The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace

1

If ever there was a moment when the Saint experienced in all its classic cosmicality the emotion of a man who has literally had a rug pulled from under him, this was it. Perhaps his heart did not actually stop beating, but it would have had to be a mindless mechanical device not to have faltered. Somehow he maintained a superhuman control of his expression, but for a moment he could do nothing about the leaden, numbness which seemed to spread from somewhere around his midriff to threaten his mental resilience.

Of all the possible hazards and difficulties that he had vaguely anticipated and had been in a general way prepared to cope with, this was the last and least considered in his elastic contingency plans.

“That is impossible,” he protested automatically. “There must be some mistake.”

Even as he said it, he knew how hollow his bluster must sound, and how unavailing it must be.

“There is no mistake,” said the guard coldly, and made the slightest motion of his head at the control building.

His certainty was granite-like. No histrionic bluff could have ever scratched it. He had been tipped off beyond range of peradventure.

Someone in Herr Annellatt’s “organisation” had spilled the beans, and the spillage had been efficiently broadcast. But it would do no good, then and there, to speculate on the identity of the spiller.

The other guard was coming out of the control building in response to the first guard’s nod. He had an automatic pistol holster on his belt, and his right hand rested on the open flap.

The Saint recovered as a professional boxer does after taking a near-knockout punch. Though it had seemed like an eternity to him, the duration of his paralysis would have had to be measured in fractioned seconds. And while his brain told him that there was no intellectual way out of this situation, his physical reflexes, like those of any professional, made him come back fighting.

The guard with the rifle was still tucking his notebook back in his pocket, and the hand he had near the trigger was still encumbered by the papers he was holding. Simon grabbed the barrel of the rifle and yanked it towards him while he drove one knee into the guard’s groin. The rifle came loose, and the Saint added his right hand to another grip on it with which he whirled it like an airplane propeller to slam the butt stunningly against the side of the man’s head.

The other guard’s hand had barely touched the butt of his holstered pistol when the Saint had him almost impaled at the stomach on the muzzle of the captured rifle. The man froze in instant terror, but the Saint was not quite ruthless enough to touch the trigger. On the other hand, he could see no asset value in such a prisoner. So he reconciled humanitarian scruples and practical considerations by merely driving the muzzle in harder and then bringing the rifle butt over in another propeller spin that ended on the guard’s left temple with a clout that could not fail to discount his participation for at least an hour.

“I just don’t understand it,” Simon mourned, looking down at the two uninterested guards. “Everywhere I go, I seem to run into violence. What is the world coming to?”

Frankie and Leopold were staring at him as if they were still trying to wake up.

Simon threw down the rifle and took Frankie’s arm again.

“Come on,” he said. “These little interruptions are a nuisance, but we shouldn’t let them spoil our trip.”

There was no vehicle of any kind parked around the border post, from which he concluded that the guards were relieved at intervals by some circulating vehicle which deposited a fresh detail and carted the previous couple off to their well or unearned rest.

With a cheery wave of his hand to the gaping Hungarians on the other side of the neutral zone, he hustled Frankie and Leopold past the barrier and down the road at an easy jogtrot. Within a hundred yards a curve took both frontier posts out of sight.

“How long before we have a chance of being picked up by some friendly soul who hasn’t come through the border crossings and been warned about us?” he asked Frankie.

“Very soon we join a main road which is all Austrian,” she answered. “This road is just a branch from it to the frontier.”

In fact it was less than a quarter of a mile till they connected with the highway. Frankie pointed in the direction which a signpost indicated as leading to Gänserndt, Bad Altenberg, the Neusiedler See, Rust, and points south, and Simon slackened the pace he was setting to a brisk walk.

“It’d look a bit suspicious if we were seen running,” he said. “And anyhow we’re going to need something to take us a bit faster than feet.”

“I think,” Frankie said, “I am going to have a baby.”

“Bully for you,” said the Saint abstractedly, his mind still casting around the enigma of who had blown their fictitious identities. “Will you name it after me?”

He was suddenly grabbed by the shoulder from behind, with a fierceness that brought him up short and turned him around.

“You swine!” Leopold shouted, and came at him with flailing arms.

“Take it easy,” Simon murmured, catching him by the front of his shirt and holding him off with ease. “What’s all the excitement about? Simon’s a good name, unless you’re bothered by its non-Aryan origin.”

Frankie was almost collapsing with laughter.

