The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

"You may as well hear it in full," he said. "I framed Sir Francis Trelawney under your very nose. Waldstein and Essenden were the leaders of the combine that Tre­lawney was out to smash, and I was strapped at the time. They offered big money, and I came in with them. Tre­lawney was dangerous. In another month or so he'd prob­ably have had them, if he'd been able to keep on. The only thing to do was to get him out of the way, and we fixed that up between us. It wasn't so difficult as it might have been, because he was always a man who worked on his own. We knew that if once he was dis­credited, no one else would be able to take up his work at the point where he left off. I paved the way by writing that warning about the raid on his typewriter. Then I telephoned the message which was supposed to have come from you, which sent him over to Paris and helped us to catch him out at Waldstein's hotel. After that, the rest was easy. I had Waldstein's money in my pocket when I opened his strong box in front of you, and I'd practised that little conjuring trick for weeks. It wasn't very difficult. The notes came out of his box in front of your very eyes, and there was nothing he could say about that. Later on, Waldstein, under one of his aliases, joined up with the girl to keep her out of mischief. He called himself lucky when he met her on the boat coming over from New York to start the work of the Angels. . . . The trouble started when the Saint came after me—when my house was burgled and my desk broken open last night."

"I heard about that," said the chief commissioner.

Cullis nodded.

"From the Saint, I suppose? Well, it was a neat piece of work, although it was the girl who did it. Even before that I'd decided that Jill Trelawney was getting too dan­gerous, and sent Gugliemi out after her; but he turned against me, as you know. Even when my desk was opened, I didn't think anything had been taken, and when you told me to come down here I thought I'd got a chance."

"Until Templar showed you that five-pound note?" murmured the chief.

"Quite right. ... Is there anything else you want to know?"

"I don't think so."

Cullis's eyes shifted round the room.

"But there's one thing I should like to know," he said.

"What's that?"

"When the Saint came to you with that story, why should you have taken any more notice of it than if anyone else had brought it to you?"

A dry smile touched the commissioner's lips.