The Saint Returns (17 page)

The four rode in silence for what must have
been a mile or two, and all the time Smolenko just looked at
him. The
first step in some Asiatic method of wearing
him down? Or was she searching the files
of her photo
graphic memory for information
about him?

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Tea,” said Ivan, and reached for
the handle.

“Wait,” Smolenko broke in. “We
must give a tip, I
think.”

She thumbed through her book.

“Despicable bourgeois practice. In lieu
of social justice you give measly alms.”

“Measly alms,” Simon repeated
admiringly. “That’s
very good. But you must get over this thing about the
bourgeoisie. They’re really very clean,
industrious peo
ple. Salt of the
earth, and all that jazz. Tipping isn’t their idea of fun—it’s the proletariat
that insists on it.”

“The official recommendation is one
mark,” the
Colonel announced coldly.

She produced a coin purse, inspected both
sides of a
pfennig, closely examined a big five-mark piece. Simon
reached
over and selected a silver mark.

“There.”

She flushed slightly, and Igor, who had started forward,
relaxed.

“Now,” she said.

Igor opened the door, and a white-coated
waiter came
in with the tray, bending quickly down to set it on a
stand
beside the door.

Simon was on him in an instant, one arm like
a vise
at his throat, the other twisting the man’s wrist behind
him.

“Meet Hans Klaus, bartender
extraordinary,” the Saint said through grimly clenched teeth. “Lock
the door and search him. Hurry.”

“For why?” cried a dumfounded Ivan.

But the urgency in Simon’s voice was
unmistakable,
and the Russian began to pat down the feebly struggling
captive.

“Bartender?” Smolenko said, showing
the closest thing
to perturbation she had allowed herself since the Saint’s
arrival. “What is it you are doing?”

“Klaus is an unusual bartender. He’s
probably much more at home mixing Molotov cocktails than martinis.”

Ivan’s search produced a transmitter device
exactly
like that demonstrated so effectively by Dr. Mueller in
his laboratory.

“Quickly,” Simon said. “Check
the tea
…
the tray
… inside the pot.”

Ivan obeyed despite his mystification, and
within sec
onds discovered a small cone-shaped object which had
been
attached by suction under one edge of the tray.
Suddenly Klaus darted
out his hand and flipped the
switch on the transmitter which Igor was
holding. It
began its now familiar thin crescendo.

“The window!” Simon yelled, twisting
Klaus’s arm
until he yelped. “Throw it out. Fast.”

Ivan slammed down the window and tossed out
the little cone. Igor threw the transmitter. A second later
there was
an explosion which undoubtedly disturbed the
dreams of a number of
passengers about one car back.

“See what I mean about this fellow?” Simon said.
“Dis
penses good cheer wherever he
goes.”

Colonel Smolenko, who had been on her feet
since
the discovery of the bomb, stared at Klaus.

“He is the one you said would kill
me?”

“One
of the ones,
probably.” With his lean strength he
evoked a new whimper
from Klaus and said to him in German, “Now, tell us all you know, or I shall
let these
Russians tear you to pieces. Who are you working
for?”

“A man
…
in
Paris.”

“His name?”

“Ich weiss nicht.
I have him
never seen. My orders
come by telephone.”

“What orders?”

“Hahn to kill. Then this train to catch
and the occu
pants of this compartment to kill.”

Simon released the erstwhile bartender, who
rubbed
his aching arm and took a deep breath.

“A nice night’s work,” said the
Saint, turning to Smolenko. “Did you get all that?”

She nodded, and at the same moment Klaus
grabbed
the emergency stop cord. The train gave a tremendous
lurch as
the air brakes slammed on automatically. All
those in the
compartment except Klaus, who had prepared himself, went staggering off
balance, and Smo-
lenko fell back against the wall and slipped to the
floor.

Klaus was out and running down the corridor.
Igor
and Ivan
plunged after him. Their silenced shots were lost
in the groans and rattles of the halting train.

The Saint knelt over Smolenko, who was limp on the
carpet, her eyes closed. He picked her up to put
her on the seat, already assured that she was not more than
stunned. Her eyelids fluttered, and she gave a
sighing
moan through parted lips.

“You look much more sweetly feminine
asleep than
awake, Colonel,” Simon murmured.

She opened her eyes wide.

“Put me down. Instantly!”

He dropped her ungently onto the seat, flat on
her
back.

“As you say, Colonel.”

She swung her legs around and stood up,
jerking
wrinkles out of her coat, trying to overcome dizziness
with
determined dignity.

“That was not good of you,” she
snapped.

“Picking you up or putting you
down?”

“Neither. I need no help. You insult
me.”

“I’m not particularly flattered myself,
Sonya. You
couldn’t have looked more horrified if you’d found yourself
in the arms of King Kong himself.”

“My name is not Sonya, and I do not
understand all
your idioms. Please …”

“Please what?” Simon asked politely,
after she had
hesitated for several seconds.

