Saint and the Templar Treasure (10 page)

“What did you mean about your father saving Philippe’s life, and what was Yves’s reference to the war all about?”

Mimette seemed to be considering the implications of answering as she gazed at the liquid in her glass.

At last she shrugged and said resignedly: “What does it matter if you know? Philippe was in Paris during the war. He made a fortune on the black market.”

“Nothing so terrible in that,” said the Saint dispassionately. “I suppose he had to make a living somehow.”

“No, not in itself,” Mimette agreed. “But he was very friendly towards the Germans. People believed he was a collaborator and that that was why he was never arrested. He was more valuable giving the Germans information than he would have been in prison. There was a resistance group near Lille which Philippe had a connection with. I don’t know all the details, but apparently he ran a sideline in forged identity papers, travel permits, that sort of thing. One night he was due to meet a contact. He never turned up but the Germans did. The whole group was rounded up and most of them were shot.”

“So why is he still around? I thought most collaborators didn’t last long after the Allies arrived?”

“When Paris fell he came here, and Papa hid him for months. The word was put around that he had been killed in the street fighting before the city was liberated. It was easy to believe. People trusted my father, and anyway everything was in chaos. When things began to get back to normal and tempers had cooled, he returned to Paris. After all, the people he betrayed were dead, and there was no real proof against him. He used his money to open new businesses, and the richer he became, the more powerful he was, and the harder it was to challenge him.”

“I know the type, said the Saint dryly. Endow a couple of charities, support the right political party, and suddenly you’re a great guy and no one wants to remember.”

Mimette laughed shortly and without amusement.

“That’s good old Uncle Philippe. The big dealer.”

“If all you’ve said is true, why does your father put up with him?”

“My father is a very gentle man. Although Philippe is only his half-brother—they had the same father but different mothers —he has always felt protective towards him. He believes it is all a question of family loyalties. He is blind to what Philippe is trying to do.”

“And you are not?”

Mimette rose and placed her empty glass on the table. She glanced at the clock and then at the Saint.

“It is very late, and we start the harvest as soon as it is light,” she replied with a return to the businesslike briskness that had so irritated him that afternoon. “If you will excuse me, I am also very tired.”

He realised that nothing was to be gained by pressing her further and allowed his question to remain unanswered. He swallowed the last of his brandy and stood up.

“Until my car is repaired,” he said, “if there’s anything you’d like me to do—”

Mimette faced him inscrutably.

“Just keep your eyes open.”

At the door she turned.

“Could there be anything in supernatural explanations—in some destiny that forces some accidents to happen?”

“Such as?”

“After all,” she said, “we seem to have been sent our very own Knight Templar to help us.”

The Saint gave her a courtly bow.

“A vos ordres,” he said.

She laughed again, and left him with a cheerful “Dormez bien!”

The sudden change of mood might have perplexed him if he had not witnessed a succession of similar transformations during the day. As it was, he accepted it as further evidence of what he was already afraid of. That Mimette Florian could be very close to a breakdown, and that her collapse might bring down the whole mysterious fabric of Chateau Ingare.

3

The Saint had never been convinced of the proverbial benefits ascribed to early rising. The nature of his vocation frequently entailed going to bed late and getting up at an hour when most of the population are contemplating lunch. So far as he could tell, the habit had done him little harm. It had certainly helped to make him wealthy, and appeared to have had no adverse effect on either his health or his wisdom. Furthermore, it had never developed in him any latent enthusiasm for catching worms.

Mimette had said that they started the harvest shortly after dawn but had considerately omitted to invite him to be present. Possibly she felt that he would only get in the way. In any case, he was grateful. He decided on a compromise between his normal inclination and the regime of the chateau, and opened his eyes as the grandfather clock on the landing outside his bedroom chimed for the ninth time.

He had slept the sound sleep that is supposed to be the prerogative of the innocent, and felt confident of being able to tackle anything the inhabitants of Chateau Ingare might throw in his way. He had not stayed awake considering the implications of what Mimette had told him, being content to let the new day shed more light on the problems of the house. Nor did he allow them to worry him as he dressed but concerned himself solely with the selection of the day’s wardrobe.

