The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

by Leslie Charteris

  The eyes of the law studied the Saint's nervous respect­ability with an intent stare; and then the finger of the law beckoned.

  Simon followed the law outside; and the finger of the law pointed upwards. In the first-floor window, a sil­houette could be seen on a blind.

  "In that flat below you, sir," said the law impressively, "there's a woman ooze wanted for murder."

  Simon peered upwards.

  "Why don't you arrest her?" he asked.

  "Inspector's gone for a warrant," said the constable. "I'm keeping watch till he gets back. Now, what was it you heard in that flat, sir?"

  "A sort of moaning noise," said the Saint sepulchrally.

  "It's been going on for some time. Sounds as if someone was dying. I got anxious after a bit, and went down and rang the bell, but I couldn't get any answer."

  "Listen," said the policeman.

  They listened.

  "Can't hear anything," said the policeman.

  "You wouldn't, down here, with the window shut," said the Saint. "It's not very loud. But you can hear it quite clearly on the landing outside the flat."

  "She's still sitting there, in that window," said the policeman.

  They stared upwards, side by side.

  "Sits very still, doesn't she?" said the Saint vaguely.

  They stared longer.

  "Funny," said the policeman, "now you come to men­tion it, she does sit still, Ain't never moved 'arf an inch, all this time we've been watching her."

  "I don't like the look of it, officer," said the Saint nervously. "If you'd heard that noise——"

  "Can't 'ear no noise now."

  "I tell you, it gave me the creeps. . . . Did this woman know you were going to arrest her?"

  "Oh, I think she knows all right."

  "Supposing she's committing suicide——"

  The constable continued to strain his neck.

  "Sounds as if I ought to look into it," he said. "But I don't care to leave my post. The inspector said I wasn't to move on any account. But if she's trying to escape justice——"

  "She still hasn't moved," Simon said.

  "No, she ain't moved."

  "I don't see how going inside would be leaving your post," said the Saint thoughtfully. "You'd be just as much use as a guard outside the door of the flat as you are here."

  "That's true," said the policeman.

  He looked at the Saint.

  "Come on up with me," he said.

  "L-1-l-like a shot," said the Saint timidly, and followed in the burly wake of the law.

  They listened outside the door of the flat for some time, and, not unnaturally, heard nothing.

  "Perhaps she's dead by now," Simon ventured morbidly.

  The law applied a stubby forefinger to the bell. A minute passed.

  The law repeated the summons—without result.

  The Saint cleared his throat.

  "Couldn't we break in?" he said.

  The law shook its head.

  "Better wait till the inspector gets back. He won't be long."

  "Come up and wait in my flat."

  "Couldn't do that, sir. I've got to keep an eye on this door."

  Simon nodded.

  "Well, I'll be off," he sighed. "I'll be upstairs if you want me."

  "If anything's happened, I expect the inspector will want to see you, sir. May I have your name?"

  "Essenden," said Simon Templar glibly. "Marmaduke Essenden. Your inspector will know the name."

  He saw the name written down in the official notebook, and went up the stairs. On the landing above, he waited until he heard the constable tramping downwards, and then he descended again and let himself into his own flat.

  He was reading, in his pajamas and a dressing gown, when his bell rang again an hour and a half later; and he opened the door at once.

  Teal was outside; and behind Teal was the constable. Seeing Simon, the constable goggled.

  "That's the man, sir," he blurted.

  "I knew that, you fool," snarled Teal, "as soon as you told me the name he gave you."

  He pushed through into the sitting room. His round red face was redder than ever; and for once his jaws seemed to be unoccupied with the product of the Wrigley Corporation.

  The constable followed; and Simon humbly followed the constable.

  "Now look at that!" said Teal sourly.

  The Saint stood deferentially aside; and the constable stood in his tracks and gaped along the line indicated by Mr. Teal's forefinger. The Saint had not interfered with the improvised dummy in the chair. He had felt that it would have been unkind to deprive the constable of the food for thought with which that mysteriously motionless silhouette must have been able to divert his vigil. "And while you were making a fool of yourself up here," said Teal bitterly, "Jill Trelawney was walking out of the front door and getting clean away. And you call yourself a policeman!"

