The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace (18 page)

“We couldn’t,” said the Saint.
“The hut we hid in is in full
view of the Castle, and by this time
the battlements are
crawling with characters on the lookout. Some sniper
would
have earned himself an Iron Cross before we got near it. Any
way,
Frankie wouldn’t like the drain. There’s no class to it.”

Frankie smiled at him.

“I think you just like this car.”

“It’s a beauty,” he admitted.
“And was lent to me by a very distinguished owner.”

“But how do we get out of the camp? They’ll be waiting
for us at the gate and we can’t just climb over
the barbed
wire.”

The Saint shrugged.

“I won’t know till I see what the
set-up is when we get to the gate.”

“We’re there now,” she said,
pointing ahead.

The gate was closed. Four soldiers crouched
in front of it. What was more important was that they were crouching over
machine-guns.
The phone call which he had anticipated had
reached them in time
enough. If ever there was a situation
where he had to improvise, it was
there.

His genius did not let him down. As it neared
the boundary fence, the road ran beside a grassy field. The Saint drove a lit
tle
nearer to the gate and then swung the car off into the field,
so that it
was at right angles to the road with its back towards
the machine-gun
squad, who were scrambling to turn the
guns through a
ninety-degree realignment. But they had not
yet opened fire, perhaps because they had
been ordered to
take live prisoners if
possible.

“Get down on the floor,” he
ordered Leopold and Frankie.

Then he crouched down low over the wheel and
reversed full tilt towards the machine-guns and their attendants.

He knew that there was a good chance that he might be
dead in the course of the next few seconds, but
the chances of
death were
paradoxically all that they had to live for. He had
to gamble on the unexpectedness of his manoeuvre,
the awk
wardness of the machine-gun
mounts, the probability that
Göring’s
car would have been equipped with some non-stand
ard bullet-proofing, and the fact that the rear-wheel trans
mission was much less liable to disablement by
impact than
the front-wheel steering.

The astonished soldiers did not have time to
get their guns properly trained and only managed a few wild bursts of spo
radic fire
before the Delage was upon them. There was a
succession of
splintering crashes as the car knocked their
machine-guns for six.
There was a nasty lurch as one of the
wheels went over a soldier who failed
to get out of its way.
Simon spun the wheel full lock, and there
came a tremendous crash as the car hurtled backwards through the gates.

On the other side of them the Saint wrenched
it through
another three-point turn and sent it barrelling away
down the highway towards potential freedom. A few scattered shots
reached
his ears from behind, but he heard only two or three bullets hit the coachwork.

“You can come out now,” he told
Frankie and Leopold.
“The storm is past and there will be
thé
dansant
in the
lounge.”

“Mein Gott,”
said
Leopold, climbing back on to his seat.
“Sometimes I
think you must be a maniac.”

“If I weren’t,” said the Saint,
“I’d never have got into this
caper.”

4

They were soon out of the hills, and as they
drove along a rut
ted lane in flat countryside the Saint considered what to
do
next.

“I think,” he said, “our best
bet is to head for a border post
and take it from there. We’ve got to get back
into Austria
and contact Max. If we’re lucky we’ll be able to talk
our way through, if not—well, there’s always the odd miracle if you’ve
led a good
life like I have.”

“If you’ve led a good life,” Frankie
said, “Machiavelli
should be made a saint.”

“Only I beat him to it,” Simon
reminded her.

“I don’t like it,” Leopold said
darkly. “We shall all be
arrested and shot.”

“Oh, Leopold, you are always so
negative,” Frankie
protested.

“As the model said to the
photographer,” flipped the Saint. “At any rate this crate lives up to
its prospectus. They say it’ll
do a hundred without turning a hair,
although on a track like
this it hasn’t much of a chance. But this
Cotal electric gear
box is very convenient.” He accelerated rapidly
after a skidding turn. “We ought to get somewhere pretty fast as long as
we keep her filled up and
remember to cough in the tyres
every now
and then.”

“Exactly!” said Leopold, in a
voice which sounded both
gloomy and supercilious.

“What does that mean?” demanded
Frankie.

“Yes,” Simon seconded. ”
‘Exactly’ may be precise, but it
also leaves one neither here nor there. All
over the place, so to speak, and not anywhere in particular.”

“Have you looked at the petrol gauge
recently?” Leopold
asked sourly.

The Saint looked.

“Hmmm. Yes, I see what you mean. Rather
low. They
must have hit the tank when they were shooting at us, the
naughty boys. Let’s hope the puncture isn’t right at the bot
tom. Well,
have faith, as the Good Book says, and ye shall
move internal combustion engines. I’m sure
Moses didn’t
worry about petrol
pumps.”

“Yes, but he was walking,” Frankie
said.

“And so may we be shortly,” responded the Saint.
“On
ward Christian soldiers, and all
that. It’s an idea. We can ar
rive
at the border on bare feet and say we’re pilgrims headed
for Berlin to lay a wreath on the tomb of the
Unknown
Rabbi. That ought to get us
the red carpet treatment, though I’d rather not wonder what they’d dye it
with.”

