The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

The darkness inside was impenetrable, but that meant nothing to her. She moved through the room inch by inch, with her fingers weaving sensitively in front of her, and reached the door in utter silence after several seconds. Not until she was out on the landing, with the door closed again behind her, did she dare to switch on her tiny electric torch.

By its light she found the stairs and went down them into the hall. Crossing the hall, she opened a door on the far side and cautiously closed it again behind her. Then she went over to a window, located the alarms with her torch, disconnected them, and opened the window wide, drawing the heavy curtains again when she had finished.

The beam of her torch filtered through the darkness, flickering over every part of the room. A massive safe that stood in one corner she ignored without a moment's hesitation—Cullis would never have taken the risk of keeping anything incriminating in a place which would be the obvious objective of any chance intruder. She went over the bookcase shelf by shelf, shifting the books one by one and searching expertly for a dummy row or a panel concealed in the back of the case, but she found nothing The pictures on the walls detained her for very little longer: there was nothing concealed behind any of them. And then she lighted another cigarette and looked around her with a rather rueful frown.