The Saint in Europe (14 page)

Then, hardly a moment later, Simon realized that he was not watching one man, but three.

The other two came from somewhere out of the shadows -one tall and gaunt, the other short and powerful. They wore snap-brim hats pulled down over their eyes and kept their hands in their pockets. They too moved quickly and purposefully-more quickly even than the man with the beard, so that their distance behind him was dwindling rapнidly. But the difference was that their feet made no sound…

It was so much like watching a conventional scene from a movie that for what seemed afterwards like an unforgivнable length of time, but was probably no more than a numнber of seconds, the Saint observed it as passively as if he had been sitting in a theater. Perhaps it was so obvious and implausible in that setting that his rational mind resisted accepting it at its face value. It was only as the two pursuers closed the last yard between them and the bearded man, and the lamplight flashed on steel in the gaunt one’s hand, that Simon Templar understood that his immobility under the tree had let them think that they were unobserved, and that this was all for real. And by then there was no time left to forestall the climax of the act.

The two followers moved like a well coordinated team. The gaunt one’s right hand snaked over their quarry’s right shoulder and clamped over his mouth; the steel in his left hand disappeared where it touched the bearded man’s back. At the same moment, like a horrible extension of the same creature, the stocky one snatched the briefcase out of un-protesting fingers. Then, in the same continuous flow of movement, the bearded man was falling bonelessly, like a rag doll, and the two attackers were running back towards the alley between the Casino gardens and the gardens of the Hotel National.

The tingle of belated comprehension was still crawling up the Saint’s spine as he raced to intercept them. He did not call out, for it was too late now to warn the victim, and he saw no one else close enough to be any help. He ran as silently as the two footpads, and faster.

He met them at the corner of the alley. The gaunt one was nearer, and saw him first, and swung to meet him. The Saint saw a cruel bony face twisting in a vicious snarl, but he had the advantage of surprise. Before any of its transparently unfriendly intentions could materialize, his fist slammed into it, and the gaunt man sat down suddenly.

Either the stocky one was over-confident of his partner’s ability to cope with the intrusion, or loyalty to a comrade was not in him, for he did not wait to lend his aid. He swerved and kept on running. And because he still carried the briefcase which appeared to be the prize in the affray, Simon ran after him.

The stocky one had an unexpected turn of speed for a man of his build. Reluctantly, because he was not dressed for it, the Saint launched himself in a flying tackle that just reached one of the stocky man’s pistoning legs. The man fell lightly, like a wrestler, but Simon kept his grip on one ankle. Then, as they rolled over at the edge of a clump of rhododendrons, the man’s other foot thumped into the side of the Saint’s head. Colored lights danced across Simon’s eyes, and his hold loosened. He must have been half stunned for a moment; then, as his head cleared, he was holding nothing.

A heavy rustling in the bushes, hoarse shouts, and the sound of more running feet mingled confusedly in his brain as he sat up.

A man bent over him, only dimly visible in the gloom; and the Saint instinctively gathered himself to fight back before he realized that this was a newcomer. The height was about the same as that of the stocky man; but the silнhouette, round and roly-poly, was different. The voice that came with it, in excellent English, with a curious mixture of Continental accent and Oxford vowels, was reassuring.

“Are you all right?”

Simon picked himself up, felt his face tenderly, and brushed off his clothes.

“I think so. Did you see my playmate?”

“He ran away. I’m not built for running-or football tackles. What was it about?”

There were more hurrying footsteps, and the beam of a flashlight stabbed at them. In the reflected glow behind it Simon saw the outlines of a uniform.

“Here’s someone who’s going to be professionally interнested in the answer to that,” he said grimly.

The policeman spoke in the atrocious guttural dialect of the region. It was well out of the Saint’s considerable linнguistic range, but he needed no interpreter to translate it as some variant of the standard gambit of law officers in such, situations anywhere: “What goes on here?”

