The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots (5 page)

Mademoiselle Lambrini pulled away the cloth,
revealing
the five paintings which stood there in a crude rack, or
at least their frames, since only the front canvas was visible.
At a
glance the Saint recognized the style of Leonardo da
Vinci. Even in the
sunset light the colors had the luster
of emeralds and
rubies. It was the half-length portrait of
a woman against a
background of lakes and mountains.

One by one Mademoiselle Lambrini showed
Simon the
pictures and unnecessarily told him the names of the
artists.
Then she put the cloth back over them and slid the book
case into
place again in front of the secret compartment.

“They’re beautiful,” Simon said,
“and I’m sure very valu
able.”

“Very. They are worth at least eight million francs—a
million and a half dollars.”

“And they’re yours,” Simon said,
allowing a distinct note
of doubt to come into his voice.

“Of course—until I sell them
tomorrow.”

“Just a few lucky finds you picked up
for a song at some
little place on the Left Bank?”

She turned and glared at him coldly from
near the marble
fireplace.

“If you are going to make stupid remarks
about them I
shall be sorry I showed them to you. You gave me good
reason to
think I could trust you, Monsieur Templar,
and
…”

“Since we’re getting intimate enough to
have quarrels,
won’t you call me Simon? And I’ll call you …”

He stopped, questioningly.

“Annabella,” she said without
relaxing.

“Anna the beautiful,” Simon
translated. “Very appropriate
, . . very true.”

She blushed slightly and tried to keep her
lips from soften
ing into the hint of a smile.

“You don’t need to flatter me, Monsieur
Templar. You
have already saved my life—and my paintings. That is
enough
for one day.”

“I’m just giving my natural honesty free
rein,” the Saint
said engagingly. “And you can’t blame
me for feeling some
curiosity too. I didn’t mean to insult you or your
one-woman
Louvre.”

She nodded, and this time she actually did
smile, although
a little tiredly.

“I apologize too. I am very nervous.
This sale to Marcel
LeGrand means everything to me—and I’m not accustomed
to being
kidnapped either, or almost kidnapped. The strain
of trying to arrange
this deal with LeGrand was enough before I found out today that someone else
knows about
these paintings and wants to steal them.”

“Do you know that for certain?” the
Saint asked her.

“After what happened in Paris, it’s a
reasonable assump
tion, isn’t it?” she replied. “I assure you I
don’t know of
any other reason why anybody should bother me. I have
very
little money and no rich relatives.”

“Maybe what seems very little money to you might seem
a lot to other people,” Simon suggested.

She shook her head.

“No. I literally have just enough money
to keep up appearances—though why I’m telling you all this I don’t know.”

She hesitated. Simon, lounging against the
wall near the
front window, looked at her across the darkening room.

“I must be a sort of rejuvenated Father Figure,” he sur
mised. “People always confess to me. Can’t
help themselves.
Luckily I’m entirely
trustworthy except where money and
women
are concerned—so if you don’t have a bank account
or a husband, both of us are safe.”

She laughed uncertainly.

“Well, I have neither. My father died
just a few months
ago, and he left me this house. It was heavily mortgaged,
and almost
all the proceeds from it will have to go to settle
debts. In fact I have
had to sell furniture in order to live
these past weeks. I
didn’t have the heart to sell the car.
Hans is so fond of
it, and he stays with me for nothing.
He lives on his own savings.” She
brightened. “Of course
I’ve also known I would only have to hold out
for a few
more weeks, and then I would be rich—from selling the
paintings.”

“Which brings us back to …”

But Simon did not have a chance to finish. Hans Kraus
came running from the back rooms of the house, shouting
at the top of his voice.

4

“Fr
ä
ulein!
Fr
ä
ulein! Bitte schnell!
Quickly!”

The Saint and Annabella Lambrini met the
gray-haired
chauffeur in the entrance hall.

“Hans!” she cried. “What is
it?”

“A man! I haf seen a man from my
vindow. T’rough der
trees
he valked! Und ven I go out after him, he ran to der
front.”

Simon did not wait to hear any more of the
story. He
was already on his way out the front door of the house
after only
an instant’s glance to make certain he was not
walking into an
ambush. At first the most nearly human
thing he saw in the
golden twilight was the modest marble
nymph. Then his keen eye caught a
flash of color in motion
far down among the trees near the main road.
Although it
was already obvious that he had little chance of catching
up with
the intruder, he went through the motions of chasing
him just in case
some miracle should occur that would make
the effort worth
while.

But when he reached the dry fountain and
paused, the
Saint heard the engine of a car roaring from first into
second
gear with a squeal of rubber on pavement. He could not
see the
car that was making the noise, but its sound told
him that it was taking
off in the general direction of Paris
as fast as it could go.

