The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

She kicked savagely at him; but he dropped on one knee and gathered in her legs. A second chain snapped about her knees, holding her helpless. And Simon Tem­plar, with the whole world still reeling about him from that savage kick between the eyes, was straining at the re­lentless grip on his ankle with the strength of a prisoned giant.

"Got you!" babbled Essenden. "Got you both! But I dropped my gun——"

He splashed about in the stream on all fours, mutter­ing to himself, searching. Then presently he stood up, empty-handed.

"It doesn't matter. I don't need a gun now."

"You do!" rapped the Saint. "I've got another some­where—"

He was straining at something that seemed to have caught in his hip pocket.

Essenden screamed, and leapt on him. And the Saint laughed. This time he did not miss his hold. As Essenden fell on him, Simon fastened two sinewy hands upon the peer's throat.

On the floor, the two men rolled and fought together like wild beasts. Simon Templar had the strength and speed of a tiger, but insanity had suddenly made Essen­den superhuman. Pinned to the floor by the steel trap as effectively as if he had been anchored to a mountain, the only chance that the Saint had lay in keeping his hold on Essenden's windpipe, and on that effort alone he con­centrated, while Essenden kicked and writhed and tore at face and fingers with claw-like hands. They rolled over and over, gasping. Simon knew it could not last.

He was weak with pain. He thought his left ankle might be broken, and certainly his left leg seemed to have severed connection with his body from the knee downwards. Unless Essenden weakened soon . . . Well, there would be plenty of opening for other candidates for the distinction of being the two most unpopular plagues inflicted upon Scotland Yard. The Saint held on des­perately, feeling his strength ebbing with every second of that nightmare struggle; but Essenden, a man possessed, seemed to be breaking every known law of human endur­ance. He fought on, when anyone else should have been unconscious.

And then one of his flailing fists caught Simon in the face.

It was not for the first time in that fight. But this time it so happened that Simon was on his back, his head lift­ed a bare inch from the floor. And the blow dashed the Saint's head with sickening force against the stone.