The Saint in Trouble

Original Teleplay by Terence Feely

Adapted by Graham Weaver

1

Simon Templar pushed away the remains of his lobster and ordered coffee and cognac. He turned his chair sideways to the table and crossed his legs with careful attention to the crease of his trousers. The brightly colored canvas of the awning overhead offered only token protection from the early afternoon sun, and he envied the customers in the restaurant behind him as they enjoyed the cooler shade of the interior. But his choice of a place outside had been dictated not by considerations of comfort but by its strategic advantage as an observation post.

“An adventurer’s life,” he telepathically informed the fly sensibly dawdling hopefully in the shadow of his plate, “is not an easy one.”

The fly ignored him.

Simon sighed. He was aware that there was a large percentage of the world’s population who would gladly have changed places with him. People to whom the prospect of lunching at a luxury restaurant in Cannes on a summer’s day would not have seemed an unduly excruciating ordeal. But Simon Templar’s moods and opinions rarely coincided with those of the average citizen.

He was also well aware that there were a great many people who would have enjoyed a more contented and peaceful existence had he decided to follow the paths of the majority. Men who would have been happier, richer souls had they never heard of him. Some of whom were known by numbers instead of names and spent their hours sewing containers for Her Majesty’s mail.

And there were those too who, had he sought a life checking figures in a ledger, would have been alive to enjoy the sunshine. They knew him not by the names bestowed upon him at his baptism (if there ever had been such a ceremony) but by another that was capable of arousing both hatred and terror; that could start the most secure searching of their passports and the most abject coward looking for a gun. A title that was also synonymous with headaches and discomfiture to the guardians of the law and order in a dozen countries: the Saint.

There had been a time when that name alone was known and the only clue to the identity of its owner was a haloed matchstick figure that might have seemed childish had it not been for the aura of almost supernatural potency that it had acquired. It had been the standard in a private battle against those parasites the police could not touch; a visiting card that carried the same authority as a death warrant.

Official forgiveness from a grateful government for those early sins had not prevented the committing of fresh ones, but the fame that was their inevitable result made the life of a modern buccaneer more complicated than it was comfortable. His reputation brought the Saint adventures he might otherwise have missed, but it also made him the favourite in the chasing-wild-goose stakes and it was in this latter category that he was beginning to place his present business.

In front of him, on the Boulevard de la Croisette, other eaters and drinkers had left their restaurants and cafés and were beginning to pack the pavements again. The road traffic was building up and slowing to a crawl. By taming his head slightly he could forget some of the noise and movement by looking beyond it to the blue waters of the Mediterranean sparkling in the sun.

He watched as a ferry laden with day trippers ploughed from his right towards the islands of Ste. Marguerite and Ste. Honorat on his near horizon, forcing its purposeful passage between the yachts and launches that glided like white-breasted sea birds around the bay. One in particular caught his attention, and he followed its progress for a while as it cruised across his field of view.

It rode high in the water, its knife-sharp bows cutting an easy path for the trim white hull. The flying bridge sprouted enough scanners and antennae to equip a frigate, and the twin screws were using only an infinitesimal fraction of their reserves to push it on its leisured course. By local plutocratic standards it was not a large craft, no more than fifty feet, but its obviously understated power gave it an air of pent-up vitality that had a certain insolent appeal.

The Saint’s keen eyes picked out three people on board, the captain on his bridge, a crewman performing some indistinct task in the bow and a girl whose slender form was draped along a lounger on the after deck. As it turned away, perhaps headed for the Port Canto, Simon managed to pick out the name on the transom: Protege. The girl, he was tempted to fantasize, might have been more interesting to protect than the subject he was committed to.

Reluctantly he turned his gaze back along the boulevard to the flag-bedecked Palais des Festivals just across the intervening side street from where he sat. A small group of sombre-suited men stood halfway up the steps. A steady procession of cars and taxis stopped to deposit their similarly unfestive-looking passengers. Each time the same ceremony was repeated: the leader of the greeters, a small bald man with a goatee beard, stepped forward and bowed, shook the hand of the latest arrival, and introduced him to the others. That ceremony over, a uniformed attendant would appear and escort the visitor into the building. A couple of press photographers clicked their cameras without moving from the wall they were supporting. Above the entrance to the Palais was draped a white banner bearing the flaming brand emblem of the European Institute for Scientific Advancement, below which was proclaimed CONGRÈS DE RESSOURCES D’ÉNÉRGIE ALTERNATIVE.

The sight of the precise men performing their precise ritual, coupled with the words on the banner, deepened the frustration that had been building up in him during the three days since his arrival in Cannes.

It was nothing about the town that exasperated him, for it was early enough in the season for there still to be room to stroll the sidewalks, lie on the beach, or tack a sailboat across the bay. Rather it was the incongruity of the people he was watching that irritated him: they were so totally oat of place in such a resort at such a time.

Union leaders may score a proletarian point by convening in Scarborough or in Atlantic City in October. Clergymen may regard congregating in holiday camps in March as the twentieth-century equivalent of the hair shirt and derive solace therefrom. Politicians may kid their voters that they are working if they babble around tables in Brussels or Geneva at any time of year. But only scientists, their minds congested with calculus and their vision dimmed by nebulous theories, could possibly consider conducting ponderous arguments in Cannes at the end of May when the sun was bright but the temperature was at its most agreeable.

It must be admitted that the Saint had never had too high a regard for scientists as a breed. After all, he reflected, most of the really important things had been discovered by accident rather than through deliberate research. A watched kettle had boiled and heralded the Industrial Revolution, a forgotten fungus had provided penicillin, and a wine grower’s mistake had produced cognac. The Saint sniffed the dark gold liquid in his glass as he raised it in silent salute to his ignorant benefactor, and waited for the comforting glow to diffuse through his body. On the whole, his summation went, the contributions of scientists to the health and creature comforts of mankind had been pretty well offset by the Pandora’s boxload of death and destruction and pollution that they had also helped to let loose.

The era of the Saint’s anonymity has already been mentioned. A scientist’s evil discovery had been responsible, in an ultimate way, for bringing those golden days to a close, and for the death of one of the truest friends he would ever have.{See The Saint Closes the Case} Psychiatrists perhaps could have spent many happy hours pondering the significance of those events in his attitude to science and the irony of his present interest in it.

Soon the scientists would be gone and Cannes and the Palais would welcome arrivals more in keeping with their raison d’être. Hollywood had recently staged its seasonal corroboree, turning the town into a film fan’s fantasy: starlets had enjoyed their exposure while photographers enjoyed the starlets, producers and directors had enjoyed talking about art while calculating how much their latest flick had grossed, gossip columnists had enjoyed one of the best junkets of the year, and everyone had gone home happy. Soon now the midsummer lemming swarm of traditional holiday-makers would be jostling each other for sweating room and paying exorbitantly for this privilege.

Anyone not knowing his identity might easily have thought him to be a leftover from the April Film Festival. The face was as tanned and handsome as any that ever appeared on the giant screen. The thick black hair swept straight back, the blue eyes that could be as warm as the Mediterranean or as cold as a Norwegian fjord, and the strength of the finely cut features, would have found him a place on any casting director’s list. The subtle difference was that in him it was not type casting: it was the real thing.

Among the throng on the sidewalk the Saint spotted Emma Maclett approaching. Even in a crowd twice as dense as that now perambulating the Croisette it would have been difficult to miss her. She was tall and slim and she moved with a weightless grace, her feet hardly seeming to touch the ground as she walked. Peat-brown hair curled just past her shoulders, green eyes flashing beneath a fringe. There was a mysterious, almost elfin air about her that was testimony to her Celtic ancestors. As she drew nearer, Simon recognised again the mixture of strength and innocence that had so attracted him at their first meeting.

The Saint’s notoriety was such that it ensured him a steady flow of visitors to his door. Most of them wanted to enlist his services for something and Emma Maclett had been no exception. He had succumbed to the shy forthrightness of her by asking her in and inviting her to tell him her problem. It had been a dull day in a dull week and on such occasions the Saint would have been prepared to have been bored by someone far less attractive.

In the end her story had turned out to be far from tedious. Her father was Professor Andrew Maclett, a physicist. Did the Saint know much about science?

Simon had admitted that his scientific qualifications could be written on a postcard and still leave room for the address.

“But you have heard of solar energy?”

“Trapping the sun’s rays to provide heat.”

“That’s the principle. Using the sun’s energy obviously has tremendous potential. It’s free and there’s an unlimited supply. There are already houses which are heated by solar panels in the roof, but that’s only scratching the surface. Lighting and heating a house is one thing, developing the technology to light and heat a town is another. That’s what my father has done. The application of his process means that we could harness enough of the sun’s energy to operate a full-sized power station. Think of it — free energy, no more reliance on oil or coal that are someday going to run out, with none of the dangers of nuclear power.”

“I’d say that beats hanging around the local pub every afternoon. So what is your father’s problem?”

“Free energy is fine in theory, but it also means a lot of trouble, and a gigantic loss for a great many people — oil companies, ancillary industries who rely on them, governments, trade unions — and they are only the major ones. My father has been officially told to shelve his plans. Not in the public interest! How on earth can they say that?”

“I take it Daddy has no intention of buttoning up.”

“If you knew my father you wouldn’t even ask. This is his life’s work. Because he has insisted on carrying on with it, he was sacked from his chair at the university, and also lost the government grant that was paying for the research. He can’t say anything publicly in Britain but he is to be the principal speaker at an energy conference in Cannes, and he intends taking the opportunity to tell the world. I’m scared they’ll try to stop him. Also he’s already turned down offers from the Soviets, who want the process for themselves, and I’m frightened they won’t take no for an answer.”

“And you want me to tag along and keep an eye on him?”

“That’s right, just until after his speech. He’s very independent, he’d never agree to the idea, so we can’t tell him. You would somehow have to do it without his knowing.”

Simon had looked out at the drizzle falling from a stone-grey sky. Something only he saw there amused him, and he smiled.

“I’m free at the moment, and the Riviera looks an increasingly inviting alternative to London in which to expend some energy.”

And so it had been decided.

Simon caught the eye of his waiter, and made the international sign-language symbol of asking for his bill, holding up a flat-open left hand and miming the act of writing on it with his right. He rose as Emma reached the table and sat down.

After glancing cautiously each way she leaned across the table and whispered: “What have you found out?”

The Saint copied her actions, adding an exaggerated search under the table, and whispered: “Nothing.”

The girl looked into two mocking blue eyes that dispelled the send-up before it could offend. Simon sat back in his chair and finished his cognac.

“I’ve been here three days and I’m three thousand francs up at the casino, but of villains I have seen neither hide nor hair.”

Emma frowned.

“Then you think I was overreacting?”

“I didn’t say that. I haven’t found anything because I don’t know what I’m looking for. There are thousands of people in Cannes, and any of them could be a prospective kidnapper or assassin. It’s harder than looking for a needle in a haystack because at least you know what a needle looks like before you start.”

Emma’s face brightened.

“You’re not giving up, then?”

Simon looked shocked.

“Certainly not. I’ve no intention of wasting the time I’ve spent on this jaunt so far. But if I can’t go to the ungodly because I don’t know who they are, then they will have to come to me because they do know who I am, or think they do... This must be your father now.”

Emma turned her head to watch as a taxi stopped outside the Palais and her father emerged. To the casual observer the Saint would have appeared to be looking directly at his companion but he had carefully placed his chair so that he could see without being seen to be watching. It was the first time he had viewed the professor except from photographs, and he liked what he saw.

Maclett stood a head above the tallest of the welcoming committee, and looked as if he had been hewn from a Highland hillside. His shoulders strained against the confines of a check tweed sports jacket, a mop of reddish hair that hadn’t seen a brush since breakfast framed a strong, confident face that should have belonged to a trawler skipper or an oil prospector rather than to a physicist. The Saint could picture him wearing a kilt and wielding a claymore, and instantly believed his daughter’s account of his temper.

The introductions over, the party was mounting the steps.

“Who is he?” asked the Saint, indicating the little goateed man who led the way.

“Dr. Francis Riguard. He’s the president of the institute and the chairman of the conference.”

As the group disappeared inside the building, Emma turned back to the table to see the Saint vigorously tousling his hair.

“What are you doing?”

“I am engaged in practising the art of disguise, or rather creating a personality. It is a common myth that to change your appearance you have to hide behind a hedge of false hair, puff the cheeks out with rubber pads, and apply a coating of plaster calculated to result in you looking like a make-up artist’s conception of the Thing From The Pit. In fact, all that is necessary is to adopt an identity. In this case, the angry young scientist.”

As he spoke, the Saint placed a row of cheap pens in the breast pocket of his jacket; a crumpled tie was knotted loosely around the unbuttoned collar of his shirts and a pair of heavy black-rimmed spectacles rested earnestly on the bridge of his nose. Finally he went down and retrieved a bulging manila folder from beneath the table.

In less time than it took him to explain his activities, the elegant tourist who would have had the doors of any casino on the coast immediately opened for him was replaced by a harassed understrapper who would have gone unnoticed in any important office.

The girl watched the transformation, wondering if the man she had entrusted with her father’s protection had been affected by his luncheon lubricants.

“And the file?” she asked at last, because she felt she had to say something.

“Ah, that’s the piece de resistance! It is my belief that you can walk into any official building anywhere in the world so long as you carry a file and look as if you know where you’re going. A clipboard is better, but I couldn’t get hold of one. A man carrying a briefcase will be searched, but there is something inherently innocent about a man with a folder of papers. This one contains a copy of Paris-Match, yesterday’s Figaro, and half a ream of hotel notepaper.”

The Saint spread folding money on the bill which had been placed before him, and stood up.

“I’m going to work. You can watch if you like, but don’t show that you know me. I’ll see you back at the hotel in an hour.”

2

Head bowed, arms protectively cradling the file of papers, the Saint trotted up the steps and in through the main doors of the Palais without earning a second glance from the attendants standing by them. Once inside he stood for a moment to gain his bearings and savour the welcoming coolness of the foyer before following the signs directing him to the hall where the official opening ceremony was taking place.

The two men standing on either side of the salle entrance wore no uniforms but there was an impressive breadth to their shoulders and an alertness in their eyes that told the Saint they would not be so easily fooled as their colleagues outside. He left the file on a window ledge and pretended to be studying a noticeboard on the opposite side of the foyer.

Through the glazed doors he could see Riguard standing on the stage at the far end of the auditorium. Those scheduled to be the principal speakers at the conference were ranged on both sides of him with Maclett in the place of honour on his right.

With no apparent haste the Saint neared the doors. As he did so the chairman’s words became clearer:

“... And the great event of the week will, of course, be the lecture by our honoured guest, Professor Maclett, on some of the implications of his spectacular breakthrough in the field of solar energy...”

The cue was too apt for a person with Simon Templar’s sense of the dramatic to miss. It came as he drew level with the double doors, and he moved with the speed of a panther. He took two steps to his right and launched himself into a charge, hitting the centre of the doors with his shoulder. Before the first steward had begun to react he was standing in the middle of the main aisle, his voice raised in impassioned protest.

“His breakthrough! It wasn’t his breakthrough, it’s mine! I was his research student at Cambridge. The great Professor Maclett stole it from me. The man’s a thief and a liar!”

