The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots (11 page)

“This is your fault! All of it! You
idiot! You traitor!
You’re behind this whole thing!”

She snatched up a vase of roses from one of
the tables
and hurled it at him, spilling most of the water and
most of
the roses
over the front of her dress. Simon easily avoided
the vase, which smashed against the wall beyond him, and
awaited the next attack.

“Fr
ä
ulein!”
Hans cried.

He cast an almost imploring look at the
Saint, who only
shrugged and dodged Annabella’s new missile—a potted cac
tus from
one of the bookshelves. It sailed harmlessly past
Simon and crashed not
at all harmlessly through the front
window.

“What a woman, eh, Hans?” said the
Saint admiringly.
“When she wants fresh air she wants it
now!”

Annabella emitted a choked whinny of fury
and charged
around the sofa to engage him in hand-to-hand combat,
but
on the way her feet got tangled up in a lamp cord and she
sprawled
full length on her face with her eyes just a few
inches from the toes of Simon’s
beautifully polished shoes.

“You’re better than a wrecking
crew,” he said, leaning
down to help her up.

She shook off his hand and sat on the rug
bawling.

“Oh, go away!” she sobbed.
“Just leave me alone.”

“All right, I will. But first I’ll give
you a going-away
present.”

Hans had simply settled on one of the
chairs, the poker
drooping loosely in his limp hands. He was obviously in
a
mild state of shock. Simon went past him into the adjoining
room and
came back with five large unframed pieces of can
vas. He held up one
of them for Annabella to see. She
stared incredulously, then scrambled to
her feet.

“Simon!” she gasped ecstatically. “You …
darling!”

An instant later she had thrown her arms
around his
neck and was covering his face with kisses and lipstick.

“A bit changeable, aren’t you?” he
remarked.

“I’m so sorry! I had no idea. I
thought—I had to blame
somebody. How did you get them?”

“Mathieu and his chum put them in the back of their car
and tucked a blanket around them. I just took them
out
again and tucked the blanket
back where it was while they
were
saying goodbye.” He interrupted her with a lifted hand
as she
started to speak. “I know. They may already have
noticed, so let’s scoot out of here and deliver these treasures
to
Marcel LeGrand so you can get them off your hands and
I can get you off mine.”

Hans, carrying two of the unframed canvases,
joined them in hurrying out the back door of the house and through a gate
in the
wall which bordered Annabella’s property. Simon also
carried two
paintings, and Annabella brought the fifth. The Saint had parked his car in the
shelter of a clump of trees in
the neighboring wooded area.

“Wait,” he said abruptly. “No
noise for a minute.”

They listened and heard an automobile engine
roaring at high speed up the drive on the other side of the wall. Simon left
Annabella and Hans in his car and peeked through the
gate. He could see
nothing but the back and side of her
house, but he could hear shouting and
the pounding of fists
on the front door.

Simon trotted back to his car grinning.

“The return of Inspector Mathieu,”
he said as he got
into the driver’s seat. “Hold on to your Leonardos,
darling.”

He rocketed off toward the main road, and if
Mathieu
associated
the sound with his escaping prey he had no time to react before the Saint and
his charges were a mile down
the highway.

Hans, in the back seat, closed his eyes and
heaved a sigh.

“I am too old for this,” he said.
“I think I go back to
Linz.”

Annabella looked over her shoulder at him.

“You’re going to California,” she
bubbled. “It’s over now.
You can relax.”

“Let’s hope so,” the Saint said.
“We may run into a wait
ing line at LeGrand’s. You know there are at
least two
batches of people even less principled than ourselves
after these paintings.”

“Two?” Annabella said.

Hans groaned and closed his eyes again.

“Mathieu’s team and another crowd that
seems to be half German and half Italian,” Simon continued. “I had
the in
ternational squad locked up—the ones who tried to kidnap
you in
Paris—but then Mathieu bopped me in the head,
and when I’d worked
my way out of the room he locked
me
in, they were gone. I
was fully expecting them to show up
at your house too. You wouldn’t have
any idea who they
are,
of course.”

“No. And who is Mathieu, really?”

“I don’t know that either. But your
theories should be
better
than mine. You know the history of the paintings—
who knows about them, who might have heard about them.”

He could almost feel the distance between
him and Anna-
bella widen.

“As I told you,” she said almost
defiantly, “I have not had
much contact with my father. I know very
little.”

That was that. The Saint could do without the
whole
truth as long as he cleared his fair profit, which he expected
to earn
very soon now. He had a kind of permanent quiet
faith that anything
he really needed to know would in
evitably be revealed to him, and it
was possible that what he
already knew about the present case was all
he would ever
need to know: Beautiful and mysterious girl possesses
valu
able paintings, two competing gangs of art thieves catch up
with her at
the same time, but luckily the Saint is on hand to throw them all into
confusion and reap his own just
reward.

