How Jill Trelawney told a lie, and
Simon Templar spoke nothing but the truth
1
HARRY DONNELL lived in a house in a mean street on the outskirts of Birmingham. It was a curious house, but as soon as he had seen it he knew that few other houses could have fulfilled his requirements so completely, for he had always boasted that if necessary he would resist arrest to the death.
This house had grown up, somehow, in the very inside of a block. Being completely surrounded by the other houses of the block necessarily deprived its rooms of most of the light of day, but Donnell could not see this as a disadvantage. The same fact made the house very difficult to attack, and this to his mind was compensation enough. In fact, the building could only be approached directly through a straight and narrow alleyway between two of the outer houses.
He rarely stirred out of doors except on business, preferring to sleep and drink and smoke at home, and amuse himself with his own inscrutable and animal meditations. He was at home when Jill Trelawney and Stephen Weald arrived, and went down to open the door to them himself when he recognized the signal on the bell which showed that the visitors were friendly.
"Good-afternoon, Miss Trelawney," he said politely, for Harry Donnell prided himself on his accomplishments as a ladies' man. Her manner, however, cut short any courtesies.
"The Saint's after you," she said bluntly. "Where can we talk?"
He looked at her, and then led the way upstairs without a word.
They went up two flights of dingy, creaking stairs, for the first and ground floors were devoted to the sleeping accommodations of his gang. On the second floor he opened a door and showed them into a big, bare room, of which the principal articles of furniture appeared to consist of a rough deal table and a case of whisky. This room, like most of the others in the house, was lighted only by a small and dirty window which admitted hardly any light, and the gloom was made gloomier by the fog of stale tobacco smoke which hung in the air.
Donnell closed the door behind them.
"Did you say the Saint?"
"I did. Do you know him?"
Donnell drew back his lips from a row of black and broken teeth.
"I met him — once."
"You look like meeting him again," said the girl shortly.
Donnell was not immediately impressed. He took a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it from a tin on the table.
"What do you mean?"
"He's after you for that show at Essenden's. He came and told me that he was going to take you himself. We shut him up in the cellar and came to warn you ourselves. But he got away somehow and caught the same train as we did. Weald saw him. We didn't see him again at the other end, but he can't be far behind. In fact, I know how far behind he is. He knows I'm coming here and he's hanging just far enough behind to get me into the trap as well. He's after me, too."
Donnell looked from her to Weald.
"Is this a joke?" he demanded.
And Weald's face told him it was not a joke. He turned to the girl again.
"Why didn't you get me on the telephone?" he asked harshly. "Isn't that what it's here for?"
"The exchange told me that the trunk line was out of order," said Jill quietly. "And don't talk to me like that. I don't like it."
Donnell faced her cold gaze three seconds and then dropped his eyes.
"No offense," he muttered.
"Forget it," said the girl briskly. "We've got about three or four minutes, I should say, before Templar turns up. I'd like him to have a welcome. He'll be alone — I'm certain of that. What can you do about it?"
"There are half a dozen of the boys downstairs."
"Can you stop him getting in?"
Donnell grinned.
"I could stop an army," he bragged.
"Can you stop the Saint?"
"Haven't you seen round this house?" asked Donnell. "I've had it ready for years, just for something like this. I'll take you round, if you like, and you can see for yourself."
Jill tightened the belt of her coat.
"I'll look round on my own, if you don't mind," she said. "I know what to look for, and it probably isn't what you'd show me. Give Weald a drink while I'm gone — I guess he needs it."
She went out, and Donnell picked up a bottle and a glass. He poured out four good fingers of the spirit, and Weald grabbed it and drank it neat. Then he turned to Donnell; the fire-water had steadied him up a bit — in a way.
"You believe it isn't a joke?" he said.
Donnell nodded.
"Yes, I believe it now."
"I'm up against it," panted Weald flabbily. "I'm up against it much more than you are. They can only get you for a bashing, but they can get me for a lot more."
"Ever beat up a 'tec?"
"More than that. I can't tell you. They might. Donnell, you've got to get us out of this!"