“It’s all right, Leopold,” she gasped. “Simon is not the father. Nobody is.”

“Sounds positively biblical,” remarked the Saint, turning Leopold loose.

“It will not do us much good to try ‘hitch-hiking,’ as I have seen it in American films,” Frankie explained. She raised the hem of her dress and stuck her leg out in a provocative pose. “They would misunderstand that in Austria. No, we must stop the first driver who comes along and tell him that I must get to the hospital quickly because I am going to have a baby.”

The Saint looked at her critically,

“I’m not an expert in these matters, but do you really look the part? I mean, expectant motherhood does make ladies... er... bloom a bit usually, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t be silly,” snorted Frankie. “Stop a driver and tell him I’m a hospital case, and he’s not going to start taking my measurements. Anyway, in this peasant costume, you couldn’t really tell, could you?”

The Saint had to admit that she was right. What was more, her idea was a good one. He looked back over his shoulder.

“Well, this is a chance to try it,” he said.

A large truck was thundering up behind them, headed in the direction of Rust. Getting into the act, Leopold stepped into the road and flagged it down. The driver stuck his head out of the cab window.

“Was geschieht?” he asked.

Leopold pointed to Frankie who was being supported by Simon’s arm and looked as if she was enjoying it.

“My wife,” he said loudly. “She is having a child. We must get her to the hospital in Rust.”

The driver laughed.

“It is a very suitable place.”

Simon was amused by the joke, for he was aware that Rust was a town noted as a dwelling place for storks and boasted a stork’s nest for every chimney.

The driver jerked his thumb at the Saint.

“Who is he?”

“He is my cousin from Munich.” Leopold was learning fast. Simon was not so much a good teacher as a marvellous example. “But he is not a doctor or a midwife.”

At that moment Frankie let out a loud moan and swayed on her feet.

“I don’t have room for three.” The driver leaned over and opened the door of the cab. “If you want him to go too, one of you will have to get in the back.”

“We all will,” Simon said agreeably. “Then we can look after the woman if things start to happen.”

The driver shrugged and slammed the door shut. The trio hurried around to the back and climbed into the open truck.

“Right,” Simon signalled to the driver. “Full speed ahead.”

They drove on down the road at a fast clip. As they went, Simon was watching for the eventually inevitable pursuit, but there was still no sign of it.

It did not take them long to reach Rust.

“Where is the hospital?” inquired the driver, leaning out of the cab window and looking backwards at his passengers.

“I have no idea,” shouted Simon over the noise of the engine and the rattle of the chassis, “but if you let us off we’ll find it.”

“No, no,” replied the man. “I will help you get the woman there. We can always ask a policeman.”

“I shall ask St Peter if you don’t look where you’re going,” Simon told him, and the man turned round just in time to avoid running into a telephone pole.

Farther along, the driver stopped and asked a peasant carrying two milk pails filled with dung on a wooden yoke over his shoulders the route to the hospital. The man, who looked older than he probably was, as is so often the case with peasants, said he knew of no hospital.

“Where is the police station then?” inquired the driver.

For an Austrian peasant the man was admirably and efficiently concise.

“Down the road, first left, second right and third left.”

He spat and plodded off, his back indicating that he had had enough idle chatter for one day. The Saint wondered whether his pails would get scrubbed out and sterilised before being used for milk later on. He guessed probably not.

The driver ground the truck’s gears and moved off. He seemed incapable of proceeding at less than a breakneck speed.

“Get ready to jump out,” Simon told the others. “We’ll go when he slows up round the next corner.”

He did not even have to lower his voice. The groaning of the engine and banging of the truck’s body effectively prevented the driver from hearing anything to arouse his suspicions as they all three slid to the back of the truck and got ready to jump.

As Simon figured it, in making a left-hand turn across the road the man would use the small mirror on his front mudguard on the left side, which would show him only the outside of the truck. Of course, it was possible, even likely, that he would also glance in the rear-view mirror above his windscreen, but that was a chance they would have to take. With any luck he would be a typical Austrian driver and conduct himself as if no one else were on the road.

Fortune was with them, and the driver was in a hurry. His outside mirror showed him plainly that there was no one overtaking him, and he cut across the road towards a side street. As he did so, the Saint and his companions dropped off the back of the truck. Leopold caught Frankie as she stumbled, and the three of them watched the truck vanish behind the corner. No one paid any attention to them, as if this was not an abnormal way for hitch-hikers to abandon their conveyance.

