The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

by Leslie Charteris

  He was not expecting to receive callers at that address, apart from tradesmen, because it had never been registered in his own name. And in any case, when he came back to London this time there had been no notices in the newspapers to say that Mr. Simon Templar had re­turned to town and would be delighted to hear from any friends and/or acquaintances who cared to look him up. For obvious reasons. The Saint had never been notorious for hiding his light under any unnecessary bushels, but he always knew precisely when to remain discreetly in the background. He had learnt the art in his cradle, and this was one of the periods when he applied it energetical­ly. It was therefore a practical certainty that the visitor would be unwelcome; but Simon opened the door with a bland smile, for he was always interested to meet any trouble that happened to be coming his way.

  "Why, if it isn't Claud Eustace!" he exclaimed, and stood aside to allow the caller to enter.

  "Yes, it's me," said Mr. Teal heavily.

  He came in, and oozed through the miniature hall into the sitting room. Simon Templar followed him in.

  "What can I do for you? Do you want a tip for the Two Thousand, or have you come to borrow money?"

  Inspector Teal carefully unwrapped a wafer of chew­ing gum and posted -it in his red face.

  "Saint," said Teal drowsily, "I hear you've been a naughty boy again."

  "Not me," said the Saint. "You must be thinking of someone else. I'll admit I've been to Paris, but——"

  Teal's lower jaw ruminated rhythmically.

  "Yes," he said, "some of it was in Paris."

  Simon leaned against the mantelpiece with a little twinkle of amusement in his eyes.

  "Well?"

  "In Paris," said Teal, "you doped Lord Essenden and took a couple of hundred thousand francs off him. Be­fore that, while acting as a police officer, you abandoned your duty and connived at the escape of a woman who's wanted for murder. You can't go on doing that sort of thing, Saint, I'm afraid I shall have to bother you again."

  "Well?"

  The detective's shoulders moved in a ponderous shrug.

  "The best thing about you, Templar," he said, "is that you always come quietly."

  Simon fingered his chin.

  "What d'you mean—'come quietly'?" he asked, with childlike innocence.

  "Come for a walk," said Teal. "Or, if you like, we'll take a taxi. I'm sorry to have to pull you in at this hour, but you were out when I called earlier, and if I left it till to-morrow morning you might have gone away again.

  "And where are we going to take this walk—or this taxi drive?"

  Mr. Teal blinked. He seemed to find it a tremendous effort to keep awake.

  "Rochester Row police station."

  "In Pimlico?" protested the Saint. "Not that. I'm only taken to West End police stations."

  "Not Pimlico," said Teal. "Westminster."

  "Worse still," said the Saint. "Members of Parlia­ment get taken there."

  Mr. Teal settled his hat, which, like the traditional detective, he had not removed when he entered the flat.

  "Coming?" he inquired lethargically.

  "Can't," said the Saint. "Sorry, old dear."

  "Simon Templar," said Teal, "I arrest you on a charge of——"

  "Let's see it on the warrant."

  "Which warrant?"

  The Saint grinned.

  "The warrant for my arrest," he said.

  "I haven't got a warrant."

  "I guessed that. And how are you going to arrest me without a warrant?"

  "I can take you into custody——"

  "You can't," said the Saint pleasantly. "I'm behaving myself. I'm in my own flat, just about to go to bed like any respectable citizen. There's nothing you can accuse me of. What you're doing, Teal, is to put up a very thin bluff, and I'm calling the bluff. Laugh that off."

  Teal closed his eyes.

  "In Paris——"

  "In Paris," said Simon calmly, "I stole two hundred thousand francs from Lord Essenden. I admit it. If you like, I'll put it in writing, and you can take it home with you to show the chief commissioner. But you can't do anything about it. The hideous crime was commit­ted on French soil and it's a matter for the French police alone. I'm in England. An Englishman cannot be extradited from England. Sorry to disappoint you, I'm sure, but you shouldn't try to put things like that over on me."

