11 The Brighter Buccaneer

The commissionaire hailed a taxi at the Saint's nod, and the girl gave an address in St. John's Wood. Simon allowed her to thank him again, and coolly followed her in before the com­missionaire closed the door. The taxi pulled out from the kerb before she could speak.

"Don't worry," said the Saint. "I was just feeling like a breath of fresh air, and my intentions are fairly honourable. I should probably have been obliged to smite your Baron on the nose if you hadn't left him when you did. Here-have a ciga­rette. It'll make you feel better."

The girl took a smoke from his case. They were held up a few yards farther on, in Piccadilly; and suddenly the door of the taxi was flung open and a breathless man in a double-breasted dinner-jacket appeared in the aperture.

"Pardon, madame-I did not sink I should catch you. It is yours, isn't it?"

He held up a small drop ear-ring; and as he turned his head Simon recognized him as a solitary diner from a table adjoin­ing his own.

"Oh!" The girl sat up, biting her lip. "Thank you-thank you so much --"

"Il n'y a pas de quoi, madame" said the man happily. "I see it fall and I run after you, but always you're too quick. Now it's all right. I am content. Madame, you permit me to say you are a brave woman? I also saw everysing. Zat Baron --"

All at once the girl hid her face in her hands.

"I don't know how to thank you," she said chokingly. "You're all so sweet . . . Oh, my God! If only I could kill him! He deserves to be killed. He deserves to lose his beastly bracelet. I'd steal it myself --"

"Ah, but then you would be in prison, madame --"

"Oh, it'd be easy enough. It's on the ground floor.-you'd only have to break open the desk. He doesn't believe in bur­glar-alarms. He's so sure of himself. But I'd show him. I'd make him pay!"

She turned away to the corner and sobbed hysterically.

Simon glanced at the little Frenchman.

"Elle se trouvera mieux chez elle," he said; and the other nodded sympathetically and closed the door.

The taxi drew away in a wedge of traffic and turned up Re­gent Street. Simon sat back in his corner and let the girl have her cry. It was the best possible thing for her; and he could have said nothing helpful.

They had a practically clear run through to St. John's Wood; and the girl recovered a little as they neared their des­tination. She wiped her eyes and took out a microscopic pow­der puff, with the unalterable vanity of women.

"You must think I'm a fool," she said, as the taxi slowed up. "Perhaps I am. But no one else can understand."

"I don't mind," said the Saint.

The cab stopped, and he leaned across her to open the door. Her face was within two inches of his, and the Saint required all adventures to be complete. In his philosophy, knight-er­rantry had its own time-honoured rewards.

His lips touched hers unexpectedly; and then in a flash, with a soft laugh, he was out of the taxi. She walked past him and went up the steps of the house without looking back.

Simon rode back jubilantly to the Mayfair, and found his lady and Peter Quentin patiently ordering more coffee. The Baron had already left.

"I saw you leaving with the blonde Venus," said Peter en­viously. "How on earth did you work it?"

"Is this a new romance?" smiled Patricia.

"You want to be careful of these Barons," said Peter. "Next thing you know, you'll have a couple of his pals clicking their heels at you and inviting you to meet him in Hyde Park at dawn."

The Saint calmly annexed Peter Quentin's liqueur and tilted his chair backwards. Over the rim of his glass he ex­changed bows with the chivalrous Frenchman at the adjoining table, who was paying his bill and preparing to leave; and then he surveyed the other two with a lazily reckless glint in his eye that could have only one meaning.

"Let's, go home," he said.

They sauntered down Piccadilly to the block where the Saint's flat was situated; and there the Saint doffed his hat with a flourish, and kissed Patricia's hand.

"Lady, be good. Peter and I have a date to watch the moon rising over the Warrington waterworks."

In the same silence two immaculately-dressed young men sauntered on to the garage where the Saint kept his car. Noth­ing was said until one of them was at the wheel, with the other beside him, and the great silver Hirondel was humming smoothly past Hyde Park Corner. Then the fair-haired one spoke.

"Campden Hill, I suppose?"

"You said it," murmured the Saint. "Baron von Dortvenn has asked for it once too often."