The Saint Meets His Match (36 page)

Have
taken Trelawney and Templar. Come down
at
once.

The message had been signed
with the name of the
chief commissioner, and it
had been sent from Guild
ford at nine o’clock. An
address was given at the end
of the message.

It had taken Teal a whole
ninety minutes to read between the lines of that simple statement, and, even
so,
when he thought it over afterwards at his leisure, he
was
not disposed to consider himself slow on the uptake.

Chapter XIII

HOW
  
SIMON
  
TEMPLAR
   
SURRENDERED,

AND
 
CHIEF
 
INSPECTOR
 
TEAL
 
WAS
 
NOT

HELPFUL

E
VERY
light in the house seemed to be on when Cullis ar
rived at the gate of the little garden. It stood in a dark
side road; and, so far as he could make out, it was one
of those picturesque places often to be found in country
byways which modern enterprise has taken and improved
without damaging the picture—a small, two-storied house
with outside beams and a gabled roof, and an atmosphere of comfortable
serenity about it which seemed about to be belied that night.

He went up the short path
and mounted a couple of
steps to the front door.
His hand was actually on the bell when he noticed that the door was not
completely closed,
and with a slight frown he pushed it
open and stepped
into the hall.

“Is that you,
Cullis?”

The voice came down from the top of the stairs
and
startled him, though he recognized it at
once as that of
the chief commissioner.

“Yes, sir.”

“Come along up, will you?”

Cullis mounted the stairs. At the top he found
a small
landing, and on the landing was the
chief commissioner
with an automatic
pistol in his hand.

“You got my message? Good. I’m glad to see
you.”

“Where are they?”
was Cullis’s first question.

“In there.” The
chief commissioner jerked his thumb
at a closed door.
“I ran them to earth here, and here I
was
stuck. They’ve locked the door on the inside, but they
can’t
get out through the window, because it’s barred.
They’ve
been working away on the bars, but they haven’t
been
able to get out yet. They can’t get out through the
door,
because I’m waiting for them here. But they’re
armed
themselves, and I didn’t feel like committing suicide by trying to force my way
in alone.”

“But are you alone,
sir?.”

The commissioner nodded.

“Of course I
am,” he said testily. “That’s how I got
stuck.
If you can tell me a way for one man to guard an
inside
door and an outside window at the same time I’ll be glad to hear it.”

Cullis made a movement
towards the door, and the
chief reached out and
jerked him back.

“I should stay where
you are,” he said. “They’ve had
one or two pot shots at
me through the door as it is, and
you
mightn’t be so lucky.”

He pointed to three bullet holes neatly drilled
through
the woodwork.

“Couldn’t you get to
the telephone?” asked Cullis.

“There is no
telephone.”

“Then how did you send
that telegram?”

“That was a bit of
luck. I picked them up in Guildford and heard them give the address to a taxi
driver at the
station. So I waited to send off that
wire before I followed
along here… .
Listen!”

Cullis listened and heard, inside the locked
room, the
rasp and tinkle of metal.

“They’re still trying to break through
those bars,” said
the chief
commissioner, “but I don’t think they’ll get
out that way in a hurry.”

Cullis pulled out his cigarette case.

“How did it all happen?” he asked.

“I got a squeal. It
came from a man named Pinky
Budd, who was one of the
old Angels. He came up to my
house last night and said
he’d run into Trelawney at
Guildford. He was hard up, and tried to get
some money
out of her, but she gave him the
air. Budd felt nastier
and nastier about that all the way home, and when
he got
to London he’d made up his mind to
squeal. But when
he found me all he could say was that he’d gathered
that Trelawney and the Saint were living near Guildford, and
also that they were coming up to town on a rush
visit to
day. So I went down to
Guildford and spent half the day
in
the station watching all the trains until they ar
rived.”

“Without a word to
anyone?”

“There’s been too
much inefficiency on this case already. I forget how many times that man
Templar has
slipped the men who are always
supposed to be watching
him. I was getting a bit tired of it, and when
this squeal came through I made up my mind to settle the thing my
self.”

“And then you followed them down
here——”

The chief accepted a
cigarette.

“And even then it
wasn’t all plain sailing,” he said. “I
saw
the lights go on upstairs, and thought it was going to be easy, went in through
a French window on the
ground floor—and found a
man waiting for me. Duodeci
mo Gugliemi! You remember,
the man who should have
been deported the other
day.”

Cullis nodded.

“I got the order
postponed. I was thinking the same
thing as you about
the men that Templar was always
shaking off
,
and I
wondered if someone who looked less
like a detective might be able to do
more.”