  "In Birmingham——"

  "In Birmingham," said the Saint, in the same equable manner, "a man known lately as Stephen Weald and formerly as Waldstein was shot by Jill Trelawney. Wheth­er it was in self-defense or not is a matter for the jury which may or may not try her—I suppose you had some sort of a story from Donnell. However, I did my duty and arrested her. I thought I had disarmed her, but in the taxi she produced another gun and stuck me up. I was forced to get into a train with her. Not far north of London, she forced me to jump out. I don't know what happened after that. I lay stunned beside the track for several hours ——"

  "What kind of a gag," demanded Teal, "are you trying to put over?"

  The Saint beamed.

  "I'm merely giving you a free sample of my defense, which will also be the means of getting you thoroughly chewed up in the courts if you get nasty, Claud Eustace, old corpuscle. The commissioner should have had my letter of resignation, in which I explained that I was so overcome with shame that I couldn't face him to hand it in personally. It was posted the same evening. I admit I proved to be the duddest of all possible dud policemen, but my well known desire to save my own skin at all costs ——"

  Teal spread a scrap of paper on the table.

  "And this—your receipt to Essenden? I know one of these pictures, Templar, but the other——"

  "My wife," said the Saint breezily.

  "Oh, yes. And when were you married?"

  "Not yet. The tense is future."

  The detective closed his eyes again.

  "So that's your story, is it?"

  "And a darn good story it is, too," said Simon Templar complacently.

  "And what about this new home of yours?"

  "Since when has it been illegal for a respectable citizen to have a second establishment—or even an alias? . . . But I wouldn't mind knowing how you located it so quickly, all the same."

  "I've known about it for months," said the detective sleepily. "When I drew blank at Upper Berkeley Mews, I came straight here."

  The Saint laughed.

  "And then you go straight home again. Teal, that's too bad! . . . But you ought to have known better, honey, really you ought. Now, are you going to take Uncle's advice and have a glass of barley water before you go, or do you want to argue some more?"

  For some moments there was a gigantic silence—on the part of Chief Inspector Teal. The Saint could feel the tremendousness of it; and he was amused, for he knew exactly where he stood. And in his trouser pockets there were two iron fists quietly bunched up ready to prove the courage of his convictions if the challenge were offered. . . .

  And then Teal opened his eyes, and his mouth widened half an inch momentarily.

  He nodded.

  "You always were a bright boy," he said.

  "I know," said the Saint.

  Teal's smile remained in position. He hitched his over­coat round, and buttoned a button that must have had a tiring day. His heavy-lidded eyes roved boredly over the furnishings of the apartment.

  "Sorry you've wasted your time," said the Saint sympa­thetically. "Don't let me keep you any longer if you're really in a hurry."

  "I won't," said Teal. And then his eyes fell on the chair where Jill Trelawney had been sitting.

  Simon followed his gaze.

  "Been entertaining a friend?" asked Teal, without a change of expression.

  "My Auntie Ethel," said the Saint blandly. "She left just before you came in. Isn't it a pity? Still, maybe you'll be able to meet her another day."

  "How old is this Auntie Ethel?"

  "About fifty," said the Saint. "A bit young for you, but yo
u might try your luck. I'll send you her address. She might like to see round Rochester Row."

  Teal took his hands out of his pockets and locomoted across the room. Only a man like Teal can possibly be said to locomote.

  This locomotion was deceptive. It appeared to be very heavy off the mark, and very slow and clumsy in transit, but actually it was remarkably agile. Teal picked a bag up from the chair and inspected it soberly.

  "Your Auntie Ethel has a gaudy taste in bags," he re­marked. "How old did you say she was?"

  "About a hundred and fifty," said the Saint.

  Teal opened the bag and proceeded to examine the contents, extracting them one by one, and laying them on the table after the inspection. Lipstick, powder puff, mirror, comb case, handkerchief, cigarette case, gold pen­cil, some visiting cards.

  "Princess Selina von Rupprecht," Teal read off one of the visiting cards. "Where does she come from?"

