“Do you take me for an idiot?” she demanded angrily. “Describe them. Name the painters!”
Mathieu sighed and pushed the paper back in her direction, offering her the pen.
“You describe them, Mademoiselle. I shall sign.”
She wrote a list, Mathieu and Bernard checked her description of the confiscated paintings, and then Mathieu signed the paper again. Annabella took it, folded it, and clutched it tightly.
“Now go,” she said rudely.
Mathieu and Bernard walked to the front door.
“You are staying here, I assume?” Mathieu said. “We may need you when we bring the formal charge against Monsieur Templar. You will be available?”
“Of course,” she lied. Then her voice softened and became less self-assured. “Templar…is he hurt? Was he shot?”
“No,” said Mathieu. “He is as healthy and arrogant as always.”
She nodded. Mathieu and Bernard made stiffly formal parting bows and left the house for their car.
Annabella closed the door and walked dejectedly to the living room. Hans was watching her.
“I am sorry that you had to learn this lesson,” he said hesitantly.
“You’re right, Hans. I’ll never trust anybody again. I promise!”
“Not even your old friends?” asked a third and entirely different voice.
Annabella gave a little shriek and whirled to face the other end of the room. There stood an impeccable and nonchalant Simon Templar, not a hair of his handsome head out of place, more cheerfully arrogant and healthy than the man who called himself Inspector Mathieu could have imagined in his most fearful dreams.
9
“Simon!”
Annabella’s cry was a crazy mixture of relief and horror. The latter emotion at first had the upper hand.
“You…you killer!” she said. “How did you escape?”
She whirled to look out of the front window in time to see Mathieu’s car racing down the drive among the trees. In only a second or two it was out of sight.
Hans grabbed up a poker from beside the fireplace and put himself between the Saint and Annabella. He held the poker like a ready axe in front of him, and his hands were white and trembling. The Saint smiled at him with unperturbed amiability.
“I assure you that you’re both getting yourselves worked up for no reason,” he said quietly. “You were in much worse danger just a few minutes ago.”
“You killed a man!” Annabella said.
“You killed the professor!” Hans joined in, bracing his legs and his makeshift battleaxe defensively.
“I’ve killed a number of men,” said the Saint calmly, “but I haven’t killed anyone this morning, and Professor Clarneau is as much alive as we are. The man who came here and took the paintings, or thought he did, wasn’t Clarneau, of course.”
“You’re completely insane,” Annabella said. “You’re not making any sense.”
“It’s the gospel,” Simon said.
“But the police. The Inspector told me himself…”
“He wasn’t a real Inspector, either.”
“What?”
“A fake cop. This Mathieu is about as close to being a policeman as I am, which is about as far as you can get.”
“But I gave him the paintings!” Annabella almost shrieked.
“Then you’re a very silly girl.”
Whatever Mediterranean strains Annabella’s pedigree included went suddenly on full power. She clenched her teeth, whirled completely around, shook both fists at Simon, and with an explosive shudder began to scream at him.
“This is your fault! All of it! You idiot! You traitor! You’re behind this whole thing!”
She snatched up a vase of roses from one of the tables and hurled it at him, spilling most of the water and most of the roses over the front of her dress. Simon easily avoided the vase, which smashed against the wall beyond him, and awaited the next attack.
“Fräulein!” Hans cried.
He cast an almost imploring look at the Saint, who only shrugged and dodged Annabella’s new missile—a potted cactus from one of the bookshelves. It sailed harmlessly past Simon and crashed not at all harmlessly through the front window.
“What a woman, eh, Hans?” said the Saint admiringly. “When she wants fresh air she wants it now!”
Annabella emitted a choked whinny of fury and charged around the sofa to engage him in hand-to-hand combat, but on the way her feet got tangled up in a lamp cord and she sprawled full length on her face with her eyes just a few inches from the toes of Simon’s beautifully polished shoes.
“You’re better than a wrecking crew,” he said, leaning down to help her up.
She shook off his hand and sat on the rug bawling.
“Oh, go away!” she sobbed. “Just leave me alone.”
“All right, I will. But first I’ll give you a going-away present.”
Hans had simply settled on one of the chairs, the poker drooping loosely in his limp hands. He was obviously in a mild state of shock. Simon went past him into the adjoining room and came back with five large unframed pieces of canvas. He held up one of them for Annabella to see. She stared incredulously, then scrambled to her feet.
“Simon!” she gasped ecstatically. “You…darling!”
An instant later she had thrown her arms around his neck and was covering his face with kisses and lipstick.
“A bit changeable, aren’t you?” he remarked.
“I’m so sorry! I had no idea. I thought…I had to blame somebody. How did you get them?”
“Mathieu and his chum put them in the back of their car and tucked a blanket around them. I just took them out again and tucked the blanket back where it was while they were saying goodbye.” He interrupted her with a lifted hand as she started to speak. “I know. They may already have noticed, so let’s scoot out of here and deliver these treasures to Marcel LeGrand so you can get them off your hands and I can get you off mine.”
