Salvage for the Saint (8 page)

Arabella toyed with the menu impatiently. She was about to call out when the fat man beat her to it.

“Monsieur!”

The voice was a rich bass, full of authority. He rapped imperiously on the table, snapped his fingers and assumed an expression of fierce chivalry, as the startled waiter came towards him.

“The young lady is waiting to be served,” he told him in French. “S’il vous plait!”

“Mais certainement.” The waiter turned to Arabella. “I am sorry you have been kept waiting.”

“De rien,” Arabella said after nodding her thanks to the fat man. And she continued in rather hesitant French. “I should like to have, first, some hors d’oeuvres, and afterwards the filet mignon, medium, with a green salad.”

The fat man watched with his head cocked slightly on one side.

“Permit me to advise you, Madame,” he put in, in English. “I could not avoid to overhear your order. May I suggest, if you are considering a wine, the Chateau Durfort-Vivens? It is a fine Bordeaux wine, most reasonably priced.” The fat man hesitated. “Indeed, if you will permit a further liberty, I too will be feasting on le filet mignon de Charolais and I will be honoured if you will join me at the table and share with me a bottle of the Chateau Durfort-Vivens.”

“Well, I don’t know …” Arabella looked appraisingly at the fat man. He was what Mrs Cloonan would undoubtedly have called “rather forward”, but he might well make an interesting dinner companion. She wavered. The baggy-featured waiter glanced from one to the other.

Arabella made up her mind.

“Why, yes, I should like that. Thank you.”

The fat man beamed. After he had dispatched the waiter with a barrage of instructions, Arabella sat down at his table.

“Well, well,” he said, as he un-Gallically tucked one corner of a napkin behind his cravat—making himself look like a vast nursery Tweedledum—“a remarkable coincidence, is it not, Madame Tatenor?”

Arabella stared at him startled.

“I beg your pardon. Do I know you?”

The fat Frenchman spread his hands apologetically.

“In truth, it is I who should beg yours. Perhaps I should have pretended not to recognise you, rather than place myself in the necessity for reminding you of what must be most distressing. Perhaps you did not notice? Quite understandable in the circumstances. You see, I was in the courtroom during the inquest on your unfortunate husband. It was a terrible tragedy, but terrible. And you are a widow so young.” He shrugged to convey the hopelessness of trying to put these things into words. “You have my deepest sympathies.”

“Thank you. Now that you mention it, I think I do recall seeing you in court.”

The fat man allowed himself a restrained smile, and twirled his moustache with magnificent resignation.

“Madame—I am difficult to overlook altogether.” He patted his gross midriff affectionately. “A consequence, I am afraid, of gastronomic excess. A lifelong habit which I am now too old, fortunately, to consider breaking … But what am I thinking of? I am shamefully forgetting the manners. I must introduce myself. I am Jacques Descartes. I was making on the island some negotiations in a matter of bulls and cows. Now I am returning to my home in the south, I drive with my assistant until we tire, then we stop at this delightful hotel and—suddenly, there in the restaurant, quelle surprise! Whom do I see but the beautiful—you permit me, Madame?—the beautiful Madame Tatenor. It is a little world, is it not? Such a little world!”

“It certainly is,” Arabella agreed. And then for conversation’s sake she added: “Whereabouts in the south is your home? I suppose you’re some kind of—farmer?”

Descartes winced at the word.

“Not a farmer, Madame. No, no! I am an entrepreneur of the bullfighting in France. I am a breeder and trainer of the picador horses, also a breeder of bulls. You know, perhaps, that not only the Spanish have their bulls and picadors. I have my haras in the village of St Martin-du-Marais, in the Camargue. There I live, and there I own also an hotel. It is true I have also several local farms under my wings, but that is purely a business operation. My horses and bulls, they are my real love. My associates and I are proud, most proud, of our successes.”

“And—if I may ask without seeming too nosey—was your trip to England, to the island, a success, would you say?”

Descartes hesitated.

“Let me put it in this way. I have a … a lead to follow up, which could prove to be most rewarding. Most rewarding. Oh yes, I think you can say that our trip was well worth while.”

“But what happened to the assistant you mentioned?” Arabella enquired. “Isn’t he hungry?”