“Instead of
which,” said the commissioner grimly, “he
appears
to have joined up with them. Anyway, there he
was,
loading a gun when I walked in. Fortunately I’d
been
very quiet about it, and he didn’t hear me at first.
His
back was towards me, and I got quite close before
something
must have made him look round. The gun
was
in his hand, but he’d still got the magazine out and it wasn’t much use to him.
He let out a yell and heaved it at my head, but I ducked and caught him one
behind the ear with the butt of mine. That settled him, but the
alarm was raised. I sprinted out into the hall and saw a
skirt whisking round the top of the stairs. Trelawney
can’t have had her gun on her at the moment, otherwise
it might have been quite a different story. As it was, this
door slammed just as I reached the landing, and I
heard
the lock turn as I went at it with my shoulder. Next
minute a bullet came through a panel an inch from my
ear, and I
took cover. But I’d got them both in there to
gether,
which was a bit of luck, and the best thing I
could do was to stand guard here and hope you’d get
a train as soon as my telegram arrived.”

“And what about
Gugliemi?”

“He’s still
downstairs, unless he’s woken up and sloped
off. I’ve had to keep
one eye on the stairs all the time in
case he
tried to shove in his oar again, but there hasn’t
been a sound. As a matter of fact, he’s probably
still dreaming. When I hit him, I hit him hard. Since you’re here, I think
you’d better go down and see if there’s any sign of him before we do anything
else. You brought a
gun, of course?”

Cullis tapped his pocket.

“I shouldn’t have
come without one,” he said and went
down
the stairs at once.

In the room below, which
the chief commissioner had
indicated, Cullis found
the Italian sitting on the floor
with his head in his hands. Certainly trie man
was awake
—Cullis heard him groan.

“Here, you!”

Cullis took him by the
collar and yanked him to his
feet, and Gugliemi turned a
white scared face to his.

“Signor,” he wailed, “it was an
accident——”

“What was?”
snarled Cullis. “Your double-crossing
me?”

“I do not understand——
”

Cullis thrust the trembling
man roughly into a chair.

“You know quite well
what I mean,” he said, and the
first brutal
savagery of his voice had calmed down to
something
worse—quiet, frozen ferocity. “Do you remem
ber
the last time you saw me?”

“Yes, sair.”

“You were to find
this girl Trelawney and get rid of
her. That’s what I
promised you a hundred pounds and
a clear way out of
England for. I didn’t tell you to turn
round
and join her gang—you rat!”

“I can explain,
sair.”

“Can you?” said
Cullis, and his pale eyes never left
the Italian’s face.
“I don’t think you can explain in any way that will satisfy me. You’re a
traitor, and I have a
way with traitors.”

“But, if you will
listen, sair——
”

“Be quiet!”

Cullis dropped the words
like two flakes of red-hot
metal. He had been jumpy
enough earlier in the evening,
but now he was master of
himself, and there was no hu
manity in his face.

He pointed to the floor
where Gugliemi’s gun, with the
magazine beside it, still
lay.

“You see that?” said Cullis.

Gugliemi nodded dumbly.

“You were loading it when the commissioner
came in.
When I came in just now you had
woken up and finished
loading it, and
you were waiting for me. I had to shoot
you in self-defense. Do you understand? It will be quite
simple for me to put the magazine in the gun and
put
the gun in your hand when you
have finished with your
treacherous
life.”

His finger was tightening
on the trigger even as he
spoke. Gugliemi could see
the whitening of the knuckle,
and his eyes bulged wide
with horror. Cullis saw the
man’s mouth open for a
scream and grinned savagely.

But the shot he heard did
not come from his own gun.
It came muffled through the
ceiling above him, and a
second
 
report followed a moment later. Then the
chief
called, rather huskily:

“Cullis!”

Cullis cursed under his
breath. His plan could not
be put into execution
then: it was too late for his ex
planation to hold water now. Another pretext
must be
thought of. But meanwhile——

He caught Gugliemi by the
lapels of his coat and pulled
him towards him. Reversing
his gun with a swift move
ment, he struck callously.
…

As the man crumpled to the
floor at his feet, Cullis
heard the commissioner call his name again.

He raced up the stairs. At the top he found the
chief leaning against the wall with one hand clutched to his
shoulder.

“They got me,” said the chief
gruffly. “I heard them
talking and I
went closer to listen. Then a shot through
the door. But I fired back, and I think I hit something.”

Cullis listened, and
inside the room he heard a stifled
groan. Then,
through the door, Simon Templar spoke:

“We’re
surrendering,” he said.

The key grated in the
lock, and the door opened. The
Saint stepped out, holding
his gun, butt foremost, at
arm’s length in front of
him. His blue eyes swept the
assistant commissioner
with cool contempt as Cullis took
the weapon and
dropped it into his pocket.

“Jill’s hit,”
said the Saint. “That was a lucky shot for
you.”

Cullis went in. He found himself in a small
bedroom,
and a glance at the barred window
showed him that the
prisoners had
been well on the way to making the gap big
enough to squeeze through. Then his eyes fell on the
bed, and he saw Jill Trelawney lying there with a
red stain spreading on her white blouse.