The stewards were quick to recover. Grabbing Simon by the arms, they prepared to drag him away. The Saint’s biceps tensed instinctively at the contact, and for an instant the two men paused, surprised by the muscle beneath their fingers. Simon took advantage of the delay to fire his next salvo.

“He put me off it, told me it was rubbish — now he announces it as his own! He stole it, I tell you!”

The spectators were torn between watching the antics of the raving protester halfway down the aisle and the spectacle being provided by Maclett. At the Saint’s first words the professor stood up, rage quickly taking the place of astonishment as the allegations registered. His face had turned an interesting shade that was a mixture of dark red and bright purple; his hands clenched into fists, and he began to climb down from the stage.

The possibility of a physical brawl with the man he was sup posed to be protecting had not figured in Simon’s plan of campaign. His muscles relaxed.

“OK, boys, take me away,” he whispered to the men trying to do just that, and as they roughly obliged he managed one final shout at the lumbering professor and his goggle-eyed audience.

“He’s a fraud and a thief!”

Once away from the auditorium, the stewards made it clear that they planned to conclude their work with an airborne descent of the steps outside the Palais. The Saint had other ideas. He stopped. The stewards, finding their acquiescent charge suddenly as immobile as an oak, had no option but to do the same. They looked at each other and then at the Saint, who by that time should have been picking himself up off the sidewalk. Simon’s ringers closed around the wrists of the hands holding him with the strength of a bear trap snapping shut and removed them from his person.

He smiled.

“Don’t bother. I’ll see myself out.”

A few curious passers-by had gathered, and the Saint was eager to vacate the scene before the possible arrival of the Law. An empty taxi was stalled in the intermittent traffic jam outside, and Simon opened the rear door and slid in behind the driver.

“Hotel Bellevue, please.”

The driver nodded and re-engaged the gears. He was small and slightly built and out of proportion to the spacious white Buick he drove. His skin was tanned the color of old mahogany, he wore a black waist-length zipper jacket over a casual shirt of eye-searing hues and shapeless blue jeans met equally ancient blue sneakers.

As he eased the big car into the flow of traffic the Saint looked back in time to see a dark blue Mercedes pull out of the line of parked cars behind and swing in behind them. Simon leaned forward and spoke in fluent French.

“Drive to the station, then up the Boulevard Carnot, then turn back towards the Croisette by the Boulevard d’Alsace. I would like to arrive at the hotel from the other side.”

The driver nodded his acceptance of each eccentric direction without argument, as if being asked to drive three times the necessary distance was an everyday event. Once his eyes met the Saint’s as both glanced in the rear-view mirror at the same time. What might have been a smile hovered at the comers of his mouth. He raised his hand and adjusted the glass a few degrees.

“Like that, you will see better,” was his only comment.

The Saint laughed.

“Yes, that is much better. Thank you.”

The driver shrugged, as if to say that it was quite usual for him to have passengers who thought they were being followed.

As he turned the car into the Boulevard d’Alsace, he asked: “The Mercedes, you want me to lose it?”

Simon shook his head.

“No, thank you. I wish to know who is in it, not get away from them, once I am sure they are on our trail.”

It was an admission that could have proved foolish but the Saint had the gift of being able to judge the characters of others after the briefest of encounters, and his intuition told him the driver was not only likely to be discreet but might be able to offer real help if trusted.

When they eventually reached the hotel Simon was pleased to see the Mercedes still the same distance behind. He climbed out slowly, to give his shadow time to find a parking place, and added a generous tip to the already exorbitant fare.

“Merci, m’sieu.”

“Merci à vous. Tell me, do you have a regular base, or do you cruise around looking for passengers?”

The driver pointed to the hotel.

“This is my base.”

The Saint smiled.

“Très bien. We shall probably be seeing more of each other.”

The driver made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Just ask for Gaby. Everyone knows Gaby, and I know everyone.”

“Alors, à bientôt,” the Saint promised, and with a wave turned and entered the hotel.

The Bellevue was a new hotel that was distinguished only by its technological amenities and total lack of character. It was part of an international chain in which each link was identical, so that once inside the door the guest could not be certain whether he was in Bombay or Buenos Aires. It had all the intimacy of an airport lounge, and the welcoming friendliness of a police station charge room. It was the last sort of hotel in which any of the Saint’s friends would have expected to find him, which was exactly why he was staying there on this occasion.

In the reflection of the glass doors he watched the driver of the Mercedes crossing from the parking area. Simon placed him in the pigeonhole the gossip writers label “playboy.” He matched the Saint for height and build and carried himself with an arrogance that showed he was accustomed to being looked at and admired. He affected a blue blazer and immaculate white slacks and was handsome in the smooth way that appeals to middle-aged countesses and wealthy widows.

The concierge looked up and smiled as the Saint approached his counter. Simon had a fleeting vision of the same man smiling the same smile behind the same desk in a dozen countries simultaneously.

“Sebastian Tombs. Room 309. Have there been any messages for me?” The Saint’s voice was deliberately clear, and he knew it would carry to the bookstall where his shadow was intent on studying the front page of the Herald Tribune.

The concierge took down his room key, checked the box under it, and informed Simon that no one had called. The Saint thanked him, and on looking around saw that the bookstall was deserted.

Once in his room, he barely had time to change his clothes and pour a small dose from the duty-free bottle he had brought from London Airport onto a pile of crushed ice before Emma knocked. He opened the door with one hand and proffered the drink with the other.

Emma accepted the glass with a smile.

“Thank you. That was quite a performance you staged this afternoon.”

Simon provisioned another glass and led the way out to the balcony.

“I must say I thought I caught the tone rather well,” he admitted modestly.

For a few moments both were silent as they tasted their drinks and gazed out across the rooftops to the sea.

“Do you think it will do any good?”

The Saint shifted his chair to get the maximum benefit from the breeze that was beginning to drift shorewards.

“It already has.”

He recounted the drive back to the hotel and described the man in the Mercedes.

Emma thought for a while but finally shook her head.

“I don’t know him, so he certainly isn’t anything to do with the conference, not officially anyway. But how do you know he was following you? He could simply have been coming to the hotel.”

“He would hardly have taken the route I chose, and he left in a hurry as soon as he had found out my name — to report back, I suppose. The question is — to whom?”

He was about to put forward some of the possible answers to that problem when a violent hammering on the door made further conversation impossible. The Saint put on his glasses and stood up. He pointed Emma towards the bathroom door: “In there, and stay quiet.”

The girl hesitated.

“What if it’s reporters who saw you at the conference?”

“Then they are going to have much better headlines if they find you in my room, so shoo.”

The banging grew louder and Simon hurried to open the door before it broke under the strain.

The moment he slipped the catch, the door was sent crashing back against the wall, and without waiting to be invited Professor Maclett strode in, planting himself in the centre of the room, legs apart, arms folded across his chest, fingers twitching as he clutched the cloth of his jacket sleeves. He was obviously fighting to control his temper, and the Saint kept a prudent arm’s length away in case he lost it.

“All right, young man, let’s hear it! You pop up in the middle of a major conference, shouting I’ve stolen yer recipe. Before I rip yer liver out I’d like t’hear just exactly what y’think yer talking about.”

The Saint raised two hands in a gesture of peace.

“Professor, I do understand you...”

“M’process is me own, and so’s me honour, y’young pup. If ever in me life I’ve stole s’much as a dram from any man’s locker I’ll be having y’tell me so t’my face right here and now in private.”

From the corner of his eye Simon saw the bathroom door open, and stood aside so that Maclett could see his daughter. A look of astonishment replaced the one of anger that had coloured the professor’s face. Simon waved his hand between them.

“Professor Maclett, Miss Maclett. Miss Maclett, Professor Maclett.”

Maclett turned on his daughter, ignoring the Saint.

“What the hell are you doing here, girl?”

“Employing me to watch you, I’m afraid,” Simon explained. “Now that we all know each other, why don’t we discuss this over a drink?”

But Maclett was not to be so easily pacified.

“I’ll be taking no drinks with you, young man!”

Emma came between them, putting her hands on her father’s shoulders, her voice softly scolding him.

“Now, Daddy, stop shouting. You know no one can understand that accent of yours when you start yelling.”

“I was not yelling,” Maclett yelled.

“You were yelling. Now why don’t you take Simon’s advice and go for a drink with him, it’ll help you to calm down.”

The big man visibly softened as he looked down into his daughter’s eyes.

“Aye, I suppose I could do with a dram at that.” He turned back to the Saint. “C’mon then, young man — but I warn ye, your story had better be a good one.”

They rode down in silence and did not speak again until the drinks had been poured and they were seated in a corner of the hotel bar.

“Your daughter’s simply afraid for you.”

“Nonsense.”

“And with good reason,” Simon continued. “You’re a very big fish with a very big secret.”

Maclett smiled grimly, more to himself than to his companion.

“It won’t be a secret for long. I came to this convention to make it so public they’ll have to recognise it. Those big oil corporations and consortiums are always stuffing independent progress on the back shelf somewhere. Well, not in this case, I can tell y’. Not in this case.”

“Yes, I can understand...” Simon began, but Maclett overrode him

“Y’know how many life-giving breakthroughs get locked away in closets every year by the big-money fellas with their vested interests and their—”

The Saint could see the conversation becoming a somewhat hackneyed diatribe on the evil machinations of big business, and cut in firmly.

“Professor, we were talking about your security.”

“Look here, now, lad, right now I just want one thing—”

“I agree, another drink.”

Simon signalled to the waiter to refill their glasses. While that was being done, he took the opportunity to put his case.

“Listen, Professor, I’m sorry about all the melodrama back in the conference hall, but at least now no one will accuse me of being concerned about your welfare.”

Maclett downed half his second Scotch in one.

“Laddie, I tell you, and I’ll tell that silly daughter of mine, I don’t need t’be coddled. I haven’t been doin’ equations so long I can’t still throw a good right hand, y’know.”

“That I can believe.”

“I swung a pickaxe for every minute o’physics they ever taught me.”

Simon was not to be swayed, though he admitted that he would have welcomed Maclett on his side in a free-for-all.

“Emma’s told me you’ve already turned away some tentative probes by the eastern bloc in the last year alone. You’re valuable. They want yon, and if they want you badly enough they’ll keep trying to have you. One way or another.”

Maclett chuckled at the vision conjured up by the Saint’s words.

“Come on, laddie, what do you think they’d do — kidnap me?”

“It’s possible.”

“Once I announce th’application of m’theory, who th’devil’s going to bother needing me then? M’daughter’s a well-meanin’ child and yer may be a well-meanin’ man, but I haven’t needed ye and I don’t and I won’t.”

Maclett drained his glass and rose.

“I thank ye fer the drink, laddie, if fer nothin’ else.”

Simon watched the professor leave and decided to follow his example. He was rapidly tiring of being cooped up in conference halls and hotels, and the prospect of a stroll by the sea in some fresh air was inviting. Besides which, it would give him an opportunity to assess how the Ungodly’s interest in him was developing.

He paid for the drinks and sauntered through the foyer and out into the afternoon sunshine. He paid no attention to the young man leaning against one of the pillars supporting the hotel portico, or to the black Renault that just stopped in the centre of the car park until he felt something hard jab into the hollow of his spine. The voice in his ear was low but firm.

“There’s a car over there. Why don’t you step into it?”

3

The Saint turned his head and appraised the bulge in the speaker’s pocket with an expert eye, but he did not move. He was annoyed at having been caught so easily and had no intention of further damaging his record by instantly obeying the order. His eyes travelled the length of the young man who stood slightly behind him, subjecting him to a silent, mocking evaluation. They started with the suede slip-ons, journeyed up the slightly rumpled trousers of the light grey suit, lingered for a moment on the stainless steel watch bracelet that showed on the left wrist and the heavy heraldic ring on the third finger of the one square hand that was visible to him, took in the thick set of the shoulders, and finished on the freshly scrubbed face. His nostrils registered the assault of a lavishly applied cheap aftershave.

This was not the playboy type of the Mercedes, but one of an outwardly tougher class, or consciously trying to give that impression. The voice was public-school English moderated by an affected mid-Atlantic drawl. There was a tenseness to the features and a flicker behind the eyes that told him the young man might act rashly if his ego was scratched.

Simon caught the other’s tone perfectly.

“I believe I’ll do just what you suggest.”

The young man’s eyes narrowed at the mimicry and he pushed the gun viciously into the Saint’s back.

“Move!”

The Saint strolled leisurely across to the Renault, which was parked a few yards away from Gaby’s taxi. The cab driver was sitting in the front passenger seat, contriving to read a newspaper while keeping his eyes switching to a look-out for possible customers. As he saw the Saint approaching, the newspaper disappeared and he was standing outside with the rear door open by the time Simon drew level.

Simon registered regret by spreading out his hands and shaking his head. “Not now, Gaby, mon vieux. This gentleman insists on showing me the sights himself.”

Another forceful prod in his ribs told him to keep moving, and the Saint obeyed it. He caught the puzzled look in Gaby’s eyes, and knew that the significance of the situation had not escaped him.

Simon got in beside the driver, who reached over to open the door, and the young man climbed in the back, sitting directly behind him. The Saint settled himself comfortably in his seat, stretching out his legs and resting his feet on a small fire extinguisher clipped to the side of the car under the dashboard. The driver, a sallow, hound-faced type with a droopy moustache, looked at neither of them, but simply took his foot off the brake and sent them skidding out of the hotel grounds to the sound of protesting rubber. In the wing mirror Simon could see the white Buick a half-dozen car lengths behind.

“Don’t you think you should introduce yourselves?” said the Saint, “I’d like to have something to call you, beside the rude names that my grandmother always told me never to use.”

“Shut up.”

Simon detected the first sign of strain in the young man’s voice, and he smiled. The driver showed no emotion at all but looked only at the road ahead, his whole concentration devoted to his piloting.

The Saint turned to his captor.

“Wherever we’re going, is it far?”

He was met with a silent stare. Simon nodded understandingly.

“I suppose they only program you for specific tasks.” An idea seemed to strike him. “Of course, that’s it, you’re really mobile computers, and you’re going to be the star turn at the science conference, but someone let you out by mistake, and you’re wearing that aftershave to mask the smell of oil.”

A red glow was creeping up the young man’s neck.

“Shut up and turn around. Any more cracks, and you’ll arrive with a lump on your head.”

The Saint shrugged, and resumed his former position. His feet tested the spring bracket holding the extinquisher and he spent the next few minutes calculating angles and distances. This task completed, he settled back to enjoy the ride.

They had zigzagged through on to the main road out of town westwards towards Antibes, but now immediately took a minor side road on the left that wound steeply up into the landscaped terraces of the snob residential section known idolatrously as La Californie. From the car, there were occasional backward glimpses of the sea shimmering in the summer warmth, but the best views were reserved to the expensive properties set back from the road, most of which were established before the upper classes had accepted the practice of sea bathing. To an unobservant observer, Simon Templar might have seemed to have fallen half asleep, his body relaxed, his eyes half closed against the sun’s glare. The driver’s concentration was completely absorbed by the intricate windings of the road, and his colleague was looking out of the side windows in obvious confidence in his control of the situation. The Saint knew that if he was to make a move it would have to be soon.

He slid the toe of his right shoe under the fire extinguisher and flicked the release catch with his left, sending the cylinder spinning towards him. He caught it on the half turn and smashed down the handle as he completed the maneuver, directing the jet of foam straight into the face of the gun-toter behind him. Suddenly blinded, the victim shot his hands to his eyes as the Saint dived across the back of his seat, one hand reaching for the young man’s gun, the other flinging the spurting extinguisher into the clean-scrubbed face.

