The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

He did not see Cullis snatch up the bronze statuette from the table behind him, but if he had not turned his head—more by intuition than by calculation—it would certainly have cracked his skull. As it was, the glancing blow half stunned him and sent him reeling, with his hold on Cullis's wrist broken. Jill had let the man go as soon as the Saint grappled with him.

As he climbed dizzily to his feet, with his head singing, and wiped the blood out of his eyes, he saw the chief commissioner groping blasphemously for one of the fallen guns with his sound left hand—saw the open French win­dows, and Jill Trelawney vanishing through them.

"Come back, you fool!" yelled the Saint huskily.

But she could not have heard him. She was gone, and he followed, staggering.

There was a patter of footsteps down the gravel path along the side of the house, and he saw her white blouse as a pale blur in the darkness.

He caught her up at the corner of the house, and, stand­ing beside her, saw Cullis turning through the garden gate.

Then he started to run again, for he knew that if Cullis turned again at the next corner, as he would be likely to do, he would stumble straight upon the chief commis­sioner's car, which had been left standing there with the lights out.

And Cullis turned that way. Whether it was simply that he wanted to get clear of the principal road and attempt to shake off pursuit in the darkness and more open country, or whether it was that the luck which had been with him so long was disposed to help him yet a little while longer, could never be known. But he did come upon the car, and he was flinging himself into the driving seat as Simon turned the corner after him. An instant later the self-starter brought the engine to life, and the car was starting to move as the Saint flung himself at the luggage grid.

He hung there for a few seconds, getting his last resources of nerve and muscle together. He was still dazed, practically knocked out on his feet, after the murderous blow that he had taken on his head. And the blood that persisted in trickling into his eyes from a shallow scalp wound half blinded him. But he held on.