The Saint Meets His Match (17 page)

Simon leaned against the
mantelpiece with a little
twinkle of amusement in
his eyes.

“Well?”

“In Paris,” said
Teal, “you doped Lord Essenden and
took
a couple of hundred thousand francs off him. Be
fore
that, while acting as a police officer, you abandoned
your
duty and connived at the escape of a woman who’s
wanted
for murder. You can’t go on doing that sort
of
thing, Saint, I’m afraid I shall have to bother you
again.”

“Well?”

The detective’s shoulders
moved in a ponderous shrug.

“The best thing about
you, Templar,” he said, “is that you always come quietly.”

Simon fingered his chin.

“What d’you
mean—‘come quietly’?” he asked, with
childlike
innocence.

“Come for a
walk,” said Teal. “Or, if you like, we’ll
take
a taxi. I’m sorry to have to pull you in at this
hour,
but you were out when I called earlier, and if I
left
it till to-morrow morning you might have gone
away
again.

“And where are we
going to take this walk—or this
taxi drive?”

Mr. Teal blinked. He seemed to find it a
tremendous
effort to keep awake.

“Rochester Row police
station.”

“In Pimlico?”
protested the Saint. “Not that. I’m
only
taken to West End police stations.”

“Not Pimlico,”
said Teal. “Westminster.”

“Worse still,”
said the Saint. “Members of Parliament get taken there.”

Mr. Teal settled his hat,
which, like the traditional
detective, he had not
removed when he entered the flat.

“Coming?” he
inquired lethargically.

“Can’t,” said the Saint.
“Sorry,
 
old
 
dear.”

“Simon Templar,” said Teal, “I
arrest you on a charge
of——
”

“Let’s see it on the
warrant.”

“Which warrant?”

The Saint grinned.

“The warrant for my
arrest,” he said.

“I haven’t got a
warrant.”

“I guessed that. And
how are you going to arrest me
without a warrant?”

“I can take you into
custody——
”

“You can’t,”
said the Saint pleasantly. “I’m behaving
myself.
I’m in my own flat, just about to go to bed like
any
respectable citizen. There’s nothing you can accuse
me
of. What you’re doing, Teal, is to put up a very thin bluff, and I’m calling
the bluff. Laugh that off.”

Teal closed his eyes.

“In Paris——
”

“In Paris,”
said Simon calmly, “I stole two hundred
thousand
francs from Lord Essenden. I admit it. If you
like,
I’ll put it in writing, and you can take it home
with
you to show the chief commissioner. But you can’t
do
anything about it. The hideous crime was commit
ted
on French soil and it’s a matter for the French
police
alone. I’m in England. An Englishman cannot
be
extradited from England. Sorry to disappoint you,
I’m
sure, but you shouldn’t try to put things like that
over
on me.”

“In Birmingham——
”

“In Birmingham,” said the Saint, in
the same equable
manner, “a man known
lately as Stephen Weald and
formerly
as Waldstein was shot by Jill Trelawney. Wheth
er it was in self-defense or not is a matter for the jury
which may or may not try her—I suppose you had
some
sort of a story from Donnell.
However, I did my duty
and arrested
her. I thought I had disarmed her, but in the taxi she produced another gun and
stuck me up. I
was forced to get into
a train with her. Not far north
of London, she forced me to jump out. I
don’t know what
happened after that. I lay
stunned beside the track for several hours ——
”

“What kind of a
gag,” demanded Teal, “are you
trying
to put over?”

The Saint beamed.

“I’m merely giving
you a free sample of my defense,
which will also be the
means of getting you thoroughly
chewed up in the courts if you get nasty, Claud
Eustace,
old corpuscle. The commissioner
should have had my
letter of
resignation, in which I explained that I was
so overcome with shame that I couldn’t face him to
hand it in personally. It was posted the same
evening.
I admit I proved to be the
duddest of all possible dud
policemen,
but my well known desire to save my own
skin at all costs ——
”

Teal spread a scrap of
paper on the table.

“And this—your
receipt to Essenden? I know one of
these pictures,
Templar, but the other——
”

“My wife,” said
the Saint breezily.

“Oh, yes. And when
were you married?”

“Not yet. The tense
is future.”

The detective closed his
eyes again.

“So that’s your
story, is it?”

“And a darn good story it is, too,”
said Simon Templar
complacently.

“And what about this
new home of yours?”

“Since when has it
been illegal for a respectable citizen
to
have a second establishment—or even an alias? …
But
I wouldn’t mind knowing how you located it so
quickly,
all the same.”

“I’ve known about it for months,”
said the detective
sleepily. “When I
drew blank at Upper Berkeley Mews,
I
came straight here.”

The Saint laughed.