Donnell's eyebrows came down.
"What do you mean, get you out of it? What about me?"
Weald clutched his arm.
"You don't understand. I've got to get away. I've got to take the girl with me. Is there any back way out of this — any bolt hole you've prepared? I've got money—"
Donnell thrust him roughly into a chair and pushed the whisky bottle towards him. Weald helped himself greedily to another half-glassful.
"Now you're talking," said Donnell. "How much?"
Weald dragged a note case from his pocket. It bulged. Donnell's eyes fastened on it hungrily.
"A thousand, Donnell. It's all I can spare. I've got to leave myself some money to get clear."
"Let's see it."
Feverishly Weald counted out the notes with shaking fingers and put them on the table. Donnell moistened his thumb and counted them deliberately. Then he put them in his pocket.
"That cupboard behind you," he said. "The back of it's a sliding door. You'll find some stairs. Go right down. There's a tunnel under the block and the street, and it comes up in the cellar of a house on the other side."
"But you've got to hold Templar up."
Donnell struck his chest with a huge fist.
"Me? I'll hold the Saint up. I don't run away from anyone — but you can clear out when you want to. You'd be more trouble than use, anyway."
Weald swallowed the taunt without a protest.
"All right. As soon as the girl comes back you get out and say you're going to warn your gang. I'll look after the rest."
Donnell sat down heavily on a truckle bed in one corner. He took a massive revolver from his pocket, spilled the cartridges into his hand, and squinted up the barrel. He spun the cylinder with his fingers, tested the hammer action to his satisfaction, and reloaded the gun methodically.
"What's the idea?" he asked laconically. "You sweet on her?"
Weald nodded, with the bottle in his hand.
"That's not the half of it. I've been wanting her for months. I thought I'd do it gradually, working with her and making her like me. But there isn't time for any more fooling about. If the police are going to get me I'm going to get her first. I don't care if it's the last thing I do. Donnell — on the train — she was sneering at me!"
"Anyone would," said Donnell unemotionally. "A white-livered rat like you!"
Weald wiped his mouth. The whisky was going to his head.
"I'm not a white-livered rat, Donnell!" he blustered.
"You're a white-livered rat and a yellow cur at the same time," said Donnell without heat, testing the sights of his Colt on the whisky bottle.
Weald lurched towards him.
"Donnell, you take that back!"
"Don't be a blasted nuisance," said Donnell impatiently.
He took Weald's shoulder in a huge hand and pushed him away. Then Jill Trelawney came into the room.
"I've seen all I want to see," she said. "Donnell, will you go down and rouse up the boys?"
"I was just going to, Miss Trelawney," said Donnell heavily.
He went to the door and leered, behind her back, at Weald. Then he went out, and Weald heard him clumping heavily down the stairs.
"I didn't say you were to drink a whole bottle," remarked Jill, surveying Weald's unsteady balance.
"You don't understand, Jill. I've been finding a way out."
He walked rockily to the cupboard that Donnell had indicated and dragged open the doors. After some fumbling he was able to open the sliding door at the back, and then he found a switch. The light showed a flight of steps leading down into a damp and musty darkness.
"Our way out!" declaimed Weald grandiosely.
"Very interesting," said the girl, "but we don't happen to be going that way."
He stared.
"Not going that way?"
"How the Angels of Doom would miss you!" she said caustically. "Without you they'd be absolutely helpless. The great brain, always clear and alert in times of crisis."
"Jill!"
"Oh, be quiet!" Her sarcasm turned to contempt suddenly. "When you're sober you're futile, and when you're drunk you maunder. I don't know which is worse. Now pull yourself together. Donnell is ready to do his part, and his boys are with him, but he's looking to you and me to pull him through. The Angels have never failed yet, and they can't fail now."
"But, Jill —"
"And a little less of the 'Jill,' " she cut in icily. "This place can stand a siege for a week, and we can still get out that way if we have to. But I'm going to let Templar in — right in — and there's going to be no mistake about him this time."
He swayed towards her.
