The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots (3 page)

“Mademoiselle,” LeGrand responded
with dignity, “if
everything is in order, we can conclude this
matter tomorrow.
Such things cannot be kept secret for long, especially
if the
police are
interested. They will be contacting other dealers
all over Paris. But I am willing to tell this Inspector Mathieu
nothing if you are willing to trust me and the one
or two
people I may take into my
confidence before I actually pay
you
for the paintings. Isn’t that fair enough?”

“Whom else would you tell—besides
Monsieur Templar?”
the woman asked.

“The only other I have in mind is an
expert on the Italian
Renaissance—an old friend of mine I would
wish to cor
roborate my judgment of the paintings. You certainly
could
not object to that.”

“But I understood that you were the greatest expert in
France,” Mademoiselle Lambrini said.

“In many ways,” LeGrand said
matter-of-factly. “But in
a situation of this sort, with masterpieces
of such magnitude,
I would not dare to trust my own evaluation alone.”

“You’ve seen the paintings?” Simon
asked him.

“I have seen a number of color
photographs,” LeGrand
said. “They include extreme detail. I am
already quite satis
fied,
tentatively, one might say. I have no doubt that Pro
fessor … my friend will agree as soon as he has seen the
canvases themselves.”

“And when will this be?” Mademoiselle Lambrini asked.

“Tomorrow morning?” LeGrand
suggested. “Would you
prefer to have the paintings brought
here?”

“I would prefer that you come to my house. Just a moment.”

She took a pen and small leather-bound pad
from her purse and wrote out an address.

“I trust you can find this,” she
said, giving the piece of
paper to LeGrand. “It’s a white house,
set back from the
road, surrounded with high hedges.”

They discussed directions for finding the
house while the
Saint watched in silence, wondering just how he could
insure
that his acquaintance with Mademoiselle Lambrini could
be kept
active and developing. He would have had the same
thoughts even if
there had not been paintings and police and
a couple of million
dollars involved … some of which.
might eventually be coaxed into his
own pockets. Miss
Lambrini was what in the coarser forms of detective
fiction
might have been called a doll. She had the sort of imperious
beauty that seems challenging
the world to conquer it, and
the continuing
sight of her had the same effect on Simon
that the sight of Mount Everest must have on a dedicated
mountain climber.

She got to her feet with the same crisp
abruptness that
had characterised all her movements.

“Very well,” she said.
“Ten-thirty in the morning. I should
have preferred today
because I have my own plans to con
sider, but if you can come to a
decision tomorrow I shall
be satisfied.”

“I trust we shall all be
satisfied,” LeGrand said. “And I
shall have my check
book with me.”

“Good. I hope I can trust both of you to refrain from
discussing this with anyone. I have … specific
reasons to
worry.”

A shadow crossed her face when she spoke the
last words.
Simon took it as a cue.

“Maybe you should tell us more about
that side of things,”
he said.

“I need no help,” she replied.
“Good day.”

They were at the door, and LeGrand opened it
for her.

“Good day, Mademoiselle Lambrini. Monsieur Templar,
if you will remain here briefly I can show you…”

“I think I’ll walk with Mademoiselle
Lambrini,” the Saint
told him. “You’ll hear from me later
today.”

“I have told you I need no help,”
the woman said. “I’m
quite capable of walking unassisted.”

“I won’t offer you my protection,
then,” the Saint said
amiably. “Just my charming
company.”

“I had hoped that you might be
interested in Mademoi
selle Lambrini’s paintings,” LeGrand
said. “It is certainly
the opportunity of a lifetime to share
in.”

“At the moment I’m more interested in
Mademoiselle
Lambrini,” Simon said hurriedly. “I’ll
telephone you. She’s
getting away.”

She was in fact out of the door and walking
quickly out
of viewing range from the windows of the salon. The Saint
ignored LeGrand’s protestations, shook the dealer’s nervously
damp hand,
and strode away after the woman. He could
see her blonde head
among the people gathered at a crossing
half a block away.
She turned to the left at the intersection,
but the Saint was
already gaining on her rapidly. She was
easy to follow, taller
than most women, and the afternoon
sun made a beacon of the lightness of
her hair.

About five doors down the new street she had
taken, the Saint caught up with her. Before she noticed him he quietly
fell into
step alongside her. When she happened to look round and notice him she gave a
start and then a short
humorless laugh.

“Is there more than one of you?” she asked, still in
that
tantalizingly accented French. “Or
are you the same gentle
man I asked to
leave me alone just a minute ago?”

As she spoke her sharp heels continued their
staccato on
the pavement. Simon needed only his most casual walking
speed to
keep abreast of her.

“I won’t try to match your subtle
wit,” he answered with the faintest trace of sarcasm. “I’ll just ask
if you would care
to join me for a drink.”

She stopped beneath the awning of a jewelry
shop.