The driver had stamped on the brake as soon as the commotion started, but he was too busy trying to control the resultant skidding to offer any resistance, and too sensible to do anything but leave his hands on the wheel once the motor had stopped. Simon turned to him.

“Now be a nice boy and give us your toy.” Simon took the gun from under the driver’s armpit and considered the relative merits of the arsenal he had collected. The first was a nickel-plated.22 that, although deadly enough at close range, was more suited to a lady’s handbag. The Saint tossed it out of the window and retained the heavier army issue .38 automatic which the aftershave advertisement had provided. He turned off the engine and pocketed the ignition keys before getting out of the car and opening the rear door.

“Out.”

The junior kidnapper stumbled out, still trying to clear the foam from his eyes. Simon pushed him into the front passenger seat, got into the back, and returned the keys to the driver.

“Don’t think I don’t want to go wherever you were going,” he said. “I just don’t like being crowded. Now just carry on as if I hadn’t interrupted.”

The Saint waved an arm out of the window as a sign to Gaby, who had stopped his taxi a safe twenty metres behind to follow.

As impassive as before, the hound-faced driver steered the car only a little farther along a high grey stone wall, following its contours until they led to an impressive arched gateway, into which he turned.

Carefully manicured lawns, dotted here and there with geometric flower beds and sculptured bushes, ran down to the drive that curved its way up to the front of a long, low, whitewashed villa that spread itself across a terrace cut into the hillside. Set to one side of the building, in a southern-exposed alcove, was an oval swimming pool. Roman-style mosaics were set into the marble surround; towering columns, entwined with vines and interspersed with classical statues of satyrs and nymphs, embraced a scene that could have come straight from a Hollywood set for a period spectacle.

In perfect harmony with the decor, there seemed to be girls everywhere, walking across the grass verges, swimming in the pool, or sunbathing beside it. And watching them like some Roman emperor was Sir William Curdon.

The Saint recognised him at once.

His heavy frame filled the thronelike chair he sat in, a Montecristo cigar in one hand and a champagne glass in the other, and he looked very much the part. He watched as the car stopped in front of the villa and the Saint shepherded his charges across the drive.

Curdon’s grey eyes were as revealing as a sea fog. A girl swam to the edge of the pool, and he put down his cigar and glass and obligingly poured champagne into her waiting mouth, while his free hand slid under the cushion at his side and clicked off the safety catch of an automatic.

The two kidnappers turned hostages followed the movement of the Saint’s gun barrel, and moved to one side to allow Curdon and the Saint an uninterrupted view of each other.

Simon smiled his most Saintly smile, but his eyes never strayed from the scene, keeping all three males within his field of vision, and paying particular attention to the cushion that Curdon’s hand rested on.

“You sent for me, did you, chum? I must say, the Secret Service are living well these days. I thought that was only in the movies,”

Curdon ignored him, taming instead to the executive kidnapper who was shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. The effort Curdon was making to remain calm showed in the grating of his voice.

“Cartwright, I do not expect to have my operatives brought back to me as the prisoners of those they were sent to bring in.”

The Saint nodded understandingly.

“Oh, I do know how you feel, Willie. But don’t blame yourself. So hard to get reliable help these days. Even D16 evidently has to take what it can get.”

Curdon’s control cracked at last, and he shouted at the hapless aide: “Tell me, Cartwright, just who do you suppose this person to be?”

The mid-Atlantic drawl disappeared, making Cartwright sound like a truant offering excuses to his housemaster.

“It’s Sebastian Tombs, sir. The man who threatened Professor Maclett at the conference.”

Curdon’s eyes closed as if in pain. When he opened them again they were fixed on the Saint.

“All right, Templar, what’s your play in this game?”

Simon used a free hand to pour himself a glass of champagne which he raised in a mocking toast.

“Emma Maclett was worried about her father. She asked me to look after him.”

“Calling him a fraud in public is an odd way of doing that.”

“Oh really, Willie! It’s ploy number three in your beginner’s manual.” Simon paused. “You are past that by now, I hope.”

“Looking after Professor Maclett happens to be my department’s job.”

“Perhaps if you’d let Emma Maclett know that, she wouldn’t have felt she needed me.” The Saint looked at Cartwright and the Renault driver, and sighed. “Or maybe she would have felt she needed me. Mind you, I couldn’t do my protesting half as handsomely.”

“This villa belongs to a rich cousin of mine. Sells swamp land in Florida.”

“And the girls?”

“He’s very selective about his staff.”

“So I can see. Two redheads, two blondes, two brunettes. Just like the civil service, everything in duplicate.”

Sir William Curdon’s tone was defensive, almost apologetic.

“One gets a bit sick of being considered disqualified from living because one happens to work for the government. The only thing the department’s paying for is the champagne, and even that’s non-vintage.”

“I don’t know how you manage.”

The rage that was bubbling near the surface finally boiled over as the Saint had expected it would.

“I don’t like you, Templar. I don’t like your attitude to authority. I don’t like your meddling in the affairs of the Service. Most of all, I don’t trust your motives in this affair. I’m warning you, put one foot wrong and I’ll have it nailed to the floor.”

“Better do it yourself, then,” the Saint replied coolly, and jerked his thumb at Cartwright. “This one’d probably hit his own thumb. By the way, how did your bloodhounds find me?”

“Cartwright was at the conference and he followed you back to the hotel.”

Simon shook his head at his own shortcoming in having only looked for one tail. Cartwright must have been behind the Mercedes all the time. He helped himself to a cigar from the box on the table and smiled.

“It’s been a pleasure meeting you again, Willie. But next time you want a chat, you needn’t send the strong-arm squad. Just call me.”

He turned to go, and saw Cartwright’s foot move as he passed. Not wishing to pass up such an excuse, he allowed himself to be partly tripped, and stumbled forward without going down.

“How are you without a fire extinguisher?” Cartwright asked, with some of his former cockiness.

The Saint turned back, straightening as he did so. His left hand pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose as his right streaked out a stiff-fingered thrust into the gap at the base of Cartwright’s ribs. The man folded backwards onto the sun lounger. The Saint casually swung his foot and tipped it into the pool. Cartwright disappeared beneath the water, and Simon waited for him to surface before replying to his question.

“Oh, I get by.”

He removed the clip from the automatic and tossed it into the pool beside Cartwright.

“You shouldn’t give the children toys like that, Willie — they’re dangerous.”

Gaby had parked his cab behind the Renault, and the Saint climbed in beside him.

“You’re beginning to grow on me, Gaby.”

Simon handed him Curdon’s cigar. The driver accepted it, sniffed it, and put it in his mouth, but made no move to light it.

“I saw what happened outside the hotel,” was the brief explanation he offered as he sent the car speeding back towards Cannes.

“But how did you know I was not being arrested? That those men were not the police?”

“I know the police in Cannes — and they know me.”

Simon decided it was politic not to enquire too deeply into their relationship. He lapsed into silence as he considered Curdon’s involvement and how it might affect his own plans for Maclett’s safety.

Presently Gaby said: “The man in the Mercedes, his name is Jacques Demmell.”

“How do you know that?”

The Saint did not try to hide his surprise and Gaby’s face split in a rare grin.

“I recognised the car. It belongs to a hire company I used to drive for, so I made enquiries.”

“Anything besides the name?”

“Not a great deal. He often comes here during the season. He has a reputation as a friend of lonely ladies, especially the rich kind. He has a flat in the town but he’s been spending most of his time on a yacht called Protégé. It is moored in the Port Canto.”

“Yes, I’ve seen it. Is it his?”

“No, it belongs to a woman, and believe me she is quite a woman.” Gaby raised one hand from the wheel long enough to draw a curving outline in the air. “Not the usual type of woman he attracts.”

The Mercedes was parked outside the hotel when they returned. Simon touched the grill; the engine was cold. There was no sign of Demmell in the lounges and bars, and the Saint was thoughtful as he prudently rode the elevator up to the floor immediately above his own, and walked back down the stairs to his floor.

4

The Saint passed silently along the corridor and stood motionless outside his room, his ears straining to identify the muffled sounds that reached him through the door and to fix in his mind the exact location of his uninvited guest. He took the key from his pocket, but before he could move, a room service waiter clattered around the comer pushing a trolley, and immediately the noises ceased. The Saint cursed the unsuspecting man all the way into the elevator.

Simon stood with his back pressed against the wall, fitting his key into the spring lock with the tips of his fingers, and sent the door crashing inwards the instant the catch was released. He entered the room with a fluid sidestep that removed him from the line of fire, registering the chaos of his surroundings in a single sweeping glance as he swivelled in a half crouch towards the space behind the slowly closing door.

The edge of the door had caught Demmell near the middle of the face, splitting his nose and lip. A workmanlike .44 Bulldog revolver was held across his body and had he been blessed with faster reflexes he might have followed Bob Ford into the ranks of those who have written finis to the careers of the greatest outlaws of their age, but the Saint gave him no time to achieve such distinction. As Simon turned, pivoting on the ball of his right foot, his left came up in a swinging arc that smashed into Demmell’s gun hand with the speed and force of an unleashed flail. The revolver spun from Demmell’s suddenly lifeless fingers, and he cried out as the searing pain ripped through his arm.

The Saint straightened, and took in the upheaval around him in greater detail. Drawers had been pulled out and their contents spilled onto the floor, his suitcase had been upturned and the few things he had left in it scattered around the room; cushions, pictures, books, ornaments, anything that could conceivably serve as a hiding place had been pulled apart.

The scene angered him not so much because of its untidiness as because it bore all the hallmarks of the amateur, and the Saint disliked dealing with amateurs. Searching a room is both an art and a science. It calls for a lightness of touch, a photographic memory, and the ability to analyse the psychology of the occupier to determine where the objects of the search are most likely to be hidden. An experienced professional investigator will turn over a room, miss nothing, and leave it as tidy as when he entered, aware that the extra care taken will give a valuable margin of time before his intrusion is discovered. Should he not find what he is looking for, he knows that by not making his visit obvious he has left open the probability for a return call. The amateur, on the other hand, blunders about, not only making life more difficult for himself but also causing unnecessary distress to the victim of his attention.

“The maid service here has just gone to hell,” Simon observed, as he picked up a favourite sports jacket and replaced it carefully on its hanger.

He had shown his contempt for Demmell by almost turning his back on him. The revolver still lay in the centre of the room, an equal distance from both of them. Demmell saw his chance and took it, as the Saint had expected him to.

The man moved with creditable speed, but he had covered only half the distance before a strange medley of sensations overwhelmed him. One moment he was in the middle of a diving roll, fingers outstretched towards the butt of the gun; the next, he met an irresistible force coming in the opposite direction with the speed of an express train: for one transfixed instant he felt himself flying backwards, and then the wall hit him and he sank to his knees, with a sickening breathless agony in his stomach eclipsing the pain in his arm.

Simon’s heel came gently to rest and he turned to face the retching man now climbing groggily back to the vertical.

The Saint’s voice was a mocking drawl: “Enough?”

In answer Demmell catapulted himself off the wall, his shoulder catching Simon in the chest and the momentum sending them both crashing to the floor. The Saint was impressed. He had kicked men in that way before, and they had rarely risen so quickly. It boded well for Demmell’s fitness and the exercise still to come.

Just as his back touched the floor the Saint twisted his whole body, sending them both rolling over. His fist shot upwards towards the other’s head in a vicious right hook that should have ended the fight, but the blow never connected. Demmell broke Its force with his arm and his heel whipped backwards to explode at the base of the Saint’s spine.

The Saint’s body arched like a bow and a freezing numbness seemed to grip every muscle. He relaxed his grip and Demmell wriggled free, aiming a kick at the Saint’s head as he rose. Instinctively Simon’s arms crossed to block the blow, and he rolled away from his opponent and pulled himself to his feet with an effort that was more mental than physical.

Demmell was grinning as he waded in for the next round, and Simon returned his smile. The numbness was passing, to be replaced by the invigorating glow of pumping adrenalin.

Demmell’s arm sped from his shoulder in a straight karate punch to the Saint’s temples. Simon fended it easily with his forearm and replied with a slashing chop to the ribs. Demmell grunted and stepped back, lashing out with a wild kick as he did so. Simon sidestepped and caught the heel of the other’s shoe as it completed its trajectory. For an instant their eyes locked, and for the first time Simon saw fear on his antagonist’s face. The Saint smiled, and pulled.

Demmell fell heavily, and the Saint, keeping hold of the foot, followed him down, twisting the heel and toe as he went. Demmell’s body jackknifed. His hands reached forward to take the strain off his buckled leg, and the Saint’s fist hit him flush on the side of the face, sending his head banging back to the floor. Simon rested his weight on Demmell’s ribs, forcing the air from his body. He released the foot with a final excruciating wrench, and his forearm descended like a guillotine on the other’s throat.

Simon grinned into Demmell’s bulging eyes, lifting the pressure of his forearm slightly to allow the passage of a modicum of air. His voice was hard and low.

“Question time.”

Perhaps it was something in Demmell’s expression, some spark of hope lighting his eyes, perhaps it was a sixth sense awakening too late to be helpful, but suddenly Simon knew that he hadn’t won. Instinct told him to turn, but there was no time to obey before the blow fell. Constellations spun in front of him, and long before his body collapsed all consciousness had gone and he was free-falling into oblivion.

5

Gradually the darkness lightened.

The Saint lay perfectly still. Someone appeared to be hammering nails into the base of his skull. He was aware that he was lying on his back, with something soft beneath his head. His senses were stirred by two separate sensations that managed to filter through the haze enveloping his brain. A delicate aroma of expensive perfume was wafting across his face, and his taste buds were approving the smoothness of the champagne that was being gently trickled into his mouth.

Full consciousness returned, but he delayed opening his eyes for fear that the vision the two sensations conjured up would be dispersed by reality.

“Bollinger, I believe.”

“Nothing but the best.” The voice was soft and low, containing the tantalising hint of an accent he could not readily identify. He could feel the lips that framed the words almost caressing his ear. He opened one eye and then the other, to focus on the face above.

Sapphire blue eyes sparkled from flawless tanned skin, the full lips were slightly parted, and the vision was framed by cascading flaxen hair that caught and trapped the sun like a halo.

Simon shook his head, closed his eyes and opened them again but the vision remained. He levered himself into a sitting position, wincing at the pain in his neck and back.

“I’ve heard of ministering angels — but champagne?”

The vision poured out a glass and handed it to him. “For the fevered brow, it’s the only thing.”

The Saint rubbed his neck.

“How is it for the fevered neck?”

“Best applied internally.”

The vision held out her hand and helped Simon to his feet. The Saint’s eyes narrowed fractionally as he felt the strength of the fingers and the bone-hard skin along the edge of the palm, but he was too intent on absorbing the rest of the picture to pay immediate attention to either.

The vision smoothed the front of a white cotton dress that appeared to consist of little except a neckline and a hem. Nature had been generous with her gifts, and Simon agreed it would have been ungracious to hide them.

The girl raised her glass.

“Cheers, I’m Samantha Lord.”

Simon returned the gesture.

“Sebastian Tombs.”