  Simon coughed gently.

  "I think," he said diffidently, "that the constable meant well."

  Teal turned on him. The detective's heavy-lidded eyes glittered on the dangerous verge of fury.

  The Saint smiled.

  Slowly, deliberately, Teal's mouth closed upon the word it had been about to release. Slowly Teal's heavy eyelids dropped down.

  "Saint," said Teal, "I told you you were a bright boy."

  "So did Auntie Ethel," said the Saint.

  2

  Simon Templar, refreshed by a good night's sleep, set out for the Ritz at 9.30 next morning.

  He had not been kept up late the night before. Teal, gathering himself back into the old pose of mountainous sleepiness out of which he had so nearly allowed himself to be disturbed, had gone very quietly. In fact, Simon had been sound asleep three quarters of an hour after the detective's return visit.

  Teal hadn't a leg to stand on. True, the Saint had be­haved very curiously; but there is no law against men behaving curiously. The Saint had lied; but lying is not in itself a criminal offense. It is not even a misdemeanour for a man to arrange a dummy in a chair in such a way that a realistic silhouette is thrown upon a blind. And there is no statute to prevent a man claiming a Lithuanian princess for an aunt, provided he does not do it with intent to defraud. ... So Teal had gone home.

  Suspicion is not evidence—that is a fundamental prin­ciple of English law. The law deals in fact; and a thousand suspicious circumstances do not make a fact.

  No one had seen the Princess Selina von Rupprecht. No one could even prove that her real name was Jill Trelawney. Therefore no charge could ever be substan­tiated against Simon Templar for that night's work. And Teal was wise enough to know when he was wasting his time. There was a twinkle in the Saint's eye that discouraged bluff.

  "And yet, boys and girls," murmured Simon to himself, the next morning, as he went down the stairs, "Claud Eustace Teal is reputed to have a long memory. And last night's entertainment ought to make that memory stretch from here to the next blue moon. No, I don't think we're going to find life quite so easy as it was once."

  The house was watched, of course. As he turned out into the street, he observed, without appearing to observe, the two men who stood immersed in conversation on the opposite pavement; and as he walked on he knew, without looking round, that one of the men followed him.

  There was nothing much in that, except as an omen.

  It made no difference to the Saint's intention of breakfasting at the Ritz as Mr. Joseph M. Halliday, of Boston, Mass. In fact, it was to allow for exactly that event that he had left his flat earlier than he need have done.It was nothing new in Simon Templar's young life to be shad­owed by large men in very plain clothes, and such minor persecutions had long since ceased to bother him.

  He left the sleuth near Marble Arch, and took a taxi to the Ritz with the comfortable certainty of being temporarily lost to the ken of the police; and the pair of horn­rimmed glasses which he donned in the cab effectively completed his simplest disguise.

  He arrived
on the stroke of ten, entering behind the breakfast tray. Taking advantage of the presence of the waiter, he kissed Jill like a dutiful husband, and sat down feeling that the day was well begun.

  As soon as they were alone—

  "The self-control of the police," said the Saint hur­riedly, "is really remarkable."

  The girl maintained her gravity with an effort.

  "Did he go quietly?" she asked.

  "To say that he went like a lamb," answered the Saint, "means nothing at all. He would have made a lamb look like a hungry tiger outside a butcher's shop on early-closing day."

  He retailed the part of his ruse at which she had not been audience, and had his reward in the way she sat back and looked at him.

  "You're a marvel," she said, and meant it.

  "All this flattery," said the Saint, "is bad for my heart."

  He picked up one of the newspapers that had come in with the tray, and read through the agony column care-fully, without finding what he sought. He had no more luck with any of the others.

  "He hasn't had time," said Jill.

  Simon nodded.

  "To-morrow," he said, "for a fiver. Care to bet?"

