The Saint in the Sun (6 page)

In French, the words “good friend” applied to one of the opposite sex have a possible delicate ambiguity which Simon did not overlook.

“I only met her yesterday,” he answered. “But I think she’s very nice.”

“Do you want her to have this part?”

“I wish her luck, but I don’t wish anyone else any bad luck,” said the Saint diplomatically. “I hope it all works out so that everybody’s happy.”

He mentally excluded Sir Jasper Undine from that general benevolence, but decided not to bring up that issue. He could see that Lee Carozza was getting set to resume his inquisition, and he was instinctively disinclined to remain available for it. He finished his drink and stood up briskly.

“Well, it was nice meeting all of you, but I must be going. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

Because Undine had turned to the right when he left, Simon turned the other way, to obviate any risk of running into them again and seeming to have followed. In the direction thus imposed on him, opening off a narrow and unpromising alley, was the surprisingly atmospheric and attractive patio of the Auberge des Maures, which it was no hardship to settle for. He found a table in a quiet corner; and presently over a splendid bouillabaisse and a bottle of cool rosé he found himself inevitably considering the phenomenon of Sir Jasper Undine.

It was a frustrating kind of review, because in spite of Undine’s resplendent qualifications as a person on whom something unpleasant ought to be inflicted, the appropriate form of visitation was not at all easy to determine.

A simple extermination was naturally the most complete and tempting prescription, but might have seemed a bit drastic to a jury of tender hearts.

At the other end of the scale, a financial penalty, levied by such straightforward means as burglary, was not likely to be practically productive. Sir Jasper, for all his ostentation, would not be packing a load of jewels like his female equivalent would have; and in a rented villa he would not have any other personal treasures. Nor was there much chance of finding a lot of cash on the premises or on Sir Jasper’s person. Wilbert had paid for the drinks from a modest wallet and entered the amount in his notebook: it was evident that among his various duties was that of personal paymaster, and he was the prim and prudent type who would be certain to keep most of the funds in the form of traveler’s checks.

The only possibility in between would be one of those elaborately plotted and engineered swindles which delighted the Saint’s artistic soul, but for which none of the elements of the situation seemed to offer a readymade springboard.

It was quite a problem for a buccaneer with a proper sense of responsibility to his life’s mission, and Simon Templar was not much closer to a solution when he walked back to his temporary home at what for St Tropez was a comparatively rectangular hour of the night, having decided that some new factor might have to be added before an inspiration would get off the ground.

He was at the entrance when the door of one of the parked cars in the driveway opened, and quick footsteps sounded behind him, and a woman said: “Pardon, Monsieur Templar-“

The voice was halfway familiar, enough to make him turn unguardedly before he fully recognized it, and then he also recognized Dominique Rousse and it was too late.

She smiled.

“So my husband was right,” she said. “You are le Saint.”

“He wins the bet,” Simon said resignedly. “Is he here?”

“No. He is at the Casino. He will be there until dawn. For him, gambling is a passion. I told him I had a headache and could not stand any more. Do you have an aspirin?”

The Saint contemplated her amiably for a profound moment.

“I’ll see if I can find one.”

He took her up in the self-service elevator, sat her down in the living room, and went foraging. He came back with Old Curio, ice cubes, water, and two tablets which he punctiliously placed beside the glass he mixed for her.

She laughed with a sudden abandon which shattered the unreal sultriness of her face.

“You are wonderful.”

“I only try to oblige.”

“You make this much easier for me. You know that I want something more-“

“More difficult?”

“Much more. I want to be Messalina in this film of Undine. It is the most important thing in the world.”

His eyebrows slanted banteringly.

“That’s a considerable statement.”

“It is important for me. I am a star in Europe, yes. In England and America they have heard of me-they have seen pictures in special theaters, with subtitles or with another voice speaking for me-but I am not a star. To become a star internationally, to be paid the biggest money, I must be seen in a great picture made in English. All of us have to do this, like Lollobrigida and Loren and Bardot. Undine will make that kind of picture.”

