The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

Then he went on his way. He seemed totally unconscious of having performed any personal service for the girl, and he utterly ignored the sequel to the situation into which a hackneyed convention might pardonably have lured any other man. That sublimely bland indiffer­ence would have been as good as a blow between the eyes to anyone but Jill Trelawney. He went on up the stairs carrying Weald. He heard the girl following behind him; but she did not speak, and Simon appeared to take no notice of her presence.

And thus he stepped through the open cupboard, and found Harry Donnell waiting for him on the other side of a Colt.

Simon stood quite still.

Then——

"It's all right, Donnell," spoke the girl. "I've got him covered."

She was standing behind the Saint, so that Simon and his burden practically hid her. Donnell could not see the gun with which she was supposed to be covering the Saint, for her hand was behind Simon's back, but Donnell believed, and lowered his own gun.

The Saint felt only the gentle and significant pressure of the girl's open hand in the small of his back, and under­stood.

"Go on," said Jill Trelawny.

Simon advanced obediently.

The movement brought him right up to Harry Donell, who stood with his revolver lowered to the full length of a loose arm. There was only the width of Weald's body between them.

Simon relaxed his hold suddenly and dropped Weald unceremoniously to the floor; and then he hit Donnell accurately on the joint of the jaw.

Donnell went down, and the Saint was on him in a flash, wrenching the revolver out of his hand.

And then, as the Saint rose again, he laughed—a laugh of sheer delight.

"You know, Jill, the only real trouble about this game of ours is that it's too darned easy," he said; and there was a new note in his voice which she had never heard be­fore, that made her look at him in a strange puzzlement and surprise.   

 

3

 

But still for a moment the Saint seemed egotistically oblivious of every angle on the situation except his own. The gun he had taken covered Harry Donnell, who was crawling dazedly up to his feet; and the Saint had backed away to the table and was propping himself against it. His cigarette case clicked open, and a cigarette flicked into his mouth; his lighter flared, and a cloud of smoke drifted up through the gloom; he had his own private satisfaction. And Jill Trelawney said: "I suppose I ought "to thank you ..."

The Saint tilted his head.

"Why?" he inquired blankly.

"You know why."

Simon shrugged—an elaborate shrug.