  They spent the day inside the Ritz, very lazily; but neither of them was inclined to take a risk at that moment. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard, lashed by the biting comments of Chief Inspector Teal, tore its hair and ran­sacked London, The Ritz, naturally, was never thought of; and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Halliday never once set foot outside the hotel.

  The advertisement appeared in The Times next morn­ing. During the previous day they had amused themselves with speculating about the form it would take; and, as it happened, neither of them had come very near the mark.

  INJUSTICE.— A great wrong may be put right if the Lady of Paris will meet one who is anxious to make restitution in exchange for forgiveness—THE LORD OF PARIS.

  "It brings tears to my eyes," said the Saint.

  "Do you believe it?" asked Jill.

  Simon shrugged.

  "It isn't impossible," he said. "You say you're certain he had a hand in the framing of your father. Well, we now know a few things about him. He's got some reason to respect us. And, as a cautious man, he may think it a wise move to make a treaty."

  Jill Trelawney nodded, buttering a slice of toast.

  "And yet," she said, "it's a trap."

  "Not for the police. Essenden wouldn't dare—not in the face of what we know. For trafficking in illicit drugs, five years' penal servitude."

  "No, not the police. Just himself."

  Simon lighted a cigarette.

  "Do you want to buy?"

  "We buy." She looked at him. "Or I buy. I shall see Essenden to-night."

  "Where?"

  "At his house. I've been there before. Shall I forget it?" She smiled at him, and he laughed. "That's where he'll be expecting me, from to-day onwards. He wouldn't expect me to write—he knows me too well."

  "And if he knows you so well," said the Saint, "he'll be expecting trouble."

  "Of course."

  "And he's going to get it?"

  With a cup of coffee in her hand, the girl answered, quite calmly: "A year ago I swore to kill every man who had a hand in ruining my father. Waldstein is dead. I suspect Essenden. If I find proof against him—"

  "That was my way, once," said the Saint quietly. "But doesn't it ever occur to you that you might be doing much better work if you looked for the evidence to clear your father's name, instead of merely looking for revenge?"

  Jill Trelawney said: "My father died."

  Simon had nothing to say.

  They spent another inactive day, reading and talking desultorily. To Simon Templar, those long conversations were fascinating and yet maddening. She never spoke of the Angels of Doom, or the charge that lay against her, or the unchanged inflexibility of her purpose. These things remained as a dark background to her presence: they were never allowed to steal out of the background, and yet they could not be escaped. Against that background Simon Templar felt himself a stranger. Not once yet, in that bizarre alliance of theirs, had he been allowed to enter into the secret places of her mind. But he played up to her. Because she had that air of unawareness, he left her unaware. He tried no cross-examinations. She was the soloist: he was the accompaniment, heard, valuable, per­fectly attuned, but subordinate and half ignored. It was one of the most salutary experiences of the Saint's violent life. But what else could he do? The mind of a woman with an Idea is like a one-way street: you have to run with the traffic, or get into trouble.

  She obliterated their forthcoming adventure until the evening. Until after dinner; when she smiled at him across the table and his cigarette case, and said: "Saint, it's very nice of you to be coming with me."

  "Very nice of you to be come with," said the Saint politely.

  He offered her a match; but for a moment she looked past it.

  "Does the idea of being an accessory to another murder attract you?" she asked.

  "Tremendously," said the Saint.

  "It will probably come to that, you know."

  "I've always enjoyed a good murder."

  She touched her waist. He knew what she carried there, under her coat. Since the night before, he had inspected the weapon again, with a professional eye.

  "Have you got a gun?" she asked him.

  "Don't care for 'em," he said. "Nasty, noisy things. Dangerous, too. Might go off."

  She laughed suddenly.

  "And yet," she said, "you've proved you aren't a fool. If you hadn't, I'd have taken a lot of convincing. . . . Are you ready?"

  He glanced at his watch.

  "The car should be here now," he said.

  They went out to the car five minutes later—a luxurious limousine, with liveried chauffeur, ordered by telephone for the occasion.