“And then you go straight home again.
Teal, that’s too
bad! … But you ought to
have known better, honey, really you ought. Now, are you going to take Uncle’s
advice and have a glass of barley water before
you go, or
do you want to argue some
more?”

For some moments there was
a gigantic silence—on the
part of Chief Inspector Teal. The Saint could
feel the
tremendousness of it; and he was
amused, for he knew exactly where he stood. And in his trouser pockets there
were two iron fists quietly bunched up ready to
prove the
courage of his convictions
if the challenge were of
fered… .

And then Teal opened his
eyes, and his mouth widened
half an inch momentarily.

He nodded.

“You always were a
bright boy,” he said.

“I know,” said
the Saint.

Teal’s smile remained in
position. He hitched his over
coat round, and buttoned a
button that must have had a
tiring day. His
heavy-lidded eyes roved boredly over the
furnishings
of the apartment.

“Sorry you’ve wasted
your time,” said the Saint sympa
thetically.
“Don’t let me keep you any longer if you’re really in a hurry.”

“I won’t,” said
Teal. And then his eyes fell on the chair
where
Jill Trelawney had been sitting.

Simon followed his gaze.

“Been entertaining a
friend?” asked Teal, without a
change of
expression.

“My Auntie
Ethel,” said the Saint blandly. “She left
just
before you came in. Isn’t it a pity? Still, maybe you’ll
be able to meet her another day.”

“How old is this
Auntie Ethel?”

“About fifty,”
said the Saint. “A bit young for you, but
you
might try your luck. I’ll send you her address. She
might
like to see round Rochester Row.”

Teal took his hands out of
his pockets and locomoted
across the room. Only a man
like Teal can possibly be
said to locomote.

This locomotion was
deceptive. It appeared to be very heavy off the mark, and very slow and clumsy
in transit, but actually it was remarkably agile. Teal picked a bag up
from the chair and inspected it soberly.

“Your Auntie Ethel
has a gaudy taste in bags,” he remarked. “How old did you say she
was?”

“About a hundred and
fifty,” said the Saint.

Teal opened the bag and
proceeded to examine the
contents, extracting them
one by one, and laying them on
the table after the
inspection. Lipstick, powder puff,
mirror, comb case,
handkerchief, cigarette case, gold pen
cil,
some visiting cards.

“Princess Selina von
Rupprecht,” Teal read off one of
the visiting cards.
“Where does she come from?”

“Lithuania,” said
the Saint fluently. “I have some very
distinguished
relations in Czecho-Slovakia, too,” he added
modestly.

Teal put the bag down and
turned with unusual brisk
ness.

“I should like to
meet this Princess,” he said.

“Call her
Auntie,” said Simon. “She likes it. But you can’t meet her here
to-night because she’s gone home.”

“She’ll come back for
her bag,” said Teal comfortably.
“I’ll wait. And
while I’m waiting I’d like to see round
some
of the other rooms in this flat.”

Simon Templar pulled
himself off the mantelpiece,
against which he had been
leaning, and looked Teal
deliberately in the eyes.

“You won’t wait,”
he said, “because I happen to want
to
go to bed, and I prefer to see you off the premises first.
And you won’t search this flat, not on any excuse, because
you haven’t a search warrant.”

Teal stood squarely by the
table.

“I have reason to
believe,” he said, “that you’re shelter
ing
a woman who’s wanted for murder.”

“You haven’t a search
warrant,” repeated the Saint.
“Don’t be foolish, Teal. I may be a
suspicious character,
but you’ve got
nothing definite against me, apart from the
little show in Paris, which isn’t your business—nothing in the wide,
wide world. If you try to search this flat I shall
resist you by force. What’s more, I shall throw
you down
the stairs and out into the
street with such violence that
you
will bounce from here to Harrod’s. And if you try to get me for that, the beak
will soak you good and
proper. Once upon a time you might have got away
with it, but not now. The police aren’t so popular these days.
You’d better watch your step.”

“I can get a
warrant,” said Teal, “within two hours.”

“Then get it,”
said the Saint shortly. “And don’t come
in
here again bothering me until you’ve got it in your
pocket.
Good-night.”

He crossed the room and
opened the door, and Teal,
after a few seconds of
frightful hesitation, passed out into
the hall.

Simon opened the front door
for him also; and there
Teal paused on the
threshold.

“You
are
a
bright boy, Saint,” said Teal somnolently.
“Don’t go to bed.
I shall be back with that warrant inside
two
hours.”

“Good-night,”
said the Saint again, and closed the door in the detective’s face.

He came back into the sitting room and found
the girl putting her possessions into her bag.

“I heard,” she
said.

“In five
minutes,” said the Saint, “Teal will have a man
outside this front door to watch the place while he goes
off to get a warrant. Meanwhile——
”

The shrill, sharp scream
of a police whistle sounded in
the street outside, and a
little smile touched Simon Templar’s mouth.

“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