“I want you to get the police. Tell them to come grab these boys as fast as they can.”
He and LeGrand hoisted Clarneau, who was still opening and closing his mouth, out of the passageway window. The Saint then had to boost LeGrand’s ample bulk out unaided, and it was fortunate that he had the muscle for the job.
“Aren’t you coming?” LeGrand asked Simon from outside.
“No. I have some work to finish up here. Go get the police, then go straight home and stay there. I’ll see you there tonight—and have your check book ready if you still want to become the world’s most envied art dealer.”
7
Simon waited until he could no longer hear them moving away, and then went very quietly back to the door which led into the garage. It was half open, and through the opening he could see two men just arriving at the bottom of the stairs carrying a large trunk. One was the driver of the station wagon who had impersonated Clarneau, and the other was recognizable as the second member of the previous day’s unsuccessful kidnap team—it seemed to Simon that if they were going to keep coming back into the action he would need to think of them in some less cumbersome way, and decided to call them Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
He used the Volkswagen bus as cover to slip through the doorway and get nearer. In his hand was a gun he had taken from the pocket of Tweedledum in the room behind him.
“We’ll have to remove the frames in order to fit the things into this false bottom,” said the Clarneau impostor, as they put down the trunk at the rear of the station wagon. “But it is worth the trouble, I assure you. No customs man would think of looking.”
“And no policeman, I hope.”
“Don’t worry. By the time the police know anything about this we’ll be over the border and halfway home.”
They began to drag the wooden crate from the back of the station wagon.
“Where is that dunce, Gunter?” the substitute Clarneau wondered aloud. “Feeding LeGrand with a silver spoon?”
“This doesn’t weigh much, does it?” said Tweedledee.
“Canvas is light. And yet it’s worth a hundred times more than solid gold.”
There was a creak of nails being tugged from wood, and then stunned silence.
“Disappointing, isn’t it?”
The two men whirled to face the voice. It belonged to the Saint, who was standing behind them on the safe side of a black automatic. Tweedledee made a sudden move, and Simon sent a shot through the edge of his coat sleeve. There were no more movements, sudden or otherwise.
“I know it’s disappointing,” he murmured. “You expected a Madonna or two, but you’ll just have to make do with one Saint.”
He relieved Tweedledee of another pistol, checked the fake Clarneau, and backed away again.
“How…did you get here?” the smaller man asked him.
“I was breathing down your neck all the way. Now why don’t you tell me how and why you got here?”
“We tell you nothing.”
“Well then,” Simon said, “lead the way to the dungeon, please.”
He indicated the way with the nose of his gun and followed them down the passage to the room where they had held LeGrand and the real Clarneau prisoner. Tweedledum was still on the floor.
“He’s killed Gunter!” the fake Clarneau cried in a panic.
“Not quite, I think,” said the Saint. “But that can always be remedied. I do sometimes get homicidal when people try to keep secrets from me. Now just wait here and think what I might do to you if you don’t come up with a good honest chunk of autobiography in the next forty seconds. I’ll be right back.”
He backed into the passageway and locked the door of the small room. Then he froze. Coming through from the garage were two more men. One of them, tall and black-haired, was the detective who had visited LeGrand’s gallery the day before. He was smiling.
“You remember me, Monsieur Templar? Inspector Mathieu.”
“I do remember,” Simon said without relaxing his ready grip on the automatic.
Inspector Mathieu continued to smile as he nodded at the gun.
“Taking the law into your own hands?”
“Nobody else seemed to be taking care of it,” the Saint said mildly.
“We have been watching this building,” Mathieu said. “Your friend LeGrand and another fellow came running out in a state of shock and told us you were in here.”
The Saint’s muscles untensed slightly. But his main reaction to Mathieu, which must have been subconsciously developing since the first time he met him, was one of spontaneous and unaccountable distrust.
“Where’s LeGrand now?” he asked.
“We sent him home. He was shaking like jelly. And where is the man who impersonated Clarneau?”
“Right through that door. And since I’m being so cooperative, maybe you’d tell me exactly what kind of mischief this cast of thousands is up to.”
Mathieu shrugged.
“A simple case of thieves falling out.”
“I hadn’t noticed any falling out,” Simon responded.
“The girl on one side, these people on the other.”
Mathieu stepped forward with a business-like air toward the door behind which the Saint’s three captives were locked. The key was already in Simon’s pocket. The automatic was still in his hand. With the most subtle kind of movement he placed himself in the passage in just such a way that Inspector Mathieu could not get by.
“You’re including Annabella Lambrini among the thieves,” Simon said questioningly.
His piercing, dangerous blue eyes met Mathieu’s dark ones, which gave way and pretended to glance around the bare corridor with official interest.
“She is not Annabella Lambrini, for a start,” Mathieu said. “She’s no more Italian than I am…” He hesitated and nervously indicated the locked doorway behind the Saint. “You’re sure those men are in there—securely? I don’t want to stand here talking while half the gang gets away.”