Simon was amused to picture the driver’s expressions, both facial and verbal, when he got to the police station and found his passengers gone. But there was also a graver side to the matter. Policemen are always serious and always curious. They are paid to be so. The driver’s description of the missing hitch-hikers would cause the police to make enquiries on their network and broadcast their descriptions. And by now the Saint and his companions would be officially very much “wanted.” Simon decided that they had better play it safe and get out of Rust as quickly as possible and take the back roads without trying for any more hitch-hiking, while heading for their rendezvous with Max’s henchman. The journey was not all that far and, as he put it to the others, a little exercise would do them no harm and might even be of benefit.

Though not far in actual distance, the journey took them much longer than they expected. As far as possible they avoided the roads in case they might be seen and recognised as fugitives. Even rural farmhouses in Austria were likely to have radios. They tramped through muddy fields and forged their way through underbrush. Occasionally they had to hide from people. Once they even sought refuge in a pigsty. This episode lasted for quite a long time, since a farmer brought his horse into a neighbouring field and spent an unconscionable time schooling it. When he finally left the animal to its own devices, they were all three suffering from lack of oxygen and prolonged exposure to an almost insufferable smell.

“Shan’t stay at that hotel again,” remarked the Saint as they emerged from their hiding place. “Ozone is all very well but it can be overdone. Anyway, if it’s smells one wants, the sulphur baths at Baden are just as odoriferous but a lot more comfortable.”

Since Leopold knew something of the terrain he acted as their pathfinder, using the compass he had been provided with.

“Just like Max,” Frankie said when Simon had finished his tale of how he and Leopold had crossed over to Schloss Este and where they were headed now. “He is a great organiser but he always only goes so far. I think he never finishes a plan because he doesn’t want to tie himself down in case anything goes wrong. It’s the typical peasant mentality. He always wants to have several ways out.”

“So do I,” said Simon. “One way in and several ways out. That’s always the best set-up — including prison.”

“Have you tried, prison I mean?” she asked teasingly.

“Not seriously, but I wouldn’t mind one day. It would be a challenge. I mean, one of the really tough ones — Dartmoor or even Alcatraz. Some place where escapes are considered virtually impossible.” His eyes had a faraway look. “Maybe the Lubjianka in Moscow, or Devil’s Island.”

Frankie gazed at him sidelong.

“You are a strange man. Danger is your life’s blood, and the impossible your only ambition.”

The Saint grinned at her.

“Oh, I have a few others. Like having a quiet diner à deux with you some day, some place where none of the Ungodly would be butting in. Where would you fancy?”

“Excuse me,” interrupted Leopold with heavy politeness, “but it is getting near sunset and we should hurry a little. It will be difficult to get through the forest after nightfall.”

“Och aye, laddie,” replied the Saint docilely. “The camels are coming, as the Arab’s wife said when he inquired about her dowry. So are we. On, on, and the Devil take the hindquarters.”

He laughed at the expression of baffled exasperation on the young man’s face.

It had in fact been dark for some time when the rushing waters of the stream they had crossed only twenty-four hours before (although it seemed like days ago) filled the night with their deep-toned chatter.

Simon found the place where the rowing boat had been moored and from there led on upstream until they came to the pylon which Max had told him would be a landmark. They had, in fact, come in a vast full circle.

As Max had also said, from the pylon they could see a log cabin. Its windows were lighted squares in the enshrouding darkness. It struck the Saint as being an interesting coincidence that Max should own a farm so near to Schloss Este. Or had he perhaps purchased it for that very reason?

Simon tried the door, which opened without a creak on well-oiled hinges. The cottage was evidently used frequently or had been especially prepared for their coming.

Simon led the way in.

2

Anton was standing in the middle of the room. His air of nervous apprehension changed to a welcoming smile as he recognised the Saint.

“Good evening, sir,” he cried. “Ach, Gräfin Francesca and Graf Leopold! I am thankful to see you all.”

“And how glad I am to see you, Anton!” exclaimed Frankie.

A wood fire was burning in the grate and the aromatic scent of scorching resin filled the room, which was comfortably furnished with a sofa, some armchairs, and a table with chairs to go with it. There was no carpet on the floor but the room was scrupulously clean and had a cosy appearance. On the far side were two doors, which the Saint figured probably led to a bedroom and a kitchen respectively. When Simon asked him, Anton confirmed that they did.