Descartes smiled broadly, exhibiting some expensive gold dental work.

“Enrico is indisposed. He is not at all a good traveller when a passenger, I am afraid. So he sleeps now. And it is good. Tomorrow he will drive, and when driving he will not feel sick. It is so with some people.”

“How about you? Will you feel queasy when he’s driving?”

“Definitely not. My digestive system has become hardened during all the years of abuse—glorious abuse!” Descartes leaned forward, as far as his midriff would allow, with a confiding and avuncular manner. “I confess, Madame Tatenor, I am an incorrigible gourmand. Food is for me a grand passion, perhaps the grand passion I failed to find with a woman. But life is so, n’est-ce-pas? We find our compensations. For example, I detect, do I not, the arrival of our hors d’oeuvres!”

They continued to chat amiably over the food, and Arabella found that time passed pleasantly enough in Descartes’ ebullient company.

“You’re something of a philosopher yourself, aren’t you?” she observed an hour and a half later, over the cognac. “Like your famous namesake.”

He beamed.

“You are right. I too, in my way, am a thinker. Perhaps not quite in the class of the great Rene Descartes … but then, there is one enterprise of logical thinking in which even he might not be the match of me. I say so, Madame, with all modesty. That enterprise is—do you by chance play the game of backgammon?”

“Backgammon?” Arabella cast back through her memory. “Why yes, I do believe I played that a few times in my college days. What’s it called in French?”

“It is called le tric-trac. And I—” Descartes puffed out his chest proudly, but the expansion of his midriff was manifestly greater and Arabella’s composure teetered on the brink for a difficult moment “—in certain circles I am known as Jacques du tric-trac. I am, with modesty, probably the finest backgammon player in all France.”

Arabella raised a polite but ironic eyebrow.

“Only in France?”

“Possibly even in the entire world. Although there is Schneider, and I suppose there is Guggisheimer.”

“Guggisheimer?”

“An American player of some reputation. Doubtless he has a certain talent.” Descartes shrugged in a manner dismissive of Guggisheimer. “One day I shall test this talent of his for myself.”

Arabella cupped her hands under the brandy glass and swirled the amber liquid around appreciatively.

“Come to think of it, Charles—my husband—once told me he used to play backgammon a lot. I mean competitively.”

“Oh yes, your husband was a player … ?” The question mark was applied so lightly, almost as an afterthought, that Arabella looked sharply at Descartes.

“You didn’t—you didn’t know my husband?”

Descartes hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “An Englishman called Charles Tatenor? No, Madame, I never knew him. But tell me about him, if it is not too painful. What kind of a man was he?”

“Charles?” Arabella mused for a while. “Oh, I guess he was as English as they come. The quintessential uppercrust sporting Englishman. Plummy accent, vague profession; something or other in property that paid the bills and let him indulge his taste for expensive sports, like powerboat racing, horses, gambling, and women. In short, all the vices of the upper set.”

Descartes smiled another smile in which peripheral dental gold gleamed under the canopy of the bandit moustache.

“You are very frank and direct, Madame. I enjoy the conversation to be so. But the typical Englishman—he has not only the vices, I trust? Or sometimes the vices are also the virtues or the attractions, is it not so?”

“That’s true. But there was one thing about Charles that was very untypical of the English. He was exceptionally good at languages. You know how the English have this reputation, like the Americans, they don’t usually bother much with foreign languages, and when they do, well, the accent’s atrocious. But Charles spoke French and German fantastically well. To my ear, perfectly. Though he was strangely modest about it, almost secretive actually. But just occasionally the need would arise, and I was always amazed at his fluency. There’s no doubt he was a very clever man.”

Descartes, who had been listening attentively, nodded vigorously.

“Certainly, Mr Tatenor was extremely clever—from what you say, Madame … But allow me to be direct in revealing my curiosity. May I ask what brings you to France, so to speak pell mell upon your husband’s most regrettable death?”

Arabella was at her ease with the fat Frenchman by this juncture and saw nothing untoward in the question. Yet some instinct, which was more than simple reticence over her financial status, but which she couldn’t have analysed at the time, made her keep back a part of the story.

“I’m going to Marseilles to admire a yacht,” she told him.

Descartes looked puzzled.

“A yacht?”