"And I say we're going out this way — now!" he shouted. "I've had about enough of being ordered about by you, and being snubbed, and treated like a child. Now you're going to do what I say, for a change. Come on!"
She regarded him with a calculating eye.
"About one more drink," she said, "and you'd be dead drunk. On the whole, I think I'd prefer that to your present state."
"Oh you would, would you?"
The resentment which Weald had been afraid to let loose before Donnell he had no need to control now. He grasped her shoulders with clumsy hands.
"That's the sort of talk I'm not standing from you any longer," he said shrilly. "You're going to stop it, right now, do you see? From now on I'm going to give the orders and you're going to obey them. I love you!"
"You're mad," she said coldly. But for the first time in her life a little imp of fear plucked at her heart.
He thrust his face down close to hers. She could smell the drink on his breath.
"I'm not mad. I've been mad before, but I'm sensible now. I want to take you away — out of here — out of England — out into the world! I'm going to give you jewels, and beautiful clothes. And you're going to love me, and there's going to be no one else. You're going to forget all this nonsense abut your father. You're not going to think about it any more. It's going to be just you and me, Jill! Lovely Jill—"
She flung him off so that he went reeling back against the wall and almost fell. Then she jerked from her bag the little automatic she always carried, but he leapt at her like a tiger and tore it out of her hands.
"No, Jill, that's not the way. Not like that. Like this."
His arms went round her. She fought him back desperately, but he was too strong for her. Once she was almost able to tear herself away, but he blundered after her, still clutching her sleeve, and caught her again. His lips were trying to find her mouth.
Suddenly she went limp in his arms. It was the only thing she could do at that moment — to pretend to faint, and thus give herself a chance to catch him off his guard. And for a space Stephen Weald looked down at her stupidly. Then, with a sudden resolution, he swung her off her feet and carried, her through the open cupboard.
Hampered by his burden, he could only feel his way down step by step. The direct light above was soon lost, and the stairs grew darker and darker. He went on. Then another light dawned below, and grew more powerful as he proceeded farther downward; at last the bulb which gave the light was on the level of his eyes. He went down beneath it, and presently found himself on level stone.
A corridor stretched away before him, lighted at long intervals by electric bulbs. He went on down it and felt a faint breath of fresh air on his face. Presently the tunnel forked. Donnell had not told him about that. He hesitated, and then plunged into the right-hand branch. In a few yards it took a turn, and a door faced him. He got it open and went into darkness. Groping round, he found a switch, and when he had clicked it over he discovered that he was in a dead end — the tunnel did not go on, but stopped in the room into which he had opened the door.
There was a tattered carpet on the floor, and a table and a chair on the carpet. In one corner was a couch, in another were a pile of tinned foods and a beaker of water.
He should have turned back and tried the left-hand branch of the tunnel, but he was not an athletic man, and the effort of carrying even such, a light weight as the girl for that distance had taxed his untrained muscles severely. He put her down on the couch and straightened up, mopping his streaming brow and breathing heavily.
His back was towards her when she opened her eyes, but she saw the bulge of the gun in his coat pocket. She raised herself cautiously and put out her hand. Her fingers were actually sliding into his pocket when he turned and saw her.
"Not that either, you little devil!" he snarled.
He caught her wrist and wrenched it away from the gun she had almost succeeded in grasping.
"You'd like to shoot me, wouldn't you?" he said thickly. "But you're not going to have the chance. You're going to love me. You're going to love me in spite of everything— even if I am Waldstein!"
She shrank away from him with wide eyes.
"Yes, even if I am Waldstein," he babbled. "Even if I did help to break your father. He was an officious nuisance. But you're quite different. You're going to settle with me in my way, Jill!"
2
There had been another man on the train to Birmingham, whom Simon Templar had not seen. He did not meet him until he had disembarked and was hailing a taxi; and, seeing him, the Saint was not pleased. But this was the kind of displeasure about which Simon Templar never let on, and it was the assistant commissioner who stared.
"Good Lord, Templar, how did you get here?"
"I came on a tricycle," said the Saint gravely. "Did you use a motor-scooter?"
