"I heard her moving about overhead a little while ago."

He waited a moment, as though listening.

"Your ears are better than mine," he said, and looked at her warningly. "Do exactly as I told you, and don't try to double-cross me. You mightn't succeed. Good-evening."

The door closed behind him, and she could hear him moving across the hall.

For a moment she hesitated.

Then she crossed the room swiftly and pulled out the drawer of the writing bureau. She felt in the cavity and tugged. When she straightened up there was a small automatic pistol in her hand. She went to the windows at the front, snapping back the jacket of the gun as she did so and pushing over the safety catch.

The heavy curtains swung away as she jerked at the cord that controlled them, and she saw the man hurrying down the drive. Without looking round, he turned and went down the road to the left, and Agatha Girton opened the French windows and stepped out on to the terrace. The range was about twenty-five yards, but the hedge at the bottom of the garden was a low one, and his body could be seen above it from the waist upward.

Miss Girton raised the gun and extended her arm slowly and steadily, as she might have done in a Bisley competition. At that moment the man turned to the right again into a field, and so his back was squarely presented to her.

The echoes of the two rapid shots rattled clamorously in the still air of the evening. She saw the man fling up his arms, stagger, and fall out of sight.

Suddenly she found Patricia beside her.

"Who was it?" gasped the girl, white-faced and shaking. "What have you done?"

"Killed him, I hope," said Agatha Girton coolly.

She was standing on tiptoe, gazing out into the gathering dusk, trying to see the result other shooting. But there was the hedge at the end of the Manor garden and the hedge that lined the field into which the man had passed, both hiding the more distant ground from her, and she could see no sign of him.

"Stay here while I go and see," she commanded.

She walked quickly down the drive, and the automatic still swung in her hand. Patricia saw her enter the field.

The man was lying on the grass, sprawled out on his back. His hat had fallen off, and he stared at the sky with wide eyes. Miss Girton put down her gun and bent over him, feeling for the beating of his heart...

Patricia heard the woman's shrill scream', arid then she saw Agatha Girton standing up, swaying, with her hands over her face.

The girl's fingers closed over tlie butt of the automatic in her pocket as she raced down the drive and out into the road. Miss Girton was still standing up with her face in her hands, and Patricia saw with a sudden dread that blood was streaming down between the woman's fingers. There was no trace of the man.

"He was shamming," gasped Agatha Girton. "I put down my gun — he caught me — he had a knife...."

"What's he done?"

Miss Girton did not answer at once. Then she pointed to a clump of trees and bushes in the far corner of the field, which was not a big one.

"He took the gun and ran that way — there's a sunken lane beyond."

"I'll go after him," said Patricia, without stopping to think of the consequences, but Agatha Girton caught her arm in a terrible grip.

"Don't be a little fool, child!" she grated. "That's death.... I lost my head.... All he said was: 'Don't do it again!'"

The woman's hands were dripping red, and Patricia had to lead her back to the house and up the stairs.

Agatha Girton went to the basin and filled it. She bathed her face, and the water was hideously dyed. Then she turned so that the girl could see, and Patricia had to bite back an involuntary cry of horror, for Miss Girton's forehead was cut to the bone in the shape of a capital T.

Chapter XIV

CAPTAIN PATRICIA

"He branded me — the Tiger — " Agatha Girton's voice was pitched hysterically. "By God .. ."

Her face had become the face of a fiend. Hard and grim it always was — now, with smears of blood from brow to chin and her hair straggling damply over her temples, it was devilish.

"I'll get even for this one day.... I'll make him crawl.... Red-hot irons are too good for that — "

"But, Aunt Agatha — "

Patricia was full of questions, and it seemed the right moment to let some of them off, but Miss Girton turned on her like a wild beast, and the girl recoiled a step from the blaze of fury in those smouldering eyes.

"Go away."

"Was that the man who's been blackmailing you?"

"Go away."

"And is he the Tiger?"

Miss Girton took a pace forward and pointed to the door.

"Leave me, child," she said in a'terrible voice. "Go back to your Saint before I forget — If you aren't outside in a second I'll throw you out."

She meant it. Patricia had never seen and hoped she would never see again a woman's face so contorted with passion. There was nothing to do.

"Very well," said Patricia steadily. "I'll go I hope you won't be sorry."

"Go, then."

The girl flung up her head and marched to the door.

Go back to Simon? She would. There wasn't much risk about walking over to the Pill Box, she thought, and the feel of the automatic in her pocket gave her all the courage she needed. The Saint wouldn't be expecting her, but he could hardly object, considering the news she was bringing him. It had been an eventful afternoon — more eventful than he could possibly have foreseen — and, since there was nothing more that she could achieve on her own, it was essential that he should be provided with all the news up to date.

The time had passed quickly. It was twenty to seven when she set out: she came in sight of the Pill Box toward a quarter past, having taken it easy, and by that time it was nearly dark.

The sea shone like dull silver, reflecting all the last rays of twilight, and from the top of the cliff Patricia strained to see the ship they had observed that morning. She thought she could make out the tiniest of black dots on the horizon, but she would not have sworn to it. That was the ship that the Saint and Orace and she were scheduled to capture by themselves, and the monumental audacity of the scheme made her smile. But it was just because the scheme was so impossible that the prospect of attempting to carry it out did not bother her at all: it was the sort of reckless dare-devil thing that people did in books and films, the forlorn hope that always materialized in time to provide a happy ending. She could think of no precedent for it in real life, and therefore the only thing to go by was the standard of fiction — according to which it was bound to succeed. But she wondered if any man living except the Saint — her Saint — would have had the imagination to think of it, the courage to work out the idea in all seriousness, the heroic foolhardiness to try and bring it off, and the personality to captain the adventure. She and Orace were nothing but his devoted lieutenants: the whole fate of the long hazard rested on the Saint's broad shoulders.

With a shrug and a smile that showed her perfect teeth — a smile of utter fearlessness that Simon would have loved to see — the girl turned away and strolled across to the Pill Box. There was a light in the embrasure which she knew served for a window in the dining-drawing-smoking-sitting room, but when she peeped in she saw only Orace laying dinner. She went in and he swung round at the sound other footsteps.

She was amused but perplexed to see his face light up and then fall again as he recognized her.

"Where's Mr. Templar?" she asked, and he almost glared at her.

"Baek ut art pas'sevin," he growled.

He picked up his tray and stalked off toward the kitchen, and the girl stared after him in puzzlement. Orace, though a martinet, was only actually rude to Tiger Cubs and detectives: she had already seen through his mask of ferocity and discovered the kindly humanist underneath. On the last occasion of his escorting her home his manner had been even paternal, for Simon Templar's friends were Grace's friends. But this, now, was a ruffled Orace.