He rested on the arm of a chair and Samantha sat opposite him, one seemingly endless leg crossed over the other. She took a slim platinum case from her bag and proffered a cigaret. He shook his head.

“No longer one of my vices.”

“Well, perhaps it leaves you more energy for your remaining ones.” Samantha selected a cigaret, lit it, and watched the exhaled smoke rise towards the ceiling until it finally disappeared.

Her gaze travelled slowly round the room.

“You must have had an untidy upbringing.”

“I mislaid a cufflink.”

Samantha leaned forward and removed his glasses. “Maybe you’d have a better chance of finding it without those.”

He decided for the moment not to confirm or deny her apparent diagnosis of his natural vision.

“Where did you spring from anyway?”

“I have a suite on this floor. I’d just come in to get something, and when I passed your room the door was open and I saw you. I never could resist a gentleman in distress.”

Samantha had stood up as she talked, and the Saint also rose, taking her empty champagne glass and placing it alongside his own on the table.

“What makes you think I’m a gentleman?”

His hands rested on her shoulders, and her mouth opened as he moved closer. Their eyes held each other’s as their lips met.

The crash of the door being slammed shattered the spell. Emma Maclett walked purposefully into the room, ignored Samantha, and spoke directly to the Saint.

“Hi! I’m from the Herald Tribune.”

Samantha’s voice was as sweet as vinegar.

“Cancel my subscription.”

The Saint stepped out of the line of Ire, assuming the professional indifference of a tennis umpire.

Emma’s green eyes flashed.

“I do hope I’m breaking something up.”

Samantha looked at the Saint inquiringly.

“Sweet thing. Your aunt?”

“I’m just a local science correspondent.”

Samantha shrugged.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to stand here in the way of a Nobel Prize.”

The Saint, fearing a full-scale battle, stepped between them.

“Sam, I really don’t know how to thank you.”

Emma’s eyes flashed.

“I thought you were doing that when I walked in.”

Samantha spared her a long, withering look.

“Bitterness is a terrible thing, dear,” she cautioned, and turned back to the Saint. “I’m very easy to thank. Just take me to dinner tonight.”

“I’d love to. Where can I find you?”

“The lobby, eight sharp.”

“Till tonight then.”

Samantha turned as she reached the door, and winked at the Saint.

“Help yourselves to the champagne, it can brighten up the dullest occasion.”

After the door closed, Emma still could not hide her jealousy.

“Who was she — your leg man?”

“I found some eager character ransacking my room. I was about to ask him some questions when I was knocked out. She revived me.”

“That part I saw. And while you were out, my father also went out.”

“Where? With whom?”

“To see someone called Curdon. He wouldn’t tell me any more.”

The Saint relaxed.

“It’s all right. Curdon is a section head with D16. He’s here to look out for your father too.”

“D16! But why didn’t he tell me he already had protection?”

“I don’t know, just as I don’t know why our recently departed vision of loveliness should knock me out and then revive me.”

“She knocked you out!”

“I didn’t actually see who it was, but she said she was passing and just happened to glance in, not very easy considering the door was shut. Also she has hard hands, the kind of hardness that comes from practising karate by demolishing the odd housebrick, and the blow that laid me out was as expertly delivered a karate chop as it has ever been my misfortune to receive.”

“But you’re still going to meet her tonight.”

“Of course. How else can I find out what game she’s playing? Now I’ve got a room to clear up and a shower to take. I’m interviewing for chambermaids and backscrubbers, if you’d like to apply.”

“It’s a tempting offer, but I’ve had better. I’ll keep in touch.”

Simon escorted her to the elevator and returned to repair the havoc in his room. When most of the mess had been straightened out he showered, the needle-thin jets of cold water stinging and revitalising his body. He dressed in a lightweight jacket and slacks and carefully combed his hair back into place. Anyone witnessing his actions would have found it difficult to believe that less than an hour before he had been fighting for his life, and even to the Saint the memory of his clash with Demmell was rapidly fading. There were too few minutes in any day to spend even one of them thinking about what might have been.

He left the hotel by a back door and cut quickly through a side street until he reached the Croisette. He crossed to the sidewalk on the shore side and headed towards the Palm Beach Casino. There was still an hour to go before he was due to meet Samantha, and he hoped to enjoy some fresh air and leisurely exercise.

The town seemed to hang in limbo, a no-man’s-time, a long pause in which to reflect or prepare. The beach was deserted except for a handful of diehard sunworshippers soaking up the last rays. In the sidewalk bars and restaurants, waiters were sweeping and laying tables in readiness for the evening trade. There were fewer cars on the road, and fewer people on the esplanade. It was as if a truce had suddenly been agreed, and the Saint welcomed the lull.

It was cooler now, and the leaves of the palm trees along the Boulevard rustled in a freshening breeze. Simon breathed deeply as he walked, to clear his mind and cleanse his body.

He turned in at the driveway entrance of the private marina and began to stroll along its quais, choosing a course that showed no conspicuous purpose but which could not fail to bring him eventually in sight of the Protégé, wherever it was berthed. As, much sooner than later, it did.

For a cabin cruiser, Protégé looked even more opulent at close range than when he had just spotted it that afternoon. Five noughts’ worth of powered luxury were calculated to gladden the heart of any man whose knowledge of the sea and ships extended past the municipal boating lake. Simon stood on the far side of the wharf behind a stack of barrels, ready to duck out of sight if Demmell appeared, but the only activity came from a crewman leaning over the stern rail and sending a grey pall of smoke into the air from an ancient pipe.

He was about to retrace his steps when he saw the black Renault turn through the parking lot. He sank down behind the nearest cover as it cruised up to the stern of the Protégé.

Cartwright was sitting in the back, apparently engaged in a heated argument with his driver. A map was produced, and although the conversation was inaudible the gestures of the two men plainly pantomimed their disagreement. The Protégé’s crewman watched the scene with a half smile, and when the driver wound down the window and in pidgin French asked for his advice he was happy to leave the boat and walk over.

It was one of the slickest models of kidnapping that the Saint had ever had the pleasure of watching, and it appealed to the artist in his soul.

The crewman walked to the car, and as he approached, the driver got out and spread the map on top of the trunk. The sailor bent over to consider it and Cartwright simply opened his door and hoisted the startled man backwards into the car. The driver jumped back in and was slewing the car around even before the rear door was closed. Simon saw Cartwright’s arm rise and fall once, and the sailor gave no further sign of resistance.

The Saint waited until the car had disappeared before rising from his hiding place and turning back from the port, his brain vibrating with questions for which he could find no ready answers.

Cartwright’s interest in Demmell he could understand, but what was Demmell’s interest in Maclett? And why hijack a sailor? Why not take Demmell? Simon again ran over the conversations he had had with Maclett and Curdon, and an idea began to form in his mind. He rejected it at first, but it refused to be dismissed, and the more it was considered the more plausible it became.

He arrived back at the Bellevue without any clear-cut solutions but was the proud possessor of a theory supported more by intuition than by evidence and he had the absolutely firm conviction that there would be more fun and games before the night was over.

6

Gaby swung his car through the obligatory one-way detours to the main road that climbs towards Mougins. Samantha turned to the Saint.

“Where are we going?”

“To the best of the new restaurants on this coast, where they say you can gorge like a discriminating glutton without getting fat. I hope your appetite is up to the challenge.”

“I hope my figure can stand it.”

Again Simon detected the trace of an accent. Scandinavian perhaps, he reflected; that would certainly go with the hair and the eyes.

They had only made the smallest of small talk since leaving the hotel, while each discreetly studied the other. Simon frequently caught her sidelong glances, noticing that behind the ready smile her eyes were suspicious. Her lack of conversation came not from shyness or reserve but was the caution of a businessman intent on not revealing anything which might help a rival.

She had appeared in the lobby precisely at the appointed hour. Such punctuality had not surprised him, somehow it was in keeping with the vibrations he had registered. She had exchanged the sheer white dress of the afternoon for a flowing lemon silk evening gown that swept about her as she moved, reminding him of an exotic butterfly. Her only jewellery was a thin gold chain that hung around a neck which needed no other adornment to underline its grace, and a solitaire diamond ring on her right hand. A more subtle fragrance had replaced the perfume that had invaded his return to consciousness a few hours before.

The car stopped outside a refurbished old stone building a little below the road on one slope of a small ravine which had been worn geological eons ago by the millstream from which the building had originally been designed to profit. Inside, the decor and furnishings were luxurious in a Provençal-antique style and a world away from the functional modernism of equivalent restaurants in Cannes.

They were conducted to a table set for two by an open window overlooking a small lawn and the reed-grown valley.

“An apéritif?” Simon asked, echoing the maître d’hôtel’s automatic question. “Or are you a straight champagne addict?”

“As a compromise, I’ll have a champagne cocktail.”

“For me, a vodka martini-shaken, stirred, on the rocks, and with a twist of lemon.”

The Saint had chosen the Vieux Moulin with care. It was a favourite retreat of his when the constant movement of Cannes began to irritate. It had the advantage of allowing two people to talk without sharing their conversation with hovering waiters and too proximate fellow-diners. The food was sublime and the setting was deliberately, almost overtly, romantic. Modesty had never been one of the Saint’s failings and he knew to the finest part of a degree the effect his personality could have on even the hardest of feminine hearts, especially when aided by fine food and wine and artistic lighting.

Samantha nibbled at an olive.

“For a scientist, you certainly have style.”

“Well, I used to be a marine biologist, but I got in trouble for eating the specimens. Especially the caviar.”

Samantha giggled.

“I don’t believe you’re a scientist at all.”

Simon was saved from finding an instant reply by the arrival of their drinks. When he had ordered their meal, he asked: “What do you do for your yacht and your suite at the hotel and that rock on your finger?”

“I peddle genius.”

“You what?”

Samantha lowered her empty glass and casually reached across and appropriated Simon’s.

“I run an employment agency called Genius Inc. We don’t handle anyone with an IQ of less than 150.”

Simon retrieved his half-empty glass and placed it well out of her reach.

“But surely geniuses don’t need people to find them jobs?”

“You’d be surprised how stupid really brilliant people can be. They’re usually working for about a third of what they’re really worth. We help them to get their market value.”

The waiter brought the artichokes barigoule, a speciality of the house, and they waited while he served it. Samantha reached over and gouged out a sample from the Saint’s plate. Simon watched in amused disbelief as she ate it and then proceeded to attack her own.

“How was it?”

“Delicious.”

“How’s yours?” Simon’s fork sped towards her plate but she parried it with the adroitness of a fencing master.

“About the same.”

“Is that why you’re here, prospecting for genius?”

“We go to all the scientific congresses, that’s the kind of talent that pays off today.”

Samantha’s hand absentmindedly moved towards the Saint’s wineglass, but he managed to capture it in time.

“It certainly seems to have paid off for you.”

“I was in a hurry. I was hungry until I was fifteen. Now I play to win.”

“You certainly play hard. When do you get your black belt?”

Samantha started, and for a moment Simon thought he was going to face a blank denial, but she only lowered her head in mock shame.

“So you guessed.”

“It wasn’t exactly the greatest piece of detection work since Sherlock Holmes. And Demmell — who, or rather what, is he?”

“Demmell is a fool, but a useful one. He works for me, mainly I think because he knows I’m not attracted to him and he’s continually trying to prove himself. Male ego and all that. All the same, I couldn’t have you beating him up. One has a duty to one’s employees, you know.”

“Of course, everyone knows that.”

If Samantha caught the Saint’s sarcasm she showed no signs of being offended by it.

“Was it your idea that he should tear my room apart?” he enquired casually.

“Oh no, never. I’m afraid he’s rather impetuous.”

Somehow the conversation was not running along the lines he had sketched out for it, and he found her mixture of businesslike frankness and wide-eyed innocence rather hard to take. Simon leaned across and took her hand in his.

“Would you like to marry me?”

Samantha helped herself to some more of the Saint’s artichoke and smiled.

“I can’t wait. But we’ll have to work out how I can divorce two husbands without convicting myself of bigamy.”

The Saint toyed with the idea of proposing an ingenious double murder, but realized that this line of badinage was getting nowhere. He decided that since she must have had her own motives for accepting his invitation, he might as well play along until she was forced to take the initiative.

But in spite of his restraint, the conversation remained on a plane of sophisticated triviality, until the meal was finished and the head waiter was routinely proposing coffee and liqueurs.

“Why don’t we go back to my suite at the hotel?” Samantha said. “It’s got a balcony with a better view than this.”

“I’d love to see it,” said the Saint, and asked for his bill.

The man was concerned, he was unaccustomed to guests who ate each other’s food, drank from each other’s glass, and then left in a hurry.

“Is everything all right, monsieur?”

Simon stood, and Samantha remained seated only long enough to finish the last of the wine.

“Everything is just fine,” he replied, peeling the requisite notes from his roll and adding a large tip. “It’s just that my wife worries if I’m late for dinner.”

The maître d’hôtel smiled uncertainly, and was still trying to decipher the Saint’s meaning long after he and Samantha had left the room, finally consoling himself with the thought that, as everyone knew, all foreigners were insane.

Gaby also was somewhat surprised to see them emerge so soon, but unlike the waiter, he didn’t look for reasons. Simon glanced at his watch as he followed Samantha into the back of the car. Only about two and a half hours had elapsed since they had left the hotel, which was not long for a dinner engagement in the circumstances. But the Saint’s intuition told him that the final good nights were not racing up on him.

Samantha nestled close, her head resting on his shoulder, and they spoke sparingly as Gaby obeyed his instructions and sent the Buick speeding back to Cannes.

Samantha’s suite occupied a comer of the floor, providing a panorama of the bay town from the floodlit prison of the Man in the Iron Mask on the island of Ste. Marguérite on the left to the Suquet in the western background. She made no move to call for room service. Her arms hung loosely around the Saint’s shoulders, and he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek.

Her voice barely rose above a whisper.

“If you’re Sebastian Tombs of the blackboards and cobwebby laboratories, I’m Florence Nightingale.”

Simon’s lips brushed hers in a fleeting kiss.

“You minister most ably, Miss Nightingale.”

Samantha drew back slightly, looking directly into his eyes.

“Who are you really?”

“My name is Simon Templar.”

The revelation of his true identity had, in the past, been known to provoke a number of reactions — fear, anger, and disbelief being the usual ones. But rarely had he experienced the response that Samantha displayed. She laughed.

“Simon... The Saint! Thank God, I thought you might be the Law. But you are working for Maclett?”

“Yes.”

Samantha stopped laughing and looked thoughtful, moving away slightly.

“We must get together.”

Simon’s arms encircled her waist.

“I’m all for togetherness.”

She ignored that interpretation for the moment.

“Help me persuade him to go and work in Moscow, and I’ll split my fee with you.” Samantha removed herself from his embrace and sat on the arm of a sofa.

“You sell people to the Communists?”

Samantha lit a cigaret and considered the glowing end pensively.

“Only a few of the best. Listen, it’s not such a bad deal. The equivalent of two hundred thousand dollars a year, the big flat in Moscow, the dacha in the country, the box at the Bolshoi, and the big car, with no traffic jams because nobody else has one.”

The Saint laughed.

“Sam, I’m afraid you’re a cynic.”

“That’s just a name romantics call realists.” She walked slowly back to him, her arms sliding up the front of his jacket and resting on his shoulders. “Let’s talk it over.”

Her lips moved to meet his, stopping a fraction of an inch away.

