The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

He was very busy for the rest of the day with other business, but that did not prevent him taking frequent peeps at the notebook which the Saint had pressed upon him. The entries were almost shockingly transparent; and Teal did not take twenty minutes to realize that that little book placed in his pudgy hands all the loose threads of an organization that had been baffling him on and off for years. But the realization did not uplift his soul as much as it might have done. He knew quite well that once upon a time the contents of that book would, as Simon Templar had frankly admitted, have remained the private property of the same gentleman un­der his better-known title of the Saint, and there would have been twenty-five more mysterious deaths or disap­pearances, heralded by the familiar trade-mark, to weed some more of the thinning hairs from Chief Inspector Teal's round pate. The Saint's own statement, that the old game had lost its charm, and that he was on the eve of another of his perennial lapses into virtue, Teal was inclined to regard skeptically. It seemed almost too good to be true; and Teal had never been called an incorrigible optimist.

He waded through his divers affairs with a queer cer­tainty that something was shortly going to shatter the comparative peace of the past few days; and in this sur­mise he was perfectly right.

It was not until after dinner that he returned to Scot­land Yard; but by that time he had formed a distinct resolve, and he had not been in the building five minutes before he was asking to see the chief commissioner.

The answer which he received, however, was not what he expected.

"The chief commissioner has not been in all day."

Teal raised his eyebrows. He happened to know that the chief commissioner had had a particular piece of work to do that day and also a number of appointments; and he knew that his chief's habits were as regular as clockwork.

"Has he sent any message?"           

"No, sir. We've heard nothing of him since he left yesterday evening."    

That was less like the chief commissioner than any­thing, to disappear without a word to anyone; and Teal was a rather puzzled man as he made his way to his little office overlooking the Embankment.