"I got your message—"
"What message?"
Cullis tugged at his moustache.
"Dyson rang up to say you were caught at Belgrave Street. He said he was to tell me that you wanted to be left there, and I was to come to Birmingham and take Donnell."
The Saint looked at him thoughtfully.
"Is this another of the old Trelawney touches of humour?" he murmured. "I never sent you that message. What's more, I'll swear Dyson never sent it, either. He was never out of my sight from the time I was stuck up in Belgrave Street until a few seconds before I left. Someone's been pulling your leg!"
He bent his eyes on the commissioner's nether limbs as if he really entertained a morbid hope that he would find one of them longer than the other. Cullis pushed his hat back from his forehead.
"Just what's the idea?"
"There's some funny scheme behind it," said the Saint, with the air of a man announcing an epoch-making discovery, "and we've yet to learn what it is. However, since you're here, you can be of some use. Beetle round to the local police and make what arrangements you like. They can surround the block and be ready to take over Donnell when I bring him out. That'll save me some time."
"You're going in alone?"
"I'm afraid I've got to go in alone," said the Saint sadly. "You see, this is my nurse's afternoon off… See you at a dairy later, old pomegranate."
He tapped Cullis encouragingly in the stomach, climbed into the taxi, and closed the door, leaving the commissioner standing there with a blank look on his face.
He did not drive directly up to the mouth of the alleyway which admitted to the front door of Donnell's fortress. That would have been too blatant even for Simon Templar. Besides, reckless as he might be, he did not believe in suicide, and the long, straight alleyway which he would have to traverse if he approached in the ordinary way would leave even the worst of marksmen very little chance of missing him. And the Saint had no interest in any funeral festivities in which he could not occupy a vertical position.
He drove instead to a tobacconist's shop round the corner, and there he discharged the taxi. He went in and bought a packet of cigarettes, and then he showed his police identity card.
"Do you live in the rooms over here, or do they belong to someone else?"
"No, sir. I live there."
"I'll go right up," said the Saint. "Don't bother to show me the way. You stay right here and carry on business as usual. I shan't come back by this route, so don't wait up late for me."
He went through the shop and up the stairs.
From a window on the landing of the first floor he was able to survey the battleground.
It was unpromising. Donnell's house formed, as has been explained, a kind of island site in the centre of the block, separated by a matter of about fourteen feet from the houses that surrounded it. The four pairs of walls which surrounded the square canyon thus formed were bare of any convenience for passing between them except the solid ground at the bottom. And that was certain to be watched and covered from the windows of Donnell's house. From the window where he looked out, Simon Templar might, if he had been that kind of a lunatic, have considered the possibility of running a plank across to the window opposite and entering the house that way. It is interesting to record that he was not that kind of lunatic — he had, amongst other weaknesses, a distinct urge towards being buried in one piece, when his time came.
There was, however, one other solution.
He went on up the stairs. On the third floor the stairs came to an end, but above his head were a trap-door and a swinging ladder. He pulled the ladder down and mounted it.
He found himself in a kind of attic, lumbered with boxes and odds and ends of broken furniture. It had one cobwebbed window, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through; but Simon squeezed through it and emerged on the leads. At that point, from where he stood with his heels in the gutter, leaning back against the tiles of the roof with a sixty-foot drop in front of him, the flat roof of Donnell's house, with a high embrasured wall running round it and a kind of penthouse in the centre, was about six feet below him, and still fourteen feet away. But it was in the convenient position of not being overlooked by any of the windows from which his attack was likely to be watched for.
The Saint bent his knees and braced himself. He tested the strength of the gutter, found it firm, and without further hesitation launched himself into space.
He cleared the wall and landed on the flat concrete of Donnell's roof, stumbling forward and saving himself with his hands. Then he picked himself up and released the safety catch of his automatic.
He circumnavigated the penthouse warily. It was square and solidly built, with narrow barred windows, and had obviously been designed as a point of vantage from which any attempt to reach the house over the roofs could be repelled. On that occasion, however, the possibility seemed to have been overlooked, for no shots came from it to greet him.