She was apparently unable to think of any useful orders
to give him. He had proven his value and the
sincerity
of his desire not to see her
killed. But there was no
trust in her
eyes, only a touch of confusion behind the
hard glaze of the secret police officer. She was spared having to
manufacture a statement by the return of her
bodyguards.

“They shot him dead,” she
translated for the Saint.
“They placed his body in the water of the
ditch before
the train was fully stopped, and they told that the signal
of this rope was a mistake.”

“Very clever,” Simon said with disgust. “Why so
quick
with the guns? Klaus might have led us
to the ringleaders
of the whole
plot.”

“Whole plot?” asked Smolenko.

“The agents of yours who’ve been
killed.”
 
Smolenko looked
surprised.

“Our secrecy is apparently not good. You
and this
Klaus have both found me here, who am supposed to be
a cultural
exchange representative, and now you know all about the murders of our…”

She stopped herself.

“But you tell me, Mr. Templar. What is
your part in all
this?”

“I would say, in the first place, that
your remark about
secrecy is the understatement of the century. You
couldn’t
have a bigger following if you had hired P. T.
Barnum as a publicity
agent. Which leads me to believe,
as they say in the old films, that
this whole deal is an
inside job.”

“But what do you know, Mr. Templar? What
facts do
you have? What is your part in this?”

He told her, and she listened with more and
more in
tense
interest.

“So,” he concluded, “these people—whoever they are-
have managed to gain control of the production of
your
miniaturized equipment. You should know considerably
more about that than I do. For instance, where do
you
get all those little toys like
cigarette lighters that take
pictures?”

“They are purchased in Western Europe by
our Paris
organization, which is absolutely trustworthy. You are
lying. I am trying to think why.”

The Saint gave a weary sigh.

“Okay. Believe what you like. I’m only
trying to help.
If
you get yourself blown into pretty little pieces in Paris,
don’t expect any flowers on your grave from
me.” He
stood up. “Charming
as your company is, I’m tired, I
didn’t
ask for this job in the first place, and if anything
happens to you now, you can’t claim it’s my
fault.”

“Wrong,” Igor said, speaking English for the first time.
“We
are
blame you.”

“No person in Paris know Colonel Smolenko,” Ivan
explained laboriously. “Not what she is
looking like …”

“Or that she is woman,” said Igor.

He prodded the Saint’s shoulder with a long,
skinny
finger.

“Nobody know … but you. So if she
dies, it will be
through you. But she will not die.”

Ivan looked cheerfully at the Saint and drew
his broad peasant face closer.

“You
will die.”

“A fall from the train?” Igor asked.

“Da. I
am think yes.”

Smolenko’s icy voice sliced Ivan’s grin in half.

“Be silent, both of you.”

She looked thoughtfully at the Saint.

“Of course we could never let you go.
Now, you say Smolenko will be killed?”

“I do indeed, unless you take
precautions, including
some kind of co-operation with Western
intelligence.”

“Well, we will see if that is true,
without co-operation
of bourgeois spy apparatus. With your co-operation only.
When we get to Paris in the morning …”

The Saint watched suspiciously as her lips
pouted
slightly in
a smile.

“Yes?”

“We change places,” she said.
“I become your secre
tary, and you … you become Colonel
Smolenko.”

4

Simon Templar had seen Paris many times, and
in
many seasons,
but never as a colonel of the Soviet Secret
Police,
and never in quite such precarious circumstances.

The hotel was not exactly of the class he
would have
chosen either, but apparently it impressed red travel
agents as
striking the proper tone between capitalistic
extravagance and unbecoming shoddiness.
His own taste
ran to such palaces as the
George V, where he could
treat
himself to the level of luxury that he felt any self-respecting buccaneer
deserved, but he realized that
Smolenko
might have to conform to a more ascetic ex
pense account.

Of all the more gracious hostelries he had frequented,
however, he could not recall one that he had
entered
with such an entourage. In addition to a pair of bellboys,
there were Igor and Ivan lumbering along the thinly
carpeted hallway on either side of him like a movie gangster’s
bodyguards, and Simon’s new secretary, the former
Colonel Smolenko, looking decidedly mussed by the long
train journey, but still more attractive than she
had any right to be, considering her almost total disdain for the
civilized amenities which women ordinarily find
indis
pensable for any sort of decent
public appearance.

As the hotel employees opened the unimpressive suite,
Igor and Ivan hurried inside and began inspecting
the
three bedrooms, the baths, and
the closets. The porters
went away
looking surprised at the size of Simon’s tip.

“Please,” Ivan said, dragging two
straight chairs to the
center of the living room. “Down.”

Colonel Smolenko sat in one of the chairs,
half smiling
at Simon’s mystification.

“They want us out of the way while they
search,” she explained. “What you call, I think, standard operation
procedure.”