The Saint Meets His Match (She was a Lady)

"At this moment," said the Saint, "he's standing on the steps blowing that whistle. He's not taking any chances. He's not going to look for a man—he's going to wait till a man comes to him. He's going to make quite sure that whoever's in here isn't going to slip out behind his back. And the person they want to find here is you."

Jill Trelawney nodded.

"On a charge of murder," she said softly.

Chapter VI

HOW SIMON TEMPLAR WENT TO BED,

AND MR. TEAL WOKE UP 

 

SIMON had slipped out his cigarette case and absently selected a cigarette. He lighted the cigarette, looking at a picture on the opposite wall without seeing it; and his faintly thoughtful smile lingered on the corners of his mouth, rather recklessly and dangerously. But that was like Simon Templar, who never got worked up about anything.

"Of course," he said quietly, "I've been rather liable to overlook that."

"Why not?" she answered, in a tone that matched his own for evenness. "You can't spend twenty-four hours a day thinking and talking about nothing but that."

He shifted his gaze to her face. Her beauty was utterly calm and tranquil. She showed nothing—not in the tremor of a lip, or the flicker of an eyelid. And unless something were done there and then, she might have less than two months of life ahead of her before a paid menial of the law hanged her by the neck. . . .

Teal's whistle, in the street below, shrieked again like a lost soul.

And Jill Trelawney laughed. Not hysterically, not even in bravado. She just laughed. Softly.

She turned back the coat of her plain tweed costume, and he saw a little holster on the broad belt she wore.

"But I've never overlooked it," she said—"not entirely."

Simon came round the table, and his fingers closed on her wrist in a circle of cool steel.

"Not that way," he said.

She met his eyes.

"It's the only way for me," she said. "I've never had a fancy for the Old Bailey—and the crowds—and the black cap. And the three weeks' waiting, in Holloway, with the chaplain coming in like a funeral every day. And the last breakfast—at such an unearthly hour of the morning!" The glimmer in her eyes was one of pure amusement. "No one could possibly make a good dying speech at 8 a.m.," she said.

"You're talking nonsense," said the Saint roughly.

"I'm not," she said. "And you know it. If the worst comes to the worst——"

"It hasn't come to that yet."

"Not yet."

"And it won't, lass—not while I'm around."

She laughed again.

"Simon—really—you're a darling!"