“They’re as harmless as three blind mice,” the Saint assured him. “Tell me more.”
“This so-called Annabella Lambrini is really Austrian,” Mathieu said. “Her name is Anna Lenscher, and she is responsible for…”
Mathieu suddenly stopped again. His expression had switched from the complacency of superior knowledge to worry.
“Yes?” Simon prompted.
“Where are the paintings?” Mathieu asked. “We saw an empty crate out there as we came in.”
“There’s a trunk with a false bottom near it,” the Saint told him.
“Ah, a false bottom,” Mathieu said. “Clever. Shall we go and have a look?”
He pushed past his unintroduced and unspeaking assistant and led the way back into the garage. Simon followed both of them to the door through which the passage led into the garage.
“But the paintings aren’t in there either,” he said.
Mathieu turned from the trunk, looking plainly irritated.
“Alors, M’sieur, you will be so kind as to tell me where they are.”
Simon shook his head pleasantly.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”
Mathieu, for the first time, seemed to be losing his self-possession.
“You don’t know?” he demanded.
“I didn’t say I didn’t know,” Simon answered. “I said I couldn’t tell you. But maybe we could trade stories. You tell me more about Annabella, and I’ll consider telling you about the paintings—if I know anything.”
“Mr Templar! You are being difficult!”
The Saint would never have suffered the indignity of being taken off guard if his captives had not chosen that moment to set up a loud banging on the door of their cell. In the first second of the noise Simon’s attention was divided among Mathieu, his assistant who was standing nearby on his right, and the noise at the other end of the passageway. In that instant of time the Saint, thinking in three directions at once, was as nearly vulnerable as he w
as ever likely to be.
Mathieu’s assistant leaped forward, and Simon—who even at that crucial point had time to reflect that it might be unwise to kill a policeman, if Mathieu’s assistant really was a policeman—half whirled to snap off a shot at the man’s leg. He sensed rather than saw Mathieu hurl something at him as his head was turned. His skull was jarred as the flying object hit him, and darkness, like rising black water, filled his vision.
8
Annabella Lambrini—or Anna Lenscher, depending on whose story the reader chooses to accept—was at the least highly puzzled when she realized that her protector and overnight guest, Simon Templar, had vanished from her house simultaneously with the removal of her paintings.
Any strictly materialistic worries she might have had about the crated masterpieces were assuaged by her possession of a check for a very large amount of money signed by Marcel LeGrand and his expert friend Professor Clarneau. If the Saint, piratical character that he was reputed to be, chivalrously chose to steal the paintings from Messieurs LeGrand and Clarneau rather than from a lady, she could only be grateful for such old-world consideration. But her feminine pride was hurt that he could have walked out and left her—for whatever mysterious reason—without even saying goodbye.
However, she had more practical matters to occupy her mind. She had no wish to put off her dream of a California palace any longer than was absolutely necessary. She had already made arrangements for the closing of her house, and she set Hans to work packing her luggage while she had lunch.
About an hour later the chauffeur called to her from upstairs.
“Fräulein! Somebody comes!”
“Is it the Saint?” she called back. And excitedly answering her own question: “He must have done whatever he went to do.”
She ran to the door and opened it as a green Renault pulled up in the driveway. There were two men in it, and she immediately realized to her disappointment that neither was Simon.
The tallest of the men approached her. His shorter companion limped more slowly behind him.
“Mademoiselle Lambrini, I am Inspector Mathieu. My identification.”
“The police?” Annabella asked in a controlled voice.
“Yes. May we come in? Thank you.”
He stepped into the entrance hall without waiting for a reply, and she followed him.
“I must ask you…” she began.
“You were visited by Monsieur LeGrand and Professor Clarneau this morning?” Mathieu asked.
“That is true.”
“And you sold them some paintings?”
“Yes. Is something the matter?”
“I regret to tell you that Professor Clarneau was murdered today after leaving your house,” Mathieu said heavily.
“Murdered!”
“He was killed in his car on a lonely country road. And the paintings were gone.”
“Stolen?” she asked dazedly.
“The crate was empty.”
“Then…”
“Then what?” Mathieu asked as Annabella’s voice trailed off.
“I have enemies who were after the paintings. Men who tried to kidnap me yesterday and came onto my property here yesterday evening. They must have killed him.”
“No, Mademoiselle. We have arrested the man who killed him. He has confessed.”
“Who?” Annabella asked breathlessly.
“His name is Simon Templar.”
Annabella’s face was drained of color and she did not say a word in response, so Mathieu continued.
“He was unlucky. The murder was witnessed by some woodsmen who followed him. He did not give up without a struggle. He shot my colleague, Sergeant Bernard here, in the leg.”
“Then you must have found the paintings.”
“No. According to Templar he never put the paintings in the car.”
Hans Kraus had come silently into the hallway and was listening. Now he interrupted.
“That is wrong. I helped him put the paintings into the box and into the automobile,” he said.
“I am sorry,” Mathieu said. “He denies that. He says he hid them here. We must at least try to confirm or disprove his story. You will not object if we search, Mademoiselle?”