He met Charles in the corridor outside his room, and the old man informed him that he had been just about to wake him.

“Clairvoyance is another of my gifts,” said the Saint breezily. “And where do I break my fast?”

“The dining-room, m’sieu,” Charles replied, and added that his hosts and fellow guests had already eaten. “Is there anything special you would like?”

“Could you manage ham and eggs?”

“Of course.”

Simon followed him down to the reception area. The double doors of the old hall were open and the Saint stopped and looked in. The muffled sounds of hammering reached him.

“A woodpecker must have got in,” he observed, and the servant allowed himself a half smile.

“I understand Professor Norbert is doing some restoration work in the chapel.”

“Sounds more as if he’s trying to dig his way out,” Simon commented as Charles ushered him into the dining-room.

One of the hardships of travelling in the country of haute cuisine is that the French have never discovered the delicious potential of real bacon or the proper art of frying eggs. However, the ham and eggs which he had ordered, cooked together in the inevitable little porcelain dish, would provide the solid sustenance which Simon Templar deemed an essential start to the day, in addition to a freshly baked croissant and some home-made jam. After disposing of them, he poured a second cup of coffee and picked up the copy of the newspaper that had been left beside his place.

He scanned the pages but found little of interest. The French Government was in danger of falling, which in those days was as regular as rain in April, and there was speculation about a general strike. These and a stepping up of the war in Indochina were allocated about half the space devoted to the fact that a lady in Toulouse had produced sextuplets. As he turned to an even more exhaustive coverage of a rumoured romance between a royal prince and a nude dancer at the Folies-Bergere, Charles entered to inform him that the mechanic from the local garage had arrived.

Simon’s first view of the said mechanic was the soles of a pair of very large boots protruding from under the front of the Hirondel. He wished them good morning and was rewarded with the appearance of a pair of grease-stained hands that curled out and gripped the bumper. Gradually the rest of the mechanic hauled itself into view.

“What a beautiful car, monsieur,” the man enthused. “Such an engine! Such workmanship! Such elegance!”

“I’m glad you approve,” said the Saint. “Can you fix it?”

The mechanic shook his head.

“No. It will need a new radiator.”

“Can you get a new radiator?”

The mechanic considered the question carefully as if the idea had not occurred to him before. Finally he nodded.

“There is a dealer in Nice. I will send for one straightaway and have it express-delivered,” he replied, plainly looking forward to the prospect of closer contact with the car’s intestines.

“How long will that take?”

“With luck I could get one here by midday tomorrow.”

The Saint looked around to make quite sure that there was no one within earshot, before he peeled a couple of notes from his wad and pressed them into the hands of the startled mechanic.

“Why not run out of luck until Friday?” he suggested.

“But that is several days, monsieur,” the man exclaimed.

Simon added a third note to the man’s collection.

“So it is,” he agreed as the argument disappeared into the mechanic’s pocket. “Look, I’m in no great hurry so why don’t you get the radiator delivered and wait till I call and ask you how much longer the job will take?”

“But, monsieur … ?” the man began; but the Saint clapped him on the shoulder and propelled him gently towards the break-down truck that had brought him.

“Just give me the name of your garage and be on your way.”

He took the greasy card that the mechanic offered, and watched while the Hirondel was hitched up to the tow crane. A fourth and conclusive sample of the Banque de France’s elegant art work found its way into the mechanic’s possession as he climbed into his truck.

“This is of course strictly between ourselves,” Simon whispered conspiratorially.

“Of course, monsieur,” the man agreed, and drove quickly away in case the mad foreigner should change his mind and demand his money back.

The Saint smiled to himself at the ease with which the problem of extending his stay had been overcome. He hoped that the unknown saboteur, whoever it was, would appreciate his co-operation.

He strolled back into the chateau and again stopped to listen to the noise of Norbert’s industry. The violent pounding he had first heard had changed to a rhythmic tap-tap-tap of metal on stone. As he stood deciding whether or not to interrupt the professor’s labours he heard the door of the salon open.