Simon swirled the amber liquid in his glass gently around the floes.

“You know I just met him for the first time. What makes you think I can influence him?”

“Perhaps you can influence Maureen Herald to look for another job.”

“I’m quite sure she wouldn’t listen to me. And why should she?”

“I must tell you something,” she said with restrained vehemence. “I already have a contract to play Messalina. It was not spoken of this evening because it is still a secret between Undine and me. But I made him sign it before I would pay the price that he wanted.” She stated it with such brutal directness that the Saint blinked. “He cannot get out of that. But if he is thinking of cheating by having another part made just as big, or bigger, I would like to see him killed.”

“And have no picture at all?”

“There would still be a picture. The contract is with his company. They already have much money invested. The company would go on, but the producer would not have Undine telling him how he must change the script.” She stood up, and came close. “If you can do nothing else, kill Undine for me.”

He stared at her. Her arms went up, and her hands linked behind his neck, her eyes half closed and her mouth half open.

“I would be very grateful,” she said.

“I’m sure you would,” he said as lightly as possible. “And if the flics didn’t pin it on me, your husband would only shoot me and get acquitted.”

“Who would tell him? It is for his good, too, and what he does not know will not hurt him, any more than what I had to do before with Undine.”

Simon realized, almost against credibility, that she was perfectly sober and completely serious. It was one of the most stunning revelations of total amorality that even he had ever encountered-and ethical revulsion made it no easier to forget that it came with the bait of a face and body that might have bothered even St Anthony.

He let his head be drawn down until their lips met and clung; and then as he responded more experimentally she drew back.

“You will do it?”

The Saint had reached an age when it seemed only common sense to avoid gratuitously tangling with the kind of woman which hell hath no fury like, but he never lied if he could avoid it.

“I’ll think about it,” he said truthfully.

“Do not think too long,” she said. “You would do it cleverly; but another person could also do it, not so cleverly, but to be acquitted. Only then I would not owe you anything.”

“You aren’t offering a down payment?” he said with a shade of mockery.

“No. But I am not like Undine. I would not cheat in that way.”

She looked searchingly into his eyes for some seconds longer, but the pouting mask of her beauty gave no hint of whatever she thought she found. Then abruptly she turned and walked to the door. Before he could be quite sure of her intention, she had opened it without a pause and gone out; it closed behind her, and the click of her heels went away uninterruptedly down the stone hall and ended in the metallic rattle of the elevator gate.

The Saint took a long slow breath and passed the back of a hand across his forehead.

Then he picked up his glass again and emptied it.

He knew then that his strange destiny was running true to form, and that all the apparently random and pointless incidents of the past thirtysix hours, which have been recorded here as casually as they happened, could only be building towards the kind of eruptive climax in which he was always getting involved. But now he could go to sleep peacefully, secure in the certainty that something else would have to happen and that this would quite possibly show him what he had to do.

But he never dreamed how bizarre the denouement was to be.

He made his own breakfast of eggs and instant coffee the next morning, and after that it seemed not too early to call Maureen Herald. He was prepared to have been told that there was a Do Not Disturb on her telephone, but instead the hotel operator reported eventually: “Elle ne répond pas.” He was surprised enough to have it repeated, making sure there was no mistake.

He had his call transferred to the concierge, and pressed the question of when she had gone out… . He was told about nine o’clock, and was happy to be ashamed of his trend of thought.

He would have to be patient a while longer, then, for the next development.

He drove to the section of the Pampelonne beach which they call “Tahiti”, and walked along the sand far enough to get away from the densest crowd, which naturally clustered near the end of the road. Peeled down to his trunks, he stretched himself out to enjoy the sun and the scene with the timeless tranquillity of a lizard.