The roly-poly man answered in the same patois. His face in the light was round and soft and childish, with rimless glasses over rather prominent blue eyes. He wore a tweed coat and a round soft pork-pie hat. He talked volubly, with graphic gestures, so that Simon easily understood that he was describing the Saint’s encounter with the stocky thug, which he must have witnessed. The policeman asked anнother question, and the round man handed him a card from a small leather folder.

The policeman turned to the Saint.

“Vous parlez francais?”

“Mais oui,” said the Saint easily. “This gentleman saw me trying to catch one man. There was another. Over there.”

They walked to where Simon had dropped the gaunt man. But there was no one there.

“He seems to have got away too,” he said ruefully. Then he pointed across the promenade. “But there’s the man they robbed.”

The gaunt man had taken back his knife, but it had done its work well. The man with the little black beard must have died almost instantly. His face was almost shockingly comнposed and disinterested when they turned him over.

“The briefcase which you say they took from him,” said the policeman, in French. “What happened to it?”

Simon shrugged.

“I suppose the fellow I tackled got away with it.”

“And so we shall not know the motive for the attack,” observed the round man thoughtfully.

“Without wanting to play Sherlock Holmes,” said the Saint, with a trace of sarcasm, “I should guess that it might have been robbery.”

The policeman was searching the pockets of the body. With a light touch on the arm, the moon-faced man drew the Saint a little aside.

“Restrain yourself, my friend. The police don’t like to be teased. May I introduce myself? My name is Oscar Kleinнhaus. I’m fairly well known here. I’ll try to see that you have no trouble.”

“Thank you,” said the Saint curiously.

The policeman was holding an Italian passport.

“Filippo Ravenna,” he read from it. “Of Venice. Marнried. Fifty-one years old. Director of companies.”

“Was he a friend of yours?” Kleinhaus asked.

“I never saw him before in my life,” said the Saint.

The policeman thumbed over the pages of the passport, and pointed at one of them.

“What is this?”

Simon looked over his shoulder..

It’s an immigrant’s visa to the United States … issued a week ago. Apparently it has not yet been used.”

“But you say you did not know him.”

“I forget how many thousands of immigrants enter the United States every year,” said the Saint, “but I assure you they are not all friends of mine.”

Again he felt a warning tug at his sleeve.

The rotund Mr Kleinhaus addressed the policeman again in his own dialect. He appeared to be arguing that the Saint was merely an innocent bystander who had tried to catch a couple of criminals, that he should not be treated like a suspect, that the policeman would do better to concentrate on the crime. The policeman seemed to be grudgingly imнpressed. He turned back to the Saint less aggressively.

“Your name, please?”

Simon had grown a little wary lately of the hazards of his reputation. In Switzerland, the traditional land of peace and neutrality, he had decided to make an attempt to reduce those risks when he registered at his hotel.

“Tombs,” he said. “Sebastian Tombs.”

“Where are you staying here?”

“At the National.”

The policeman wrote down the information in a noteнbook.

For the first time, now, there were more people walking towards them along the quai. It was late, but presently there would be the inevitable crowd.

Kleinhaus said something else to the policeman, and the policeman seemed to agree. Kleinhaus took Simon by the arm and steered him away.

“We’ll phone the station to send him some help,” he said. “We can do it from your hotel. Could you identify those two thugs?”

“After a fashion.” Simon described them as best he could, as they walked through the gardens to the back entrance of the hotel. “I suppose the detectives will want to know that, for what it’s worth.”

“I’ll pass it on to them when I telephone.” They were in the lobby. “It’ll be easier for me, speaking the lingo. And you don’t want to get mixed up in it, and spoil your vacaнtion. I’ll take care of everything.”

Simon looked at him pensively.

“You’re very kind,” he said. “Is that just Swiss hospitalнity?”

“I don’t like visitors to have bad experiences in my country,” said Mr Kleinhaus. “Go to bed. Perhaps we shall meet again.”

He raised his round hat courteously as Simon entered the elevator.

