The Saint Meets His Match (37 page)

“It’s only a flesh
wound,” said the Saint, “but it’s good
enough.
You’d better send for a doctor.”

He turned to see the chief
commissioner stuffing a folded handkerchief inside his shirt.

“I’m sorry I didn’t
get a better bead on you,” said the Saint pleasantly.

The chief commissioner
grunted.

“You’d better get her
downstairs, Cullis,” he said. “I’ll go out and find a telephone.
You’re in a better condition
to look after this bunch
than I am.”

But Simon Templar pushed
Cullis unceremoniously
aside and picked Jill Trelawney up in his arms
as lightly
and tenderly as if she had been a
baby. They went down
stairs in
procession to the room where Gugliemi was,
Cullis covering Simon from behind, and the chief com
missioner bringing up the rear. Downstairs, Simon
laid
the girl gently on the sofa, but
when he would have moved away she caught his hand and held him.

The chief commissioner
was looking at the prostrate
Italian.

“He’s moved,” he
said, “so I didn’t kill him.”

“He was waking up
when I came down,” said Cullis.
“When I heard
the. shot and you called me I hadn’t
time to do
anything but knock him on the head again and
leave
him.”

“Well, we’ve got them
all together now. If you’ll watch
them I’ll be getting
along down the road. I think I
noticed some telephone
wires leading to a house about a
hundred yards farther on.”

“Are you sure you’ll
be all right, sir?”

“I’m all right,
Cullis. It’s messed up my shoulder a
bit, but I can make that hundred yards
without any trou
ble. You stay here and keep
your eyes skinned. I’ll be
back as
soon as I can.”

He went out, and they heard
the front door slam.
Presently the gate
clicked… .

And then Cullis turned to
the Saint.

“So this is the end
of your cleverness?”

Simon Templar eyed him
coldly.

“I’m not so
sure,” he said. “I never stop being clever.
And I shouldn’t bet on
this being the last word, if I were you. It may be my last adventure, but there
are so many
possible endings.”

Cullis showed his teeth.

“You’ll get seven
years for this night’s work alone,”
he
said.
         

“And how long do you
think you’ll get, old dear?”
asked the Saint
very gently.

Cullis returned his gaze
stonily.

“I think,” he
said, “that it won’t help you much to
try
that sort of bluff.”

“But suppose,”
said the Saint——“just suppose, sweet
Cullis,
that it wasn’t entirely a bluff. I admit that for the moment you have us under
the lid. of the tureen,
so to speak. But that’s
only a bit of luck: a chance shot
through a door that ought to have missed
both of us by miles. But it was good enough that Jill couldn’t get away
through that window—couldn’t have run for it, even
if we’d come out and put up a fight. And yet,
Cullis, it
mightn’t turn out to be
all jam.”

“How, for
instance?” asked Cullis, as if the idea amused
him.
      

“When your desk was
opened last night——
”

“Yes?”

“Did you go through your papers after the
police had
come?”

“I did.”

“Carefully?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t have
done,” said the Saint. “If you had,
you’d have realized
what we got away with.”

Cullis laughed.
        

“You didn’t have a
chance to get away with anything.
I came into the
room just as she got the secret panel open,
and
she didn’t go back again.”

“I know she didn’t go back,” said the
Saint, swaying
gently on his toes. “But
I did.”

“You?”

“Me. Of course, you
didn’t realize I was there. But
I was—impersonating a
rhododendron in the middle dis
tance. When you followed
Jill outside and shot after her
as she went across the
lawn, I slipped in through the win
dow, took what I
wanted, and slipped out again.”

Cullis’s eyes gleamed.

“And what did you
take?”

“Only this.”

Simon slipped a hand in his
pocket and brought out
his wallet. From the
wallet he took a piece of paper and
unfolded it, holding it up before the
assistant commis
sioner’s eyes. It was a new
five-pound note.

“Recognize it?”
asked the Saint, in that very gentle tone. “Don’t you hear its little
voice chirruping to you
and calling you
Daddy?”

“It means nothing to
me.”

“But it was one of
many which you had tied up in that deed box in your very ingenious desk, my
pet. There must
have been a couple of thousand pounds’
worth all to
gether… . Oh, Cullis, did you
forget what your old
grandmother told you, and
did you let your avarice get
the better of your
caution? You couldn’t bring yourself
to destroy them,
and yet you didn’t dare pay them into
your bank or try to
dispose of them in any other way.”

Cullis
 
stiffened.

“And why do you think
that was?” he asked quietly.

“Because,” said
the Saint deliberately, “the number
of
this note—which was the top one of the bunch I found in your desk—is the very
next number after the last num
ber of the wad which was
taken out of Sir Francis Trelawney’s
safe deposit, and
which was traced back to Waldstein
. And when the
matter comes to be investigated, I
wouldn’t mind
betting that this note will be found to have been drawn out of Waldstein’s bank
at the very
same time!”
 

