The Saint watched as the security agents
pulled out drawers, looked behind pictures, peered and felt under
table tops
and rugs.
“Do a thorough job, boys,” he said
encouragingly.
“From now on practically anything you touch could go
bang.”
“They are experts,” Smolenko said frostily. “They
need
no advice.”
“You forget, darling,” Simon said,
“I
am in command
now. I need no advice from a mere secretary, especially
one who
probably can’t even take shorthand.”
“Mr. Templar …”
“Colonel to you. You communists carry this equality
business much too far.”
Smolenko’s lips tightened for a moment.
“You ask for trouble.”
“I have trouble, and I didn’t ask for it.
As a matter
of fact, it occurs to me that as long as we’re the same
person we may as well be
friends. Any objection to that?”
Smolenko simmered for another few moments,
breathed
deeply, and shook her head.
“I’m glad you’re so understanding,”
the Saint contin
ued. “After all, I’m not a philanthropist in any
ordinary
sense of the word, but what I’m doing is entirely for
your own good.”
She gave an uncertain jerk of her head.
“You doubt me?” he asked. “You
have good reason to.
As a matter of fact I’d have been gone long
before this
if I could have managed to contact someone to pass the
job on
to.”
“My men would have stopped you.”
“Don’t tempt me to take that as a
dare.”
There was an awkward silence. Simon stretched
his
long legs and yawned.
“I can’t even think of anything I might
be able to
steal,” he said gloomily.
“Naturally you would think in terms of
the profit mo
tive,” Smolenko said.
He nodded agreeably.
“Of course.”
There was no sound for a while but the
pushings and
pullings and probings of the security twins.
“Have you been in Paris before?”
Simon asked finally.
“No.”
“You’ll be out shopping for clothes, I
imagine, while
I’m tracking down the manufacturers of those noisy
cigarette lighters.”
“Why?”
“Well, women tend to associate Paris with
fashions—
and you surely can’t be intending to go around
this
city
in
that
coat.”
She flushed and smoothed the rumpled material.
“In ordinary circumstances a man would
not dare to speak to me in that manner.”
“Would you send him to Siberia, or have
him shot?”
“You think we are barbarians, don’t
you?”
“Not necessarily. I just think you have
poor taste in
clothes.”
“Clothing I regard as necessary covering
to maintain body temperature. That is its only use.”
“Then I’d love to spend a couple of weeks
with you on
a
South Sea island.”
Igor was taking a vase of roses apart, looking
inside
each blossom. Finding nothing, he threw the whole bou
quet out
the window.
“Not a nature lover, your friend,”
the Saint com
mented.
“He is trained to distrust all
manifestations of bour
geois sentimentality.”
“Here we are back to your favorite
subject again.”
“All good,
polkovnik,”
Igor
said, pointedly addressing
himself exclusively to Smolenko.
“Fine,” Simon replied. “Now
you boys may unpack your suitcases and …”
There was a tap at the door. Simon smiled
with an
ticipation.
“The champagne.”
Smolenko looked horrified.
“Champagne?”
“I ordered it when we checked in.”
Ivan and Igor dashed for the door and stood
on
either side of it. Ivan yanked it open. The startled waiter blinked, then
stepped hesitantly inside. Simon indicated
the most convenient
table, where the waiter put down
the ice bucket and glasses, rattling the
crystal when he heard the door slammed and locked behind him.
“Voila, m’sieu,”
he said nervously.
“Open it, please,” the Saint said
in French.
“Oui, m’sieu.”
The waiter eased the cork toward release,
looking more and more uneasy as the other occupants of the
room moved
several yards away from him.
“If you please,
m’sieu,
is
something wrong?”
“We shall see,” said Simon.
“Open the bottle.”
At the pop of the cork everyone in the room
except
the Saint, who had long ago learned to control such
easily
anticipated reflexes, gave an undignified jump.
The waiter’s forehead
was glistening with perspiration.
He splashed a little of the Bollinger
into a glass and
offered it to the Saint. The Saint offered it to
Smolenko, who gestured toward Ivan, who yielded to Igor. Simon
handed the
glass to the waiter.
“You taste it.”
“Moi, m’sieu?”
the man
asked, astounded.
“Oui. Vous”
“Merci, m’sieu.”
The waiter took a sip and managed a sickly
smile.
“All of it,” said Simon, touching
the base of the glass
with a fingertip.
The waiter drained it, then stood trying to
preserve
some semblance of nonchalance as four pairs of eyes
studied
his every twitch.
“That is all,” the Saint told him
at last. “You may go
now.”
When Ivan opened the door, the waiter hurried
out
with relief. Simon filled the glasses as Igor gave the tray
and the
bottom of the bottle a close inspection.
“Cheers.”
Smolenko raised her glass grudgingly.
“This is generous of you.”
“You’re very kind, but I’m not paying
for it.”