He worked his way round it and came to a massive door faced with iron. There was no handle on the outside, and the Saint tried to open it without success.
He gave up the task after a few seconds, and went and looked over the wall down the face of the building.
There was a window directly below him, about six feet down, at the point where he had chanced to look over. He climbed up on the wall and looked down at it, considering the lie of the land.
The wall was about five feet high. Lowering himself over it, he was able to rest his toes on a ledge about three inches wide which ran round the outside. Then he had to stoop quickly and allow himself to fall literally into space, catching at the ledge with his fingers as he did so. For one hair-raising second he, had the awful sensation of hurtling downwards to certain death; but Simon Templar's nerves were like ice, and he knew the strength of his hands. His hooked fingers on the ledge brought him up with a jerk at the full stretch of his arms, and he hung there for a few seconds while he recovered his breath. His feet were then, he judged, at the level of the centre of the window which he had made his objective. And then he had to let go his hold again and drop another couple of feet down the side of the building, landing on his toes on the out-jutting sill and clutching at the window frame to recover his balance. He did so.
Then stooping a little, he was able to pull down the upper sash as quietly as it could be done, and climb down into the room.
There was no one there. He had not seriously expected that there would be, for the attention of the garrison would naturally be concentrated on the ways by which he might more ordinarily have been expected to attempt to enter. Certainly if there had been anyone in the room it would have meant the end of Simon Templar's useful career, for he could hardly have made any active resistance against being pushed off his unstable foothold into space. But there had been no one there to do it.
He crossed the room cautiously in the semidarkness, placing his feet with infinite precautions against making a noise which might be heard by anyone in a room below, and thus gained the door. The door was ajar. He opened it a little farther, slowly and with respect for its creaking hinges, and crept out onto the narrow landing.
The stairs faced him. He went down them like a cat, keeping close to the wall, where he would be least likely to make a loose board creak. In that way he came down to the second floor, and there the choice of four doors was open to him. He selected one at random, turned the knob silently, and entered with a rush that was swift and sudden without being noisy.
There was no one there. He saw that in his first lightning glance round. Then, reassured upon that point, his interest was taken by the sight of the open cupboard that seemed to lead through to a lighted flight of stairs.
This was not quite what he had expected — he had not credited Donnell with the provision of any such melodramatic devices as concealed doors and secret passages. And the look of things seemed to indicate that someone had recently passed that way in a hurry — and in such a hurry that he had forgotten to disguise his retreat by closing the cupboard doors behind him.
The Saint went quickly through to the hidden stairway, his gun in his hand.
He listened there and heard nothing. And then he went down into the darkness, and came at length upon the tunnel which Weald had found.
He could see no one ahead, and his steps quickened. Presently he came to the fork at which Weald had hesitated. As he paused there irresolute, his eye fell on something that sparkled on the stone flags. He bent and picked it up. It was a small drop earring.
And he was putting it in his pocket when he heard a muffled cry come faintly down the branch on his right. The Saint broke into a run.
Stephen Weald, with his back to the door, and so intent upon the object of his madness that he could notice nothing else, did not hear the Saint's entrance; and, indeed, he knew nothing whatever of the Saint's arrival until two steely hands took him by the scruff of the neck and literally bounced him off his feet.
Then he turned and saw the Saint, and his right hand dived for his pocket. But Simon was much too quick. His fist crashed up under Weald's jaw and dropped him in his tracks.
He turned to find the girl beside him. "Did you hear what he said — that he was Waldstein?" The Saint nodded.
"I did," he said, and bent and seized Weald by the collar and jerked him half upright. Then he got his arms under the man's limp body and hoisted him up in a lump, as he might have picked up a child. "Where are you going?"
The girl's voice checked him on his way to the door, and Simon glanced back over his shoulder.
"I'm going to collect Donnell and fill the party," he said. "We policemen have our jobs to hold down. D'you mind?"
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.
