The Saint Meets His Match (28 page)

That day, he had a private
appointment at noon; and,
as has been explained, he
allowed himself half an hour to
dispose of the watchers. He disposed of them as
a matter
of fact, in twenty minutes, which
was good going. He did
not dispose of
Duodecimo Gugliemi—partly because Gug
liemi
was rather more supple of intuition than the two
detectives, and partly because he was unaware of Gugliemi’s existence.
So soon as he found that the two large men had fallen out of the procession, he
went on to his
appointment by a direct
and normal route, in ignorance
of the
fact that Duodecimo was still on his heels.

The return from Reading had
presented no serious
difficulty to a man of
the Saint’s ingenuity and brass neck,
although he had
known quite well that by the following
morning
there would be patrols of hawk-eyed men watch
ing
for him at every entrance to London. In a suit which had not been improved by
the previous night’s soaking,
and which he had deliberately made no effort to
smarten
up, he had interviewed the proprietor
of a garage and
spun his yarn. He
was an ex-serviceman down on his luck;
he
had been a haulage contractor, and a run of unsuccess
ful speculations had forced him to sell up his
business;
now a windfall had come his
way in the shape of a trans
port job
that was worth twenty-five pounds to him if he
could only find the means
to carry it out. And he secured
the truck
that he wanted, and the loan of a suit of overalls
as well, and so drove
boldly into London under the very
noses of
the men who were waiting for him at the Chiswick
end of the Great West Road, with Jill Trelawney
under a tarpaulin in the back. And after that, it
had been
a childishly simple matter
to smuggle her stealthily into the studio at dead of night; where he had
indicated a
cupboard plentifully
stocked with unperishable foods,
and
marooned her. There he visited her frequently, to
report news and replenish the larder—that
morning, as a matter of fact, he carried a dozen kippers, a loaf of bread,
half a pound of butter, and two dozen eggs with
him in an
attache case.

She met him at the door.

“Bless you,” she
said. “If you hadn’t come to-day, I
think
I should have blown up in hysterics. You’ve no idea
what
it is to be stuck indoors with nothing to do but read and eat for twenty-four
hours a day.”

Simon set up the attache
case on an easel which had
never carried a canvas.

“And I’ve only been away since the night
before last,”
he said. “The girl’s
starting to love me, that’s what it is.”

She offered him a
cigarette, and took one herself.

“What’s been
happening?”

“Nothing much.
Teal’s been in again. Started by threat
ening,
got the bird, tried to be cunning, got the bird,
tried
to be friendly, got the bird, tried to bribe me, got the
bird, and went home. Now he’s going to retire and start
a poultry farm on that capital. Policemen disguised as
gentlemen still follow me everywhere——
”

“How can you be certain
you’ve shaken them off?”

“When I can’t hear
their boots squeaking. I know I’m
at least three
blocks in the lead. Oh, and Records Office
has
been burgled.”

She looked down at him in
his chair.

“What’s that?”

“Burgled. Feloniously
entered, and important secret
papers unlawfully
abstracted from. Jill Trelawney, dossier
of,
subsection M 3879 xxi
(
b
)….
Incidentally, that’s an exaggeration. Give the police some credit. The
bur
glary theory was discarded after the first five
minutes, as
a matter of fact, and the crime is now
held to have been
an inside job, carried out by some
corrupt official in the
pay of the Saint.”

“When was this?”

“Night before
last.”

“When you were
here?”

“Exactly. My alibi is
perfect.”

“You left at
midnight?”

“Not of my own free
will.”

She smiled.

“But you said you had
an appointment?”

“I did.”

“Did you have an
appointment?”

“Did I say I had?
Jill, I won’t be cross-examined. You
must keep that for
your American boy friend, when you’ve
hooked him. I had to
see a man in Camden Town about a
second-hand Pomeranian,
and he sold me a pup. How’s
that?”

Jill smiled again. Then
she pointed to a litter of news
papers on a side table.

“This is the first
I’ve heard about that Records Office
affair,” she
said, “and I’ll swear the rest of the world is as
much
in the dark as I am.”

“It is—mostly.”

“Then how do you know
anything about it?”

“I have secret sources
of information,” said the Saint.

He yawned monstrously. His
head settled lazily back
against a cushion, and his
eyes closed.

Jill looked at him for a
few seconds. Then—

“Simon!”

“Hullo,” sighed
the Saint, starting up.

“What’s the matter
with you?” she demanded.

“Sorry,” said
the Saint. “I’ve had hardly any sleep for
the
last couple of nights, and I’m dead tired.”

“What have you been
doing?”

Simon stretched himself.

“Jill,” he said,
“you ought to have more faith in me. I
haven’t
been on the tiles. I’ve been darn near them,
though—there
was a nasty bit of drain-pipe work on the
way, and one hideous
moment when I thought the gutter
was going
to come to pieces in me ‘and. But it turned out
all right, though I did some damage to the ivy—”

“You didn’t break into Scotland
Yard?”

