The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

"You're getting quite truthful in your old age, Fred­die," he remarked, and went up the stairs.

The girl met him on the landing.

"I got your message to say you were coming."

"I hope it gave you a thrill," said the Saint earnestly.

He looked past her into the sitting room.

"Are you staying to tea again?" she asked sweetly.

"Before I've finished," said Simon, "I expect you'll be wanting me to stay the week."

"Come in."

"Thanks. I will. Aren't we getting polite?"

He went through.

In the sitting room he found Weald and Budd, as he had expected to find them, though they had not been exposed to the field of view which he had from the land­ing through the open door.

"Hullo, Weald! And are you looking for Waldstein, too?"

Weald's sallow face went a shade paler, but he did not answer at once. The Saint's mocking gaze shifted to Budd.

"Been doing any more fighting lately, Pinky? I heard that some tough guy beat up a couple of little boys in Shoreditch the other night, and I thought of you at once."

Pinky's fists clenched.

"If you're looking for trouble, Templar," he said pinkly, "I'm waiting for you, see?"

"I know that," said the Saint offensively. "I could hear you breathing as I came up the stairs."

He heard the door close behind him, and turned to face the girl again.

It was a careless move, but he had not been expecting the hostilities to be reopened quite so quickly. The fact that the mere presence of his own charming personality might be considered by anyone else as a hostile movement in itself had escaped him. In these circumstances there is, by convention, a certain amount of warbling and woofling before any active unpleasantness is displayed. Simon Templar had always found this so—it took a certain amount of time for his enemies to get over the confident effrontery of his own bearing, and, in these days, their ingrained respect for the law which he was temporarily representing—before they nerved themselves to action. But this was not his first visit to Belgrave Street, nor their first sight of him, and they might have been expected to show enough intelligence to fortify themselves against his coming beforehand. Simon, however, had not expected it. It was the first slip he had made with the Angels of Doom.

He felt the sharp pressure in his back, and knew what it was without having to turn and look. Even then he did not turn.

Without batting an eyelid he said what he had come to say, exactly as if he had noticed nothing amiss whatever.