“Keep talking,” Simon murmured. “I don’t make up my mind in a hurry.”

In the event, the ensuing conversation was less than verbose, but it still gave the Saint no indication of what else Samantha had hoped to gain from it. Or if, indeed, there was anything...

He was sleeping peacefully in his own room when he was awakened by an insistent knocking on the door. As he rolled out of bed, a glance at his wrist watch showed him that it was nine in the morning — a not unreasonable hour for visitation, except that he was not expecting one.

The visitor was Emma, and she confronted him furiously.

“Where were you all night? I kept calling you.”

“I was a bit late getting in. I had to go to an Arab chum’s bar mitzvah.”

She stormed in as he stood hospitably aside.

“What’s going on? My father got a message to meet you at the port at half-past nine—”

“Which port?”

“I don’t know, but it said opposite the Hôtel Méditerranée. I found the note in his room, so I thought I’d find out if you’d already left. Why—”

The Saint reversed his welcome abruptly, turning his back towards the door.

“I’m leaving now, as soon as I can get dressed. I’m afraid I overslept. Sorry, I just haven’t time to explain. I’ll see you later.”

He physically pushed her out, unceremoniously but necessarily. As he ran an electric razor over his chin, splashed cold water on his face, and threw on the nearest shirt and slacks, he was cursing himself more than Samantha.

“Very neat.” His thoughts were racing. “You keep me occupied while your people organize a snatch.”

In front of the hotel, he looked around desperately for a taxi, for in such a locality, at that hour, the world was barely coining to life. But as if in answer to his prayer, a white Buick seemed to materialise.

“Le quai St. Pierre — et gazez!”

Gaby nodded, wrenching the wheel almost full circle and sending them squealing out of the hotel grounds. Ignoring the protesting horns and flashing lights of the cars that tried to block his way, he sped the taxi along the Boulevard.

Professor Maclett had, probably, chosen to make the rendezvous as a morning stroll along the sea front. Even now, it was not absolutely impossible for the Saint to keep his mythical appointment close to time. The early traffic on the Croisette was scanty, and in only a minimum of minutes Gaby was pulling into the parking lot beside the quay opposite the hotel.

The Saint was out of the car before it had stopped, his eyes frantically scanning the peaceful morning scene as he hurried along the wharf. Then, through a gap in the sardine-packed rows of boats, he saw an open launch creaming its way towards the open sea, and even from that distance he could identify the burly figure and flaming hair of Professor Maclett standing in the stern.

Gaby had climbed out of his cab and come up beside the Saint, following the line of his eyes. Simon turned to him.

“I need a boat. A fast boat.”

Gaby pointed towards a speedboat berthed a little farther along the jetty. It was typical of the craft that earned a living for their owners by towing water skiers around the bay. A man was kneeling in the bow adjusting a mooring rope.

Gaby called to him: “Bonjour, Albert!”

The man turned, recognised him, and came aft to climb up onto the jetty.

“I want to hire your boat,” said the Saint.

“At what time, m’sieu? I have a client at eleven.”

“Now!”

Simon thrust a roll of hundred-franc notes into the man’s hand, and had jumped down onto the boat and cast off while the startled owner was still counting them. He gunned the powerful engine into life and sent the boat purring out into the channel.

7

To avoid attracting the unwelcome attention of the maritime police, he had to make his way through the harbour at a speed that any Olympic swimmer could have surpassed without any exertion, and by the time he cleared the breakwater the launch he was following had taken a formidable lead.

As soon as he reached open water and was able to give the motor its head, the power of the propeller’s churning blades lifted the bow of the light fibre-glass hull clear of the water. He stood with his legs slightly bent to absorb the shock of the continual pounding as the keel jounced over innocent wavelets that seemed to turn into ridges of solid wood. His hands caressed the wheel as he automatically followed the creaming wake of the launch.

His borrowed speedboat was nimble and fast, but the launch he was trailing was no lumbering tugboat either. After a few minutes, he could estimate that he could be sure of overtaking it, but that it would be anything but a short, swift chase.

He was still trying to figure out the wherefores of the operation. Was Maclett actually being kidnapped at gunpoint? Or had he been told that he was only being ferried to a more secret meeting place?

The launch was headed east-south-east towards the two islands that lie in parallel off the point of the small peninsula where the Croisette ends, on a course that would take it through the channel between Ste. Marguerite and Ste. Honorat. It would certainly get there before he could catch it.

They were not the only vessels headed in that direction. Already a few much larger yachts were cruising towards the same channel, both from the old port and the Port Canto, under orders to take up the best anchorages while their owners and passengers breakfasted, for it was a favourite spot for the luxuriously seaborne community to spend the day, sunning and swimming well removed from the less favoured crowds on the beaches. For many of those millionaire cruisers, it was the longest voyage they ever took.

Simon judged speed and distance with the expert eye of a professional sailor. When he overhauled the launch it would be well into the channel, among several other statelier craft jockeying for position in addition to the boats already berthed there. Whatever were the intentions of the people on the launch, the Saint did not want to make his pursuit too obvious.

The Saint was uncomfortably aware that if his pursuit became unmistakable and he then had the temerity to try to head off the launch he would simply be run down, and drawing alongside was the easiest way he could imagine to collect a bullet.

The wind whipped the early warmth of the sun from his skin, pulling at his clothes and hair as the spray flung back by the bow stung his eyes. The Saint grinned at the sound of the hull smashing down on the water, at the protest of the wind in his ears, at the way the morning, so peaceful and tame just a few minutes before, had suddenly become wild and free, at the way the muscles of his arms reacted to hold the speedboat on course when it bucked like a skittish colt.

It was for such moments that the Saint lived. They were the reason for his existence, the antidote to the humdrum organised mundanity of modern life. It had often been suggested that the Saint was born out of his time, that he should have lived in the days when men carried swords at their sides, that he would have been better suited to captaining a privateer in search of galleons on the Spanish Main; that he had no place in the drab days of the twentieth century. But the Saint knew that it is not the time that matters but the people who live in it. He knew that those who spend their present plaintively recalling another’s past are not really yearning for those adventures so much as protecting themselves from the challenges of their own day. His own steed was a fast car, his frigate a speeding motor-boat, but his spirit was as free as that of any highwayman or privateer.

But with all that, his tactical instincts, as lively as those of any pirate, suggested a possibly profitable switch. The Saint made it without consciously examining his decision.

With a touch of the wheel, he sent the speedboat veering to port, out of its direct trail of the launch that carried Maclett.

The launch continued on its way into the channel between the islands, while the Saint’s speedboat swept into a parallel course opposite Ste. Marguerite. In a moment they were cut off from sight of each other. But the Saint figured that he had enough speed in hand to reach the eastern end of the island well ahead of the launch, swing around it, and meet the launch in the channel from an unexpected and apparently accidental head-on direction. Whatever the purpose of the party in the launch might be, his interception of it should take them completely by surprise.

He scanned the speedboat’s cockpit for anything that might prove useful once he made the encounter. His glance fell on a metal box bolted to the side under the dashboard, and he leaned over and flicked it open, to find it contained a Very pistol and distress flares. Guiding the boat with only an occasional touch, he carefully fitted a cartridge and placed the pistol on the ledge behind the windshield.

Up to a point, his plan worked out exactly as he had envisioned it. He kept the speedboat headed towards Cap d’Antibes until well past the end of Ste. Marguérite, to stay safely away from the irregular reef which projects eastwards under water from the island, before making his U-turn back into the channel where the big yachts were parking for the day. And almost at once he saw the launch that he had previously been following, rushing towards him and away from the assemblage of statelier pleasure barges in the most sheltered center of the notch.

Simon cut his engine to a mere tick-over, and as the speedboat slumped in the water he slewed it directly across the path of the launch. He stood up in the cockpit, waving his arms in an unmistakeable request for communication.

Without slackening speed by a knot, the launch veered to miss him, but so closely that its water almost capsized the speedboat, and only the Saint’s fantastic reflexes and co-ordinating muscles saved him from being thrown down into or bodily out of the bucking cockpit.

As he recovered some semblance of vertical balance, he saw that the launch was resuming its course, unchecked, and with the clearest intention of declining to be detained. Three silhouettes against the now glaring sunlight looked back, it seemed with callous derision.

The Saint seldom lost his temper, but something about that exercise in nautical boorishness got under his skin. With something akin to the conditioned response of a Western gunfighter, he snatched up the Very pistol from the ledge in front of him and fired. The flare sped across the water like a coloured comet and exploded as it landed in the open stern of the launch.

Billows of smoke engulfed the launch, and with great satisfaction he heard the engine splutter and die. He loaded another cartridge into the pistol and held it at the ready as he brought the speedboat alongside.

As he did so he realised he had been fooled, beautifully lured and brilliantly snared.

There were three men in the launch. They wore the rough denims of fishermen, and their language was as colourful as the flare that one of them was busy stamping out. But Professor Maclett was definitely not one of them.

The Saint did not stop to join an altercation but simply gunned the speedboat around and headed back out of the channel.

It had been a very slick operation, and he had outsmarted himself with his own clever maneuver to help it to succeed. While out of his sight behind the island, the launch had simply drawn alongside one of the big yachts anchored there and stopped to allow one of the fishermen he had seen to replace Maclett. Which testified to an impressive degree of organisation.

He would have dearly loved to have cruised on through the channel in the hope of identifying the boat that now had Maclett aboard, but he could not have done that without blatantly exposing himself. But as he circled back towards Cannes, his mind was racing back to the ridiculous theory that had been hatched during his return from the Port Canto that afternoon, which began to seem a great deal more sane and logical.

He nudged the speedboat alongside the wharf from which he had taken it, and had scarcely picked up the mooring when he became aware of a reception committee on the quayside.

A small dapper figure stepped forward.

“Monsieur Templar, I am Inspector Lebeau. You are under arrest for the kidnapping of Professor Andrew Maclett.”

8

It was a little different from what the Saint had expected, but he accompanied Lebeau to the waiting car and allowed himself to be driven to the police station without protest.

He demanded a lawyer, and was told that he would have that privilege at the proper time. He asked for a consul to be contacted, and was assured that every formality would be ob served. A request or permission to collect some things from his hotel was politely refused.

He could imagine how hot the telephone lines would soon become as the news of his arrest reached Paris and then London in time for the first editions of the evening papers, “SAINT ARRESTED!” He could almost see the headlines.

Lebeau was obviously pleased with his catch, for he personally conducted the Saint to his cell, even apologising for the quality of the accommodation and expressing a hypocritical hope that the unfortunate situation would soon be sorted out and all the truths established.

In France, under the still sacred Code Napoleon, a man is guilty until proven innocent, and therefore there is no reason why the amenities supplied while he awaits confirmation of that assumption should be anything above the minimum as far as comfort is concerned. The cells of the average city police station in Britain would rate as starred hotels compared with their counterparts across the Channel.

The Saint found himself in a room barely ten feet square, with rough concrete walls and a flagstone floor. Air came via a small barred window set high up in the wall opposite the door, and light from an unshaded bulb which, despite the smallness of the room, still managed to leave the corners in shadow. Two bunks hung couchettelike from one wall. A plain deal table and a couple of chairs, and a slop pail, were the only other furnishings.

Both bunks were occupied, and a third inmate sat huddled in a comer, head on knees and snoring loudly. The cuts and bruises on the faces of all three, and the stale smell of cheap wine, were silent evidence of the reasons for their presence.

Simon settled himself in the comer opposite the snorer. He took off his jacket and folded it to make a headrest. He had never before tasted the official hospitality of the Republic, but he possessed an almost mystical ability to relax completely in any situation where sound and fury would achieve nothing, conserving his energy for the moment when it could be exploded with the maximum effect.

The grating of a key in the lock interrupted his inventing of transcendental meditation, and he stood up and stretched his limbs hopefully. The visit, however, was not for him: the agent who came in ungently roused his cellmates and herded them into the corridor outside, where two more officers waited.

Simon watched as they were marched away, and protested: “If this is lunchtime, why am I left out?”

The warder, who had cautiously kept a safe distance from the Saint, replied with ponderous joviality: “This is not the Hotel Negresco, but I will ask the room service waiter not to forget you.”

The door slammed, and another half hour passed before it was opened again.

It was the same agent, with the same sense of humour.

“If you have a moment, the management would like a word with you.”

“I have been saving a word for them,” said the Saint pleasantly. “But I shall not sully your delicate ears with it.”

With the reinforcement of two more agents, the Saint was delivered to Lebeau’s office.

Sir William Curdon sat on Lebeau’s right. He glared as Simon entered and coolly seated himself in the vacant chair opposite the inspector.

Lebeau smiled.

“Good morning again, Monsieur Templar, I hope you have found our facilities comfortable.”

“Fabulous,” said the Saint. “I shall be writing about them to the Guide Michelin.”

Curdon’s fist thudded against the desktop and his voice shook.

“Damn this nonsense! Where is Maclett, Templar? What was that little boat ride ail about?”

“Well, Willie, the fact is that swimming often damages the clothing, so I thought perhaps using a boat might—”

Lebeau cut him short.

“Your personal differences aside, Monsieur Templar, you were in the suspected vicinity. You arrived back, Professor Maclett did not.”

The Saint shrugged.

“Inspector, I deeply regret arriving back.”

“Lebeau, I want this man safe and sound in a jail cell until he tells us where he’s got Maclett stashed!”

Curdon seemed about to turn into a cloud of steam, and Lebeau turned to the Saint with an apologetic gesture.

“I regret, but I am obliged to feel in favour of British intelligence.”

“And I regret,” said the Saint honestly, “that I haven’t the faintest idea where Professor Maclett is now. Why doesn’t British Intelligence know?”

“Lock him up again!” Curdon bellowed. “We’ll get the truth out of him soon enough, however we have to do it. Let’s talk again privately, Lebeau.”

At a sign from Lebeau, the two escorting agents stepped forward, and the Saint stood up.

“I must let you into a state secret, Inspector,” he said. “Where British Intelligence ought to be, there is apparently a boiled potato.”

He tapped his head. Lebeau stared at him stonily. Simon smiled into Curdon’s face.

“See you later, Willie.”

The policeman held the Saint’s arms as they walked back down the stairs towards the cells. The Saint offered no resistance until they reached the ground floor and were nearing the junction of two corridors. Ahead of them, a window ran from the floor almost to the ceiling. He had had a good look at it on his way up to the interview with Curdon and Lebeau and knew exactly what he had to do.

The Saint started to run, his arms closing around the waist of his escort and forcing them to do the same. Taken off their guard, the men had no alternative but to comply. The Saint charged towards the window with the force of a wounded bull, throwing himself forward at the last moment and shaking off their grip. Arms crossed over his face, shoulder turned to take the brunt of the impact, he launched himself at the glass.

The window dissolved into a thousand tiny knives that could have torn him to shreds, but he had learned in a hard school that the trick of passing through windows in that unorthodox fashion was to hit them with exactly the speed that would deflect the fragments before they could claw at the passing body.

He landed unscathed on the gravel-coated car park in a rolling somersault, his knees pulled high into his chest, arms still shielding his face and head. The sharp stones bit through the thin cotton of bis shirt, grazing the skin beneath, but the Saint had no time to worry about a few trivial abrasions. He scarcely felt them, in the surge of excitement that came with his return to freedom.

