The Saint Meets His Match by Leslie Charteris Page B

me out. He’s an
old friend of mine.”
    The girl opened the door. Dyson was outside.
    “Here’s your friend the Saint,” she
said.
    “Hullo,
Slinky,” said the Saint. “How’s the eye?”
    Dyson slouched into the
room.
    “Search him,”
ordered Weald.
    Dyson obeyed, doing the job
with ungentle hands. Simon made no resistance. In the circumstances that would only have been a mediocre way of committing suicide.
    “How true you run to
type, Jill!” he murmured. “This is
just what I was expecting. And now, of course, you’ll tell
me that I’m going to be kept here as your prisoner until you choose to let me
go. Or are you going to lock me in the cellar and leave
the hose running? That was tried once. Or perhaps
you’re going to ask me to join your gang. That’d be
quite original.”
    “Sit down,”
snapped Weald.
    Simon sat down as if he had
been meaning to do so all the time.
    Jill Trelawney was at the
telephone. The Saint ob served her out of the corner
of his eye while he selected and lighted a cigarette
from his case. He waited quite patiently while she tried
to make the call, but he feigned surprise when she failed.
    “That really upsets
me,” he said. “Now you’ll have to go
to Birmingham yourself. I hate to think I’m putting you
to so much inconvenience.”
    He saw Budd busying
himself with some loose rope, and when the ex-prize fighter came over with the
obvi ous intention of binding him, the Saint put his hands behind him without being told to. Weald was talking to the girl.——
    “Do you really mean
to go to Birmingham?”
    “Yes. It’s the only
thing to do. I can’t get in touch with Donnell
by telephone, and it wouldn’t be safe to send a wire.”
    “And suppose it’s a
trap?”
    “You can suppose it’s
what you like. The Saint’s clever. But I think I’ve
got the hang of him now. It’s just a repeti tion
of that posse joke. He’s come to tell us that he’s going
to get Donnell just because he thinks we won’t believe
it. And if he does get Donnell, Donnell will squeal.
If you’ve got cold feet you can stay here. But I’m going. Budd can go with
me if you don’t like it. He’ll be more use
than you, anyway.”
    “I’ll go with
you.”
    “Have it your own
way.”
    She came back to watch
Budd putting the finishing touches to the Saint’s roping.
    “You’ll be pleased
to hear,” she said, “that for once I’m going to believe
you.”
    “So I heard,” said the Saint.
“Hope you have a nice journey. Will you
leave Dyson to look after me? I’m sure he’d
treat me very kindly.”
    She shook her head.
    “Budd,” she
said, “will be even kinder.”
    It was a blow at the very
foundations of the scheme which the Saint had built
up, but not a muscle of his face betrayed his feelings.
    He spoke to her as if
there were no one else in the room, holding her eyes in
spite of herself with that mocking stare of his.
    “Jill
Trelawney,” he said, “you’re a fool. If there were degrees in pure, undiluted imbecility I should give you first prize. You’re going to Birmingham with Weald. When you get
there you’re going to walk into a pile of trouble.
Weald will be as much use to you as a tin tomb stone. Not that the thought worries me, but I’m just tell ing you
now, and I’d like you to remember it afterwards. Before to-night you’re going to wish you’d been born with some sort of imitation of a brain. That’s all.
I shall see you again in
Birmingham—don’t worry.”
    She smiled, with a lift of her eyebrows.
    “Aren’t you thoughtful
for me, Simon Templar?”
    “We don’t mind doing
these things for old customers,” said the Saint benignly.
    He was still looking at her. The bantering gaze
of his blue eyes from under the lazily
drooping eyelids, the faint smile, the
hint of a lilt of laughter in his voice—these things could rarely have been more airily perfect in their mockery.
    “And while you’re on
your way,” said the Saint, “you might
have time