  Simon handed the girl in, and paused to give directions to the chauffeur.

  It was a pure coincidence that Chief Inspector Teal should have been passing down Piccadilly at that moment. The car was not in Piccadilly, but at the side en­trance of the hotel, in Arlington Street, which Teal was crossing. He observed the car, as he invariably observed everything else around him, with drowsy eyes that appeared to notice nothing and in fact missed nothing.

  He saw a man speaking to a chauffeur. The man wore an overcoat turned up around his chin, a soft hat worn low over his eyes, and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. It is surprising how much of a man's face those three things can hide between them—especially at night. Teal thought there was something familiar about the man, but he could not connect up the association immediately.

  He stood at the corner of the Ritz and watched the man enter the car. He was not looking for Simon Templar at that moment. He was not, as a matter of fact, even think­ing of Simon Templar. He had thought and talked of little else but Simon Templar for the last forty-eight hours, and his brain had wearied of the subject.

  Thus it was that he stood where he was, inertly ponder­ing, until the car turned into St. James's Street. As it did so, a woman leaned forward to throw a cigarette end out of the window, and the light of a street lamp fell full across her face.

  She was hatless. He saw straight, jet black hair, fine straight black eyebrows, eyes in deep shadow, carmine lips. These things belonged to no woman that he knew.

  Thoughtfully he spat out a scrap of spearmint in which the flavour had ceased to last, extracted a fresh wafer from the packet in his pocket, engulfed it, and chewed with renewed enthusiasm. Then, still thoughtfully, he proceeded on his way.

  The hiatus in his memory annoyed him, and even when he had filled it up it still annoyed him, for it was his boast that he never forgot a face. This was his first lapse in years, and he was never able to account for it to his satisfaction.

  It was nearly an hour later, when he was chatting to the divisional inspector in Walton Street police station, that the blind spot in Teal's brain was suddenly uncovered.

  "If you don't mind my saying so, s
ir," remarked the divisional inspector, "we've probably been combing all the wrong places. A man and a woman like Templar and Trelawney can reckon up some nerve between them. They're probably staying at some place like the Ritz——"

  Teal's mouth flopped open, and his small blue eyes seemed to swell up in his face. The divisional inspector stared at him.

  "What's the matter, sir?"

  "The Ritz!" groaned Teal. "Oh, holy hollerin' Moses! The Ritz!"

  He tore out of the station like a stampeding alp, leaving the D.I. gaping blankly at the space he had been occupy­ing. The back exit, a breathless sprint down Yeoman's Row, brought him to the Brompton Road, and he was fortunate enough to catch a taxi without having to wait a moment.

  "The Ritz Hotel," panted Teal. "And drive like blazes. I'm a police officer."

  He climbed in, with bursting lungs. He had left his sprinting days behind him long ago.

  He was wide awake now—when, as he realized with disgust it was somewhat late in the day to have woken up.

  A few minutes later he was interviewing the manage­ment of the Ritz. The management was anxious to be helpful, and at the same time anxious to preserve itself from any of the wrong sort of publicity. Teal was not interested in the private susceptibilities of the manage­ment. He made his inquisition coldly and efficiently, and it did not take him long to narrow the search down to just two names on the register—the charming Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Halliday, of Boston, Mass.

  Teal inspected the small suite they had occupied, and heard from the floor waiter the story of how Mrs. Halliday had been in bed with a severe cold ever since her arrival, and how Mr. Halliday, like a truly devoted American hus­band, had never left her side. This evening was the first evening they had been out. Mrs. Halliday had felt so much better that Mr. Halliday had decided that a short spin in the country, well wrapped up in a closed car, might do her a lot of good.

  "On a nice warm winter's night!" commented Teal sar­castically. "And, of course, in the dark she could enjoy the scenery! Yes, that's a very good story."

  The source of information was understood to remark that such eccentricities were to be expected of wealthy Americans.

  "Yes, very wealthy Americans," agreed Teal.