He rolled over once before springing upright and racing towards the line of cars parked on the far side of the courtyard. A prowl car was backing into the centre of the quadrangle, and the Saint sprinted to head it off. Behind him, he could hear a chorus of confused shouts merging into the pounding of running feet. A flung baton hit him behind the knees and almost felled him, but the Saint split his stride like a hurdler and increased his speed.

The police car braked as its occupants, a plainclothes detective and his uniformed driver, became aware of the commotion. The offside door was flung open and the detective jumped out, running around the car towards the Saint, his hand grabbing for the holster inside his jacket. Simon jumped high, straightening in the air, his body becoming as rigid as an arrow. His heels landed squarely in the center of the man’s chest, hurling him off his feet. The detective’s mouth opened, but no sound emerged. With an expression of surprise still frozen on his face, he pitched backwards and lay still.

The Saint landed a yard from the car. The driver was halfway out of the door, a revolver in his hand. The Saint sprang forward, throwing every ounce of his weight against the door. The driver screamed as the metal sliced into him: his arm jerked upwards, and his gun barked harmlessly at the sky. Simon grasped his wrist and smashed his hand against the car, sending the revolver clattering away across the roof.

Still keeping his hold, the Saint stepped back, taking the driver with him, as his fist whipped around in a right cross to the chin. The man crumpled, and Simon slid in behind the wheel, flicking the gears into reverse and stamping on the accelerator to send the car bucking backwards. Then he skidded the car around and out of the quadrangle.

The scream of the engine drowned the sound of a shot, and the glass of the rear window seemed to shiver for an instant before exploding. Simon kept his foot pressed to the floor, holding the car on course as if such interventions were merely to be expected.

A pair of heavy wrought-iron gates hung at the arched entrance. Two guards were valiantly trying to pull them together, and they were already partly closed when the Saint reached them. He snaked between them, scraping one as he heeled over in a two-wheeled skid onto the road outside.

9

One hand searched the switches on the dashboard until he found the one which controlled the siren, and its insistent two-toned hooting split the air. The whole operation, from the time he had charged for the window to the moment he hit the road, had taken less than a minute but already another police car was swinging out of the station less than a hundred yards behind, and in the rear-view mirror he saw it overtaken by a powerful motorcycle that slipped through the traffic on the wrong side of the road.

Simon switched on the radio and listened to the unemotional voice of the central despatcher relaying the news of his escape and ordering road blocks to be set up on the major routes out of town. But the Saint had already decided that his best chance lay in drawing the chase through the narrow back streets until he could shake it off.

The traffic ahead stopped or swung to the side as soon as the drivers caught sight of the flashing lights or heard the blaring sirens, and the Saint zigzagged through them.

He threw the car around another corner of the maze, heading roughly towards the sea. His siren claiming priority over any law of the road, he threatened coronaries to oncoming drivers and forced those on his own side into the kerb.

A lorry attempted to dispute his right of way at a crossing and he skimmed the Citroen under its nose with inches to spare. The driver swung frantically away from the maniac who seemed to be doomed to extinction under his wheels and crashed into another van parked on the corner. As he made the next turn, Simon saw that the log jam he had left behind would effectively halt the police posse for several minutes, except perhaps for the motorcycle cop.

Now to make his passage less conspicuous, he switched off the siren as he came to the food market. A man pushed a barrow out from between two parked trucks and there was neither time nor room to avoid him.

The car ploughed into the side of the cart, tossing it into the air. Simon saw the bonnet buckle on impact and heard the crash of glass and rending metal. He swerved the car steeply to one side, just grazing a lamppost, and for twenty yards actually drove along the sidewalk before regaining the road. The front wheels should have been ripped from the axle, the twisted metal should have pushed the radiator and fan back into the engine block, the steering should have been shot to hell, but somehow the car kept on going.

The Saint looked in the mirror again and thought he saw the motorcycle far behind, momentarily blocked by the new obstacle, but unlike a car, it would not be detained for long.

As he came to a wider road nearer the Boulevard Jean Hibert, his eyes were searching for a possible hiding place. The entrance to the underground garage of a new apartment building caught them, and he wrenched the wheel to catapult the car into the opening. The move was so fast that he could dare to hope that he had finally eluded his pursuers, as he threw the car down the ramp into the dimly lit basement below.

He berthed the battered car in the handiest vacant space, and carefully started back towards the entrance on foot, edging his way between the rows of parked vehicles.

He had almost reached the ramp when the roar of a motorbike told him that his optimism had been premature and sent him ducking behind the nearest car.

The rider zoomed around the crypt and braked as soon as he saw the prowl car. He jerked the heavy bike onto its stand, and undipped the holster at his side. Holding the pistol in front of him, he cautiously approached the car, his eyes sweeping from side to side as he walked. But the Saint was already behind him.

Simon closed in with two long strides that took him to within six inches of the man’s back. He leaned forward and spoke softly in his ear.

“Avez-vous la plume de ma tante?”

The cop started to turn, but the Saint’s fingers closed around his neck, digging into the somniferic pressure points on each side. The other’s elbow rammed at Simon’s stomach, but the Saint held his grip and the struggle was over in seconds. Simon dragged him behind the prowl car and removed his uniform jacket with the dexterity of a professional quick-change artist. He bundled the unconscious man into the back of the car and pulled on the coat. Fortunately the motard was built on the lines of a healthy barrel, and what the jacket lacked in length, for the Saint’s long, lean frame, it could make up from excess circumference. The eventual compromise was not too grotesque.

He did not bother with the boots and uniform breeches, which would almost certainly have been less adaptable anyhow. He had to trust that the light blue slacks he was already wearing would blend in well enough to get past any but the most hypercritical eye. The standard crash helmet and its visor covered enough of his face, and with that in place he mounted the motorcycle and rode up the ramp out of the garage.

He headed directly for the Croisette and back towards the Hotel Bellevue, confident that that was the last place where the frantic search parties would be looking for him. The situation offered endless opportunities for sport, and lie had to fight back the temptation to indulge them, contenting himself with snapping a smart salute to a senior officer addressing a squad of men opposite the Palais des Festivals as he rode past.

At the hotel, an assistant manager hurried over as he approached the concierge’s desk.

“What are you doing here? The inspector said he would give strict instructions to his men to use the staff entrance.”

Simon raised the visor of his crash helmet slightly, which allowed his hand to partly cover his face.

“I was sent to collect some things from Templar’s room. I need the key.”

“The inspector took it.”

“Well, he never gave it to me. You’d better let me have a master key.”

The man dithered, seemed about to quote the rules, and then noticed the looks his guests were giving the Saint. He gave a sign to the concierge, who produced a key with a massive brass tag and put it on the counter.

“And remember to leave by the staff entrance. We do not want the police in the public rooms.”

The Saint shrugged.

“If you don’t want us here, you shouldn’t have people like Templar here either.”

He turned away towards the elevators, aware that the eyes of everyone in the lobby followed him and breathed a long sigh of relief when the doors closed behind him.

There was no guard on the door to his room, and no one in the corridor to see him enter it. He peeled off the uniform jacket while he turned on the shower in the bathroom. All things considered it had not been the most satisfactory twenty-four hours of his life, he reflected as he impudently indulged in the luxury of the water.

His mind roamed back over the events of the previous night: the startled look on Samantha’s face when Emma had announced her father’s disappearance, the slickness of the decoy operation and the fact that the police were waiting for him when he returned empty-handed, the look in Curdon’s eyes during their talk at the police station. The wild theory that had nagged him the night before no longer seemed insane; but there was still one angle that had to be tried, and the Saint realised just how little time he had in which to test it.

The shower washed away the aches of his body as well as the staleness of the police station cell, and the crispness of a complete change to fresh clothes seemed to pump fresh vitality into his body.

The room showed signs of having been subjected to a thorough search, but only his passport and personal papers had been removed. The Saint slid his hand along the back of the drawer in the bedside table and carefully freed the knife that he had left taped there.

He smiled as he strapped the supple leather sheath to his left forearm. Simon Templar disliked guns in principle, considering them crude and noisy. It is relatively easy to kill a man when you cannot see his eyes, almost as simple as sitting behind a desk and ordering the murder of thousands. It is more difficult to throw a knife with the speed and sureness of a bullet, or to use it when so close that you can hear the beat of the other man’s heart. The Saint could perform tricks with that slender blade that would make a circus knife thrower blanch. They had been together for a long time, and in times of peril the Saint felt naked without the reassuring pressure of the leather nestling against his skin.

He took the assistant manager’s advice and went down to the ground floor in the service elevator, slipping out of the hotel through a side door and cautiously making his way around to the car park.

Gaby’s taxi stood at the end of the rank, and Simon opened the rear door to slip in, crouching low between the seats.

Gaby glanced up from his paper but did not look around, simply adjusting the mirror until the Saint came into focus.

He held the paper so that Simon could see it.

“I thought you were a guest of our celebrated Inspector Lebeau.”

The Saint smiled and shook his head.

“I didn’t like the accommodation, so I decided to leave.”

Gaby laughed and switched on the engine.

“Whereto?”

“The Port Canto. Quick as you can.”

Already Gaby was heading his Buick towards the Boulevard.

“You are always in a hurry, n’est-ce pas?”

“Life is short, and I always have so much to do,” Simon apologised.

He risked a quick look out of the side windows. There seemed to be police on every corner and he hurriedly sank down again out of sight, pulling a travelling rug over himself.

The taxi driver intrigued him. The man always seemed to be available, it was almost as if he lived in his cab.

“Tell me — don’t you ever go home?”

“I have to make my living.”

“I hope it will not be endangered because of me.”

Gaby laughed again.

“For certain clients,” he said, “it is a pleasure to bend the rules.”

Gaby drove through the private parking entrance with a familiar wave to the guard, and followed the Saint’s directions to the place where Samantha’s cabin cruiser had been.

Simon studied the scene with dismay. The quay where Protégé had been berthed before was empty. If it was Protégé that the launch carrying Maclett had rendezvoused with between the islands, as the Saint had now concluded, the fast cruiser had not returned to port. Was it still out there? Or, much more likely, where was it speeding now?

The Saint swore, and Gaby turned his head.

“You want another boat?”

Simon grinned ruefully.

“Not unless it has wings.”

Gaby thought for a moment.

“I don’t know of any boats with wings, but I have a friend who has them. You would like to meet him?”

Mystified, the Saint could only say: “I’d be delighted.”

Gaby explained as he turned the car and drove back along the Croisette.

“My friend is a helicopter pilot for the sea rescue service.”

“Will he help us?” The Saint did not try to keep the excitement out of his voice.

“I do not know, but he owes me a favour, several of them.”

Gaby followed the coast road from the old port towards La Napoule but turned off at La Bocca, taking the inland route towards Mandelieu, where the Saint remembered that there was a small airfield.

The Buick finally stopped at the edge of a concrete landing pad. Two bright red helicopters stood beside a couple of ramshackle huts. A man in flying gear approached, and threw his arms around the taxi driver as if he were greeting a long-lost brother.

Simon stayed in the car while Gaby explained their problem. After a conversation that appeared to consist more of arm-waving gestures than words, Gaby called him over.

“He will help you, but only if you promise to say that you forced him at the point of a gun to take you, if anything goes wrong.”

The Saint promised, and was led to the nearest helicopter. Gaby climbed in after him, saying: “I have come so far, and I have always wanted to ride in one of these.”

The blades whirred into life and they lifted clear of the pad. The Saint navigated, searching the sea below.

On the face of it, it might have seemed like a real wild-goose chase, but he was gambling on a hunch that after all those elaborate preparations the Protégé would not just be moving along to the next nearest marina. Much more likely was yet another rendezvous southward, beyond sight of land, and out there in the open sea there were not so many cabin cruisers travelling that it would be hard to spot one from the air.

After what seemed an eternity he recognized a white hull racing southeast, towards Corsica, and under his direction the pilot banked his craft on a course that would bring them over her stern.

Despite the cruiser’s power, there was no chance of her outrunning the copter, and the pilot easily countered her turns to stay a steady fifty feet above her.

Samantha was at the wheel, with Demmell beside her. Simon told the pilot to go lower, and quickly broke out the rescue harness.

“I’m going down,” he said. “Tell Gaby how to work this gear.”

They were still fifteen feet above the pitching cruiser when the Saint slid out of the cabin and began to be winched down. As he did so, Demmell ran down into the cabin under the bridge. As Simon prepared for the final descent, Demmell re-emerged with an automatic in his hand. He braced himself against a stanchion and took two-handed aim.

Without sparing the time to calculate the odds, the Saint let everything go and plummeted down towards him.

10

Demmell’s finger jerked at the trigger. The bullet passed so close that Simon felt the wind of its passage fan his cheek. Frantically Demmell leapt aside, but the Saint twisted his body as he fell and cannoned into him. They crashed to the deck together.

Simon’s breath was momentarily forced from his lungs as he landed on top of Demmell. Every bone jarred with the impact, pain shooting like lightning along his legs and back. Demmell lay still beneath him, spread-eagled against the planking, his eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. A thin trickle of blood was slowly creeping from the crown of his head, and only the slight heaving of his chest showed that he was still alive.

The Saint staggered to his feet. His legs felt like putty, and he held onto the side rail while he regained bis wind and the mastery of his limbs.

Samantha still stood at the wheel, desperately trying to shake off the helicopter, but the pilot matched her move for move. Simon looked up into two eyes as cold and hard as his own.

“Stop the engines.”

The girl ignored him, spinning the wheel and heeling the boat hard to starboard. The Saint felt the deck tilt and grabbed at the rail again to stop himself falling. He groped his way towards the sheer ladder that led from the deck where he was to the flying bridge and pulled himself up it.

Samantha looked around as he arrived beside her.

“You pig!”

He had hardly expected an effusive welcome, but the depth of hatred in her voice surprised him.

Nevertheless, he smiled tolerantly.

“I hope you’ll excuse me dropping in like this.”

He stepped towards the wheel as Samantha released her grip on it. She stood to one side as he cut the engines and the boat shuddered and lost way.

The Saint’s attention was focussed on the helicopter as he signalled to the pilot that he was safe but to remain close, and it was only by chance that he caught the sudden movement to his right. He ducked and turned as a pair of powerful binoculars flashed past his head and hurtled overboard.

Samantha was wearing only shorts and a bikini top of minimal proportions, neither of which was in any way adequate to the task of concealing the perfection of her body, and Simon regretted that she seemed to be so out of tune with the ideas that such a costume would normally be calculated to inspire.

He straightened up, wagging a finger in solemn admonishment.

“Naughty, naughty.”

The girl glared at him.

“I wish I’d killed you.”

The Saint approached cautiously, a slight lingering soreness in his neck reminding him of her ability to fulfill her wish. But she did not make any of the countermoves that he was prepared for as he picked up a lifebelt that hung beside him and suddenly dropped it over her head, and forced it down over her shoulders to where the hole in it, conflicting with her exquisite chest measurement, was a perfect fit to pinion her arms to her sides as effectively as if they had been roped there.

“I think you could do with some time to reflect on your evil ways and the inhospitality you show to unexpected guests,” he murmured, and swung himself nimbly down the ladder which he had scaled only a few moments before.

A stream of expletives culled from a dockside dictionary fol lowed him, but the Saint didn’t stay to appreciate the scope of her vocabulary.

