Catch the Saint (10 page)

Julie whirled from a position she had taken
near the front
window, came across the room,
and sat down facing Simon.

“But I don’t even
understand why they’ve got to have my
brother kept a
prisoner so he can touch up some old Rembrandt.
All
I can make out from that recording is that this art-gallery
man who tricked me, and a lot of gangsters from Soho, have all got
together about some painting and kidnapped my brother. I
mean, if you look past all those niggling little details
about who
goes where when, and who pays who
what, that’s what it comes to, doesn’t it?”

“Perhaps I’d better
try to clarify a few points?” Simon said pa
tiently.
“I’ve listened to this tape several times now, and you’ve
just had your first impression. And you were asking me so
many questions while it was playing that you missed half of it anyway.”

“I’m sorry,”
Julie pouted.

“All right. Now
listen. I’ll admit that it isn’t always too clear
from
those discussions on the tape, but if you put together all the
bits and pieces and use your noodle, this is the general picture:
Our friend Pargit, proprietor of the Leonardo Galleries and
your
brother’s sometime agent, had an amazing piece of
luck. Not
long ago, someone brought him a very
old and very dirty painting and asked him to have it cleaned up and restored.
We don’t
know anything about this client, but
it was probably some artis
tically naive soul who
inherited the thing from an aristocratic uncle, or found it in the attic of
the family manse. Anyway, the per
son who trustingly
lugged this painting into the Leonardo
Galleries
had no idea when it was painted or who painted it, but
he
hoped it might be worth something and he asked Pargit to
identify and value it while he was having it restored.”

“I didn’t hear all
that,”
she said.

“Well, naturally Pargit and Caffin aren’t
going to recite the whole history of the deal in the course of their meeting,
since
they both know about it. But when you
listen to this tape again
you’ll see
that I’m right.”

“Sorry,” Julie
said.

“Stop saying you’re
sorry all the time.”

“All right.
Sorry.”

Simon breathed deeply and
went on: “You can imagine Par
git’s feelings when
he discovered that he had been handed a gen
uine,
original Rembrandt—a work that had dropped out of sight for a couple of hundred
years and now was plumped into his un
worthy lap like manna from heaven. So
what does Pargit do?
What he does
not
do
is rush to the telephone to give the owner of
the painting the glad tidings. Instead he tells the client that it’s
going to be several weeks before the restoration
is completed and
the canvas is identified … but meanwhile the client
shouldn’t
get his hopes up, because it’s
pretty certain that the painting is by some insignificant imitator of one of
the great masters.

“Now, as we know,
comrade Pargit is a man who hasn’t en
joyed outstanding
success in overcoming the sin of covetousness,
and
he has no scruples about how he makes his profits. But what can he do? He can’t
just run off with the unknown Rembrandt, or
pretend
he’s misplaced it. So he comes up with a brainstorm: He will have a duplicate
painting done, a fine imitation of the real
Rembrandt.
This forgery will be suitably aged by the best dishonest methods. Then it will
be presented to the client, and the client
will
be told that what he’s getting is of course the restoration of
his
painting. The client will believe that he has his old canvas
back looking much prettier than it did when he
brought it in, and
Pargit will keep
the real Rembrandt. The client will be told that
his painting turned out to be by a minor artist of the Rembrandt school,
but not by Rembrandt himself. Cyril is now free to take
the original
genuine Rembrandt to the States and sell it for at
least half a million. Do you get the point now?”

Julie nodded.

“And so they’ve got
Adrian painting a copy of the Rem
brandt?”

“Because Pargit knew
his talent for imitation,” Simon affirmed. “And that’s probably one
of the main reasons Pargit
needed to bring Caffin in on the deal. Cyril
isn’t a strong-arm
type himself. Those were
Caffin’s boys who visited you here the
night
Adrian didn’t come home, and they’re the ones who’ll be making Adrian
comfortable while he works.”

“But why would Adrian do it?” she
protested. “He mayn’t be
a great artist
yet, but I know he wouldn’t be a crook.”

“Not even if they
gave him a sales talk about what they might
do
to you if he didn’t co-operate?”

Julie sat pondering for a
moment, then abruptly raised her
eyes to meet Simon’s:
“What’ll they do with him when he’s finished the painting?”

“I’m sorry you asked
that question,” the Saint replied. “I’m
not
sure that Pargit knows yet. He’s probably hoping that things will work out so
that he can just let Adrian go when it’s all over.
Your
brother won’t be told everything that’s going on. Pargit
may think that a pay-off and a warning to keep his mouth shut
will be
enough. But Caffin’s a cautious type; and a rougher type. I’m afraid he may
come up with a more drastic way of guarantee
ing
that Adrian will keep the secret.”

Julie jumped to her feet.

“We can’t just sit
here talking about it! We’ll have to get the
police,
and …” She started towards the telephone, changed her
mind after two steps, and swarmed over the wire player with all
ten fingers. “We even heard where they’re keeping him. Let’s
play it back. How do you work this thing?”

“You’re going to feel
awfully silly if you erase the evidence,”
said
the Saint with dry restraint.

But Julie had managed to
light upon the rewind control, and
the tape responded
with shrill backward gibberish. She kept
pushing at the side of
it as if that could prod it to go faster.