"I hope it will be a lesson to you," he said solemnly. "You must be more careful about the company you keep. Oh, and thanks for helping me to get Harry," said the Saint incidentally. "What made you do that?"
She looked at him.
"I thought it might go a little way towards settling the debt."
"So that we could start fighting again — all square?.. Yes, I should think we can call it quits."
"I suppose you'd like to take my gun?"
"Please."
She was fumbling in her bag, and the Saint was not watching her. He was smoking his cigarette and beaming with an infuriating smugness at Harry Donnell. About two seconds ago, his own weird intuition had raised an eyelid and wrinkled a thin hairline of clairvoyant light across his brain; and he knew exactly what was going to happen. There was just one little thing left that had to happen before the adventure took the twist that it had always been destined to take. And the Saint was not bothered about it at all, for he had his immoral views on these matters of private business. He had taken no further notice of Weald since he had dropped him to the floor. He had not even troubled to search Weald's pockets. And when he turned his head at the sound of the shot, he saw the automatic half-out of Weald's pocket, and the man lying still, and turned again to smile at another gun.
"Don't move," said Jill Trelawney quietly, and the Saint shook his head.
"Jill, you really mustn't commit murder in the presence of respectable policemen. If it happens again—"
"Never mind that," said the girl curtly.
"Oh, but I do," said the Saint. "May I smoke, or would you prefer to dance?"
The girl leaned against the wall, one hand on her hip, and the shining little nickelled automatic in the other.
"Your nerves are good, Simon Templar," she remarked coolly.
"I can say the same for yours."
She regarded him with a certain grim amusement.
"I suppose," she said, "it wouldn't be any use pleading that I shot Weald to save trouble? You can see that he was drawing when I fired. And saving the life of a valuable detective… Would it be any use?"
"Not much, I'm afraid," answered the Saint, in the same tone. "You see, I've got a gun myself, and there wasn't really any call for you to butt in. You just had to say 'Oi!'—and I would have done the work. Besides, Harry would just love to be a witness for the Crown — wouldn't you, Harry?"
He saw the venomous darkening of Donnell's eyes, and laughed.
"I'm sure you would, Harry — being the four-flushing skunk you are."
He had not moved from the table, and his right hand, holding Donnell's revolver, still rested loosely on his knee.
"You aren't going to be troublesome, Templar?" asked the girl gently, and Simon shrugged.
"You don't get me, Jill. Personally, I'm never troublesome." He held her eyes. "Others may be," he said.
The silence after he spoke was significant; and the girl listened on. And she also heard, outside, the sound of heavy hurrying footsteps on the stairs.
"Excuse me," said the Saint.
He stepped quickly to the door, and turned the key in the lock. Then he picked the table up and jammed it into the defense for ballast, with one edge under the handle of the door and the other slanting into the floor.
"That'll hold Donnell's boys for three or four minutes," he said.
She smiled.
"While I slip out through the tunnel?"
"While we slip out through the tunnel."
He saw the perplexity that narrowed her eyes, the hesitant parting of her lips, but he saw these things only in a sidelong glimpse as he crossed to the side of Harry Donnell. And he saw the vindictive resignation that twisted Donnell's mouth, and laughed.
"Sorry to trouble you again," said the Saint.
His fist shot up like the hoof of a plunging cayuse. But this time the Saint had had one essential fraction of a second more in which to meditate his manoeuvre — and that made all the difference in the world. And this time Donnell went down and stayed down in a peaceful sleep.
"Which is O. K.," drawled the Saint, after one professional glance at the sleeper.
He turned briskly.
"Are you all set for the fade-away, Jill? Want to powder your nose or anything first?"
She was still staring at him. The new atmosphere that had crept into his personality from the moment of his first swipe at Donnell's jaw had grown up like the strengthening light of an incredible dawn, and the intervening interlude had merely provided circumstances to shape its course without altering its temper in the least. And the gun that she had been levelling at him half the time had made no difference at all.
"Aren't you going to try to arrest me?" she asked, with a faint rasp of contempt laid like the thinnest veneer on the bewildering beginnings of preposterous understanding that lay beneath.