Frankie sank into one of the armchairs.

“My God, I’m tired,” she said. “I could sleep for a week.”

She kicked her shoes off and began rubbing her feet. Leopold went over to the fire and held his hands out to it.

“It is nice to be warm again,” he said with feeling.

“My master told me to ask you to rest comfortably here until he sends for you,” said Anton. “Perhaps you would all like some food and drink?”

“You are a mind-reader, Anton,” beamed the Saint.

The old servant smiled.

“No, sir, just long training.”

He went to a sideboard in a corner and fetched out a bottle of Jaegermeister. Soon its mellow fire was coursing through their veins. Anton provided them with a meal of the ubiquitous leberwurst, ham, cheese and black bread, but there was also some marvellously fresh butter and a cold game pie with a glazed golden crust to turn the occasion into a feast. They ate in silence, concentrating their whole attention on what they were doing in the manner of starving people. Anton tactfully withdrew into the kitchen and left them to themselves and their repast.

Finally Leopold gave a sigh and pushed back his chair.

“That,” he said, stretching out his legs, “was the most beautiful meal I have ever had. It was almost worth the whole adventure.”

Frankie looked at him affectionately.

“You are still a child, Leopold. Your stomach means everything to you.”

The youth showed a rare gleam of humour.

“Not everything,” he said with a grin.

She laughed.

“I love you, Leopold — when you are not being serious.”

“I am only serious about you, Frankie,” he said directly.

“Well, you shouldn’t be.” She seemed anxious to change the subject but feminine enough not to let it go too easily.

“Serious, I mean. People who are serious are usually dull. Is that not so, Simon?”

“No,” answered the Saint, expanding his sinewy frame in a sudden cat-like movement, his arms behind his head. “I don’t find them dull at all. The ones I meet are usually quite seriously out to get me. They may be a nuisance but they are not dull.”

Frankie gave him a quizzical look. “I think you are trying to be tactful. But if we must be serious, what do we do now?”

Simon smiled at her. When he was in the right mood, the Saint’s smile could be quite an experience for ladies on the receiving end. Frankie blushed, as the personality of this strange man seemed physically to envelop her. Watching them, Leopold fidgeted and did not attempt to conceal his jealousy.

“I’ll find out from Anton when he expects to hear from Max,” replied the Saint. “But first, tell us how you came to be captured by the Gestapo.” His tone and manner brooked no argument. “No more holding out. We’ve waited for it too long already.”

She met his challenging gaze with bland composure.

“I arranged it.”

Leopold sat straight up in his chair.

“You did what?”

“I wanted them to capture me. In fact, I wasn’t really captured at all. I just walked up to the guards at the outer gate and told them who I was. They telephoned the Castle and they were kind enough to send a whole squad of soldiers to escort me. The Germans are always very respectful when it comes to dealing with people of title.”

The Saint nodded approvingly.

“That was a very good touch. What better way of getting into the Castle than to get your enemies actually to compel you to go in.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“But what good did you think that was going to do?” protested Leopold. “Surely you couldn’t have imagined that they would let you wander about unguarded? You must have known they would put you straight into a dungeon.”

Her smile mocked him.

“I did — and they did just that.”

He flushed angrily.

“Then you are a complete idiot — eine dumme Gans! It is typical of you. You go through life thinking people will always come along and pull you out of whatever mess you get into.”

“Which is just what you both did,” Frankie said sweetly.

Leopold stuttered with rage.

“You... you... are totally irresponsible! You don’t mind what trouble you cause to others just as long as you get your way. We might have been captured or even killed!”

Frankie wafted a smile in the Saint’s direction. “Do you agree?”

Simon nodded.

“He’s dead right, but you’re pretty enough to get away with it.”

She was obviously pleased with the compliment, especially as it came from him. In spite of that, she shook her head.

“But I am not so irresponsible as you both think.”

“No?” The Saint’s eyebrows were raised satirically.

“No, no!” she reiterated, her eyes wide with excitement that she was finding it harder and harder to suppress.

“Oh no?” sneered Leopold. “All you’ve done is to put the Germans in Schloss Este on their guard, nearly get us killed, and turn us into fugitives. I tell you, I am not used to this sort of thing and I don’t like it unless there is a good reason for it. What you hoped to achieve I can’t imagine.”

“This!” she said proudly, flinging back the shawl from her neck and shoulders.