  "Lithuania," said the Saint fluently. "I have some very distinguished relations in Czecho-Slovakia, too," he added modestly.

  Teal put the bag down and turned with unusual brisk­ness.

  "I should like to meet this Princess," he said.

  "Call her Auntie," said Simon. "She likes it. But you can't meet her here to-night because she's gone home."

  "She'll come back for her bag," said Teal comfortably. "I'll wait. And while I'm waiting I'd like to see round some of the other rooms in this flat."

  Simon Templar pulled himself off the mantelpiece, against which he had been leaning, and looked Teal deliberately in the eyes.

  "You won't wait," he said, "because I happen to want to go to bed, and I prefer to see you off the premises first. And you won't search this flat, not on any excuse, because you haven't a search warrant."

  Teal stood squarely by the table.

  "I have reason to believe," he said, "that you're shelter­ing a woman who's wanted for murder."

  "You haven't a search warrant," repeated the Saint. "Don't be foolish, Teal. I may be a suspicious character, but you've got nothing definite against me, apart from the little show in Paris, which isn't your business—nothing in the wide, wide world. If you try to search this flat I shall resist you by force. What's more, I shall throw you down the stairs and out into the street with such violence that you will bounce from here to Harrod's. And if you try to get me for that, the beak will soak you good and proper. Once upon a time you might have got away with it, but not now. The police aren't so popular these days. You'd better watch your step."

  "I can get a warrant," said Teal, "within two hours."

  "Then get it," said the Saint shortly. "And don't come in here again bothering me until you've got it in your pocket. Good-night."

  He crossed the room and opened the door, and Teal, after a few seconds of frightful hesitation, passed out into the hall.

  Simon opened the front door for him also; and there Teal paused on the threshold.

  "You are a bright boy, Saint," said Teal somnolently. "Don't go to bed. I shall be back with that warrant inside two hours."

  "Good-night," said the Saint again, and closed the door in the detective's face.

  He came back into the sitting room and found the girl putting her possessions into her bag.

  "I heard," she said.

  "In five minutes," said the Saint, "Teal will have a man outside this front door to watch the place while he goes off to get a warrant. Meanwhile——"

  The shrill, sharp scream of a police whistle sounded in the street outside, and a little smile touched Simon Templar's mouth.

  "At this moment," said the Saint, "he's standing on the steps blowing that whistle. He's not taking any chances. He's not going to look for a man—he's going to wait till a man comes to him. He's going to make quite sure that whoever's in here isn't going to slip out behind his back. And the person they want to find here is you."

  Jill Trelawney nodded.

  "On a charge of murder," she said softly.

  Chapter VI

  HOW SIMON TEMPLAR WENT TO BED,

  AND MR. TEAL WOKE UP

  SIMON had slipped out his cigarette case and absently selected a cigarette. He lighted the cigarette, looking at a picture on the opposite wall without seeing it; and his faintly thoughtful smile lingered on the corners of his mouth, rather recklessly and dangerously. But that was like Simon Templar, who never got worked up about anything.

  "Of course," he said quietly, "I've been rather liable to overlook that."

  "Why not?" she answered, in a tone that matched his own for evenness. "You can't spend twenty-four hours a day thinking and talking about nothing but that."

  He shifted his gaze to her face. Her beauty was utterly calm and tranquil. She showed nothing—not in the tremor of a lip, or the flicker of an eyelid. And unless something were done there and then, she might have less than two months of life ahead of her before a paid menial of the law hanged her by the neck. . . .

  Teal's whistle, in the street below, shrieked again like a lost soul.

  And Jill Trelawney laughed. Not hysterically, not even in bravado. She just laughed. Softly.

  She turned back the coat of her plain tweed costume, and he saw a little holster on the broad belt she wore.

  "But I've never overlooked it," she said—"not entirely."

  Simon came round the table, and his fingers closed on her wrist in a circle of cool steel.

  "Not that way," he said.

  She met his eyes.