And Simon Templar smiled at her.
"Arrest you for ferreting out and bumping off the bloke I've been wanting to get at myself for years? Jill, darling, you have some odd ideas about me!.. But there really is a posse around this time — they're waiting at the other end of that there rat's hole, with the assistant commissioner himself in command, and you wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting through alone. D'you mind if I take over the artillery a moment?"
He detached the automatic from her unresisting hand, dropped it into his pocket, and swept her smoothly through the open door of the dummy cupboard. It was all done so calmly and quietly, with such an effortless ease of mastery, that all the strength seemed to ebb out of her. It was impossible to resist or even question him: she suffered herself to be steered down the stairs without a word.
"On the other hand," said the Saint, as if there had been no interruption between that remark and the conclusion of his last speech, "you'll have to consider yourself temporarily under arrest, otherwise there might be a spot of trouble which we shouldn't be in a position to deal with effectively."
She made no answer. In the same bewildered silence she found herself at the junction of the two forks in the tunnel; they took the left-hand fork this time, and went on for about a hundred yards before the light of the last electric bulb was lost behind them and they found themselves in darkness. She heard the crackle of the Saint's lighter, and saw another flight of steps on the right.
"Up here."
He took her arm and swung her round the turning and up the stairs. At the top, what appeared to be a blank wall faced them; the Saint's lighter went out as they reached it, and she heard him fumbling with something in the dark. Then a crack of light sprang into existence before her, widening rapidly, and she felt fresh air on her face as the Saint's figure silhouetted itself in the gap.
"Easy all," came the Saint's imperturbable accents; and she followed him through the opening to find the assistant commissioner putting away his gun.
They had stepped into a poorly furnished parlour; besides Cullis there were a couple of plain-clothes detectives and four uniformed policemen crowded into it.
"The first capture," said the Saint, taking the girl's arm again. "I laid out Donnell and Weald, but I couldn't bring them along with me. You'll find them in the house, if you get there quick enough — the rest of Donnell's boys were chipping bits out of the door when we left."
Cullis nodded; and the uniformed men filed through the opening in the wall. The plain-clothes men hesitated, but the Saint signalled them on.
"I'll take Trelawney myself — my share of this job is over."
As the detectives disappeared, the Saint opened the door and led Jill Trelawney out into a small bare hall. Cullis followed. Outside, a taxi was waiting and Simon pushed the girl in.
Then he turned back to the commissioner.
"You might find it entertaining to take a toddle up that tunnel yourself," he said. "There's something amusing in the room at the other end which the boys should be discovering about now. Oh, and you might give my love to Claud Eustace next time you see him. Tell him I always was the greatest detective of you all — the joke should make him scream."
Cullis nodded.
"Are you taking her to the station?"
"I am," said the Saint truthfully, and closed the door.
And then the Saint settled back and lighted another cigarette as the taxi drew away from the curb.
"We've just time to catch the next train to town with eighty seconds to spare," he remarked; and the girl turned to him with the nearest thing to a straight-forward smile that he had seen on her lips yet.
"And after that?"'
"I know a place near London where the train slows up to a walking pace. We can step off there, and the synthetic sleuths who will be infesting Paddington by the time the train gets in can wait for us as long as they like."
She met his eyes steadily.
"You mean that?"
"But of course!" said the Saint. "And you can ask me anything else you want to know. This is the end of my career as a policeman. I never thought the hell of a lot of the job, anyhow. I suppose you're wondering why?"
She nodded.
"I suppose I am."
"Well, I butted into this party more or less by way of a joke. A joke and a promise, Jill, which I may tell you about one day. Or maybe I won't. Whether you were right or wrong had nothing to do with it at all; but from what the late lamented Weald was saying when I crashed his sheik stuff it seems you're right, and that really has got something to do with the flowers that bloom in the spring."
There was another silence. She accepted a cigarette from his case, and a light.
Presently she said: "And after we leave the train?"
"Somewhere in this wide world," said the Saint, "there's a bloke by the name of Essenden. He is going to Paris tomorrow, and so are we."