The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

"I am afraid you cannot refuse. I must tie this over your eyes, and you must not make me be violent about it, because I do not like being violent."

She waited. The blur of white moved towards her, and she felt the soft caress of silk on her face. And then she twitched her automatic from its holster and rammed it into the man's ribs.

"You're moving too fast, Duodecimo," she said softly. "Think again—and think quickly!"

The Italian continued imperturbably with his task.

"I'll count three," she rapped. "You can start saying your prayers now. One—"

"And then the car stop, the police come, and you are arresting," he replied calmly. "But do not trouble, Mees Trelawney, I have already unloaded your gun."

She realized that the car had stopped, and could have wept with rage against herself.

"Will you get out?"

She could feel rather than see the stronger light that entered as the door was opened; but she had been well blindfolded. She could not even get a glimpse of the ground under her feet. Even a change to lift the bandage for a moment was not given her, for both her wrists were firmly grasped.

"There are some steps down——"

He guided her along what seemed to be a passage, up a few more steps that grated like bare stone under her shoes, round a corner.

"Now there are some stairs."

She climbed them with his hand on her arm guiding her—four flights—and then he opened a door and led her through. In a few more paces he checked her, and she felt something hard pressed against the back of her knees.

"Sit down."

She obeyed. She felt his hands at her wrists, the rough contact of tightening leather straps, and the cold touch of a metal buckle. . . . Then the same thing at her ankles. . . . Four straps held her as firmly as steel chains; and then the handkerchief was untied.

The room in which she found herself was small and dingily furnished. The paper was peeling off the walls, and the carpet was patched and frayed at the edges. There was a truckle bed in one corner, and on a rickety table stood a bottle, a few glasses, and the remains of a sand­wich reposing on a piece of newspaper.