“We shall soon be on a better
road,” Frankie said, and they
were.

They tore through a poverty-stricken village
of strangely oriental-looking dirty whitewashed hovels. Some children and
old
peasants watched their passage with amazement, their in
terest
making their slant Magyar eyes almost round.

Glancing at the fuel gauge every few seconds,
Simon saw
that the level was falling much faster than even
extravagant
consumption would account for, although not so fast as
to
reveal a
catastrophic outpour. Therefore they should have
quite a few miles still in hand—but the precise number would
depend entirely on the level at which the tank
had been per
forated. If the damage
was high up enough, the leak might
stop
by itself while they had a few gallons left; but if it was right at the bottom,
the tank would very soon run dry. They
were
“ifs” with the palm-sweating uncertainty of Russian
roulette.

Simon decided that it was worth wasting a
precious minute
to know the worst—or the best. He brought the car to a
stop, got out, and ran back to kneel in the road behind it.

In little more than a minute he was back in
the driver’s seat
and starting off again.

“The hole in the tank is very low down
and pretty big,” he reported almost conversationally. “I stuffed a
handkerchief in it, but we’d lose as much petrol as we’d save while we were
trying to make a better patch.
We’ll just have to keep our
fingers crossed
and see how far we go.”

“There you are!” said Leopold
lugubriously. “I told you
this whole idea was crazy.”

“You are a man of very sound if limited
judgment,” Simon
assured him consolingly.

“No, we have a good chance,”
Frankie contradicted. “I
know this road, and the border post is now
only a few kilo
metres away.”

“Yes,” said Leopold darkly,
“and what happens
 
then?
They stop
us and ask for our papers, and while they are ex
amining them the
Gestapo catches up with us.”

He passed his finger across his throat
expressively, as Simon
saw in the rear-view mirror. To Simon
Templar, the gesture
was an irresistible provocation.

“Quite right,” he assented
heartily. “Sound, if limited,
again. Besides, they’re bound to have
reported this car miss
ing. Every official from here to Berchtesgarten
will be watch
ing out for it. Now if you’ve got any other jolly
thoughts to
boost our morale, do let us share them.”

Leopold lapsed into aggrieved silence, and
the Saint drove
steadily on at the best speed he could estimate as a
compromise between the need to evade pursuit and the need to con
serve
fuel.

Presently the winding but improved lane that
they were on
ended abruptly in a T-junction with what was obviously a
main road.

“We’ve done it!” claimed Frankie
excitedly. “Turn right,
and the frontier is only about two
kilometres.”

It was just as Simon braked for the turn that
the engine
coughed, started up again, coughed, ran for a few
seconds,
and then died.

“Well,” said the Saint,
“that’s that. Don’t say anything,
Leopold. This is no
time for sound if limited pro
nouncements. What we need is another miracle.
I have it!
Cogito ergo sum
—the old cogs are
going round.” He leapt out
of the car. “Come on, Leopold. Bring my
bag of tools, and
make sure it’s mine.”

A moment later he had exposed the engine of
the Delage
and was working on the carburettor with a spanner from
the
tool kit. When he had the top off he reached into the bag
again and
pulled out the brandy bottle. He unscrewed the top
and took a swig.

“Prost,”
he said,
and poured the rest of the cognac into the carburettor.

“Gott im Himmel!”
squealed
Frankie, who was leaning out
of the car window to watch.

“Now I know you are mad!” exploded
Leopold.

“I admit it’s a bit of a waste,”
said the Saint calmly.
“Delamain ‘14 wasn’t exactly meant for
use in cars. But it
always pays to have the best.”

“But surely a car won’t run on
brandy?” said Frankie.

“A car will run on anything that’s got
enough alcohol in it. I’m sure that Delamain won’t let us down. After all, it’s
a ma
ture and brave spirit, as they say.”

“And how far will that get us?”

“Hardly anywhere,” said the Saint
cheerfully, as he
squeezed behind the wheel again. “But that’s where
we’re
going. Come on, Leopold, don’t bother about the tools. Pile
in!”

Simon pressed the starter, and the motor sprang to life
almost immediately. He put the car in gear and
started off.

As he began to turn out of the lane, he had
to brake
quickly to give way to a black Audi saloon that came
speeding
along the main road from their left. There were three men
in
it, in civilian clothes, and the two who were not driving
turned
automatically to glance at the Delage as they swept
past.

Simon glimpsed on their faces a much more
startled reac
tion than the situation warranted. And there was
something
about the character of the faces themselves, combined
with
the character of the car, that spelled out just one word in his
brain.

The word went into italics when the Audi’s
stop lights
blazed red and the car swerved sharply to the righthand
verge
and then swung into an abrupt left turn across the highway
and
stopped, effectively blocking the road.

“Gestapo!”
the Saint
said aloud.

Without an instant’s hesitation, he let the clutch in again
and spurred the Delage forward with all the
acceleration of
which it was
capable.