The Saint in Europe (3 page)

He closed the door gently after her, and turned towards the next cab.

5

On a narrow street near the Odeon he found, unchanged as if the, German occupation had only ended yesterday, a little stationery and book shop which in those days would have earned a spot promotion for any Gestapo officer who had uncovered its secrets. Simon Templar went in and stood browsing over the titles on the shelves, while the jangling of the vociferous little bell hung on the door he had opened died away into silence. He hard a shuffle of footsteps at the back of the shop, and a voice that he recognized said courteously: “Bonjour, m’sieu.”

Without turning, the Saint said, in French: “Do you have, by chance, a copy of the poems of Francois Villon?”

There was an instant’s pause, and the dry voice said mechanically: “I regret, but today there is so little demand for those old books.”

” ‘But where are the snows of yesteryear?’” Simon quoted sorrowfully.

Suddenly his elbow was seized in a wiry grip, and he was spun around to face the proprietor’s sparkling eyes.

“Mon cher Saint!”

“Mon cher Antoine!”

They fell into an embrace.

“It is so many years, my dear friend, since I have heard that password!”

“But you remembered.”

“Who of us will ever forget?”

They held each other off at arm’s length, and the years fell away between them. And as Simon laughed in the face of Antoine Louvois it was heart-warming for him to rememнber that this frail-looking gray man had been the redoubtнable Colonel Eglantine of the maquis, whose exploits had perforated the intestinal tracts of Himmler’s minions with even more ulcers than bullets; and he thought again that only a French hero would have had the sense of humor to hide his identity behind the name of a delicate flower. Those days, when the Saint’s commission from Washington had been as tenuously legal as anything in his career, seemed very far away now; but it was good to still have such a friend.

“What brings you back, mon cher ami?” Louvois asked. “We shall have much to talk about.”

“Another time, Antoine. This afternoon I am in a hurry.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“That is why I came.”

Louvois relaxed into instant attention. As if not a day had passed, with a sobering of expression too subtle to define, he was again the sharp-witted, coldblooded, efficient duelнlist of the last war’s most dangerous game.

“Je suis toujours a ta disposition, mon vieux.”

“Was there, in the Resistance, a man named Georges Olivant?”

“What is he like?”

Simon described him.

“There were so many,” Louvois said, “and under so many names. I do not recall him myself. I can make inquiries.”

“On the other hand, he may just as well have been a traitor.”

“There were many of them, also, and many of them also have thought it wise to change their names. But that might be a little easier to trace.”

Simon put down the envelope which he still carried, into which he had put the guide book with the conveniently shiny cover which Olivant had handled.

“On the cover of this book,” he said, “are the fingerprints of this man. But cut off the top lefthand corner, which has my own prints.”

“That will make it very easy, if his prints are on record.”

“You still have friends at the Prefecture?”

“Naturally.”

“I do not want this to become known to Inspector Quercy, of the Police Judiciaire”

“He is a good man.”

“There is a personal reason.”

“Entendu. He will know nothing about it.”

“It is urgent.”

“I will close the shop and take the book over at once myself. I will have a report for you within two hours.”

The Saint fingered the medallion in his pocket.

“There is one other thing I can do while you are gone,” he said. “Do you have an accommodating friend who is a doctor, who would have a microscope that I can use for a few minutes?”

“I can find one. Let me telephone first.”

Louvois retired to the back of the shop and returned in a few minutes with a name and address written on a slip of paper.

“It is all arranged. He is expecting you.”

“Thank you, Antoine. I will come back and wait for you. A tout a l’heure.”

“A tout a l’heure.”

Simon walked to the address which was only a few blocks away. The doctor, a taciturn man with an oldfashioned spade beard, showed him directly into a small laboratory and left him there, asking no questions except whether the Saint knew how to operate the microscope and whether he required anything else.

The Saint placed the Saint Christopher medal face down on the platform, centered the square indentation on the back under the objective, and aimed the light on it.

