The Saint Meets His Match by Leslie Charteris

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 con clusion of his last
speech, “you’ll have to consider your self
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 some thing in the
dark. Then a crack of light sprang into exist ence
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 detec tives 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 hesi tated, 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 amus ing 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