“Monsieur Templar, I am not certain just what your con
nection with Monsieur LeGrand and his interest in
my paint
ings is. Perhaps you are a
rich American who is going to put up the money for all five, or perhaps you are
a spy of
his hoping to find out
something which will give him an advantage in our bargaining. In either case,
or whatever the
case may be, I do not
stand to benefit from your company.”

She moved on, and Simon continued unruffled
beside her.

“Maybe I’m just lonely,” he said.
“Don’t you have a soft
spot in your heart for visiting art
lovers?”

“There are girls in bars for that sort
of thing,” she said
drily. “I’ll leave you now. There is my
automobile.”

They were at the entrance of a narrow one-way
street. Illegally parked there was a single black Mercedes facing
away from
the Saint and Mademoiselle Lambrini. Through
the rear window Simon
could make out the peaked cap of a
chauffeur.
           

“Well,” he said to her, “at
least we have something in
common: neither of us finds the other one very
pleasant.”

For a moment he thought she was going to
smile, but
then she nodded, said
“Bon jour,”
and
walked away toward
the Mercedes.

“Au revoir,”
the Saint
said.

He watched her until she had reached the car,
and then
he started back toward LeGrand’s salon. He had scarcely
taken the first step when he heard a short sharp scream. It
was almost lost in the traffic
noise, and the passersby near
him did not
seem even to notice it. He spun around in
time to see Mademoiselle Lambrini being pulled into the
black Mercedes. The automobile’s door was half
open, and
the woman’s struggles had
succeeded in keeping one of her
arms
and one of her legs outside the car.

Simon ran toward the car. The only other
witness to the scene was an old woman, her arms full of parcels, standing
and
gaping as dumbly as if she had been watching the whole
thing on television.

The Saint reached the black car just before
Mademoiselle Lambrini could be hauled inside clear of the door. He threw
himself
between the open door and the side of the car, so
that the door could
not be closed. There were two men
immediately visible—one the man in
the chauffeur’s cap and the other the man trying to restrain Mademoiselle
Lambrini.
The latter had to give up the hold of one of his hands on
the woman in order to aim a
punch at the Saint’s midriff.
Simon evaded
the jab, caught the man’s forearm, and
yanked
him by his outstretched arm straight out of the door,
banging the kidnapper’s head and shoulder against
the door
frame in the process.

Mademoiselle Lambrini swung her purse at the
head of
the driver as he started to throw the Mercedes into gear.
The
automobile lurched forward with the door still open,
the Saint clinging to
the outside, and its comely owner
bashing its driver with a large
alligator purse.

It was a short trip—not more than half a
dozen yards.
The driver slammed on the brake, flung open his own door,
and jumped out before the car had stopped moving. In the meanwhile, his
comrade had scrambled to his feet and was
disappearing past the gaping old woman
with the parcels.
The Saint might have
caught the escaping driver if the
Mercedes,
in coming to an abrupt halt as its wheels bumped into the curb, had not given
such a jerk that he was thrown momentarily off balance. He half fell, and saw
that Made
moiselle Lambrini had been
thrown forward against the dash
board.
Clutching her head with one hand, she slumped half
out of the still rumbling car, and the Saint had to
catch
her in his arms and raise her
back to a sitting position in
the
front seat. By the time he could look up both of the
men were out of sight.

Simon gently took Mademoiselle Lambrini’s hand and
moved it away from her forehead.

“Cut?” he asked.

“No,” she said weakly. “I am
all right.”

“I thought so,” he continued with
confident good cheer.
“Somebody was telling me just a few
minutes ago that you
are the sort of girl who doesn’t need
protection, and now
it’s perfectly obvious that that’s true.” He
straightened up
and nodded. “I’ll be running along then, and…”

She let out a dismayed gasp and caught his
arm.

“No! Please. Don’t leave me. I—I thought
you were one
of them.”

“One of them?”

“I’ll explain if you won’t leave me…”

From his standing position the Saint saw
something on the floor behind the front seat of the Mercedes. He also
noticed
the old woman of the parcels creeping tentatively
nearer, one hesitant
step at a time, as several other pedes
trians gathered at the end of the
narrow street to look at
and discuss the situation.

“I won’t leave you, then—yet,”
Simon said. “But we’d
better leave here. For one thing, there seems
to be a body
in the back scat of your car.”

3

“A body?”

Mademoiselle Lambrini turned to peer over
into the back of the Mercedes as Simon opened the rear door. A middle-
aged man in a black suit lay
unconscious on the floor, face
up, his arms
sprawled awkwardly as they had fallen when
he was dumped there.

“Hans!” she cried, in shocked
recognition.

“One of ours?” Simon asked.

“My chauffeur,” she answered in a
voice that was genu
inely
shaken with concern. “Have they hurt him? What…”

The Saint could see that the man was breathing deeply.
There was a faint smell of chloroform on the air.

“I think they just doped him. Let’s see
how his pulse is
doing.”

When he had lifted the man up on to the back
seat,
he realized that the audience of pedestrians which had
started to
collect at a distance a few moments before was gathering closer around the car.
At any minute some alert
member of the Parisian police would stumble on the scene and begin
asking questions.