The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

In any modern house, she knew, the range of possible secret hiding places was limited. Secret panels and in­genious flooring arrangements cannot be installed with­out structural alterations that involve too much curiosi­ty to be effective. And yet, somehow, that was the room in which she had expected to find something—if there was anything to find. In Cullis's own bedroom, on the other hand . . . possibly. But not probably. Thus her intuition answered her, and she returned to a second search of the study with a little tightening of determination on her lips. Eventually the search narrowed itself down to an ornate Chippendale bureau which stood between the windows. She went over it patiently. None of the drawers was locked, and for that very reason she spared herself the trouble of investigating their contents. But she pulled each one out and measured it against its fellows and against the desk itself in the hope of finding some telltale discrepancy; and she found none. But she did decide that there was a rather curious thickness of wood in the con­struction of the writing surface. She went over it inquis­itively, tapping it with her fingernails: it seemed to give back a hollow sound, and her heart beat a little faster. Then she observed a slight gap between two of the pieces of wood of which it was composed.

She slid the blade of a penknife into the gap; but it must have been one of her elbows which touched the necessary control, for part of the back of the desk seemed to give way under.her unconscious pressure, and the two pieces of wood between which her knife was moving sud­denly flew back with a click, and she found herself look­ing down at a thin, flat, japanned deed box.

And at that moment she heard the creak of a hinge behind her, and spun round with her gun in her hand as the lights went on.

There was a silence.

Then——

"Good-morning, Mr. Cullis," said Jill.

Their guns covered each other steadily—the deadlock was complete.

"What do you want?"

Cullis spoke harshly. His eyes, straining behind her, rested on the open top of the desk, and she saw a slight quiver of movement under his moustache.

"It should be obvious," said the girl.

His eyes held hers. He could not have recognized her, but an intuitive idea seemed to flash into his brain. She could almost read its arrival in his face, and stood without flinching as he took a pace forward and scanned her more closely.

"Jill Trelawney!"