  "It's the only way for me," she said. "I've never had a fancy for the Old Bailey—and the crowds—and the black cap. And the three weeks' waiting, in Holloway, with the chaplain coming in like a funeral every day. And the last breakfast—at such an unearthly hour of the morning!" The glimmer in her eyes was one of pure amusement. "No one could possibly make a good dying speech at 8 a.m.," she said.

  "You're talking nonsense," said the Saint roughly.

  "I'm not," she said. "And you know it. If the worst comes to the worst——"

  "It hasn't come to that yet."

  "Not yet."

  "And it won't, lass—not while I'm around."

  She laughed again.

  "Simon—really—you're a darling!"

  "But have you only just discovered that?" said the Saint.

  He made her smile. Even if her laughter had been of neither hysteria nor bravado, it had not been a thing to reassure him. A smile was different. And he still found it easy to make her smile.

  But she was of such a very unusual mettle that he could have no peace of mind with her at such a moment. They were very recent partners, and still she was almost a stranger to him. They were familiar friends of a couple of days' standing; and he hardly knew her. In the days of their old enmity he had recognized in her a fearless inde­pendence that no man could have lightly undertaken to control—unless he had been insanely vain. And with that fearless independence went an unconscious aloofness. She would follow her own counsel, and never realize that any­one else might consider he had a right to know what that counsel was. That aloofness was utterly unaware—he divined that it had never been in her at all before the days of the Angels of Doom, and when, the work of the Angels of Doom was done it would be. gone.

  And Teal's whistle was silent. Simon looked down from a window, and saw that Teal had gone. But a uniformed man stood at the foot of the steps on the pavement out­side, and looked up from time to time.

  "Well?" said the girl.

  "He's gone for his warrant," said the Saint. "Cast your bread upon the waters, and you shall find it after many days. We can thank your Angels of Doom for that. If you hadn't made the police so unpopular, Teal would have risked the search without a warrant. As it is, we've got a few minutes' grace, which may run into two hours. Pardon me."

  He went through into the bedroom and selected a coat from his wardrobe. He returned with this, and a pillow from the bed.

  "Keep over on that side of the room."

  She obeyed, perplexedly. He pushed an armchair o
ver against the window, put the pillow inside the coat he had brought, and sat coat and pillow in the chair.

  "Now—where's your hat?"

  He found the hat, and propped it up over the coat on a walking stick. Then he carried over a small table and set it beside the chair; and on the table he put a small lamp. After a calculating survey, he switched on the small lamp.

  "Now turn out that switch beside you."

  She did as she was told; and the only light left in the room came from the small lamp on the table by the arm­chair against the window.

  "The Shadow on the Blind," said the Saint. "A Mystery in Three Acts. Act One."

  She looked at him.

  "And Act Two—the fire escape?"

  He shook his head.

  "No. We haven't got one of those. Why not the front door? Are you ready?"

  He handed her her bag, went out into the hall, and fetched in her valise. This he opened for her.

  "Put on another hat," he said. "You must look or­dinary."

  She nodded. In a couple of minutes she was ready; and they walked down the stairs together. At the foot of the stairs he stopped.

  "Round there," he said, pointing, "you'll find a flight of steps to the basement. Wait just out of sight. When you hear me go up the stairs again, walk straight out of the front door and take a taxi to the Ritz. Stay there as Mrs. Joseph M. Halliday, of Boston. Mr. Joseph M. Halliday—myself—will arrive for breakfast at ten o'clock to­morrow morning."

  "And Act Three?" she asked.

  "That," said the Saint serenely, "will be nothing but a brief brisk dialogue between Teal and me. Good-night, Jill."

  He held out his hand. She took it.

  "Simon, you're not only a darling—you're a bright boy."

  "Just what Teal said," murmured the Saint. "Sleep well, Jill—and don't worry."

  He left her there, and went and opened the front door.

  The constable outside turned round alertly.

  "Officer!" said the Saint anxiously.

  He looked amazingly respectable; and the policeman relaxed.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "There seems to be something funny going on in the fiat below me——"

  The constable came up the steps.

  "Which floor are you on, sir?"

  "Second."