The Saint Meets His Match by Leslie Charteris Page B

a tale of
woe that took him straight to an old acquaintance.
    Mr. Assistant
Commissioner Cullis, of Scotland Yard, disliked having to
interview casual callers. Whenever it was
possible he evaded the job. To secure an appointment to see him was, to a private individual, a
virtual impossibility. Cullis would decide that the affair in question was either so unimportant that it could be adequately
dealt with by a subordinate, or so
important that it could only be adequately coped with by the chief
commissioner, for he was by nature a
retiring man. In this retirement he was helped by his rank; in the days
when he had been a more humble
superintendent, it had not been so easy to avoid personal contact with the general public.
    To this rule, however,
there were certain exceptions, of which Lord Essenden
was one.
    Lord Essenden could
obtain audience with Mr. Assist ant Commissioner Cullis at almost any hour; for
Essen den was an important man, and had
occupied a seat on more than one royal commission. Indeed, it was
largely due to Essenden that Mr. Cullis
held his present appoint ment.
Essenden could not be denied. And so, when Essen den came to Scotland Yard that evening demanding converse with Mr. Cullis, on a day when Mr. Cullis
was feeling more than usually unfriendly towards the whole wide world, he was received at once, when a prime
min ister might have been turned
away unsatisfied.
    He came in, a fussy little
man with a melancholy mous tache, and said, without
preface: “Cullis, the Angels of Doom are
back.”
    He had spoken before he
saw Teal, who was also present, stolidly macerating chicle beside the
commissioner’s desk.
    “What Angels of
Doom?” asked Cullis sourly.
    Essenden frowned.
    “Who is this
gentleman, Cullis?” he inquired. He ap peared
to hesitate over the word “gentleman.”
    “Chief Inspector
Teal, who has taken charge of the case.”
    Cullis performed the
necessary introduction briefly, and Essenden fidgeted into
a chair without offering to shake hands.
    “What angels of what
doom?” repeated Cullis.
    “Don’t be
difficult,” said Essenden pettishly. “You know
what I mean. Jill Trelawney’s gang —— ”
    “There never has been
a gang,” said Cullis. “Trelawney and
Weald and Pinky Budd were the only Angels of Doom.
Three people can’t be called a gang.”
    “There were others—— ”
    “To do the dirty
work. But they weren’t anything.”
    Essenden drummed his finger
tips on the desk in an irritating tattoo.
    “You know what I
mean,” he repeated. “Jill Trelawney’s back, then—if you like that
better. And so is the Saint.”
    “Where?”
    “I came back from
Paris yesterday—— ”
    “And I went to Brixton
last night,” said Cullis annoyingly .
“We do travel about, don’t we? But what’s that got
to do with it?”
    “The Saint was in
Paris—and Trelawney was with him.”
    “That’s better. You
actually saw them?”
    “Not exactly—”
    Cullis bit the end off a
cigar with appalling restraint.
    “Either you saw her
or you didn’t,” he said. “Or do you
mean you were drunk?”
    “I’d had a few
drinks,” Essenden admitted. “Fellow I met
in the bar. He must have been the Saint—I can see it
all now. I’m certain I drank more than whisky. Any way,
I can only remember getting back to my room, and then—I
simply passed out. The next thing I knew was that
the valet was bringing in my breakfast, and I was lying
on the bed fully dressed. I don’t know what the man
must have thought.”
    “I do,” said
Cullis.
    “Anyhow,” said
Essenden, “they’d taken a couple of hundred
thousand francs off me—and a notebook and wallet as well, which were far more
important.”
    Cullis sat up abruptly.
    “What’s that
mean?” he demanded.
    “It was all written up
in code, of course—— ”
    “What was written up
in code?”
    “Some accounts—and
some addresses. Nothing to do with anything in England,
though.”
    The assistant commissioner
leaned back