The jewels in the Hapsburg Necklace flashed and glinted on her bosom with a brilliance that made them seem alive.

3

Leopold could only gape at her.

The Saint exhaled a breath of utter joy and delight.

“Very neat,” he remarked. “And very dramatic too. You’d make a sensational actress and an even better producer. Your sense of timing is perfect.”

“But... but...” stammered Leopold. “Where... how... how did you get it?”

Her smile was wicked.

“I just went straight to the place where it was.”

“You couldn’t have. They put you into a dungeon. You told us so yourself! ”

“Exactly.”

“All right then, how did you get out?”

She was like a cat playing with an irritated mouse, Simon thought. He was amused by the quaintness of his simile. He gave Frankie a conspiratorial wink.

“I got her out,” he told the frustrated young man.

“I know that!” exploded Leopold. “I mean how did she get out before you came along?”

“I didn’t,” Frankie said demurely.

Leopold stamped his foot furiously.

“Stop playing games! This is a serious business, and you have caused enough trouble already without trying to turn it all into a joke.”

“I think,” murmured Simon, “that you’d better come clean, Frankie, before your cousin has a seizure.”

The girl’s smile made a bond between them.

“He really should be intelligent enough to guess. You have, haven’t you, Simon?”

He nodded.

“But I’m an old rogue, much versed in the ways of the wicked, even when they are beautiful girls.”

She turned to Leopold.

“You really are a stupid idiot,” she said unkindly but without malice. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve no idea?”

“I am no longer playing your game,” he said sullenly.

“Leopold, stop behaving like a spoilt child.”

“I think,” interjected the Saint, “that he wouldn’t mind if you were to thank him for all the trouble he went to to get you out of the Castle.”

Frankie jumped up and flung her arms around Leopold and kissed him.

“Thank you, thank you, mein Schatz! I am very naughty, but I am truly grateful, and you were very brave.”

Leopold went a brick red, but he could not help being honest.

“It was not all me,” he said, glancing over at Simon.

Frankie triumphantly took up a position in front of the fire.

“All right then, I’ll tell you.”

“You do just that,” the Saint pursued her sardonically.

Frankie was enjoying her moment of glory, which she had been looking forward to.

“It’s really so simple if you just think about it. As I have already told you, I got into the Castle by letting myself be captured — quite deliberately. To do something that dangerous I must have had a really important objective. In fact, I must have known not only where the Necklace was hidden but also that I should be able to get at it from where I was certain to finish up.”

Her cousin’s eyes widened and his jaw hung open.

“You don’t mean—?”

“Precisely.” She rippled the Necklace with her hand so that it burned even more scintillatingly, and then hid its glories once more with her kerchief. “In the dungeon.”

“So,” Simon prompted, “by walking into a trap you were sure of getting the cheese.”

“Except that I am not a mouse.” She flashed him a smile.

“Yes, I knew that my father had hidden it in the dungeon. On his deathbed he told my mother exactly where. It was under a small flagstone in one corner. He put it there because he thought that the dungeon would be the one part of the Castle where no one would ever go, because most people think of dungeons as being totally outmoded and useless.” She made a wry face. “That is, most civilized people do. But nowadays the Germans have some rather oldfashioned ideas.”

“Tyranny is the oldest form of government,” Simon observed. “That it happens to be one of the newest as well, merely brings it up to date and sets us all back a few centuries.”

“But,” argued Leopold, “how did you think you were going to get out again?”

“Oh, I would have got out even if you had not come after me,” she stated airily.

“Really? And how did your clever little mind tell you you were going to accomplish that?”

She shrugged.

“I am a woman. The Kommandant there was a man.” Her sophistication had a touch of malice. “He had already made that fact quite clear to me. What is more, he was not only a man but a snob. Oh yes, I should have got out all right.”

“You would have degraded yourself and our family?” Leopold’s face was a study.

“In England they call it ‘letting down the side,’ ” Simon drawled. “That’s because everything is a sport there. But you know, you really were being a bit scatterbrained.”

Her look was defiant.

“Why? I tell you, I should have got out.”

“Yes, dear old Countess and femme fatale,” responded the Saint affably. “And Leopold and I might have got in — and stayed in. There’d be no point in our trying to seduce the Kommandant... although I must admit you never know with Prussian military types. It’s probably all that leather and boots that gets them.”

Frankie was suddenly subdued.

“I’m sorry. I never thought of that,” she said in a small voice.

