Authors: Leslie Charteris
“You
are-a da man who help-a da poor people, no?” he
said pleadingly. “You are-a da Saint,
who always work-a to
make justice?”
“Yes,
but——
”
“Then
it is settled. You help-a me. Listen,
signor,
every
ting,
everyting is-a arrange. I have-a da good friends in Eng
land and
in-a San Remo, and we put-a da money together to
make-a this right. We
kidnap-a Rolfieri. We bring him here in
da aeroplane. But we
do not-a know anyone who can fly.
You,
signor,
you can fly-a da
aeroplane.” Mr. Naccaro suddenly
fell on his knees and flung out his
arms. “See,
signor
—I hum
ble myself. I kiss-a your feet. I
beg-a you to help us and not
let Maria have-a da baby wis-a no
father!”
Simon
allowed the operatic atmosphere to play itself out,
and thereafter
listened with a seriousness from which his
natural superficial
amusement did not detract at all. It was
an appeal of the kind
which he heard sometimes, for the
name of the Saint was known to people
who dreamed of his
assistance as well as to those who lived in terror of his
attentions, and he was never entirely deaf to the pleadings
of those
troubled souls who came to his home with a pathetic faith in miracles.
Mr.
Naccaro’s proposition was more practical than most.
He and his
friends, apparently, had gone into the problem
of avenging the
wickedness of Giuseppe Rolfieri with the conspiratorial instinct of
professional vendettists. One of them
had become Mr. Rolfieri’s butler in the
villa at San Remo.
Others, outside, had arranged the abduction down to a
precise
time-table. Mr. Naccaro himself had acquired an old farmhouse in Kent at
which Rolfieri was to be held prisoner, with a large field adjoining it at
which an aeroplane could land.
The aeroplane itself had been bought, and was
ready for
use at Brooklands Aerodrome. The only unit lacking was a
man
qualified to fly it.
Once
Rolfieri had been taken to the farmhouse, how would
they force him
through the necessary marriage?
“We
make-a him,” was all that Naccaro would say, but he
said it
with grim conviction.
When the
Saint finally agreed to take the job, there was
another scene of
operatic gratitude which surpassed all pre
vious demonstrations.
Money was offered; but Simon had al
ready decided that in this case the
entertainment was its
own reward. He felt pardonably exhausted when
at last
Domenick Naccaro, bowing and scraping and yammering in
coherently,
shepherded his daughter, his illegitimate grand
child, and his own
curling whiskers out of the apartment.
The
preparations for his share in the abduction occupied
Simon Templar’s time
for most of the following week. He
drove down to Brooklands and tested
the aeroplane which
the syndicate had purchased—it was an ancient Avro which
must have
secured its certificate of airworthiness by the skin
of its ailerons, but he thought it would
complete the double
journey, given luck and
good weather. Then there was a
halfway
refuelling base to be established somewhere in
France—a practical necessity which had not occurred to the
elemental Mr. Naccaro. Friday had arrived before
he was
able to report that he was
ready to make the trip; and there
was
another scene of embarrassing gratitude.
“I
send-a da telegram to take Rolfieri on Sunday night,”
was the
essence of Mr. Naccaro’s share in the conversation; but his blessings upon the
Saint, the bones of his ancestors,
and the heads of his unborn descendants for generations,
took
up much more time.
Simon had
to admit, however, that the practical contribution of the Naccaro clan was
performed with an efficiency
which he himself could scarcely have improved
upon. He
stood beside the museum Avro on the aerodrome of San
Remo at
dusk on the Sunday evening, and watched the kid
napping cortege
coming towards him across the field with
genuine admiration.
The principal character was an appar
ently mummified figure rolled in
blankets, which occupied an
invalid chair wheeled by the unfortunate
Maria in the uni
form
of a nurse. Her pale lovely face was set in an expression
of beatific solicitude at which Simon, having some
idea of
the fate which awaited Signor
Rolfieri in England, could
have
hooted aloud. Beside the invalid chair stalked a sedate
spectacled man whose role was obviously that of
the devoted
physician. The airport
officials, who had already checked the
papers
of pilot and passengers, lounged boredly in the far
background, without a single disturbing suspicion
of the
classic getaway that was being
pulled off under their noses.
Between
them, Simon and the “doctor” tenderly lifted
the mummified figure
into the machine.
“He
will not wake before you arrive,
signor,”
whispered
the man
confidently, stooping to arrange the blankets affec
tionately round the
body of his patient.
The Saint
grinned gently, and stepped back to help the
“nurse” into
her place. He had no idea how the first stage of
the abduction had
been carried out, and he was not moved
to inquire. He had
performed similar feats himself, no less
slickly, without
losing the power to stand back and imper
sonally admire the
technique of others in the same field.
With a sigh of
satisfaction he swung himself up into his
own cockpit, signalled
to the mechanic who stood waiting by
the propeller of the warmed-up engine,
and sent the ship roaring into the wind through the deepening dusk.
The flight
north was consistently uneventful. With a south
wind following to help
him on, he sighted the three red
lights which marked his fuelling station at
about half-past
two, and landed by the three flares that were kindled for
him
when he blinked his navigating lights. The two men procured
from
somewhere by Mr. Naccaro replenished his tank while
he smoked a cigarette
and stretched his legs, and in twenty
minutes he was off again. He passed
over Folkestone in the
early daylight, and hedge-hopped for some
miles before he
reached his destination so that no inquisitive yokel
should
see exactly where he landed.
