The Saint Meets His Match by Leslie Charteris Page A

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 land ing 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.
    “I’ve still some more
news to give you, Jill.”
    There was a certain
mockery in the eyes that returned his gaze.
    “Do you still want to
give it?”
    “Why, yes,” said
the Saint innocently. “Why not?”
    Weald spoke behind him.
    “We’re listening,
Templar. Don’t move too suddenly, because I might
think you were going to put up a fight.”
    The Saint turned slowly and
glanced down at the gun in Weald’s hand.
    “Oh, that! Wonderful
how science helps you boys all along the line. And a
silencer, too. Do you know, I always thought those
things were only used in stories written for little
boys?”
    “It’s good enough for
me.”
    “I couldn’t think of anything that
wouldn’t be too good for you,” said the Saint. “Except, perhaps, a
really mutinous sewer.” Then he turned round again. “Do you know a man named Donnell, Jill?”
    “Very well.”
    “Then you’d better go
ring him up and tell him goodbye. He’s going to Dartmoor for a long holiday,
and he mightn’t remember you when he comes out.”
    She laughed.
    “The police in
Birmingham have been saying things like that about Harry Donnell for the
last two years, and they’ve never taken
him.”
    “Possibly,” said
the Saint in his modest way. “But this time the police of
Birmingham aren’t concerned.”
    “Then who’s going to
take him?”
    Simon smoothed his hair.
    “I am.”
    Pinky Budd chuckled throatily.
    “Not ‘arf, you
ain’t!”
    “Not ‘arf, I
ain’t,” agreed the Saint courteously.
    “May I ask,”
said the girl, “how you think you’re going to
Birmingham?”
    “By train.”
    “After you leave
here?”
    “After I leave
here.”
    “D’you think you’re leaving?”
interjected Weald.
    “I’m sure of
it,” said the Saint calmly. “Slinky Dyson will let