“If you want to become a model you’ll have
to learn what to do
with your hands,”
Simon remarked.

The conspicuous members of her anatomy upon
which he was
commenting flapped near his
face like a pair of distraught pi
geons.

“How’ll we find the
place where they talk about where he is?”
Julie begged.

“Just wait a few more
seconds.”

As if he could somehow make sense out of the
high-pitched squawking of the reversed wire, the Saint sat alertly watching the
machine. Then reached out and with a quick
movement brought the rewind to a halt.

“I’d better ring up
the police now,” Julie said. “We’ll be hunt
ing
through that recording all night.”

“No we won’t,”
Simon contradicted. “Listen.”

He started the tape
forward, just at the moment in the clandes
tine
meeting when Caffin ended a sentence with:
“so everything is going
fine, but the sooner you can get your blooming Rembrandt
Junior to finish his job the happier I’ll be,”
and Pargit began a
sentence
with:
“Very well. How exactly do 1 find this place where
you’re keeping him?”

Julie gaped at Simon,
pointing at the recorder.

“Now how in the
world did you know exactly where to stop it?”

“Being born almost
superhuman is a big help,” he said mod
estly.

“Oh, you!”

“We’re missing the
whole thing,” he said, and ran the wire
back
so that they could hear Pargit ask his question again.

Caffin’s voice replied:
“One of my boys
can give you a ride
when you want it.”

“I’m perfectly
capable of driving myself down there,”
Pargit
insisted.
“Norcombe’s not your personal
property. And that’s my
Rembrandt you’ve got down
there.”

“Fifty per cent
yours,”
Caffin corrected.
“But as far
as I’m concerned, Rembrandt Junior is all yours. He’s more trouble than a
whole bloody old folks’ home.”

“Eccentric
type,”
Pargit agreed.
“How do I find
him?”

“Like you were going
to Bournemouth on the road round the
top
of the New Forest. But when you come to the River Avon
you continue on across it into Dorset. Then … you’d
best look
for The Happy Huntsman on your right
after you …”
Caffin
must have moved across the room, for his voice faded and
the
next few words were indistinct. “…
old
road between stone
walls. It’s an old
farmhouse, the only place round, stone like
the
walls, with a red kind of thing in front where there used to be
a well.”

“I’ll recognise
it.”

“Don’t expect a
candle burning in the window for you. There’s
only
a couple of rooms we use, upstairs. Just to be sure none of
my chaps bashes you, knock on the front door like this
—
three
times fast, three times
slow.”
Knuckles rapped on wood.
“And
don’t try walking in until somebody opens up for
you.”

Simon shut off the
recorder. “That’s it. Everything but a map.”

“May I call the
police
now?”

“We are not going to
call the police,” said the Saint firmly.
“And in case you
get any ideas about calling them when I’m not
listening,
I can assure you that you’ll be putting your brother’s
life in serious danger.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“Because he’s the
most damaging evidence round, and a lot more trouble to hide than a painting.
If that gang gets any idea
that the kitten is out of
the sack, you can credit yourself with
making
him instantly expendable.”

Julie was stymied. She
tried to think of some retort, then
crossly folded her arms.

“And I suppose you
can take care of the whole thing perfectly
all by yourself?”

“I think so,” the
Saint replied calmly.

“Well, when?”

“In the morning. Your
brother’s safe for now, and there’s
something else I
want to do tonight.”

He left her still questioning and protesting,
but more or less resigned to the necessity of obeying his orders.

“If you can’t sleep,
pack a few things,” he told her. “Including
some
walking shoes.” He paused at the door. “Do you enjoy
watching birds?” he asked.

“Birds?”
she exclaimed, in the
final throes of exasperation.

“Just a
thought,” he said lightly. “See you in the morning. Eat
a good breakfast.”

When he arrived to pick her
up, at 9:30 in the morning, she
was waiting at the door
with an inexpensive suitcase already in
the
hall.

“Beautiful day for a
drive, isn’t it?” he drawled. “You look
lovely.
The weather’s perfect. What more could a man ask?”

In his festive mood he
suddenly swept up her hand and kissed it. She blushed but did not pull away.

“You look very
pleased with yourself, I must say,” she re
marked.
“Did you enjoy yourself last night?”
“Immensely!”

He picked up her suitcase,
watched her lock the door, and led
the way briskly out
to his waiting Hirondel.

“Out on the town, I
suppose,” she said jealously. “As a matter of fact, no. I was
breaking and entering.”

“Breaking and
entering
what?”
she asked with alarm.

“The Leonardo
Galleries.”

She sank into the
passenger seat, looking a little stunned. Only afte
r
Simon had gunned the engine to life and pulled away from t
he kerb did she manage her next question.
“You don’t mean that you actually broke in there?”
“That’s exactly what I do mean.” He slipped the car into second
gear and it hurtled forward breath-takingly. “There were
one or two things I wanted to confirm. The most interesting
fact I uncovered was that the owner of the Rembrandt, who doesn’t yet
know it’s a real Rembrandt, is Lord Oldenshaw. You’ve heard of
Lord Oldenshaw? A very rich gentleman, and soon to be a lot r
icher when he gets his painting back.”