Hans, carrying two of the unframed canvases, joined them in hurrying out the back door of the house and through a gate in the wall which bordered Annabella’s property. Simon also carried two paintings, and Annabella brought the fifth. The Saint had parked his car in the shelter of a clump of trees in the neighboring wooded area.
“Wait,” he said abruptly. “No noise for a minute.”
They listened and heard an automobile engine roaring at high speed up the drive on the other side of the wall. Simon left Annabella and Hans in his car and peeked through the gate. He could see nothing but the back and side of her house, but he could hear shouting and the pounding of fists on the front door.
Simon trotted back to his car grinning.
“The return of Inspector Mathieu,” he said as he got into the driver’s seat. “Hold on to your Leonardos, darling.”
He rocketed off toward the main road, and if Mathieu associated the sound with his escaping prey he had no time to react before the Saint and his charges were a mile down the highway.
Hans, in the back seat, closed his eyes and heaved a sigh.
“I am too old for this,” he said. “I think I go back to Linz.”
Annabella looked over her shoulder at him.
“You’re going to California,” she bubbled. “It’s over now. You can relax.”
“Let’s hope so,” the Saint said. “We may run into a waiting line at LeGrand’s. You know there are at least two batches of people even less principled than ourselves after these paintings.”
“Two?” Annabella said.
Hans groaned and closed his eyes again.
“Mathieu’s team and another crowd that seems to be half German and half Italian,” Simon continued. “I had the international squad locked up—the ones who tried to kidnap you in Paris—but then Mathieu bopped me in the head, and when I’d worked my way out of the room he locked me in, they were gone. I was fully expecting them to show up at your house, too. You wouldn’t have any idea who they are, of course.”
“No. And who is Mathieu, really?”
“I don’t know that either. But your theories should be better than mine. You know the history of the paintings—who knows about them, who might have heard about them.”
He could almost feel the distance between him and Annabella widen.
“As I told you,” she said almost defiantly, “I have not had much contact with my father. I know very little.”
That was that. The Saint could do without the whole truth as long as he cleared his fair profit, which he expected to earn very soon now. He had a kind of permanent quiet faith that anything he really needed to know would inevitably be revealed to him, and it was possible that what he already knew about the present case was all he would ever need to know: beautiful and mysterious girl possesses valuable paintings, two competing gangs of art thieves catch up with her at the same time, but luckily the Saint is on hand to throw them all into confusion and reap his own just reward.
“Oh well,” he said to get off the subject, “maybe they’re just frustrated amateur actors who enjoy impersonating cops and art experts and such. We’ll concentrate on getting the loot to LeGrand. It’s almost six, and I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Let’s get something to eat and give him a call at the same time. When I left him this noon I told him to go home and I’d contact him tonight.”
“When did you see him?” she asked. “You haven’t told me what happened.”
“I’ll tell you all about it over a glass of something restorative. We’re not far from Barbizon, where the Bas-Bréau does a canard à l’ananas that would tempt Donald Duck to become a cannibal.”
“I’ve lost my bearings completely,” Annabella said. “I feel as if we’ve been traveling in circles.”
“We have,” Simon told her. “At least, we did once. It’s known amongst us professional lawbreakers as shaking the tail—assuming anybody tried to tail us. You’ll have to learn to do it if you’re planning to continue with this adventurous life you’ve been leading.”
Annabella shook her head with a tired smile.
“I just want to get it over with—and carry off lots and lots of money.”
Simon nodded and returned her smile without speaking or taking his eyes from the road. He doubted whether it would be that simple.
10
After he had ordered dinner, the Saint left Annabella and Hans at the table and telephoned Marcel LeGrand at his home.
“Simon!” the dealer exclaimed with relief. “I haven’t heard from anyone!”
“You’re lucky,” the Saint informed him. “It seems that everybody you know except Professor Clarneau and possibly me is a crook. Inspector Mathieu isn’t inspecting anything but ways to get his hands on your paintings.”
“He’s not…?”
“No, he’s not. I don’t think he’d try keeping up the impersonation at this stage, but I thought you’d better know.” The Saint paused. “He’s not standing over you now, is he?”
“Of course not,” LeGrand said with surprise.
“If there’s anyone holding a gun on you, to make you tell me that nothing’s wrong, say ‘No, she’s feeling perfectly well now.’ ”
LeGrand laughed.
“No need for codes. There’s only myself and my wife here.”
“Good. May we come to your house with the paintings in about a couple of hours?”
“Yes! The sooner the better.”
Simon went back to the table where Annabella and Hans were waiting to begin their aperitifs. He toasted them with a dry Martini.
“LeGrand is expecting us,” he said. “California or bust.”
Annabella smiled as she raised her glass.
“California or bust!”
An hour and a half later, replete with pineapple-garnished duck and Rausan Segla ’59, and an ethereal epilog of orange soufflé, they left the restaurant for LeGrand’s home in the western suburbs of Paris.