2

There was a long silence, tensed up almost to
breaking point by the measured tick of a cabinet clock somewhere
outside in the hall. And through that silence the
Saint
lounged at his ease against
the revolving bookcase which he had selected for his support, and his bleak
eyes rested
unwaveringly on the
assistant commissioner’s face. Jill ‘
Trelawney lay still on the settee,
and on the floor Duo
decimo Gugliemi groaned
and rolled over; with his fin
gers twitching; there was no other
movement.

For a space of five or six
taut and significant seconds
… and then a glimmer
of the old Saintly mockery
twinkled back into Simon
Templar’s gaze, and he
laughed.

“Which is all very
unfortunate for you—isn’t it, Alger
non?” he
drawled; and Cullis’s mouth tightened up like
a
steel trap under his moustache.

“I see,” he said
softly.

“Cheers!” said
the Saint. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

He helped himself to a
cigarette from the box on the
table and struck a match.

“So that’s the yarn
you propose to tell, is it?” said
Cullis.

“It is,” said the
Saint tranquilly. “And I think it’s a
damned good yarn, if
you ask me. At any rate, it’ll keep
your
brain ticking over, working out what sort of an
answer you’re going to
make.”

Suddenly Cullis laughed.

“And you really think
anyone will believe you?”

“I don’t know,”
said the Saint. “I shall do my best
to
spread the glad news around, and when I get going
I
have no mean spread. With all the accumulated evi
dence——
”

“What other
evidence?”

“Duodecimo’s, for instance. He has a
little story to tell
of his very own which
ought to cause quite a sensation.”

Cullis sneered.

“A crook lying to
save his skin! Do you think that his
word will have any
weight? With a reputation like
his——
”

“Oh, but he hasn’t
got to rely on his reputation alone,
comrade. There is a very important bit
of corroborative
what’s-it, or
circumstantial how’s-your-father.”

“And what might that
be?”

“I’ll tell you that
later,” said the Saint, “if you remind me. But for the present I’m
just fascinated to hear what fairy tale you think you’re going to tell about
that fiver.”

“Do you really think
you’ll be able to use that against
me?”

“I do.”

“Let me tell
you,” said Cullis, “that you’re going to
be
disappointed. There’s one thing you seem to have for
gotten, but I remember
it quite well. Waldstein himself,
under the
name of Stephen Weald, was at one time a
member of Trelawney’s precious gang. Did you know
that?”

“I did.”

“Then,” said Cullis deliberately,
“what is more natural
than that
you
should have in your possession a five-pound
note which can be traced back to Waldstein’s account?”

The Saint looked at him.
And the Saint smiled, and
shook his head.

“Not good
enough,” he said. “That might possibly
be
made to account for this note which I’ve got here; but will it account for the
others which can probably
still be found somewhere
among your belongings?”

“Which you could have
planted there.”

“That excuse didn’t save Sir Francis
Trelawney,” said
the Saint, cold as a
judge. “Why should you think it
will
save you?”

Their eyes met for a long
while, and then Cullis took a slow step forward. His face had become a mask of
granite.

“I see,” he
said again, very slowly.

“So glad you
appreciate the point,” said the Saint.
“It
is
going to be a bit awkward for you, isn’t it? But it
ought to go a long way towards clearing Sir Francis Tre
lawney’s
name.”

“And who,” said
Cullis, in the same soft voice, “is
going to make a search
of my possessions before I have
time to get
those notes out of the way?”

And the Saint smiled
again, rocking gently on his heels.

“Thank you,” he
said, “for admitting that you have
got
the other notes.”

“And suppose I admit it,” said Cullis
calmly. “You’ve
still got to answer my
question. Who’s going to make
that
search—and prove anything?”

“I might arrange
it,” said the Saint. And he said it so
quietly
and naturally that it was hard to read any blind bluff into the words.

Cullis looked closely at
him, and a little pulse began
to beat in Cullis’s
forehead.

“There’s something
funny about you, Simon Tem
plar——
”

“We are amused,”
said the Saint politely.

“But perhaps,”
said Cullis, “even you couldn’t have prophesied what was going to happen
to you when you’d
told me that story.”

“Tell me.”

“You’re a dangerous
criminal, and your accomplice is
wanted for murder. Seeing
that the game’s up, you’re
going to make one last
desperate effort to beat me and
get away. And in
self-defense I shall have to shoot
you—-“

“Just like you had to shoot
Gugliemi,” said the Saint,
almost in a
whisper; and Cullis went white to the lips.

Then the mask-like
features contorted suddenly.

“How did you know
that?”

“I am a
clairvoyant,” said the Saint easily.

“And yet,” said
Cullis, “the trick is still good
enough——
”

“Not quite good
enough,” said the Saint. And there
was
a sudden swift urgency in his voice, for at that mo
ment
he saw death staring him in the face—death in
Cullis’s pale blue
eyes, and death in the twist of Cullis’s
lips,
and death quivering in Cullis’s right hand. “Not
quite good enough.
Because there’s one more instalment
to my
story—and you’d better hear it before you shoot!”