“Who said I
did?” asked the Saint, opening wide, child
like
eyes of innocent astonishment.

The girl came over and sat
on the arm of his chair. In
her plain blue frock,
with her lovely face innocent of the make-up which it never needed, she might
have posed for
a picture that would have made that
studio famous, if
Simon Templar had been an artist; and the Saint admired her
frankly.

“That American boy is
going to have a busy life bumping off aspiring co-respondents some day,”
he murmured
idly.

“What were you
doing—on drain pipes?”

“Birds-nestin’.”

“Simon!”

“All right, teacher.
If you want to know, I’m going into
the plumbing trade,
and I wanted to do my studies on
the cheap.”

She stood up impatiently;
and Simon laughed, and
pulled her down again by a
hand which he had not
released.

Absent-mindedly, he kissed
the hand.

“Thank you.”

“Not at all,”
said the Saint politely. “Look here, will
you
believe me if I swear that Scotland Yard was robbed
the
night before last, and I didn’t do my drain-piping till
last night—or rather the small hours of this morning?”

She looked him puzzledly
in the eyes.

“Yes,” she said,
“I will. But what are you getting at?”

The Saint grinned.

“Then hold on,”
he said, “because your faith in my
word
is going to get a shock.”

He slipped a hand into
his breast pocket and brought it
out with a heavy envelope.

“Take a look. No
charge for inspection.”

She turned the envelope
over. It was not sealed. Turn
ing back the flap, she drew out a thick bundle
of papers
and unfolded them.

At the sight of the first
one, her face changed. Then she
glanced rapidly through the rest. She turned to
the Saint
with a frown on her eyebrows and a
half-smile on her
lips.
  

“You—blighter!”

“I told you your faith
would take a toss.”

“But why not tell me right away?”

“Tell you what?”

The innocence of the
Saint’s wide blue eyes was blind
ing.

“Why not tell me at
once that you’d bust the Records
Office?” she said.

“Because,” said
the Saint blandly, “it wouldn’t have
been
precisely true. I’m always very particular about tell
ing
the precise truth,” he said virtuously.

“It’s either true, or
it isn’t——
”

“Talking of
macaroons,” said the Saint hurriedly, “have
you noticed the last
sheet?”

She looked.

“It’s blank.”

“A valuable
curiosity. Once upon a time some person
or
persons whom we will call unknown unlawfully ob
tained
private papers from the files of Scotland Yard. In place of said papers, the
said person or persons left an
equivalent number of blank sheets. The blank
sheet you
hold in your hand is a specimen of
the same. Very
interesting.”

She stared.

“One of the sheets that were left in the
file?”

“No. An identical
sheet, out of the block from which
the sheets left at the Yard were taken.
Now here”—the
Saint dived into another
pocket—“is one of the sheets that
were
left at the Yard. If you compare the two—”

Jill Trelawney took the
second sheet in her hand.

She said breathlessly:
“But how the——
”

Simon Templar smiled seraphically.

“My spies are
everywhere,” he said. “I have resources
at
which you cannot even guess. Excuse me.”

He took all the papers out
of her hand, restored them
to the envelope, and replaced the envelope in
his pocket.

The girl put a hand on his
shoulder.

“You’re playing some
clever game,” she said. “I want to know what it is.”

The Saint tapped his
pocket.

“There are papers
here,” he said, “which cannot be
duplicated.
They are the only genuine dromedary’s
drawers. There is,
for instance, the original letter giving
warning of an impending
raid, written on Scotland Yard
notepaper on
the typewriter which was in your father’s
office, which went part of the way towards substantiating
the charges against your father. There is
evidence which cannot be taken again. And there are details of the case
which, without these papers, nobody might
remember, after all this time. Small details, but important to some
people. If, for instance, the chief commissioner
should
for any reason decide to set up a fresh inquiry into the
circumstances of your father’s dismissal ——
”

“Why should he do
that?”

“Isn’t that what you
want?”

She did not answer.

“Isn’t that what the
Angels of Doom were for?”

“Yes,” said
Jill, almost in a whisper, “that’s what they
were
for—originally.”

“To wipe the noses of the guys who framed
Papa because they couldn’t buy him. Exactly.”

“And that’s
all,” said Jill huskily. “That’s all they ever
did. There was Waldstein and Essenden. Essenden made
some sort of confession—but Essenden’s dead, and no one
would credit my evidence and yours. And it was the same
with Waldstein. I’m beginning to think that there’s no
chance of doing anything but take revenge.”

“Waldstein and
Essenden,” said the Saint—”Numbers
One
and Two. There’s still Number Three; it’s always
third
time lucky, lass.”

“Are we going to do
any better there?”

“We ought to, after
all the practice we’ve had. If you
keep your heart up,
old girl——
”

She raised her head.

“I still don’t
know,” she said, “why you should be in
this
with me.”