The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

And precisely at three o'clock on the afternoon after he had first met her, Simon Templar walked down Belgrave Street, indisputably the most astonishingly immaculate and elegant policeman that ever walked down Belgrave Street, was admitted to No. 97, was shown up the stairs, walked into the drawing room. If possible, he was more dark and cavalier and impudent by daylight than he had been by night. Weald and the girl were there.

"Good-afternoon," said the Saint.

His voice stoked the conventional greeting with an infinity of mocking arrogance. He was amused, in his cheerful way. He judged that the rankling thoughts of the intervening night and morning would not have improved their affection for him, and he was amused.

"Nice day," he drawled.

"We hardly expected you," said the girl.

"Your error," said the Saint comfortably.

He tossed his hat into a chair and glanced back at the door which had just closed behind him.

"I don't like your line in butlers," he said. "I suppose you know that Frederick Wells has a very eccentric record. Aren't you afraid he might disappear with the silver?"

"Wells is an excellent servant."

"Fine! And how's Pinky?"

"Budd is out at the moment. He'll be right back."

"Fine again!" The mocking blue eyes absorbed Stephen Weald from the feet upwards. "And what position does this freak hold in the establishment? Pantry boy?"

Weald gnawed his lip and said nothing. There was a cross of sticking plaster over the bruised cut in his chin to remind him that a man like Simon Templar is apt to confuse physical violence with abstract repartee. Stephen Weald felt cautious.

"Mr. Weald is a friend of mine," said the girl, "and I'd be obliged if you'd refrain from insulting him in my house."

"Anything to oblige," said the Saint affably. "I apolo­gize."

And he contrived to make a second insult of the apol­ogy.

The girl had to call up all her resources of self-control to preserve an outward calm. Inwardly she felt all the fury that the Saint had aroused the night before boiling up afresh.

"I wonder," she said, with a strained evenness, "why nobody's ever murdered you, Simon Templar?"

"People have tried," the Saint said mildly. "It's never quite succeeded, somehow. But there's still hope."

He seemed to enjoy the thought. It was quite clear that his detestableness was no unfortunate trick of manner. It was too offensively deliberate. He had brought discour­tesy in all its branches to a fine art, and he ladled out his masterpieces with no uncertain enthusiasm.