2

The Saint never stayed awake to ask himself questions to which he could only give himself imaginary answers. He slept as if nothing had happened, as if there were no loose ends in his mind, secure in the confidence that if the incident of that night was destined to be only a beginning it would reveal the rest of itself in its own good time. Life was like that for him. He did not have to seek adventure: his probнlem would have been to shake off its relentless pursuit.

He had just finished breakfast in his room when there was a knock on his door.

For anyone else, he reflected as he opened the door, it would probably have been only a waiter to take away the tray. For him, it had to be a woman. She was no more than thirty, beautiful in a dark classical way, like a Florentine painting, with a full figure that nullified the discretion of an expensive black dress. The deep shadows under her eyes were not out of a jar.

She said, with very little accent: “Mr Tombs-may I talk to you? I am Mrs Ravenna.”

“Of course.”

She came in and sat down. Simon poured himself another cup of coffee and offered her a cigarette. She shook her head, and he lighted it for himself.

“I feel terribly guilty about your husband,” he said. “I might have saved him. I just wasn’t thinking fast enough.”

“At least you tried to catch the men who killed him. The police told me. I wanted to thank you.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t more successful. But if the police catch them, I may be able to identify them. I suppose you haven’t any ideas about them?”

“I have none. Filippo was a good man. I didn’t think he had any enemies. No. Never.”

“Did he have business rivals?”

“I can’t think of any. We were quite rich, but he was sucнcessful without hurting anyone. In any case, he had got rid of his interests.”

“What were they?”

“He manufactured shoes. It was a good business. But Europe today is an uncertain place. There is always fear- of war, of inflations, of unstable governments. So, we were going to America. Our quota number had just come through.”

“I know. And he was going to start a new business there?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” said the Saint, “the police think it was just an ordinary robbery, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you?”

She twisted her fingers nervously together.

“I don’t know what to think.”

The Saint stared at a plume of smoke drifting towards the ceiling. He tried half-heartedly not to recognize that his blood was suddenly running faster, in a way that had absoнlutely nothing to do with the young woman’s appealing beauty. But it was no use. He knew, only too well, the symptoms of the almost psychic reflex that told him that he was in it again-up to the ears …

“I’m thinking,” he said slowly. “These muggers didn’t just pick your husband by accident. They knew what they were after. They didn’t even try to look in his pockets. They just grabbed his briefcase and ran. Therefore, they knew what was in it. What was that?”

“Some business papers, perhaps?”

“A shoe manufacturer would hardly be likely to have any trade secrets that would be worth going to those lengths to steal.”

“You talk like a detective.”

“Heaven forbid,” said the Saint piously. “I’m only curiнous. What did he have in that briefcase?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“It must have been something very valuable. And yet you know nothing about it?”

“No.”

She was lying, it was as obvious as the Alps; but he tried not to make it so obvious that he saw it.

“Why did you come here,” he asked, “when you were just getting ready to move to America?”

“There were a few places we wanted to see before we left, because we didn’t know if we would ever come back.”

“And yet, on a simple vacation trip like that, your husнband brought along something so valuable that he could be murdered for it-and never even mentioned it to you?”

Her black eyes flashed suddenly hard like jet.

“You ask more questions than the police! Are you insultнing me?”

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I was only trying to help. If we knew what was in that briefcase, we might have a clue to the people who stole it.”

She looked down at the twisting of her hands, and made a visible effort to hold them still.

“Forgive me,” she said in a lowered voice. “I am on edge. It has been such a shock… You are right. The briefcase is important. And that’s really what I wanted to talk to you about. Those men-they did get it, didn’t they?”

“Why, yes. I was chasing the man who had it. I brought him down, but he kicked me in the face and got away.”

“I thought, perhaps, he might have dropped it.”

“I didn’t see it again.”

“Did the police search for it?”

“I don’t think anyone would have. Even if the man dropped it, he had plenty of time to pick it up again while I was knocked half silly. Anyway, it wasn’t around. And if the police had found it, they’d certainly have returned it to you.”