He did not stay.

He dropped his burden unceremoniously on the floor, and passed out again, locking the door behind him and putting the key in his pocket. Then, certainly, luck was with him, for, in spite of the slight disturbance, none of the household staff was in view. The Saint went up the stairs as lightly as a ghost.

The broken window had been on the first floor, and the room to which it belonged was easy to locate. The Saint listened for a couple of seconds at the door, and then opened it and stepped briskly inside.

The room was empty.

"Bother," said the Saint softly.

Then he understood.

"If the cop had insisted on coming in, he'd have wanted to see this room. So they'd have shifted the invalid. One of the gang would have played the part. And the real cripple—further up the stairs, I should think...."

And Simon was out of the empty room in an instant, and flashing up the next flight.

As he reached the upper landing, a man—a villainous foreign-looking man, in some sort of livery—emerged from a door.

The Saint never hesitated.

"All right?'' he queried briefly.

"Yes," came the automatic answer.

No greater bluff could ever have been put up in two words and a stride. It was such a perfect little cameo of the art that the liveried man did not realize how he had been bluffed until three seconds after the Saint had spoken. And that was about four seconds too late. For by that time the Saint was only a yard away.

"That's fine," said the Saint crisply. "Keep your face shut, and everything will still be all right. Back into that room...."

There was a little knife in the Saint's hand. The Saint could do things with that knife that would have made a circus performer blink. But at that moment the Saint wasn't throwing the knife—he was just pricking the liveried man's throat with the point. And the liveried man recoiled instinctively.