Simon felt vaguely unhappy with himself. If
the Mercedes
had been followed while he was driving it, he should
have
noticed. He had in fact kept his eyes open for anybody
tailing him
on the way out from the city and had seen
nothing that aroused
his suspicions. But the roads had been
crowded, and if the
followers had held well back while An
nabella Lambrini’s car was in the
main traffic stream they
would have been hard to spot. On the other
hand, they might
not have followed at all. Knowing as much as they ap
peared to,
they would presumably have found out where she
lived.

“Did you see anything?” she was
calling to him.

He turned and strode back up the slope, where
he was
met by Annabella Lambrini and her chauffeur on the drive
way.

“Just an art connoisseur dropping in to
have a look at
your collection,” he answered. “He’s shy,
though. I never
got near him.” He looked back down toward the road.
“Too
bad. I might have caught a ride back to Paris.”

The woman’s lovely green eyes were much wider
when
Simon turned back to meet them than they had been a few
seconds
before.

“You are not leaving!” she
exclaimed.

“I didn’t know I was invited to
stay,” he said, with the
most feather-light touch of challenge.

“Oh, please do! Don’t leave us here alone
tonight—the
last night before I finally get these paintings off my
hands.
Hans isn’t feeling well, and I—”

“I feel good,” Hans said. “I am
not longer ill.”

“I don’t think Hans trusts me,”
murmured the Saint.

Annabella Lambrini smiled indulgently. They
were moving
slowly back up the front steps of the house.

“Hans is just overprotective. He’s a
worrier, aren’t you,
Hans?”

“I don’t know why,” Simon said.
“Working for a girl with
such a nice uncomplicated life as yours.”

Hans turned to the Saint as they entered the
hall.

“It is no personal, ah, feeling against
you, Sir,” he said
stiffly. “The lady iss not safe, und
only I am here to protect
her. No father, no family. Und I am not young
und not
strong. Ve must be foresighted … dot is
…”

“Careful?” Simon offered.

“Ja, careful. You understand?”

“I understand. In fact, I think your
attitude is more sensi
ble than the lady’s.” He watched her
wryly as he was speaking. “Here I am, one of the most notorious pirates on
the face
of the earth, and she’s offering to take me under her
roof
for her own protection.”

She looked him in the eye.

“I trust you are an honorable man …
Simon.”

The way she pronounced his first name, for
the first time,
would have been enough to send warm tremors up and down
the spinal
ganglia of a less controlled man. As it was, the Saint held himself detached
from the more obvious effects of that sensuous voice and merely decided that
becoming
Miss Lambrini’s personal cavalier might have more rewards
than he had anticipated.

“If you trust that I’m honorable,
you’re very trusting,” he
remarked.

“I have reason to trust you … and
without you I seem
quite certain to lose not only my paintings but possibly
my
life.”

They were in the living room now, and Hans
Kraus
turned on the lights. The sun was already below the horizon,
and the
molten glow of the sky was cooling to darkness.
Annabella Lambrini
drew the curtains over the large window.

“Have you any idea who these characters
might be?”
Simon asked her. “The ones who are so anxious to get
their
hands on you and your property?”

“No. Not the slightest.”

“Or how they might have found out about
the paintings?”

“No.” She looked at Kraus, who was
standing near the
door as if waiting for orders. “Go rest now.
Monsieur Templar
will be staying—won’t you, Simon?”

“My fate seems to be sealed,” he said resignedly.
“I will
be staying.”

“Good,” the chauffeur said. “I
make it certain that all is
locked.”

“Are there any outside lights?”
the Saint asked. “If there
are, I suggest you leave them on all night.
With a million
and a half dollars you can
afford to run up an
electric bill.”

The chauffeur bowed briefly and went out.

“I am grateful, Simon,” Annabella
said warmly. “I realize
that it is not very … conventional to ask
this of you, but
the
fact is, I am not a very conventional female. I have led
my life as it pleased me, not wanting to be
tied—at least
not until I had
enjoyed myself. And I knew, from my father,
that I would have money coming, though I was not sure
until after he died just where it was expected to
come from. But I have always been independent, perhaps partly because
of the idea that I would have a great deal of money
some
day. My relationships with men
have not had to be on the
careful practical basis that most women worry
about. In a
word, I haven’t learned to give
a damn what people think of
me. You
are shocked?”

“I’m favorably impressed,” Simon
said. “It doesn’t sound
like a typically Italian attitude.”

“I am not typically Italian.” She
waved him toward a
chair. “Sit down, please. My father was from the
Italian
Tyrol, and my mother was from Munich. I was sent to
Sweden
when I was a little child, during the war. My mother
was killed in an air
raid in Munich. My father was in the
Italian army on the Russian front. He
disappeared com
pletely, like so many others, as the Russians moved on
Europe,
but he survived as a prisoner until he was released and found
me years
later. I was fifteen years old by then … and yet
I still remembered
him.”

The Saint nodded as she paused.