The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

And yet things were moving faster than they had been before, and it was more than possible that the Saint might have reason to see her again that night. And when once he missed her, he wouldn't be likely to accumulate so much moss under his feet that it would seriously interfere with his travelling. But could she hold out so long—long enough to give him the time he would require to make up the lost ground?

"It is necessary," said Gugliemi, "that you should be killed. I have been told so, and I myself have been paid to do it. I did not know before that these things were done in England, but now I am told that they are. In Italy, of course, if anyone is a trouble he disappears— poof!—like that. But I did not know it was done in England until I was told that you must disappear. And they told me that if you disappeared completely they would not send me back to Italy. That is very important, because if I went back to Italy I should be sent to prison at once."

She stared at him, hardly believing her ears.

"Who told you this?" she asked in a strained voice.

"I was told," said Gugliemi. "But I was not told to do it like this. This was an idea of my own. I was told to take my little gun and find out where you lived, and go in and shoot you and walk out again, and no questions would be asked. But I saw you once, when you looked out of the window I was watching in the street outside, and I decid­ed that it could not be done like that. Not with anyone so young and beautiful."

He kissed his fingers to her, elegantly.

"So I have brought you to my little home. You have disappeared, and so the police will be satisfied. As for me, I also will be satisfied, and everything will be quite all right."

The ridiculous preciousness of his speech and gesture made the situation grotesque, and yet ...

She looked round the bare, mean room, made dingier, if possible, by the fact that it was lighted only by a feeble gas jet in one corner. And while Gugliemi deliberated his next sentence, rocking gently in his chair, she listened in the silence, and heard no other sound in the house. Probably it was empty—Gugliemi would not have risked leaving her ungagged in a place where she might cry out and attract attention.

He seemed to read her thoughts with the restless dark eyes that searched her face with blatant appreciation of her beauty.