Forward from the open after deck, immediately below the flying bridge, was the small but comfortable saloon-cum-charthouse, and at the other end of that a companionway led down to the forward quarters. Simon was halfway towards it when he heard the shot and the splintering of wood a couple of inches above his head.

He knew he could never reach the opening before the gunman corrected his aim and nailed him, and he was stranded too far into the saloon to spring back out again to safety. The only alternatives were a second more accurate bullet or surrender. The Saint considered both in a fraction of a second, and raised his hands slowly so that his move was clearly visible to the man in the shade below.

The man came up the companionway warily, his gun aimed steadily at the Saint’s stomach. Simon gradually lowered his arms until the palms of his hands rested on top of his head. The fingers of his right hand slid beneath his left cuff, feeling for the handle of his throwing knife.

There was the sound of a heavy bump overhead, which the Saint knew must be connected with Samantha’s efforts to free herself, but it made the sailor look up in alarm. And in that instant of distraction the Saint’s hand flashed forward, the knife flying through the air in a silver blur. The man screamed as the blade sliced across his knuckles and the pistol fell from his fingers.

Simon had started to follow the knife even before it had found its mark. The man was staring stupidly at his blood-covered hand and made no move to fight. Simon kicked the gun aside before unleashing a straight left that contained every gram of his strength to put the unfortunate sailor out of his misery.

He stepped over the body and retrieved his knife, fastidiously wiping it on the sailor’s T-shirt before slipping it back into its sheath. Then he knelt down and inspected the man’s wound. Satisfied that he was in no danger of bleeding to death, Simon left him and went down the companionway.

The steps led to a narrow passageway. The first door on one side opened onto a small cabin that was almost entirely taken up by two bunks and a couple of lockers. The bottom bunk was curtained off, and the Saint stood to one side and swished back the drapes. The crewman he had seen taken by Cartwright and his henchman the previous afternoon lay there in a drugged sleep.

Simon winced at the state of the man’s face. It looked as if someone had used a razor to play noughts and crosses. Bandages were rolled around the top of his head, reaching down over the ears to meet similar repair work around his neck. One eye was hidden beneath a soft pad, while the other was bruised purple and so badly swollen that only a thin slit between the lids showed that there was still a pupil beneath.

The Saint drew the curtain and stepped back into the passage. The slight narrowing of his eyes was the only visible sign of the anger that burned within. He cursed himself for not having prevented Cartwright from taking the man, even though he realised that there was no way he could have guessed the agent’s intention. The scarring of the sailor had been no haphazard affair but a methodically and expertly executed job of torture. He could only guess at the reason for it, but he longed for a chance to let Cartwright experience similar suffering.

Another door opened onto the galley, and there were two guest cabins which were slightly larger than those for the crew, as well as the predictable sanitary facilties. Simon searched every cupboard and even looked under the bunks, also into the tiny engine room and hold.

In the end, just one thing was certain: Professor Maclett was not on board.

“And then there were none,” he reflected quietly as he returned to the saloon.

The crewman was just beginning to revive, and the Saint pulled him to his feet, half carrying, half dragging him below and locking him in the cabin with his injured colleague.

Samantha’s struggles had succeeded in freeing one arm, with devastating consequences to her skimpy bikini top, when the Saint returned to the bridge. She glared at him implacably.

“Been having fun?”

“Where’s Maclett?”

“How the hell should I know? You’re Mr. Bright Guy, you tell me.”

Simon grasped her roughly by the shoulders and shook her, his eyes drilling into hers.

“Stop playing the spoilt little girl. If you haven’t got him, why are you running away?”

“I’m running away because I don’t want to end up like Pierre.”

“Pierre? The sailor with the facelift?”

“Yes. Curdon’s bully-boy gave me two hours to leave Cannes or get the same treatment. No lousy professor is worth that kind of risk. When I saw the helicopter, I thought it was him coming after me just to make sure.”

The final piece of the jigsaw locked into place. Simon felt the satisfying glow of knowing his theory had been correct, but it was cooled by the sickening realisation that he might be too late to do anything about it.

It had been a very simple ploy that had succeeded solely because it was so basic. He had been searching under stones when all the time the creature he hunted had been basking on top of the biggest rock of all, astute enough to understand that the Saint would overlook him just because he was not hiding. The trick with the fishing boat that morning had made him think of the sea and yachts, putting Samantha in the spotlight and the Saint in jail. And when that had failed, the enemy had sent Samantha packing, knowing that the Saint would try and stop her, all the while losing valuable time on a trail of irresistible red herrings.

“Our friend is quite a fisherman,” Simon mused as he leaned out of the bridge and waved the hovering copter lower.

“Pardon?”

“Forget it, Sam.”

Simon caught the swinging harness and hooked it on. “It’s been nice seeing you, but I’m afraid I must fly. Perhaps we’ll bump into each other again some time.”

Demmell was beginning to revive and Samantha would soon have help with her Houdini efforts. But for several minutes yet she would be incapable of taking any offensive action against the Saint’s departure. She looked up in raging impotence as he was winched aloft.

“If we do,” she shouted, “I hope I’m driving a tank instead of a yacht!”

Simon laughed and waved a generous adieu. His last glimpse of her was as she turned back towards the semi-conscious Demmell with a withering contempt in her eyes and a stream of invective on her lips.

The pilot and Gaby looked questioningly at the Saint as he unbuckled himself in the cabin.

“A loud bark up a very wrong tree, I’m afraid.” Simon pointed roughly northwards. “Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.”

As they flew he explained what had happened not so much to illuminate his companions as to sort out the details in his own mind. He studied the aerial maps and located Curdon’s villa, pointing it out to the pilot.

“Can you take me there?”

The pilot nodded and banked the helicopter over Antibes, swinging slightly towards the east and flying high until they were directly over the villa.

Simon could make out two cars parked in the driveway, Cartwright’s Renault and Curdon’s silver-grey Mercedes. The swimming pool was empty and but for the presence of the cars the villa might have been deserted. Behind the house was a small area of lawn circled by a belt of trees, beyond them a barren stretch of hillside that could have been recently cleared for some new building.

“I want you to fly over the villa and then double back, come in below the tree line so that there is as little chance as possible that we will be spotted by anyone in the house.”

The pilot did as he was instructed, flying over the brow of the hill and then skimming back barely ten feet from the ground to bring the helicopter to earth at the edge of the trees.

“I don’t know how long I shall be,” Simon said. “How long can you wait for me?”

The pilot shrugged.

“I’m not on duty until this evening, so you can have until then if you wish. Anyway, as far as I am concerned you have hijacked me and therefore how can I argue?”

Simon slapped him on the back.

“Merci. You are a true philosopher.”

He climbed out of the craft but barred Gaby from following.

“I can’t allow you to risk your neck, Gaby.”

The taxi driver looked crestfallen. Simon punched him playfully on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, mon vieux. You may get more excitement than you can handle before long.”

The man’s face brightened.

“I hope so. It is dull for a driver to become only a passenger, you know.”

Simon nodded.

“I understand.”

He waved and was gone. He had an almost supernatural ability to arrive or depart as he wished, sometimes, without those around him being immediately aware of his coming or going.

He merged into the band of trees passing like a wraith be tween the trunks, his feet making no sound on the carpet of dry cones and pine needles.

He had forgotten more about field craft and the skill of stalking than most white men ever learn. He had been taught by those whose existence depended on their ability to master their environment and to control it with the aid of only the most primitive of weapons and the minimum of disturbance to the balance of life around them, whether that environment was the steaming jungles of Borneo and Brazil or the dry savannahs of Africa.

He reached the final line of trees and stood behind them, as still as any of their trunks. Only his eyes moved as he judged distances and angles of sight.

The rear of the villa seemed to consist mainly of windows, and with twenty yards of open ground separating the nearest tree from the house anyone who happened to look out of a window could not fail to see him. But there was one consolation: most of the windows on the ground floor were open, and if the alarm was not raised immediately when he left the protection of the trees, he would be able to get inside the house before anything could be done about it.

A pair of french windows opened onto a small patio, and the Saint raced towards them. He covered the distance with the long sure strides of the trained athlete, and stood for a moment outside, waiting for any shout or commotion that might warn that he had been seen. Hearing none, he stepped into the villa.

He found himself in a spacious dining room furnished with Empire chairs and sofas, oil paintings and gilt-framed mirrors, but he did not linger to admire the decor. He passed through it quickly into the corridor outside, which apparently bisected the villa, connecting the entrance hall in the center with the twin wings of the building.

Simon flitted along it, peering into every room. Most were shrouded in dust sheets, and only a couple of sitting rooms and a study looked as if they had been recently used. He reached the hall and was considering whether to go upstairs or continue the search at the other end of the ground floor when a door opened a few yards in front of him.

He stepped back into the shadow of the stairs as Cartwright emerged, carrying a tray full of bottles and glasses. He looked as scrubbed and immaculate as when the Saint had first met him, except for a long bruise that disfigured his cheek where the fire extinguisher had connected. The Saint resisted an almost overwhelming desire to get his fingers around that slender throat, but contented himself with watching Cartwright disappear into a room at the far end of the corridor.

He could hear Emma’s voice clearly as the door was opened: “Daddy, I was afraid you’d been spirited off to the Russians or something.”

Simon moved swiftly along the passage and stood close to the door. Maclett’s rich Scottish accent was unmistakeable.

“As a matter of fact, I am. Y’know I’ve had t’claw ’n scratch m’way through, don’t y’lass. All me life. Well, I’ve got t’be sure it comes to something.”

“But what are you talking about? Sir William, what’s going on?”

Curdon’s tone was as smooth and polished as if he were addressing a committee of civil servants.

“Our Official Secrets Act says that what your father has to offer may not be offered. National security and all that. So he’s chosen to go where he and his work will find proper appreciation.”

“Emma, y’have t’understand.” Maclett’s gruff tones were soft, almost pleading. “The Russians’ve promised me m’work will be used t’benefit everyone. I’ve been planning t’go all along. I couldn’t tell ye.”

Emma sounded close to tears.

“But Sir William, you’re D16. You represent our government!”

“After twenty years of loyal poverty, miss, I am now taking the opportunity of representing me. And it is time to go, Professor.”

“Daddy, no! Please!”

“I do love ye, lass. And I’ll send fer ye once I’ve settled in.”

“Daddy, for God’s sake!”

“I pray you’ll decide to come. Think on it, Emma. Y’know y’re all I have in this world.”

Simon decided that the touching scene should go unwitnessed no longer. He drew the throwing knife from its sheath, well aware of its inadequacy against the two guns he was almost certainly going to face. He opened the door and smiled into the four astonished faces that turned towards him.

“Hello, kiddies,” lie drawled. “Is this a private defection, or can anyone join in?”

11

Simon Templar savoured the surprise he had caused. He held the knife lightly between the tips of his thumb and forefinger, pointing it at the centre of the space between Curdon and Cartwright, ready to throw at the first of the two to make a move.

Emma was the first to recover from the shock of his sudden appearance.

“Simon! I thought you were...”

The Saint smiled, but his eyes never left the two men.

“Yes, so did Willie... stop that!”

Cartwright’s hand had been sliding towards his jacket pocket. At the Saint’s command he froze, but his fingers stayed poised above the flap.

“I can throw this before either of you can draw but you know I can only throw it once, so you’ll just have to decide which one wants to be a dead hero.”

Simon looked at Curdon, the sarcastic praise of his words soured by the contempt in his voice.

“A neat trick, Willie. You almost had me fooled, and you certainly put it over on the professor like a master.”

Maclett stepped forward, and the Saint slid away from the door so that he could still keep the two agents in clear view.

“Listen, laddie, this is no concern of yours! I know ye have acted from t’best motives, but I told ye I don’t need yer help. I’m not being forced. I’m going of me own free will.”

“No, Professor, you only think you are. They’ve trapped you. If I wasn’t here, try leaving this room and see just how much freedom you really have. They’ve got too much invested in you to allow you to change your mind.”

The Saint’s voice was utterly calm and reasonable, in spite of the almost melodramatic setting, trying to connect with the rational functions of a scientific brain.

“They’ve sold you as good a line of hokum as I’ve ever heard. Sure, they’ll look after you in Moscow. You’ll be the biggest propaganda weapon they’ve had in a decade. They’ll pamper you with every comfort and provide every facility for your research work, and if that’s all you really want then you’d better go.”

He continued relentlessly: “But there’s more, much more. You’ll never be able to make a telephone call without knowing that someone is listening. You’ll never be allowed to walk down the street without seeing someone following you. You’ll never be allowed to leave the country, a country that’s a world away from the one you know. You’ll be betraying your country. That may not mean much at the moment, but it will later. The Russians don’t respect a traitor any more than the countrymen he betrays. You’re not even selling out for ideological reasons, but for money and prestige. They’ll spit in your face and slap you on the back at the same time.”

Maclett glowered at him with the resentment of a stubborn bull. He was the living personification of the fact that genius can exist without a vestige of common sense.

“Why should I believe ye rather than them? It’s no good trying to talk me out of it. Me mind’s made up. Now stand aside. I’m going to walk out of that door, and neither you nor that toothpick is going to stop me.”

Simon moved out of the professor’s path.

“Go ahead, Professor. You too, Emma. But Willie and smiling boy are staying.”

Curdon and Cartwright were standing a yard apart to the Saint’s left, with Emma forming the third point of a triangle on his right. Maclett was standing in the open doorway behind Simon. Emma started towards her father, walking diagonally across the room. No one could have blamed her — she was unaccustomed to the intricacies of such situations, and the Saint recognised the danger too late.

Emma came between the Saint and Cartwright, giving Cartwright the second’s chance he needed to reach the gun in his pocket. Cartwright gripped the girl around the waist, using her body as a shield, and the Saint found himself staring into the business end of a .38 without the faintest chance of escape or counter.

“Drop it, Templar.”

Simon let his knife fall.

“Kick it towards me.”

Again the Saint did as he was told. Cartwright released the girl, stooped, and picked up the knife. Curdon had also drawn his automatic, and the Saint raised his arms.

Emma ran to her father and buried her head in his shoulder. Maclett patted her hair as he would have a baby.

“Don’t be afraid. He wouldn’t have hurt you. He had to do it.”

“Don’t be so sure, Professor,” said the Saint. “Our little lad likes hurting people — don’t you, sonny?”

“Shut your mouth!”

Cartwright stepped menacingly towards the Saint, but Curdon intervened.

“All right, Cartwright, you can settle your personal score later.”

He turned to Emma and the professor.

“Nothing has changed, Miss Maclett. I’m afraid you will have to stay here until your father is safely away. You can take a scheduled flight later and join him when the fuss has died down. Cartwright will look after you.”

“You mean I’m a prisoner?”

“Of course not. But you must understand that we can hardly have you returning to town so soon, in case you let slip what has happened.”

Maclett kissed his daughter on the forehead.

“Don’t worry, lass, you’ll come to no harm.”

Curdon looked at his watch.

“Now, Professor, we really must be going.”

Curdon made to lead the way, but Maclett stopped him.

“What about Templar?”

Sir William smiled reassuringly.

“Don’t worry, he’ll come to no harm. We are not gangsters, Professor. We leave that sort of thing to Mr. Templar. He’ll be released with your daughter. I understand the police are rather anxious to talk to him.”

The roar of the Mercedes engine faded into the distance. Emma sat staring at the floor without seeing the pattern of the carpet. Cartwright and the Saint faced each other across the centre of the room.

