing behind the Saint, so that Simon and his burden practically hid her. Donnell could not see the gun with which she was supposed to be covering the Saint, for her hand was behind Simon's back, but Donnell believed, and lowered his own gun.

  The Saint felt only the gentle and significant pressure of the girl's open hand in the small of his back, and under­stood.

  "Go on," said Jill Trelawny.

  Simon advanced obediently.

  The movement brought him right up to Harry Donell, who stood with his revolver lowered to the full length of a loose arm. There was only the width of Weald's body between them.