“That’s what I mean,” grumbled Leopold. “You never do. think of anyone else.”

Her eyes were moist and her lips trembled. All at once she had ceased being a poised young woman and was a girl.

“You know that’s not true. Everything I did was for the sake of our family and our country.”

“In that case,” Simon put in, “it’s about time you took a day off from being the keeper of the Hapsburg Necklace.”

“What do you mean? Are you just being rude?”

“Not at all,” said the Saint. “I’m being very polite — even complimentary. You’d make a terrific woman.”

Frankie blushed warmly and was momentarily silenced. Leopold, on the other hand, was anything but at a loss for words.

“You are just making things worse,” he snapped at the Saint.

Simon’s brows lifted.

“By encouraging her to be a woman instead of a Guardian Angel? Isn’t that what you would like?”

The other was becoming irascible again.

“That is none of your business. Frankie has been incredibly foolish, but what she does in her private life is her affair, or at least only the concern of our family. We do not permit strangers to intrude into our business.”

The Saint was amused by Leopold’s turnabout.

“Perhaps, dear old chap, that’s what’s been your trouble. With a good manager, you and Frankie might make the big leagues, but on your own you’ll never sell yourselves. Puppet shows are out these days.”

Although he was smiling, there was a hint of steel in his blue eyes.

This time it was Frankie who was the peacemaker.

“Come on, you two,” she said soothingly, suddenly becoming very adult in her manner. “There’s no point in our quarrelling. We have been through too much together.” She turned to the Saint. “What do you think we are supposed to do now?”

“I’ll go and ask Anton,” he said. “Max must have given him instructions for us. Anyway, we need a good night’s sleep. I for one won’t mind bunking down here, then...”

He was interrupted by the sound of a motor. The headlights of a car raked the cabin as it came up the rutted path through the woods.

“This must be Max now,” Frankie said with relief.

The Saint looked thoughtful.

“I wonder how he knew we were back? There’s no telephone here, I presume, and smoke signals don’t work at night.”

“But naturally, he has simply come to see if we are back yet.” Leopold sounded slightly impatient.

“Hold it,” said the Saint sharply. “I don’t think it’s—”

Before he could finish his sentence the door was flung open from outside and two figures stepped into the room.

They were an incongruous pair, almost like a music hall turn: one large, one small, and both in ballooning raincoats.

“Achtung!” the small one said, and his gun lent authority to his words.

“Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat,” murmured the Saint, making a bilingual pun which he could only hope some bilingual reader would appreciate.

4

“Raise your hands, all of you,” ordered the Rat in a flat business-like voice.

They did as they were told. The Saint was definitely annoyed. Even when it is a matter of life or death, standing with one’s arms above one’s head makes a man feel undignified. The Saint did not like the feeling. On the other hand, he was sure he wouldn’t like the feeling of being dead, and just at the moment there was no other choice open to him.

Leopold’s mouth was twitching as he gazed at the two men, hatred in his eyes. Frankie was calm, but her strained white face betrayed how desperate she was.

“Which of you has the Necklace?” inquired the Rat. He looked at Frankie. “Is it you, Frau Gräfin?”

She shook her head.

“We did not get it.” Her lips were stiff.

“Well, we need not waste any more time,” said the Rat. “There is one certain way of finding out. Strip, all of you!”

Leopold’s eyes blazed as he took a step forward in spite of the gun trained unwaveringly at him.

“I will kill you for this,” he said furiously.

“You will be lucky to stay alive very much longer, Herr Graf, if you go on behaving this way.” The Rat’s tone was infinitely sinister. “But perhaps we can save us all some trouble.” He turned his gun on Frankie. Behind him the Gorilla stood with his pistol at the ready. “Come here please, Frau Gräfin.”

Frankie stepped forward haltingly. She cast her eyes around desperately, as if looking for some escape from a hopeless situation.

Suddenly the Rat reached out and tore the shawl from her shoulders, pulling the top part of her blouse with it. Frankie’s flesh gleamed like satin, and the Necklace rested on the soft cushion of her breast. For some reason, perhaps because of his heightened sensibilities, the Saint thought it looked more alive than ever.

“Ah,” approved the Rat, “that is better.” He turned to the Gorilla. “Keep them covered.”

He stepped around Frankie and unfastened the Necklace, his fingers caressing her bare shoulders as he did so. She shivered and her face expressed her repugnance. The Rat held the Necklace up so it splintered the light into a myriad different colours.