“Charles had had this yacht for years, apparently, but he never said a word about it to me. And now she’s mine. So I’m going down there to look her over for myself.”

Descartes nodded slowly and thoughtfully, and the gold dental work flashed briefly again.

“That is completely understandable,” he said. “In your place, I too would speed at once in the direction of such a property. It is exciting, I am sure, to find oneself suddenly the owner of a substantial possession which one has never yet seen.”

“Exactly.”

“Then you are driving on to Marseille tomorrow?” It was more a statement than a question. “But what a fortunate coincidence!” he added softly. “My village is directly on your route, only an hour or so before Marseille. I will insist, Madame, that you will accept the hospitality of my hotel for tomorrow night.”

III: How the Saint missed the Boat, and Arabella came down to Earth.

-1-

Morning brought Simon Templar a large manilla envelope, which he soon had cause to wish had been in his possession a day sooner.

It was from Beaky. The Saint opened it and took out three photographs and two typewritten sheets of paper. He glanced at the photographs briefly, then put them aside. He picked up the typewritten sheets and read.

Photographs you sent of man on boat are of Maurice Tranchier (France). Born Lyons, age 43. Three convictions France for armed robbery, latest 11 years ago for international bullion robbery when French launch carrying 20 million francs in gold bars was seized en route to Morocco from Marseille.

Tranchier released three years ago after serving 8 years of a 10-year sentence; likewise three accomplices in same crime: Jacques Descartes (France), Enrico Berna-dotti (Italy), Pancho Gomez (Spain).

Fourth accomplice and probable ringleader believed to be Karl Schwarzkopf (Switzerland). Escaped with launch and gold. Schwarzkopf remains untraced; gold remains unrecovered. Suspected fifth accomplice, on Algerian side, also never traced.

Descartes, Bernadotti and Gomez known to be living in village of St Martin-du-Marais in Camargue region of S. France. Descartes regarded as most dangerous. Owns several properties, hotel and stud farm; believed to practise local intimidation/protection. French police so far unable to obtain adequate evidence.

Karl Schwarzkopf: Born Bern, age (if living) 48. Graduated Geneva at 22 with highest linguist honours. Native language Swiss German dialect; known to be completely fluent in High German, French and English. No criminal record. Was employee of international bank involved in bullion transfer; based Paris, 6 years, vanished at time of robbery.

The Saint picked up the three photographs. One had the name Jacques Descartes on the back; it was of the fat man he had seen in the courtroom. Another was of the swarthy, lizard-like man who had been with him; and it was marked Enrico Bernadotti. And the third photograph was of Pancho Gomez; it showed a sullen thick-lipped face with tiny piggy eyes buried deep beneath the overhanging brow of a markedly asymmetrical head. The Saint had never seen Senor Gomez before; nor did the photograph make him long for Senor Gomez’s acquaintance.

The absence of a photograph of the missing man was of no real significance. The Saint needed no photograph; the name was enough. It sprang out at him from the typewritten sheet: Karl Schwarzkopf. The surname, not uncommon in German, translated directly into English made only the ridiculous “Blackhead”, with its inescapable associations with acne. But in French it came out as “Tete noire”. And it took no great effort of imagination, once you had got that far, to see “Tatenor” as an English derivative of that French translation of the German original … Tatenor the man was certainly linguistic sophisticate enough to have arrived at Tatenor, the name, by that circuitous trilingual route.

So much of the story fitted that Simon had no doubt at all in his mind. Tatenor was—or had been—the missing man Schwarzkopf. As soon as the trick with the names had come clear, some of Simon’s other rambling half-awake thoughts of the night before fell likewise into place, and he saw that a similar piece of linguistic juggling could plausibly explain the name of Tatenor’s boat. If you started with the German for speedboat (or race-boat), which was Rennboot, and translated that literally into French, you got canot de course; and from there it was an easy step to probably the simplest abbreviation, Candecour.

So Schwarzkopf the Swiss had vanished after the bullion robbery, leaving his accomplices to take the rap while he took the gold. And then Schwarzkopf the Swiss had become Tatenor the Englishman—if anything, a more English Englishman than most of the native-born kind. That he had been able to pull it off was a remarkable testimony to his linguistic talent—added to the national advantage the Swiss have in that respect.