“Tush!” murmured the Saint. “I can’t have dotted you a very stiff one, honey, but it certainly hasn’t improved your temper!”
He waited, listening, but he could make nothing of the mutter of voices. Then came the muffled sounds of someone running across the lawn, followed by the dull thud of a wooden bar being thrown back. Then a clinking of metal.
Suddenly there was a snuffling whine, which sank again into a more persistent snuffing. The whine was taken up in three other different keys. Abruptly, the fierce deep-throated baying of a great hound rent the night air. Then there was only a hoarse whimpering.
“Damn their eyes!” said Templar softly. “This is where, item, one Saint, slides off in the direction of his evening bread and milk.”
Even then he was fumbling for the bolts which held the heavy main gates. He had one back and was wrestling with the other when a dog whimpered eagerly only a few yards away. The Saint tore desperately at the metal, thanking his gods for the darkness of the night, and the bolt shot back. At the same instant there was a thunderous knocking on the door, and a vociferous barking replaced the whining of blood-hounds temporarily distracted from the scent.
“To be continued in our next, I think,” grinned the Saint.
He pulled back the heavy door.
“So glad you’ve come, brothers,” remarked the Saint in loud and hospitable accents. “We’re hunting a real live burglar. Care to lend the odd paw?”
“Quietly,” advised a voice.
A blinding beam of light flashed from the hand of the man who had stepped first through the opening. It stabbed at the Saint’s eyes, dazzling him for a moment; then into the ray of it came a hand which held a small automatic pistol with a curious cylindrical gadget screwed to the muzzle. The Saint knew the gadget for a silencer, and there was no doubt whatever about the accuracy of the aim.