“Wunderschön!” he breathed. “It would be worth killing an army to get this.” He turned to the Saint. “And thanks to you, mein Herr, we have got it without any bloodshed at all.”

Simon’s face was inscrutable.

“It strikes me,” he remarked, “that you know a surprising amount for someone who just dropped in to pass the time of day, or night rather.”

The Rat ignored his comment.

“Search the other,” he commanded his mate as he stepped up to the Saint and frisked him swiftly, removing Simon’s gun in the process.

The Gorilla did the same with Leopold. The Rat stepped to one side of the open door.

“We are leaving you now, but first we must tie you up.” Turning to his companion, “Go fetch the rope,” he said in German.

Suddenly the kitchen door opened and Anton entered.

The Gorilla’s reaction was automatic. He did not even wait to think or see who it was. His gun spat once. The old manservant slumped to the floor, an astonished expression on his face.

Then Leopold made his heroic move, which is something only heroes should attempt. He rushed blindly towards the Gorilla whose gun spoke again. Leopold stopped in his tracks, clutching his shoulder from which blood was beginning to seep.

Frankie gasped, and ran to him.

“Leopold, my darling!” she sobbed. She turned to the Gorilla. “You scum! You do not deserve to live!”

The Rat answered her. His smile was evil as he swung the Necklace tauntingly in front of her.

“And you, Gnädiges Fräulein, are lucky to be left alive.” He spoke to the Gorilla out of the corner of his mouth: “Get the rope, I said.”

“Why not just kill them?” grumbled the Gorilla. “They know too much anyway. And I know how I would like to do it to that other one.”

“You are a fool,” said the Rat contemptuously. “What he did to you was a proper punishment for your own stupidity. I order you to stop thinking about revenge and try to learn a lesson from it. The Boss said no killing, and now you have killed a man. Because of you we are already in deep trouble. Go get the rope, I am telling you.”

Simon saw that the time had come for someone to take action. There was, of course, only one person capable of taking it: himself. Yet for reasons of his own that was the one thing he did not wish to do at that particular moment, and these reasons were totally unconnected with the fact that the odds were stacked so steeply against him. Nevertheless, it was a situation where discretion was the better part of valour, since the Rat had him well covered with his gun.

He therefore relaxed and lounged against the table while the Gorilla went out and quickly returned with a coil of cord, with which he set about tying up the Saint and his party.

Simon submitted co-operatively to having his wrists bound, but was ready for the blow that the Gorilla launched at his face directly that was done, and ducked it easily, but could not keep his balance in evading the crotch kick that followed, and fell sideways.

“Halt!” commanded the Rat sharply, as the Gorilla’s foot drew back for another kick. “You tie them up, nothing more. And you” — the muzzle of his gun fanned over his captives — “will not resist, unless you want to be painfully wounded.”

The Gorilla muttered sulkily but got on with his job, and it was not long before the Saint, Leopold and Frankie were tightly trussed. Leopold’s face turned dark red when the Gorilla leeringly gave Frankie some special pawing in the process, but his anger had to remain pent up. The Rat’s gun saw to that. Frankie remained icily unmoved, and her eyes and expression showed scorn for his crudeness.

“There we are,” said the Rat finally. “It would have been easier to kill you but we have our orders.” He smiled cruelly at Simon. “And in your case, Mr. Templar, you are fortunate that I have had to restrain my associate in order to complete his punishment, not out of pity for you. But perhaps another time it will be different.”

“Bless your tender heart, old fruit,” drawled the Saint. “Any time you like. But I should warn you that I very seldom get killed — it’s usually the other chap. I’d love to play some more games with your little friend. I think he needs to brush up on his knots, and we could do some practising on his neck.”

The Rat’s only response was to coldly motion with his gun for the Gorilla to precede him through the door into the darkness. The Gorilla swung a final kick at the Saint as he went, but Simon twisted away from it and sustained nothing worse than a brutal pain in his thigh. Then the Rat’s gun itself peremptorily drove the Gorilla on his way, and the Rat followed. A few moments later the car starter hummed, and the engine burst into life. There was a clash of gears as it tore off down the bumpy lane, its headlights weaving wildly as it went.

“You gave up very easily,” Leopold sneered. “Simon Templar, the Saint, the great champion — where was he?”

The Saint declined to take umbrage.