It seemed only a matter of minutes before the purple and orange Chris-Craft came around the point on his left and cruised slowly across the bay, just as it had done the day before. The same grotesque monster with blue-lensed eyes and giant cigar, clad in the same horrible combination of fluorescent green and crimson and yellow, sat up on the side and steered it in the same negligent manner, scanning the shore; only this time it was alone. The servile Wilbert had apparently been left to some other chore.

From time to time Undine’s cigar waved back in response to a wave from some would-be playmate on the beach, but the speedboat purred on without swerving. It looked as if Sir Jasper was not in the mood for company today, or as if his regular wolf-promenade would be satisfied with only one specific quarry which he had not yet flushed.

The speedboat voyaged all the way down to the “Epi-Plage” at the southern end of the strand, where the more fanatical sun-worshippers regularly scandalize the conventional with their uninhibited exposures among the dunes, but even that did not seem to offer its colorific commodore what he was seeking. It turned, and retraced its course until it was almost opposite the Saint, and then suddenly poured on the power and veered out and away with a foaming arrogance that almost swamped two or three small craft which had the temerity to be near the path it had chosen, and disappeared to the northeast around the rocky salient of Cap du Pinet.

Simon glanced at his wrist watch, a habit of reference which was almost a reflex with him, and it showed a quarter to eleven.

He wondered what connection, if any, Undine’s disinterest might have had with the outcome of the previous night; but he knew that this speculation was only an idle pastime.

When the heat began to become oppressive he went for a swim, and then he enjoyed the sun all over again. And it was twenty minutes to one before he felt restive-and recognized that the feeling was as much due to a plain gastric announcement of lunch time as to any psychic impatience for new events.

Then he rolled over and saw Maureen Herald coming towards him.

In sunglasses and a chiffon scarf cowled over her head and knotted under her chin in the style of that season, she was like a hundred other girls on the beach except for the distinctively long-lined greyhound figure which her wet bikini clung to like paint-until she was close enough to reveal the classical delicacy of her face.

“Hi,” she said.

Simon unwound himself vertically with a delight which surprised himself.

“Hi,” he said. “I was wondering where we’d catch up. I called you about half-past nine, but you’d already gone out.”

“I had to see Undine. I called you as soon as I could, but your phone didn’t answer. I hoped I’d find you here.”

“How did it go?”

She met his eyes squarely.

“He signed the contract.”

She sat down, and he gave her a cigarette.

“Was it difficult?”

“It nearly was,” she said. “You were wonderful to say nothing, the way you did, when I stood you up at the Sénéquier. But later on I was wishing you hadn’t been such a good sport. He wasn’t so bad at the restaurant, except that it was like being out with a brass band, but after dinner we had to go to his villa.”

“Not to see etchings?”

“Not quite. To see if the contract had arrived. It might have come, he sad, if it was sent special delivery. But of course it hadn’t.” She inhaled deeply. “Then he laid it on the line anyhow -what I’d have to do if he was going to sign. It was as corny as any old melodrama, but he was flying high by that time and he meant it. I was scared stiff.”

“But Heaven will protect the working girl… the song says.” She gazed out towards the horizon unseeingly, as though she were watching a movie that was being projected on a screen inside her sunglasses, and her voice was a toneless commentary on what she saw replayed.

“The only thing I could think of was just as hysterically corny. I told him about my mother and my brother, and I said: ‘That’s the only reason I can’t say no, but I can’t make myself pretend to enjoy it. If you can enjoy it like that, go ahead.’ And I lay down limp like a rag doll.” She turned to Simon again, and gripped his arm in a sudden gesture that was more like a convulsive release of suppressed tension than anything personal. “And it worked!”

“It licked him?”

“He told me to get out and come back in the morning for the contract. He even let me take his car to go home and come back in.”

“So that’s where you were when I called.”

She nodded.

“Of course I was afraid he’d have changed his mind. But he hadn’t. He said if he’d had a sister who would have been ready to do as much for him, he might have felt a lot differently about women. It was a real tear-jerker. But he signed the contract, and that was that. I mailed it to my agent and came looking for you.”