“Who is?”
“The Kremlin, of course. We’re on an
expense account,
aren’t we?”
Smolenko glared at him.
“Your file is quite correct. You are
nothing but a mer
cenary adventurer.”
“And one who likes staying alive. While
we’re daw
dling
merrily here, evil wheels are turning in this city.
Your rather spectacularly defective electronic equipment
is purchased from Paris. Klaus said he was hired
here, by a man who knew the number of your compartment. If they were confident
enough not to be watching the
train when it arrived, they’ll be
suspicious when Klaus
fails to report—so all
in all our best course is to trace
them
before they trace us.”
“I am ahead of you,” Smolenko
said. “Someone will be here soon.”
“Who?”
“One of our best people. And now I take a
shower
and change clothes.”
“Remember, we’re not in Moscow. You won’t
need
much to maintain your body temperature.”
The desk called twenty minutes later, and
Igor said
da,
hung up, called to Smolenko in Russian, and
said to the Saint, who emerged from his bedroom straightening
his tie:
“Blagot here.”
Smolenko came from her room and joined them,
wearing a
most plainly cut brown dress and cumber
somely heeled shoes
which in the Western nations would
rarely have been inflicted on any woman
under sixty-
five.
“I must admit,” Simon said,
“that for a female with
the whole sartorial deck stacked against her,
you manage to look amazingly beautiful.”
“I suggest you stay in your room,”
she said.
“I suggest that as Colonel Smolenko, I’d
better be here
to greet our trusted friend. And I also suggest that you
fill me in
on who he is.”
“He is Blagot, a member of our Paris
apparatus. I
shall let him know who I am. We need no masquerade
for
him.”
“You’ve met him?”
“No. Nobody here has seen me.”
“Your naïveté is most affecting. Weren’t
you listening
to what I said a few minutes ago? Your assassination was
planned by
someone who knew your entire programme. The higher a man is in your
organization the more pos
sible it is that he could be behind the whole
thing. Now
if you seriously want to relieve me of my starring role
in this
farce, I’ll slip quietly away down the fire escape
and leave
you to your fate.”
There was a respectfully soft rap at the
door.
“Stay,” Smolenko said to the Saint.
“Then let me handle this. Ivan, open the
door.”
Ivan hesitated, looking toward Smolenko for
confirma
tion. She nodded, and the bodyguard released the latch.
“Come in,” Simon said in French.
A rather short thick man, reminiscent of a
greasy
sausage in a black suit, entered the room and looked
obsequiously
and searchingly from face to face. But his
personal appearance
and mannerisms were completely
overshadowed for the Saint by the adornment
and con
tents of his right hand. The signet ring he wore, and the
briefcase
he carried, could have been identical twins of those Simon had seen exploded in
Dr. Mueller’s labora
tory.
The mere fact that he had the items with him
was no
proof of murderous intentions. The ring and briefcase
were
standard equipment. Colonel Smolenko of all peo
ple would be aware of
that. The teaser was in the
question whether or not there was some as yet
unknown
but highly interested party lurking somewhere within a
few hundred
yards ready to send a signal which would
override the
neutralizing power of the ring and blast
Suite 502 to kingdom
come.
“Colonel Smolenko?” the newcomer
asked.
“Comrade Blagot,” said Simon.
Blagot threw his fist up in the communist
salute.
“On behalf of us all, welcome,
comrade.”
“Thank you,” the Saint responded,
pretending a slight
difficulty with French pronunciation which ordinarily
did not
mar his fluent use of the tongue. “My secretary,
Comrade Malakov. Our
security men
…”
Blagot made his obeisances to each.
“And now,” Simon continued,
“how goes it?”
“The situation grows worse by the hour, Colonel. Another of
our men died yesterday—in Liverpool, England.”
“An explosion?”
“Yes. But the cause …”
Blagot shrugged and distended his thick lips.
“I
do not consider that an
adequate answer,” Simon
snapped with sudden harshness.
“Defective equipment, perhaps…” began Blagot.
The Saint moved threateningly toward him.
“If that remark is meant seriously, it
indicates that the
most defective equipment is in your brain, my
friend.”
Blagot backed away a few paces, looking openly
frightened.
“Some have talked of defective
equipment, comrade,
but I do not believe it. Naturally, the answer must be
that
British or American agents are planting bombs in
the luggage of our
people. That much is clear already.”
“One thing is clear to me already,”
the Saint said, “and that is that the handling of this affair by your
department
borders on total incompetence. For example, if you had
even the
smallest grasp of the true situation you would
not have brought one
of those briefcases here.”
“But Colonel Smolenko, I have made
certain that it
is empty of any harmful devices.”
“It contains its own explosive charge,
does it not?”
“Naturally, but the ring …”
“The ring is useless against the
saboteurs,” Simon
said. “Give that to me.”