The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

The notebook had not been in the safe when he arrived back from Paris that afternoon. He knew that, for he had deposited some correspondence there before he left again to interview the commissioner. And yet, to be delivered that night, the letter which told him to look in the safe must have been posted early that morning. And early that morning Jill Trelawney and the Saint were in Paris—and the letter was post-marked in London. There was something terrifying about the ruthless assur­ance which emerged from the linking of those two facts.

A gentle knock on the door almost made Essenden jump out of his skin.

"Would there be anything else to-night, my lord?" inquired the footman, tactfully.

"A large brandy and soda, Falcon."

"Very good, my lord."

In a few moments the tray was brought in.

"Thank you, Falcon."

"I have cut some sandwiches for you, my lord."

"Thank you."

"Is there nothing else, my lord?"

Essenden picked up his glass and looked at it under the light.

"Have there been any callers to-day?"

"No, my lord. But the young man you sent down from London to inspect your typewriter came about six o'clock."

Essenden nodded slowly.

He dismissed the servant, and when the door had closed again, he went to another bookcase and extracted a couple of dusty volumes. Reaching into the cavity behind the other books, he brought out an automatic pistol and a box of cartridges. The books he replaced. Carrying the gun over to the table, he first carefully tested the action and then loaded the magazine, bringing the first cartridge into the chamber and then thumbing in the safety catch.

With the gun in his pocket he experienced a slight feeling of relief.

But for hours afterwards he sat in the study, staring at the embers of the dying fire, sipping brandy and smok­ing cigarette after cigarette, till the fire died altogether, and he began to shiver as the room grew colder. And thus, alone, through those hours, he pondered fact upon fact, and formed and reviewed and discarded plan after plan, until at last he had shaped an idea with which his weary brain could at the moment find no fault.