Meet the Tiger

by Leslie Charteris

It was not long before other features of the landscape showed up. Further along, to the left, was another door and the footprints proved that that room had been used fairly recently. And at the end of the passage, under the window, stood a table with a square box on it.

The Saint looked long and hard at that box, and suddenly he had an inspiration. Bending down, he felt along the ground by the door. Presently he found wires, and a little research disclosed the fact that they ran up the corridor—towards the table and the square box. A little more investigation brought him to the metal contacts which closed the electric circuit. One of them he found screwed to the inside of the door, low down; the other projected from a terminal fixed to the floor. On the strength of that, Simon began to tiptoe down the passage, though he did not relax his vigilance for an instant. He came to the table and the box, and examined them with interest. The wires he had found led to terminals on the box, and from the front of it protruded a shining steel tube.

“Very ingenious, my Tiger,” was the Saint’s unspoken comment. “When I open the door, I get pipped. And I didn’t, after all. So sorry!”

However, just in case the arrangement had any more shots left, and in case he should have to leave hurriedly by the door, he slewed the box round so that the gun barrel pointed into the wall, and disconnected the wires. Then he took stock of the position again.

The discovery and circumnavigation of that little booby-trap didn’t dispose of the possibility of encountering others—in fact, his estimate of the Tiger forced him to realise that the next step he took might set some other equally neat little contrivance working. And if not that, there might still be Tiger Cubs in the building, already warned of his arrival by Booby Trap Number One going off, and knowing that it hadn’t functioned quite according to plan. The amusing thought that they might be in some fear of his fighting record struck the Saint, and he chuckled quietly. Perhaps they felt confident of having him safely trapped, and were just biding their time to strike him down when the operation could be performed without risk to themselves. Well, it wouldn’t hurt them to keep on hoping.

But the job looked just as prickly now that he was inside the Old House as it had been when he was outside. However gingerly he opened the next door, there might be men inside the room waiting to open fire as soon as he showed up in the doorway. Yet the Saint was no piker; and, having got so far, he intended to go the rest of the journey. And the only course he could see was to repeat the tactics he had used when entering the building in the first place. So, without further hesitation, he got on with it.

There was the door with footprints leading to and from it, and that seemed the most promising. There were also footprints outside the swing door nearest to him, but they were less encouraging, for at that point there was only a double set, whereas the other seemed to have been fairly popular. And the Saint’s philosophy laid down the law that if you must stroll into the home-sweet-home of a bunch of cut-throats you might as well do the thing in style. Wherefore the Saint went down the passage and halted by the most dangerous-looking door.

There was a handle on that door. He turned it and opened a couple of inches. Then, keeping well away, he set his toe against the wood, braced himself, and kicked. The door opened wide, but there was no muffled report. That short history at least wasn’t going to repeat itself. And, accordingly, the only thing to do was to march straight in.

Simon went—in a catlike spring that carried him round the corner and set his back against the wall again in a flash. But once more there was no response. Simon had jerked the door shut behind him as before, and one foot was against it so that nobody could open it and sneak out without his knowing it. But only stillness answered his listening, and the room was so dark that he could see nothing. He cursed himself for not having an electric torch. But it was far too late to remedy that, and therefore his only hope was to strike a match—and hope that his concerted speed of eye and brain and hand would be great enough to overcome the handicap he would have to create for himself. If there was anyone in the room, he would be able to see the Saint before the Saint saw him. But the Saint had taken longer chances than that, and his nerves were getting just a shade raw. Simon Templar was afraid of nothing that he could see and hit back at, but this creeping around, seeing no sign of the enemy and yet continually threatened by him, was turning into a joke that the Saint didn’t feel inclined to laugh at.

Still gripping Anna, he fished a box of matches out of his pocket and struck one quickly, holding it behind his head so that the flare of it would not dazzle him.