As he adjusted the focus, the pattern of almost invisible scratches sprang to his eye as legibly as a page of print. He read the words so painstakingly engraved there; and then he lighted a cigarette and sat back on the stool, and knew the answers to many questions, while pictures formed for him in the drifting smoke.

He saw old Eli Rosepierre in his workshop, knowing that the Germans were coming, and too proud or too disнheartened to run away, it didn’t matter what his reason was, but wanting to save his children. And knowing that it was hopeless to trust them with such jewels and gold as he could lay his hands on, even though they would be lost to him anyway, but wanting to give them something that the invadнers could not touch, for the future. And knowing that the children were too young to be relied upon to understand or to remember anything he might tell them about the modest wealth that was still secure. And faced with the problem of giving them the key to it in a form which they might underнstand some day, but which would be least likely for a child to destroy.

Anything on paper, of cource, was out of the question. It was too easy to mutilate or deface, or lose; or a finder could read and take advantage of it. A tattoo might have done, but Rosepierre was not a tattooer. He was a jeweler.

And he had found a jeweler’s solution.

Simon saw the old man working through the night, with aching eyes, carving the most important achievement of his engraver’s art. The etching of the Lord’s prayer on the head of a pin was a mere abstract diversion by comparison. This was his testament. On a medallion, because it was most inнdestructible; of silver only, because it would be least likely to attract a thief; of St Christopher, because it might disarm racial persecutors, and because it might be treasured more carefully-as indeed it had been…

The Saint took out the slip of paper with the doctor’s address and copied down the words from the medal on the other side.

Then, more for idle physical distraction than anything, he wrote undereneath the English translation.

There was only one weakness in Eli Rosepierre’s ingeniнjous ideas. Why would his children ever have been likely to discover the minute engraving on the backs of their good-luck medals?

And in the next flash, Simon knew the answer to that one, too. There must have been someone whom Eli Rosepierre trusted, to whom Rosepierre had given an inkling of his scheme, whom Robespierre had charged to find the children again, if it were ever possible, and tell them what to look for.

Olivant.

Simon thanked the doctor, who still asked no questions, and went back to Louvois’ little papeterie. He paced up and down the street and almost wore himself out before the old guerrilla fighter returned. But the springy gait of the retired maquisard gave him his answer even before Louvois spoke.

“We have success, mon cher!”

Louvois insisted on unlocking the door and entering the shop before he would say any more.

“The fingerprints are those of one Georges Orival, mon cher Saint. He was a collaborationist, and for that he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.”

“He has escaped, or more probably been released,” said the Saint. “And he is looking very prosperous, under the name of Georges Olivant.”

“No doubt the sale type had plenty of blood money hidнden away before they caught him.”

“He is now preparing to collect a lot more.”

Louvois stroked his chin meditatively.

“Perhaps that can be prevented. There are still many of us who do not think that imprisonment was enough.”

“Ne t’en fais pas,” said the Saint. “His goose is practically cooked already. I personally guarantee it. I must go now and take care of him, but as soon as this is finished we must have our reunion.”

6

To his relief, although he had consciously tried to reнassure himself that he had nothing to worry about, Valerie North was waiting at the bar of the Carrere, as he had inнstructed her. He ordered a Martini to keep her company while she finished hers, and paid the tab, but he would not talk even though the bar was deserted at that hour.

“All the bartenders in this area speak English,” he said, “and I don’t want to risk even a chance of future complicaнtions. Our caravanserai is just around the corner, but I didn’t want you to go there alone.”

As soon as they had finished, he steered her down the street to the Avenue Georges V, and turned her quickly into the Georges V Apartments, just before the hotel entrance. They rode up to her floor in the elevator of the apartment wing, and he piloted her expertly through the connecting passage to the hotel section.

“Don’t ask me hew I know these back ways,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you without incriminating myself. As far as you’re concerned, it’s good enough to fool anyone who’s naturally expecting you to use the hotel lobby.”

He found a chambermaid to open the door for them with a pass key. Inside, Valerie fetched up short with an exclaнmation, so abruptly that he trod on her heels.