“Not in the least,” Annabella said. “Look anywhere you wish. You will not find them.”
“Thank you,” Mathieu said with a slight bow. “Where were the paintings last seen in the house?”
“Show them, Hans.”
As Hans left the hall with the men his mutterings were clearly audible.
“A thousand times I tell her! Never trust strangers!”
Annabella stood in a kind of stupefied trance, and within thirty seconds, before she could rouse herself to any clear thinking, there was a call from the rear of the house.
“Mademoiselle! We have found them!”
She met Mathieu, his assistant, and Hans in the living room. Hans was carrying one of the da Vincis in front of him as if it were a gigantic cold fish he had just discovered in his bed.
“But, Fräulein,” he was intoning, “it is not possible. I put them in the box myself…”
“I am afraid that you were dealing with something of a magician,” Mathieu said. “This man Templar is not called the Saint for no reason, you know. He has shown, until now, some almost supernatural qualities. It takes experts to deal with him.”
Annabella did not find Mathieu’s smugness tolerable.
“Then deal with him,” she said snappishly, “and please leave me alone.”
All she could think of at the moment was the check in her purse on the mantelpiece. Would it be stopped now that one of the men who had signed it had been murdered? And yet she had a signed bill of sale.
“You should be glad that your property is safe, Mademoiselle,” Mathieu was saying. “Another dealer will be glad to buy them.”
“Thank you,” Annabella said flatly.
“Very well,” Mathieu said crisply. “Bernard, the other paintings, please. Put them in the back of the car.”
“What?” Annabella cried, coming to life like a lighted rocket. “What are you talking about?”
“I am taking these pictures into police custody,” Mathieu said with official dignity.
“But they’re mine!”
“I am afraid they are not, Mademoiselle. You sold them, remember?”
“Not to you,” the woman said. “There is no reason for this.”
“A murder has been committed for these paintings,” Mathieu said. “There are unanswered questions. I will give you a receipt. You can discuss who is to reclaim the paintings when the time comes. But for the moment you can comfort yourself that they will be absolutely safe at the Sûreté.”
“My God, this is too much!” Annabella exclaimed, turning her back and raising her hands to the heavens in a pantomime of utter despair.
“Into the car,” Mathieu said to his associate. “Cover them well with the car rug.”
“They are very large,” Bernard responded, “Can they be taken out of their frames?”
“Out of their frames?” Annabella cried almost incoherently. “Here? My paintings?”
“They are very large,” shrugged Bernard. “We do not need the frames.”
“So nice of you to leave me something,” Annabella said with livid sarcasm.
“Very well, we shall leave the frames,” Mathieu said callously. He gestured toward the storage room at the rear of the house. “After you, Bernard.”
Hans was blocking the door which led to the storage room, clutching the painting he held as tightly as he could.
“Fräulein?” he asked desperately.
“Let them go,” Annabella said with a weary wave of her hand. “The paintings are not ours any longer—and these are the noble police, after all. They go where they please.”
“Your pardon, Mademoiselle,” Mathieu said. “I shall help Bernard if you will excuse me.”
“I believe that I can exist in my living room without you,”
Annabella said.
She waited, pacing the floor and occasionally coming to rest briefly on a chair, drumming her fingers on a polished table top. She could hear the tapping of hammers in the back of her house and the rear door opening and closing several times, but she could not see the men carrying the de-framed paintings into their car since it was parked out of the field of view of the living room window. Wild schemes whirled through her head like tornadoes dipping down from the clouds and then rising up again and disappearing, coming to nothing. She could do nothing but wait.
After fifteen minutes Mathieu, Bernard, and Hans, who had been hovering helplessly around the other two men like a toothless watchdog, came emptyhanded into the living room.
“All done?” Annabella asked sweetly. “Would you like the furniture now?”
“There is no point in feeling offended, Mademoiselle,” Mathieu said. “No one is doing anything to you or accusing you of anything.”
His tone implied that she just might find herself accused of something if the police decided to get nasty.
“I’m not offended,” she said icily. “I am disgusted with this whole affair. The sooner I see the end of this business the happier I’ll be.”
“Au revoir, then,” said Mathieu with a slight bow.
“My receipt,” she reminded him.
“Oh, yes, of course.”
Mathieu felt in his jacket pockets, and apparently found nothing usable after a lengthy search. Annabella finally produced a pen from her purse.
“Very efficient, you police,” she said as she handed it to him.
“Thank you, Mademoiselle,” Mathieu said, “and now…have you any paper?”
Annabella sighed and sat down.
“Would you find them some paper, Hans? They are so busy protecting citizen’s property by carrying it away with them that they rarely have time for writing.”
Hans got the paper and Mathieu found a seat at a table. He wrote and handed the result to Annabella.
“From Mademoiselle Lambrini, paintings,” she read. “H. Mathieu, Inspector.”
She threw the paper down in front of him on the table.
The Saint Abroad Page 6