The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

And the Saint smiled again, rocking gently on his heels.

"Thank you," he said, "for admitting that you have got the other notes."

"And suppose I admit it," said Cullis calmly. "You've still got to answer my question. Who's going to make that search—and prove anything?"

"I might arrange it," said the Saint. And he said it so quietly and naturally that it was hard to read any blind bluff into the words.

Cullis looked closely at him, and a little pulse began to beat in Cullis's forehead.

"There's something funny about you, Simon Templar——"

"We are amused," said the Saint politely.

"But perhaps," said Cullis, "even you couldn't have prophesied what was going to happen to you when you'd told me that story."

"Tell me."

"You're a dangerous criminal, and your accomplice is wanted for murder. Seeing that the game's up, you're going to make one last desperate effort to beat me and get away. And in self-defense I shall have to shoot you—-"

"Just like you had to shoot Gugliemi," said the Saint, almost in a whisper; and Cullis went white to the lips.

Then the mask-like features contorted suddenly.

"How did you know that?"

"I am a clairvoyant," said the Saint easily.

"And yet," said Cullis, "the trick is still good enough——"

"Not quite good enough," said the Saint. And there was a sudden swift urgency in his voice, for at that moment he saw death staring him in the face—death in Cullis's pale blue eyes, and death in the twist of Cullis's lips, and death quivering in Cullis's right hand. "Not quite good enough. Because there's one more instalment to my story—and you'd better hear it before you shoot!"

For a moment he thought that Cullis would shoot and chance the consequences, and he loosened his muscles for a desperate leap. And the assistant commissioner's pose slackened by a fraction.

"I'll hear what you have to say. But you needn't expect to get away with another bluff like the one Trelawney put over last night."

"And it was such a good bluff, too," said the Saint sadly, with one eyebrow cocked at the assistant commissioner's bandaged thumb. '

And then he smiled into Cullis's eyes.

"But we don't need to use bluff any more," he said. "I'm strong for having everything in its right place, and the place for bluff has gone by, Cullis."

"Get on!"