“Oh well,” he said to get off the subject, “maybe
they’re
just frustrated amateur actors who
enjoy impersonating cops
and art
experts and such. We’ll concentrate on getting the
loot to LeGrand. It’s almost six, and I haven’t
eaten since
breakfast. Let’s get
something to eat and give him a call at
the same time. When I left him
this noon I told him to go
home and I’d
contact him tonight.”

“When did you see him?” she asked.
“You haven’t told me what happened.”

“I’ll tell you all about it over a
glass of something restora
tive. We’re not far from Barbizon, where the
Bas-Br
é
au does a
canard
à
- l’ananas
that would tempt Donald Duck to
be
come a cannibal.”

“I’ve lost my bearings complete,”
Annabella said. “I feel
as if we’ve been traveling in circles.”

“We have,” Simon told her. “At least, we did once.
It’s
known amongst us professional
lawbreakers as shaking the
tail—assuming
anybody tried to tail us. You’ll have to learn to do it if you’re planning to
continue with this adventurous
life
you’ve been leading.”

Annabella shook her head with a tired smile.

“I just want to get it over with—and
carry off lots and lots
of money.”

Simon nodded and returned her smile without
speaking or
taking his eyes from the road. He doubted whether it
would
be that simple.

10

After he had ordered dinner, the Saint left
Annabella and
Hans at the table and telephoned Marcel LeGrand at his
home.

“Simon!” the dealer exclaimed with
relief. “I haven’t heard
from anyone!”

“You’re lucky,” the Saint informed
him. “It seems that
everybody you know except Professor Clarneau
and possibly
me is
a crook. Inspector Mathieu isn’t inspecting anything
but ways to get his hands on your paintings.”

“He’s not
…
?”

“No, he’s not. I don’t think he’d try keeping up the im
personation at this stage, but I thought you’d
better know.”
The Saint paused. “He’s not standing over you
now, is he?”

“Of course not,” LeGrand said with
surprise.

“If there’s anyone holding a gun on
you, to make you tell
me that nothing’s wrong, say ‘No, she’s
feeling perfectly well
now.’ “

LeGrand laughed.

“No need for codes. There’s only myself
and my wife here.”

“Good. May we come to your house with
the paintings in
about a couple of hours?”

“Yes! The sooner the better.”

Simon went back to the table where Annabella and Hans
were waiting to begin their aperitifs. He toasted
them with a
dry Martini.

“LeGrand is expecting us,” he said.
“California or bust.”

Annabella smiled as she raised her glass.

“California or bust!”

An hour and a half later, replete with
pineapple-garnished
duck and Rausan Segla ‘59, and an ethereal epilog of
orange
souffl
é
, they left the restaurant
for LeGrand’s home in the
western suburbs of Paris.

The house, even seen in semi-darkness, was
an impressive testimony to the success of art as being business. LeGrand’s
establishment, in spaciously landscaped grounds, made Anna
bella Lambrini’s house seem
like a cottage by comparison.
As the Saint
pulled his car up to the front door he noticed
LeGrand’s Citro
ë
n in the porte
cochere. There were no
other cars. If
there had been it might have given warning
that LeGrand had received some unfriendly visitors since
Simon had called him earlier in the evening. Of course,
visitors of a really dedicated
undesirability would not be very
likely
to have left their vehicle in plain view. There was a
side road beyond LeGrand’s southern hedge where
they might
have parked
inconspicuously.

“I’m still nervous,” Annabella said,
fidgeting with her
purse.

Simon let her out of the car. Hans chose to
wait.

“It’s about time to stop being nervous
and start cele
brating—unless LeGrand’s changed his mind.”

Annabella looked stunned. Then she saw the
Saint’s teas
ing grin in the light that fell over LeGrand’s front
steps.

“Don’t joke,” she said. She looked
over her shoulder. “Let’s
hurry, please, before some of those horrible people come
here.”

Simon rang the bell. Almost immediately
LeGrand opened
the
door, extending a hand effusively to each of them over the threshold.

“I’m delighted to see you,” he
said. “Come in, come in,
please.”

“I think you are as anxious as I am,” Annabella said
with
a small smile. “Or do you always
answer your door so
promptly?”

They had stepped into a sumptuously carpeted
and decorated entrance hall. LeGrand waved them toward an open
door to
the left.

“I am anxious,” he said. “I
must admit it. I was watching
from the window.”

He was as impeccably dressed as ever, even
though his
dark suit was more than a trifle wilted. The reception
room
into which he took them was as richly furnished with antiques
as some
state-supported seventeenth-century château.

Annabella looked around admiringly.

“But you have everything already,”
she said. “Are you sure you want my poor paintings?”

LeGrand did not seem able to share her rather
euphoric
good humor.

“Indeed I want them,” he said with
a chopped laugh.
“Are these …”

He nodded toward the stack of canvases in
Simon’s arms,
and Simon handed them to him.

“They haven’t been damaged at all,”
the Saint assured
him. “They’ve been through quite a few escapes
today, and
during one of them they had to leave their frames
behind.”