He turned expecting to see Charles or his wife, but instead found himself looking at a girl who might have walked straight out of the pages of a movie magazine.

She was a platinum blonde with the sort of figure that makes an hour-glass look tubular. She wore a silky white dress that was long at the hem and low at the top and tight in between. She had the long-lashed bedroom eyes and full red lips that are more usually seen smiling out of glossy magazines in the cause of selling anything from deodorants to dog food. It was standardized beauty which the Saint could appreciate without being swept off his feet. She was not so much standing in the doorway as posing there, with one hand resting lightly on her hip and the other holding an unlit cigarette an inch from her lips.

Her voice held exactly the right note of practised allure he would have expected.

“Do you have a light?”

“I’m afraid not. They told me that smoking would stunt my growth.”

The girl eyed him shamelessly and smiled.

“You seem big enough already.”

“I lead a very pure life,” he informed her solemnly. “They also told me never to speak to strange ladies until we’d been introduced.”

The girl turned away and walked back into the salon. The Saint followed, picked up the table lighter, and lit her cigarette without bothering to ask why she had been unable to perform the task for herself.

“Thanks. I am Jeanne Corday.”

“Simon Templar. Et enchante.”

“The Saint!”

In her surprise the girl’s accent slipped from Parisian pointu to the twang of Marseille. Simon noticed the lapse but it was quickly corrected.

“The famous Simon Templar! What brings you to a mortuary like this? No one’s been murdered, have they?”

“Not yet, to my knowledge, but you never know your luck,” he said. “And you? I wouldn’t say this was your natural ambiance.”

“I’m here for the harvest.”

“Picking or grape treading?” he asked politely.

She laughed.

“Hardly. I’m here to be presented to the powers that be for approval. I’m Henri Pichot’s fiancee.”

The Saint blinked in surprise. Philippe’s mistress he could have believed. A school friend of Mimette’s, lured away by the bright lights even. But the prospective spouse of the timid lawyer? It seemed a laughable combination.

“Well, well, well. Happy Henri,” he said thoughtfully.

Jeanne Corday interpreted it as a compliment, and smiled to display a set of expensively white teeth.

“Have you just arrived?” he asked, mainly because he could think of little else to say.

“This morning. I came down on the sleeper from Paris. Henri collected me from Avignon and here I am.”

“Where is the lucky man?”

She sighed with affected boredom. “Off playing the peasant somewhere, I suppose, and leaving me all alone to amuse myself. What does one do all day in a place like this?”

“I’m not sure,” the saint admitted. “But I’m going to go and join the peasants. Fancy a walk? It’s only a kilometre or so to the battlefields.”

“Walk!” the girl grimaced in disgust. “Do you mind?”

“Not in the least. See you later, then.”

She scowled as if he had insulted her. She was obviously unaccustomed to being rejected so easily but said nothing as he left her.

The Saint sauntered leisurely out of the chateau grounds following the track he had been driven along the previous day. It was a beautiful morning with a light breeze tempering the heat of the sun. The fields bordering the path were full of workers picking the grapes and piling them into huge wicker baskets. The air hummed with their chatter and the rattle of the handcarts as they were trundled up the hill towards the cluster of buildings below the chateau. Everything around him seemed light-years away from long-dead knights, family curses, saboteurs, and seances, and it was an effort to think about such things.

But the idea of hidden treasure intrigued him, and certainly seemed to provide the basis of a motive for Philippe’s interest in buying the chateau and even for trying to ruin the business so that Yves Florian would be forced into selling. But he was also a successful businessman and such men do not become rich by chasing legends. Norbert’s position was easier to understand. The professor was concerned with the historic importance of the treasure as well as its possible financial value. The kudos he could earn as its finder would be as sweet as any material reward he might claim. Only Henri’s role was vague, and the arrival of his fiancee made it even cloudier. To attract such a woman he must have more to offer than the average undistinguished lawyer.