“You
have him?” asked Mr. Naccaro, dancing about de
liriously as Simon
climbed stiffly down.
“I
have,” said the Saint. “You’d better get him inside
quickly—I’m
afraid your pals didn’t dope him up as well as
they thought they
had, and from the way he was behaving just now I shouldn’t be surprised if he
was going to have-a
da baby, too.”
He
stripped off his helmet and goggles, and watched the unloading of his cargo
with interest. Signor Giuseppe Rolfieri
had recovered
considerably from the effects of the drug under
whose influence he had
been embarked; but the hangover,
combined with some bumpy weather on the last
part of the
journey, restrained him hardly less effectively from much
re
sistance. Simon had never known before that the human skin
could
really turn green; but the epidermis of Signor Rolfieri
had
literally achieved that remarkable tint.
The Saint
stayed behind to help the other half of the
reception
committee—introduced as Mr. Naccaro’s brother—
wheel the faithful
Avro into the shelter of a barn; and then
he strolled back to
the farmhouse. As he reached it the door opened, and Naccaro appeared.
“Ha!”
he cried, clasping the Saint’s shoulders. “Meester
Templar—you
have already been-a so kind—I cannot ask it
—but you have-a da
car—will you go out again?”
Simon
raised his eyebrows.
“Can’t
I watch the wedding?” he protested. “I might be
able to
help.”
“Afterwards,
yes,” said Naccaro. “But we are not-a ready. Ecco
, we are so
hurry, so excited, when we come here we
forget-a da mos’
important tings. We forget-a da soap!”
Simon
blinked.
“Soap?”
he repeated. “Can’t you marry him off without
washing him?”
“No,
no, no!” spluttered Naccaro. “You don’t understand.
Da soap,
she is not-a to wash. She is to persuade. I show you
myself, afterwards.
It is my own idea. But-a da soap we mus’
have. You will go,
please, please,
signor,
in your car?”
The Saint
frowned at him blankly for a moment; and then
he shrugged.
“Okay,
brother,” he murmured. “I’d do more than that to
find out
how you persuade a bloke to get married with a cake
of soap.”
He stuffed
his helmet and goggles into the pocket of his
flying coat, and went
round to the barn where he had parked
his car before he took off for San
Remo. He had heard of
several strange instruments of persuasion in
his time, but it
was the first time he had ever met common or household
soap in
the guise of an implement of torture or moral
coercion. He
wondered whether the clan Naccaro had such a
prejudiced opinion of
Rolfieri’s personal cleanliness that they
thought the mere
threat of washing him would terrify him
into meeting his just
obligations, or whether the victim was
first smeared with
ink and then bribed with the soap, or
whether he was made to eat it; and he
was so fascinated by
these provocative speculations that he had
driven nearly half a mile before he remembered that he was not provided with
the wherewithal to buy it.
Simon
Templar was not stingy. He would have stood any
necessitous person a
cake of soap, any day. In return for a solution of the mystery which was
perplexing him at that
moment, he would cheerfully have stood Mr.
Naccaro a whole
truckload of it. But the money was not in his pocket. In
a
moment of absent-mindedness he had set out on his trip
with a
very small allowance of ready cash; and all he had left
of it then
was two Italian lire, the change out of the last
meal he had enjoyed in San Remo.
He
stopped the car and scowled thoughtfully for a second.
There was no place
visible ahead where he could turn it,
and he had no natural desire to back
half a mile down that
narrow lane; but the road had led him
consistently to the left
since he set out, and he stood up to survey
the landscape
in the hope that the farmhouse might only lie a short distance
across the fields as the crow flies or he could walk,
And it was by doing
this that he saw a curious sight.
Another
car, of whose existence nobody had said anything,
stood in front of the
farmhouse; and into it Mr. Naccaro and
his brother were hastily loading the body
of the unfortunate
Signor Rolfieri, now
trussed with several fathoms of rope like
an escape artist before demonstrating his art. The girl
Maria
stood by; and as soon as Rolfieri was in the car she
followed him in, covered him with a rug, and settled herself
comfortably on the seat. Naccaro and his brother
jumped into
the front, and the car
drove rapidly away in the opposite
direction
to that which the Saint had been told to take.
Simon
Templar sank slowly back behind the wheel and
took out his
cigarette-case. He deliberately paused to tap out a cigarette, light it, and
draw the first two puffs as if he had
an hour to spare; and then he pushed
the gear lever into reverse and sent the great cream and red Hirondel racing
back up
the lane at a speed which gave no indication that he
had ever hesitated to
perform the manoeuvre.
He turned
the car round in the farmhouse gates and went
on with the cut-out closed and his keen
eyes vigilantly scan
ning the panorama
ahead. The other car was a saloon, and half the time he was able to keep the
roof in sight over the
low hedges
which hid the open Hirondel from its quarry.
But it is doubtful whether the possibility of pursuit ever en
tered the heads of the party in front, who must
have been
firm in their belief that
the Saint was at that moment speeding
innocently
towards the village to which they had directed him.
Once, at a fork, he lost them; and then he spotted
a tiny
curl of smoke rising from the
grass bank a little way up
one
turning, and drove slowly up to it. It was the lighted
stub of a cigar
which could not have been thrown out at any
place
more convenient for a landmark, and the Saint smiled
and went on.