The room was a shambles. Her two suitcases were open, the contents strewn all over the bed, the other furniture, and the floor. But he was not seriously surprised.

“Did you try to unpack in a hurry when you ran up before lunch?” he inquired calmly.

“Of course not! Who would unpack like this? There’s been a burglar here!”

She ran aimlessly about, rummaging among her disorнdered effects.

“Don’t get excited,” he murmured. “I don’t think there’s any harm done that a little ironing won’t fix. If you’d been here yourself, it might have been very different.”

“I haven’t got much jewelry,” she protested, “but-“

“I expect it’s all there,” he said. “The one valuable piece was safe all the time.”

He held out the St. Christopher medal.

She took it, and stared at him.

“You’ve got to talk now,” she said. “If you don’t, I’ll go crazy-or do something I may be sorry for.”

“I’m ready now,” he said. “Turn that medal over.”

“Yes.”

“You see that little square impression in the back?”

“Yes.”

“I put it under a microscope this afternoon. There’s fine engraving in it. Here’s a copy that you can read.”

He gave her the scrap of paper on which he had written down the inscription and its translation. While she looked at it, he cleared a space on the bed, and sat down and lighted a cigarette. He felt very placid now.

She read:
I, Eli Rosepierre, bequeath to the bearer, of whom this shall be sufficient identification, one half of the $50,000 which I have on deposit at the Chase National Bank, New York.

Eli Rosepierre.

“You see,” he said, “you’re moderately rich. Your father was lucky enough to have some assets that the krauts couldn’t reach.”

Her face was a study.

“Then Charles’s medalнн”

“Must have been a duplicate of that one, leaving him the other half.”

She sank unsteadily into the nearest chair, ignoring the clothes which she crushed underneath her.

Simon laughed, and got up again to give her a cigarette.

After a full minute, she said: “Where is the other medal now?”

“I expect your brother’s murderer has it. But he hasn’t had time to do anything with it. Besides, he won’t be satisнfied until he has both of them.”

“Why hasn’t he done anything until now?”

“Because he couldn’t. Your father confided at least part of his secret to a friend whom he trusted, named Georges Orival. But Orival turned collaborationist, and after the war he was tried and imprisoned. He only recently got out, and he hasn’t wasted much time. He introduced himself to you as Georges Olivant.”

“Olivant!”

“Apart from his obvious phoniness,” said the Saint, “I know I had something when I shook hands with him. He looks like one of the idle rich, but he has corns on his hands like a laborer. He didn’t get them from pottering about in his garden. He’s been doing several years at hard labor.”

The girl’s hand shook a little as she drew at the cigarette.

“And he’s waiting for me downstairs!”

“I’m sure it would take a lot to keep him away.”

“We must tell the police!”

“Not yet. We still haven’t got enough evidence for a murнder charge against him. And we still want that other medal. So we’re going to meet him just as if you didn’t expect a thing.”

“I couldn’t!”

Simon Templar gazed down at her with level blue eyes in which the steel was barely discernible.

“You must, Valerie. And you must go along with anyнthing I say, no matter how absurd it sounds. You said you’d let me help you. I haven’t done badly so far, have I? You’ve got to let me finish the job.”

7

M Georges Olivant folded the evening paper he had been reading and tucked it into his pocket.

“Eet say ‘ere,” he said, “ze police ‘ave learn nozzing new about ze tragedy of your brozzer. But do not fear. Zey are very pairseestent. Soon, I am sure, zey will ‘ave ze clue.”

“They know more than they’re saying for publication,” Simon remarked: “They told me so.”

He wanted to draw Olivant’s attention to himself, not only to turn it away from Valerie North’s pale stillness.

“So, you ‘ave talk wiz zem?”

“And I’ve got a few leads of my own.”

“I ‘ave read American stories,” Olivant said, “where ze reporter is always a better detective zan ze police. You are per’aps one of zose?”

“Sometimes I try to be. Anyway, at least the motive for the murder is known.”