"I never was the hell of a policeman," said the Saint apologetically. "Scotland Yard will probably survive without me — though I can't help thinking I might have pepped them up a heap if I'd stayed on."
For that one moment Simon Templar was the central figure, and there was not an eye on Cullis. And then the Saint, out of the tail of his eye, saw Cullis's right hand leap up, and shouted a warning even as he turned. But his voice was drowned by the roar of Cullis's automatic, and he saw the chief commissioner's gun drop to the floor, and saw a red stain suddenly splashed on the chief commissioner's wrist.
He raised his own gun, but the hammer clicked on a dud cartridge, and he threw himself down on the floor as Cullis's automatic barked again.
He heard the bullet sing over his head and smack into the wall behind him with a tinkle of glass from a smashed picture, and spun his legs round in a flailing semicircle that aimed at Cullis's ankles. Even so, he did not see how Cullis could possibly miss with his next shot…
He missed his kick… but he had forgotten Jill Trelawney. As he scrambled up, he saw both her hands locked upon Cullis's wrist, and Cullis's third shot went up into the ceiling. Then he himself also had hold of the wrist, and he twisted at it savagely. The gun went to the floor, and the Saint kicked it away.
He did not see Cullis snatch up the bronze statuette from the table behind him, but if he had not turned his head — more by intuition than by calculation — it would certainly have cracked his skull. As it was, the glancing blow half stunned him and sent him reeling, with his hold on Cullis's wrist broken. Jill had let the man go as soon as the Saint grappled with him.
As he climbed dizzily to his feet, with his head singing, and wiped the blood out of his eyes, he saw the chief commissioner groping blasphemously for one of the fallen guns with his sound left hand — saw the open French windows, and Jill Trelawney vanishing through them.
"Come back, you fool!" yelled the Saint huskily.
But she could not have heard him. She was gone, and he followed, staggering.
There was a patter of footsteps down the gravel path along the side of the house, and he saw her white blouse as a pale blur in the darkness.