“He who lets them get away, gets his chance another day, as the Bard says. One can be brave and sensible at the same time. The Rat could have deaded me with one shot if I’d tried anything.”

Leopold snorted. Frankie shot Simon a curious look but remained neutral.

“What do we do now?” she asked. “We could stay here for days, unless Max comes to find out what has happened to us.”

“Cheer up, me hearties, all is not lost!” said the Saint jovially. “You are about to witness a marvel of escapology performed by none other than Simon H. Templar. The H stands for Houdini, of course. He was my aunt on my mother’s side. That was his greatest trick. But he taught me one or two others.”

As he spoke, the Saint was flexing his arms.

“The secret is to keep your wrists edgeways-on while they’re being tied. This gives the rope the greatest possible circumference to go around. Then when you turn them flat-to-flat, you get quite a bit of slack. Work that all to one side, and the loop may be big enough to pull one hand through. Of course it doesn’t work if you’re unconscious while they’re tying you. But once you’ve done that, it’s all downhill.”

And suddenly his left hand came from behind his back, free and unencumbered, to give his audience a triumphantly mocking salute.

“Then,” the Saint went on, as he shook the cords off his other hand and bent over to untie his ankles, “the rest is quite easy.”

A minute or two later he kicked off the bonds and set about releasing Frankie.

The girl sat up and rubbed her wrists and ankles.

“I’ve gone all numb,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” the Saint told her. “It always happens in cases of unrequited love. Feeling will come back soon, but you may get pins and needles for a while, as the seamstress said to the Bishop.”

He stepped over to Leopold, who still lay bound and glaring at him.

“How would it be, old son, if we left you here as a corpus delicti? We ought to have some evidence that a crime has been committed. I mean mayhem as well as murder.”

“You forget he is wounded,” Frankie protested. “Set him free at once without making any more of your silly jokes.”

“I’m sorry,” Simon said numbly. “Being such a silly fellow, I suppose they come naturally.”

He knelt down and began untying Leopold, and then helped the young man to a chair. Frankie came over and cradled Leopold’s head on her shoulder. The young man looked quite pleased with life at the moment. He closed his eyes and a rather smug expression spread over his face.

“If you two were in a Victorian painting,” Simon observed, “it would be entitled The Prodigal’s Return, or True Love Discovered.”

Frankie flashed him a scathing glance.

“Even when poor Leopold may be dying and Anton is dead you try to turn everything into a joke. Have you no heart?”

The Saint stepped over to Anton, knelt down and felt the old servant’s pulse.

“It’s no joke about him,” he said sombrely. “He must have died instantly. That trigger-happy gorilla must have thought the old boy was coming to our rescue. That’s the trouble with these amateur hatchet men, or torpedoes as they’re called in America. They often shoot first and hang later. I find I like that pair less and less every time I meet them. Perhaps we’ll see to it that the next time is the last,” he added grimly.

He crossed over to examine Leopold’s shoulder.

“Not fatal,” he announced shortly. “Luckily the bullet went clean through, and you don’t have any vital organs up there unless you’re built most peculiarly.” He turned to Frankie. “I hate to ask you, but do you have any more underwear to spare? I mean, you must be getting down to bare essentials. But if you had a piece of... er... something...?”

Frankie tore a strip off her last petticoat and tried ineffectually to bind up Leopold’s wound. The boy gave a yelp of pain, and Frankie turned pleadingly back to Simon.

“All right,” said the Saint easily. “Let Matron do it. In the Regiment they used to call me Florence the Nightlight, and strong soldiers wept in gratitude for my tender ministrations. At least, I think that’s what they were crying about. Of course, they might have just been biting on an onion. They did that a lot in those days.”

As he chatted nonsensically the Saint was efficiently and swiftly binding up Leopold’s shoulder.

“There you are, sonny boy,” he said when he had finished, “that’ll do for the time being. See your local doctor when you get home and just remember to use your other arm when swinging from trees or hugging your girlfriend — or both. I’d put it in a sling but I don’t think we can ask Frankie for any more sacrifices.”

The young man sat up straight.

“You let them get away,” he said uncompromisingly.

“I wasn’t exactly in a position to stop them. I mean, I could have invited them to stop and play spelling games, but somehow I don’t think they were in the mood.”

“You don’t seem to care at all that they’ve taken the Necklace,” said Frankie acidly.

The Saint massaged his chafed wrists.

“My dear,” he said blandly, “I would even have held the door open for them. We’re well rid of them — and it.”