The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace (7 page)

“You can’t tell me the Germans haven’t
spotted that one,”
Simon objected.

Max maintained his opinion.

“It may seem strange, but they don’t
appear to have. After
all, the exit on to the river is well hidden
by shrubs and rocks,
and anyway the Germans haven’t been there
very long. Given
time they may find it, but they haven’t yet. One of my
men
has been quite far into the drain. He found a manhole but
did not
dare go any farther. He was brave, but not brave
enough, which is as
bad as being a coward.”

“So that leaves me to be the hero who opens
up that
manhole
and sees what’s on the other side. It could be that
your man wasn’t so much afraid as just being sensible. You
expect me to be both brave and foolhardy. Well,
I’m a gam
bler and I might take the
risk. But I’ll have to decide that
myself
if and when I get there.”

Max nodded approvingly.

“Good! I at least assessed your own
courage correctly.”

He pointed again to the map.

“I have worked out where this manhole comes up. It comes out,
as would be expected, in the middle of some agricultural
land, which is the most important part of the
valley to drain. There are a number of wooden sheds in that area where the
farmers keep their tools and the like. Probably one of these
sheds hides the entrance to the manhole to cover
it against
corrosion by the weather or being blocked and covered with
earth. If it doesn’t, the ground will almost certainly have been
ploughed up all around it, and it will be in the
middle of a
wheat field or long
grass.”

“And you really will take care of all
my widows?”

“I hope that will not be necessary. I think you will be quite
safe. For one thing, I doubt very much that
the Germans
have even dreamed about
the possibility of the drain’s being
where it is. After all, only
country people know that agricul
tural
fields are often drained by underground pipes. To most
people a field is just a field and they never
think what goes on
underneath it. For
another, no one would expect to have such
a
large
drain in that
place unless they knew about the possibility of flooding in that particular
area because of the hills.”

“But surely they must have seen the end which opens on to
the river? One thing you must say for the Germans
is that
they may be a bit plodding
and often thick-headed, but
they’re always thorough.”

Max shook his head vigorously.

“No, it is highly unlikely, otherwise my
man would never
have
got as far as he did. As I have told you, the exit is con
cealed by rocks and is overgrown with bushes. The
farmers never had any reason to keep that end of the drain exposed.
Flood waters coming down the pipe would spill out
over any
thing or sweep it out of
their way. A few bushes and rocks
would
make no difference once the waters had got that far,
and if they did,
the peasants could always clear them away.”

“Do tell me some more cosy reasons why
the drain is so ab
solutely
safe for me to go into?” Simon smiled.

Max smiled back at him.

“The best reason is that it won’t be
you who goes through
it first, it will be one of my men.”

“And then his widow gets a pension, I
suppose,” said the Saint. “No, thank you. You’re just trying to get
out of this on the cheap—one widow to take care of instead of four. But I
never
employ stunt men. If anyone goes through that man
hole first, it’ll be
little me.”

Frankie and Leopold had been listening all
this time in silence, Leopold with visible impatience, but leaving Annellatt
to do all
the exposition. But now Frankie leaned for
ward eagerly in the
chair she had taken.

“Now you know all we can tell you,
Simon, you are still
with us?”

Simon had already made up his mind. He was,
after all, a
gambler
at heart, albeit one who never took more chances
than he had to. But your born gambler has to take some
chances, and they are usually big ones. A toss of
a coin with
death was the sort of
hazard that appealed most strongly to
the
Saint.

“I’m with you,” he said calmly.
“But I’d hate to break up a beautiful comradeship. If Max doesn’t accept
it, I’d be a bad
risk.”

Max Annellatt spread his hands generously.

“I have accepted,” he said.
“I too do not want a bad risk.
Now I think we should all go to my
country place. Would
you go back to your hotel, please, Simon—pay
your bill and collect your things and come back here?”

“Certainly,” Simon replied. “But I like sleeping
raw, and
all I really need is a glass of
salt water to bung my false teeth
into.”

Frankie giggled.

“I don’t imagine you have any
falsies,” she said.

The Saint grinned at her.

“I shall have to give you some lessons
in American slang,”
he murmured. “But the same to you, and
thanks for the com
pliment. I wish I could say thanks for the memory.
Perhaps I
shall one day.”

The girl looked mischievously pleased. In
spite of his
youth, Leopold appeared about to have a stroke.

“Why pay for a room if you’re not using
it?” Max argued
practically. “Besides, it would be
better if you seemed to
make a normal departure, instead of just
disappearing. Tell
the hotel you are driving to Italy, which is the opposite
direction from where we shall be going.”

“You seem to have forgotten,” Simon
remarked, “about
the Gestapo boyos lurking outside.”

“There is another way out of this
building,” Max told him, “through the former stables, which are now
garages, on to a
different street, which the Gestapo should not have
discov
ered yet. And I will lend you a car.”

