Enter the Saint by Leslie Charteris

own initiative. After a second’s indecision, Tremayne realized that there was only one thing to do. If Hayn and his men were already in the flat, he must just blind in and hope for the best; if they had not yet arrived, no harm would be done.
    He went straight into the building, and on the way up the stairs he met Hayn and two other men coming down. There was no time for deliberation or planning a move in advance. “You’re the birds I’m looking for,” Tremayne rapped, barring the way. “I’m Inspector Hancock, of Scotland Yard, and I shall arrest you-“
    So far he got before Hayn lashed out at him. Tremayne ducked, and the next instant there was an automatic in his hand.
    “Back up those stairs to the flat you’ve just left,” he ordered, and the three men retreated before the menace of his gun.
    They stopped at the door of the flat, and he told Hayn to ring. They waited. “There seems no reply,” said Hayn sardonically.
    “Ring again,” Tremayne directed grimly.
    Another minute passed. “There can’t really be anyone at home,” Hayn remarked.
    Tremayne’s eyes narrowed. It was something about the tone of Hayn’s sneering voice… .
    “You swine!” said Tremayne through his teeth. “What have you done with her?”
    “With whom?” inquired Hayn blandly.
    “With Gwen Chandler!”
    Tremayne could have bitten his tongue off as soon as the words were out of his mouth. That fetal, thoughtless impetuosity which was always letting him down! He saw Hayn suddenly go tense, and knew that it was useless to try and bluff further.
    “So you’re a Saint?” said Hayn softly.
    “Yes, I am!” Tremayne let out recklessly. “And if you scabs don’t want me to plug you full of holes-“
    He had been concentrating on Hayn, the leader, and so he had not noticed the other men edging nearer. A hand snatched at his gun, and wrenched. … As Dicky Tremayne swung his fist to the man’s jaw, Hayn dodged behind him and struck at the back of his head with a little rubber truncheon… .
    Chapter XII
JERRY STANNARD never understood how he managed to contain himself until one o’clock. Much less did he understand how he waited the further half-hour which he gave Dicky Tremayne for grace. Perhaps no other man in the world but Simon Templar could have inspired such a blind loyalty. The Saint was working some secret stratagem of his own, Stannard argued, and he had to meet Tremayne for reasons appertaining to the Saint’s tactics. In any case, if Gwen had left when she telephoned, he could not have reached the flat before she had gone-and then he might only have blundered into the police trap that she had tried to save him from. But it all connected up now-Gwen’s Laserre story, and what Stannard himself knew of Hayn, and more that he suspected-and the visions that it took only a little imagination to conjure up were dreadful.
    When half-past one came, and there was still no sign of Tremayne, the suspense became intolerable. Stannard went to the telephone, and fruitlessly searched London over the wire for Simon Templar. He could learn nothing from any of the clubs or hotels or restaurants which he might have frequented, nor was he any more successful with his flat. As for Dicky Tremayne, Stannard did not even know him by sight-he had simply been told to leave his card with a page, and Tremayne would ask for him.
    It was after two o’clock by that time, and Tremayne had not arrived. He tried to ring up Gwen Chandler’s flat, but after an interminable period of ringing, the exchange reported “No reply.”
    Jerry Stannard took a grip on himself. Perhaps that emergency was the making of him, the final consolidation of the process that had been started by the Saint, for Stannard had never been a fighting man. He had spoken the truth when he told Templar that his weakness was lack of “guts.” But now he’d got to act. He didn’t know nearly everything about Hayn, but he knew enough not to want to leave Gwen Chandler with