The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

"You'd like to shoot me, wouldn't you?" he said thickly. "But you're not going to have the chance. You're going to love me. You're going to love me in spite of everything— even if I am Waldstein!"

She shrank away from him with wide eyes.

"Yes, even if I am Waldstein," he babbled. "Even if I did help to break your father. He was an officious nuisance. But you're quite different. You're going to settle with me in my way, Jill!"    

 

2

 

There had been another man on the train to Birming­ham, whom Simon Templar had not seen. He did not meet him until he had disembarked and was hailing a taxi; and, seeing him, the Saint was not pleased. But this was the kind of displeasure about which Simon Templar never let on, and it was the assistant commissioner who stared.

"Good Lord, Templar, how did you get here?"

"I came on a tricycle," said the Saint gravely. "Did you use a motor-scooter?"

"I got your message——"

"What message?"

Cullis tugged at his moustache.

"Dyson rang up to say you were caught at Belgrave Street. He said he was to tell me that you wanted to be left there, and I was to come to Birmingham and take Donnell."

The Saint looked at him thoughtfully.

"Is this another of the old Trelawney touches of humour?" he murmured. "I never sent you that message. What's more, I'll swear Dyson never sent it, either. He was never out of my sight from the time I was stuck up in Belgrave Street until a few seconds before I left. Some­one's been pulling your leg!"

He bent his eyes on the commissioner's nether limbs as if he really entertained a morbid hope that he would find one of them longer than the other. .   Cullis pushed his hat back from his forehead.

"Just what's the idea?"

"There's some funny scheme behind it," said the Saint, with the air of a man announcing an epoch-making dis­covery, "and we've yet to learn what it is. However, since you're here, you can be of some use. Beetle round to the local police and make what arrangements you like. They can surround the block and be ready to take over Donnell when I bring him out. That'll save me some time."

"You're going in alone?"

"I'm afraid I've got to go in alone," said the Saint sadly. "You see, this is my nurse's afternoon off. . . . See you at a dairy later, old pomegranate."

He tapped Cullis encouragingly in the stomach, climbed into the taxi, and closed the door, leaving the commissioner standing there with a blank look on his face.