“Well, what about the car I came here
in?” Simon ob
jected.
“It belongs to a friend of mine, and he’s rather attached to it.”

“So much the better, if the papers are
not in your name.
He can report it stolen, and in due course the police
will re
turn it to him.”

The Saint drew a long decisive breath.

“Okay, Maximilian,” he said.
“Let’s get the show on the
road.”

With a brief wave of temporary farewell to
Frankie and
Leopold, he followed Max out of the room.

Max led him down a different stairway, which
nevertheless
brought them to another angle of the central courtyard.
The place was probably a warren of such private staircases, de
signed in a more spacious age
so that guests and servants
could move
about without unnecessarily encountering each
other. And it was only to be expected that a man like Max Annellatt
would have provided himself with at least as many
bolt-holes as a prudent rabbit.

After making sure that the courtyard was
deserted, An
nellatt beckoned the Saint out and led him across to the
back,
where
another door admitted them to a dimly lit grey-walled passage which zigzagged
past a few other unpainted doors and a couple of square black caves stacked
with unidentifiable shrouded relics, to bring them into an equally dim-lit
architectural cavern where the damp air still seemed to incorporate
ineradicable nuances of its former equine occupants.

In one of the converted stalls, Max
introduced him to a
gleaming Mercedes-Benz 540 supercharged coup
é
and handed
him a key.

“Do you know how to drive it?”

“I could hardly miss,” said the
Saint. “As I recall it, the
gear box is synchro-mesh, and semi-automatic between third
and fourth. To be very exact, the engine is
actually 54O1 cc—”

“Good,” Annellatt said approvingly.
He went over to a
large
sliding door across from the stall, unbolted it and hauled
it aside. It opened on to a dark rain-washed
alley, where he in
dicated a turn to
the right. “That will bring you back to the
street in front of the building, but if you turn left there you
will
not have to pass the entrance again and anyone who is watching it, and you will
be going towards the Mariahilferstrasse. Will you remember the rest of the
way?”

“Some of my ancestors,” the Saint
reassured him, “were
homing pigeons.”

“Then you should be back here within
ninety minutes. Tap on this door and I shall be waiting for you.”

Simon had only slightly exaggerated his sense of direction
and his talent for noting and memorising routes.
He found
his way unerringly back to
the Hotel Hofer, where it took him
only a few minutes to pack the
minimal travel bag which was
all he had with
him.

A bored night clerk seemed unsurprised at his checking out
at such an hour, which might not have been so
extraordinary
for a commercial hotel, and gave him vague directions to
the
main roads towards Italy. It was not
until much later that he noticed that “Mr Taylor” had filled in his
forwarding address
on the conventional
form as “The Vatican, Rome.”

He found his way just as efficiently back to
the building
which housed Annellatt’s apartment, but parked the Mer
cedes short of the back alley
and walked in to the sliding
garage door.
It was a few minutes less than the ninety that
Max allowed him, and there was no response when he tapped on the door.

After a brief wait, he tried pulling the
door aside, and it
moved with no more resistance than its own ponderous sus
pension.
But all was now darkness in the garage.

Simon stepped inside, reaching into a pocket
for the pencil flashlight that he carried as automatically as a fountain pen.
There had
to be a light switch somewhere near by, if he could
find it, to turn on
the illuminations for late-homing tenants,
otherwise some
benighted elderly reveller returning from his
favourite
Weinstube
might trip over a Volkswagen and get
hurt.

Simon Templar was not exactly an elderly
reveller, but he
still got hurt. His whole world suddenly exploded and
left
him falling into blackness.

3

When he came to, he was in pitch darkness. For
a few
moments because of the discomforts of his accommodation
he thought he was in his hotel
bed until he realised that he
was lying on a
cold bare floor with his wrists tightly bound
behind him. “No,” he said to himself, as cheerfully as he
could in the circumstances, “I never tie
myself up before
going to bed.
Someone’s been a bit naughty.”

He tried to loosen his bonds, but they were tied firmly
enough to tell him that it would take even his
escapologist’s skill quite some time to get out of them.

Then that attempt had to be deferred as a key
turned in a
lock, a door was opened, and the room was flooded with
harsh
light from a naked bulb switched on overhead.

It was a small grey room about the size of a
prison cell,
which it depressingly resembled, and as he rolled over
he saw
that it was devoid of furniture.

Two men entered. Both wore raincoats and
turned-down
Trilby
hats. The Saint recognised them at once. They were the Rat and the Gorilla. The
names of convenience that he
had given them
could not have fitted more neatly. They were
two perfect stereotypes from a C-grade film.

The Rat spoke in English. He had a heavy and
rather gut
tural accent blended with that of the American locality
where he had learned it, which sounded rather like Yonkers. And
Simon had
no doubt that in the same school he had acquired
some of the less
attractive characteristics of the American cul
ture.

“So you are awake already?” he
said.

As a remark it was superfluous, but it helpfully told the
Saint that he could not have been knocked out for
long.