The house, even seen in semi-darkness, was an impressive testimony to the success of art as being business. LeGrand’s establishment, in spaciously landscaped grounds, made Annabella Lambrini’s house seem like a cottage by comparison. As the Saint pulled his car up to the front door he noticed LeGrand’s Citroën in the porte cochere. There were no other cars. If there had been it might have given warning that LeGrand had received some unfriendly visitors since Simon had called him earlier in the evening. Of course, visitors of a really dedicated undesirability would not be very likely to have left their vehicle in plain view. There was a side road beyond LeGrand’s southern hedge where they might have parked inconspicuously.
“I’m still nervous,” Annabella said, fidgeting with her purse.
Simon let her out of the car. Hans chose to wait.
“It’s about time to stop being nervous and start celebrating—unless LeGrand’s changed his mind.”
Annabella looked stunned. Then she saw the Saint’s teasing grin in the light that fell over LeGrand’s front steps.
“Don’t joke,” she said. She looked over her shoulder. “Let’s hurry, please, before some of those horrible people come here.”
Simon rang the bell. Almost immediately LeGrand opened the door, extending a hand effusively to each of them over the threshold.
“I’m delighted to see you,” he said. “Come in, come in, please.”
“I think you are as anxious as I am,” Annabella said with a small smile. “Or do you always answer your door so promptly?”
They had stepped into a sumptuously carpeted and decorated entrance hall. LeGrand waved them toward an open door to the left.
“I am anxious,” he said. “I must admit it. I was watching from the window.”
He was as impeccably dressed as ever, even though his dark suit was more than a trifle wilted. The reception room into which he took them was as richly furnished with antiques as some state-supported seventeenth-century château.
Annabella looked around admiringly.
“But you have everything already,” she said. “Are you sure you want my poor paintings?”
LeGrand did not seem able to share her rather euphoric good humor.
“Indeed I want them,” he said with a chopped laugh. “Are these…”
He nodded toward the stack of canvases in Simon’s arms, and Simon handed them to him.
“They haven’t been damaged at all,” the Saint assured him. “They’ve been through quite a few escapes today, and during one of them they had to leave their frames behind.”
LeGrand was fumbling with the paintings. He propped them up against a low table, almost knocking two half empty coffee cups onto the floor.
“I think you’re both jittery,” Simon said as Annabella helped him catch one of the cups.
LeGrand snorted negatingly.
“Excited,” he said. “Not jittery.”
“Here is your check from this morning,” Annabella said.
“One of the signatures was forged by the man who impersonated the professor, of course.”
LeGrand took the slip of paper and crumpled it.
“Thank you. I have another for you here.”
He reached into a pocket of his dark suit and produced a check for the same amount as the discarded one. Annabella took it and all but kissed it.
“I am rich!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, my dear, you are,” LeGrand agreed. “And now, ah…”
He had never offered his guests seats, and he seemed trying to decide what to do with them.
“We…must go now, mustn’t we?” Annabella said uncomfortably to Simon. “We’re all very tired.”
“Very tired,” Simon agreed. He was intrigued by LeGrand’s manner and by the two coffee cups, one of which had lipstick on its white rim. “I’m just sorry we couldn’t meet your wife. Isn’t she here?”
“She is having dinner with friends,” LeGrand said. “She was disappointed to have to represent me there rather than to meet both of you.”
“Then she’s not ill any longer?�
�� the Saint asked.
“No, she is feeling perfectly well now, thank you,” the art dealer answered distinctly.
“Good. Give her our regards. And now we must go.”
The Saint tried to meet LeGrand’s eyes, but the dealer refused to look him in the face. He edged past Simon and Annabella in order to open the door which led to the entrance hall. His face was completely expressionless, but it had a sheen of perspiration. His two guests went past him into the hall and he followed them to the front door.
Simon shook his hand.
“I’ll be seeing you again soon,” he said.
“I hope so,” LeGrand answered earnestly. “And you, too, Mademoiselle.”
“Mademoiselle will be on her way to California before morning if she has her way,” Simon replied.
“France’s loss,” said LeGrand gallantly. “Au revoir, alors.”
“Thank you, M’sieur,” Annabella said. “Thank you so much. Adieu!”
She and the Saint walked out to their car, and LeGrand’s house door closed behind them. Annabella bounced into the front seat of the car, turned, and waved the check in front of Hans’s nose.
“It’s done!” she exulted.
“So was our dinner,” said the Saint, with a ghostly patient smile. “To a turn. So it was a dead duck.”
The other two must have heard him, but it could only have been at the outer surface of their awareness.
“Money!” Hans grunted, with obviously mixed emotions.
“You’ll be glad I have it when you’re sitting under a palm tree watching girls swim in a pool all day,” Annabella consoled him.
Simon was wasting no time driving out of LeGrand’s property to the street. As soon as he was around the corner he stopped and cut off the car’s headlights.
“What’s the matter?” Annabella asked, suddenly sobered.
“I have news for you,” Simon said. “LeGrand’s latest check may be as worthless as the first one you picked up.”
She stared at him open-mouthed. He got out of the car, strode around, and looked in her window.
“Excuse us, Hans, but I have to have a little private discussion with your boss.”
He virtually hauled a stunned Annabella out of her seat and led her to a shadowy spot a few yards away.
The Saint Abroad Page 7