Simon studied the other man. Cartwright’s gun hand was steady, but his other trembled slightly as he took a cigaret from the box on the table and lit it. He inhaled deeply. Simon was unsure whether it was an affected gesture or simply an act of habit finally opting in favour of Cartwright’s need for a smokescreen. The exit of Curdon and the professor had created a vacuum, and the agent was uncertain how to fill it. A new tension began to edge the silence of the room.

The Saint knew that Emma’s presence was the sole reason he was still alive. Curdon’s promise concerning his safety had been a straight lie, and everyone but the professor had recognised it as such. He had as long to live as the time that needed to elapse before Emma could safely be taken back to town. To figure just how long that might be, he had to know Curdon’s plans.

His gaze drifted over Cartwright’s sartorial affectations with the same mocking insolence as he had given them at the hotel twenty-four hours before.

“The party’s flat now that the grown-ups have left. What do we do next, junior? Play charades?”

Cartwright affected indifference to the Saint’s taunt.

“Sit down, Templar.”

He indicated the seat next to Emma. The Saint sat, and Cartwright backed to the window and looked out, careful to keep him covered all the time.

They sat in silence. Emma seemed sunk in shock. The Saint considered a score of ways in which the tables could be turned, and dismissed them one by one. Cartwright looked at his watch ten times in five minutes.

Suddenly the Saint guessed at the cause of his nervousness. From the moment he had entered the room he had felt that something, or someone, was missing from the scene.

“If you’re waiting for that driver of yours,” he said, “you’re going to have a very long wait.”

It was a random cast, but the way Cartwright started at his words told the Saint that it had hooked home.

“What do you mean?”

Simon began to reel in the line.

“Well, you don’t suppose I walked in here alone armed only with a knife, do you?” The Saint’s lazy drawl was condescending.

Cartwright, who had been perched on the window shelf, suddenly became aware of the target he offered to anyone in the grounds. He stood up and crossed over to the Saint.

“Explain.”

Simon sighed as if summoning up the patience to spell out a simple fact to a backward child.

“I didn’t come on this jaunt singlehanded. There are two of my pals outside.”

Cartwright’s eyes searched the Saint’s face, trying to detect the lie but meeting only a smiling mask.

“I don’t believe you. From what I’ve heard about you, it would be part of your style to charge in on your own.”

“Then where is your driver?”

It was a good question and one to which the Saint would have liked an answer himself.

“You’re bluffing.”

Simon consulted his watch.

“I’ve been here for twenty-five minutes. I left instructions that if I wasn’t back in half an hour they were to come and collect me. So you don’t have long to wait to find out whether or not I’m bluffing.”

Emma looked up as the Saint’s words penetrated her despair, and Simon turned to her.

“Where was Curdon planning to take your father?”

“To the aero club. He has a private plane waiting to fly them to East Germany. They originally intended to rendezvous with a Russian freighter in the Med, but you stepped in and made that too dangerous.”

Simon’s mind ran over the route they would take. Driving fast, it would be a full half-hour’s journey, and they already had a fifteen-minute lead. Every second lost now reduced his chances of catching them.

Cartwright was back at the window, peering out cautiously and using the curtains to screen his body. There was a fifteen foot gap between him and the Saint and not a chance of covering half that distance without collecting a bullet.

Emma was looking at the Saint, her eyes holding his, imploring him to do something. Simon knew that with her help there was an outside chance. Had she been Samantha he would not have hesitated to take it, but there was a giant question mark over her probable reactions to the plan he was formulating. If it went wrong, if she did not grasp his idea and act quickly, she would be in as great a danger as he was. But however hard he tried, he could see no other way.

The Saint’s gaze travelled to the cigaret box on the table and on to the chair beside Cartwright before returning to Emma. Twice more he repeated the message. Emma inclined her head a fraction to show she understood. Slowly she rose and crossed towards the table.

“Sit down!” Cartwright was no longer able to hide the nervousness in his voice.

Emma ignored him. She picked out a cigaret and took her time lighting it, coughing as the smoke hit her lungs. She walked over to the chair next to the window and sat down.

The Saint’s eyes indicated a heavy silver statuette that stood on the side table at her elbow. He admired the cool way she had played her part, and his hopes of success began to rise. He looked at his watch again and smiled at Cartwright.

“I don’t think he’s coming, sonny boy. I really don’t. Two minutes to the half hour, Cartwright.”

The agent tried to maintain his mask of indifference but the cracks were beginning to show. He left the window and walked back to the centre of the room, ignoring the girl behind him. He looked down at the Saint with a half sneer twisting his lips.

“If anything does happen, Templar, you won’t be around to watch it.”

Simon seemed to consider the threat and dismiss it from his mind.

“It takes a special kind of toughness to shoot a helpless man, Cartwright, to look in his face as you pull the trigger, especially when you know that by doing it you’re signing your own death warrant.”

Cartwright’s response was a short scornful laugh, almost a snort, but the Saint’s keen ear detected a hollow ring to it, and he kept on jabbing at the signs of weakness.

“You’re on your own now. Curdon’s run off with the first prize and left you with the wooden spoon. How do you think you’re going to get out of this, even if you stay alive long enough to try? You’re already a dead man and you’ll find that however much they paid you, it won’t be enough. The Reds won’t want you, and D16 isn’t exactly a friendly society. The moment your bosses in Whitehall hear about Curdon and the professor there’ll be a contract out on you and nowhere in the world you can run to. Your time’s up, Cartwright — now or later, it doesn’t matter.”

The Saint could see bis words hitting home as he spoke them, tearing at the last shreds of the other’s self-control. He looked past Cartwright to Emma. She seemed almost hypnotised by his speech, and he thought that his final gamble had failed.

Cartwright moved nearer, using the motion to try to mask the trembling of his muscles. Simon looked into the blackness of the gun muzzle and waited for the crash that heralds oblivion.

It had to happen sometime. There had been too many gambles, too many risks and half chances, and the Saint had always been prepared to die as he had lived, defiant and with a smile on his lips. But now there was a sour taste in his mouth. The scene was wrong, there was something sordid in calmly waiting to die at the hands of a man for whom he felt only contempt.

The Saint tensed himself for the final leap that could have only one outcome, and Cartwright’s knuckle whitened on the trigger.

Cartwright was standing directly in front of the Saint, and neither of them saw Emma move. The statuette slammed into the agent’s shoulder, jerking his arm wide as the shot went off.

The Saint sprang in the same instant, catapulting himself forward as the bullet smacked into the wall behind him. His arms closed around Cartwright’s legs as the automatic coughed again, harmlessly. As Cartwright fell, the Saint released his hold and turned the dive into a somersault, his palms touching the floor just long enough to send him rolling forward.

Cartwright wriggled aside, his gun hand swinging around. But the Saint was already on his feet, and he jumped forward and brought his heel down on the agent’s wrist, pinning it to the floor. Almost casually he bent down and wrenched the gun from Cartwright’s grasp, flicking on the safety catch and sliding it into his hip pocket.

He stepped back to allow Cartwright the freedom to move.

“Stand up.”

The man remained lying on the floor, rubbing his wrist. Simon grabbed his collar and yanked him to his feet. Cartwright was beaten, a whimpering shell of his former self, but the Saint felt no pity. He remembered the face of the sailor and a promise he had made to himself and now intended to keep.

The fight was one-sided and brutal. Cartwright had gone through the standard unarmed combat training, but the instructors had never prepared him to face Simon Templar’s anger. The Saint’s attack was scientific, calculated to inflict the maximum pain without permitting the welcome relief of unconsciousness. Cartwright tried to fight back but his spirit was broken, and finally the Saint’s desire for retribution was appeased. He had found little pleasure in the exercise, only a growing contempt for his victim. His fist travelled at last in a savage uppercut that threatened to separate head and shoulders, and Cartwright collapsed and lay motionless at his feet.

Simon ran a hand through his hair to restore it to some order, and he turned to Emma.

“You throw a mean statue,” he remarked appreciatively. “Only next time don’t leave it quite so late.”

“I’m not as used to this sort of thing as you are,” she said shakily. “Do you really think he would have shot you?”

“I have a feeling he was giving it serious consideration,” said the Saint. “Now we don’t have much time. Phone Inspector Lebeau at the Prefecture and tell him what’s happened.”

He was already at the door before he finished speaking.

“But where are you going?”

“To the aero club. There’s still a chance I can stop them.”

12

Simon ran back through the dining room, the way he had come, and out onto the lawn. He was halfway through the belt of trees when he almost stumbled over the body of Cartwright’s chauffeur. The man lay on his side, one arm across his face where he had tried to defend himself. A red stain was spreading from an ugly gash above his ear.

A movement behind the tree next to him sent the Saint leaping aside, spinning around as he did so, his arms at half stretch in front of his body to meet an attack. He stared in disbelief as Gaby emerged from his hiding place with a heavy spanner still clutched in his hand.

Simon relaxed and came down off his toes. He looked from the sleeping man to the taxi driver.

“You did that?” It was more a complimentary statement than a question.

Gaby nodded.

“I was coming to the villa to see what had happened to you, and I found him spying on the helicopter.”

Simon knelt down and quickly checked that the man still lived.

“You’re lucky he has a thick skull, mon ami, or you might have committed your first homicide.”

“Then he will be all right?” There was genuine relief in the other’s voice.

The Saint grinned reassuringly.

“Yes, I should think so, but I wouldn’t care to have his headache when he wakes up. The police will be here soon. I want you to go to the villa — you’ll find a young lady there. Tell her about this one, and look after her till the flicks arrive.”

Without waiting to see his order obeyed, the Saint sprinted the last twenty yards to the clearing. The pilot started his rotors as soon as he saw the Saint emerge from the trees, and had the craft in the air before asking their destination.

In clipped sentences Simon gave him a rundown on the situation as the pilot headed back towards Mandelieu.

The Saint took the observer’s binoculars from their case and scanned the long columns of cars beneath them as they flew low over Cannes. The streets were choked with traffic, and his hopes began to rise as he calculated the delays the car he was looking for would have encountered.

They were turning inland from La Napoule before he spotted their quarry. The Mercedes was a silver flake in the distance swinging through the gates of the aerodrome.

By the time the helicopter crossed the perimeter fence the car had passed the row of hangars and stopped beside a twin-engine Beechcraft. Curdon and Maclett were already hurrying to board it. Simon pointed the pilot towards the plane, shouting above the clatter of the rotor blades.

“Can you block their take-off?”

The pilot nodded, his face grim with concentration as he put the helicopter into a steep dive aimed directly towards the plane as it turned to taxi along the runway.

The Saint could clearly see Curdon in the copilot’s seat. Maclett’s face was pressed against a cabin porthole, looking up curiously at the swiftly descending helicopter.

The chopper skimmed over the length of the plane, its runners missing it by inches. As they shot past, the pilot banked his machine and brought it lower as he did so, and headed back, flying directly towards the taxiing Beechcraft on a set collision course.

The two machines raced towards each other. The ground flashed beneath the helicopter at fantastic speed only a few feet below, and the Saint paid silent tribute to the pilot’s skill and nerve. He was already bracing himself for the crash when the pilot pushed the stick forward and sent them zooming upwards so close to the plane that Simon could see the terror in the pilot’s eyes.

The Beechcraft slewed to the left a split second before the helicopter started its climb as the pilot desperately tried to avoid a crash, but he was clearly competent for he soon corrected the maneuver and had the plane back on course and halfway towards take-off point before the helicopter could turn and come down again.

The helicopter quickly made up the distance, swooping down on the plane like a falcon onto its prey, hovering directly above it and making lift-off impossible. The plane slowed as the end of the runway drew nearer, weaving left and right across the tarmac strip in a frantic attempt to shake off the pursuit, but the helicopter countered each move with ease.

The plane swung around in a lurching turn and began to head back towards the hangars. The helicopter skimmed over it and came even lower, flying directly in front of it. The plane slowed and the helicopter pilot reduced his speed accordingly, so that the distance between them remained the same.

Simon’s attention was focussed on Curdon, who had released his seat belt and was fumbling with the door catch. Suddenly the door flew open and he almost fell out of the plane, a wild grab saving him at the last moment. The pilot cut back the engines to steady the craft, and Curdon held on with one hand as he tried to aim an automatic with the other.

The scream of the engines drowned the sound of the shots, and the Saint had no way of knowing whether they had hit the helicopter or gone wide. The helicopter skimmed from side to side as the pilot did everything he could to make himself harder to hit while still managing to maintain the same speed and height.

Simon looked along the runway and saw the flashing lights of a convoy of police cars racing through the aerodrome gates. The single column became two as they fanned out on either side of the runway. Two cars overtook the rest, sweeping to a screeching halt behind the Beechcraft and making a further double-back impossible.

Without warning, the helicopter’s engine coughed and spluttered and it veered to the right. The pilot fought to bring the machine back on course, but its controls seemed to only half respond. He looked at the Saint and shook his head.

“Something hit us... We must go down.”

“Just put me as close as you can.”

The pilot wrenched the helicopter to the left so that they were sinking squarely ahead of the approaching plane. The Beechcraft skidded to a sideways stop as its pilot jammed on the brakes.

As the helicopter came to ground, the Saint jumped the last few feet, landing on his toes and sprinting across the tarmac towards the plane, bent almost double against the buffeting air from the flailing rotor blades and zigzagging like a rugby winger as bullets ricocheted off the runway and flew past him.

The plane and helicopter were now in the center of a ring of cars behind which the police were quickly taking up their positions but holding fire for fear of hitting the Saint.

The Saint ducked under the plane’s nose, coming around to the pilot’s side out of Curdon’s line of fire. He reached up and yanked open the door with one hand as his other grasped the pilot’s coat and pulled him bodily out of the plane. Curdon turned and fired as the pilot toppled onto the runway and no longer obstructed his aim, but the Saint had been expecting a shot and ducked below the fuselage.

He had noticed Emma and Gaby in the back of the leading police car as the helicopter had landed. As he flattened himself against the Beechcraft, he saw Emma duck under the taxi driver’s restraining arm and start to run across the no man’s land between the police cordon and the plane.

Maclett, who had been watching from the safety of the cabin, moved with surprising speed as soon as he saw his daughter and recognised the danger she was in. He threw himself forward directly between Curdon and the Saint, shouting to his daughter as he did so.

“Emma, stop!”

But the girl did not hear and was already at the edge of the runway.

Maclett was trying to climb out of the plane, but Curdon grabbed his shoulder and dragged him back into the pilot’s seat with his gun aimed straight at the professor’s chest. He gestured towards the pilot, who was now getting gingerly to his feet on the ground.

“Get him back on board, Templar!”

Simon looked from Maclett to Curdon and shook his head.

“You wouldn’t kill the golden goose, old boy.”

For a moment the three men stared at each other as each sought his own way to break the deadlock.

Emma reached Simon’s side before he could stop her. She came to a halt in front of the open door, suddenly rigid with fear as she realised the danger.

Curdon took a direct aim at her.

“I’ll kill her right enough. Stay right where you are, Miss Maclett.”

The professor stepped forward, but Curdon moved to one side so that he could keep both father and daughter covered. Maclett’s voice shook with despair and surprise.

“What kind of man are you?”

Curdon ignored him.

“Listen to me, Templar. The pilot gets back in and we take off unmolested, or—”

“No!” Maclett sprang forward, clawing at the gun and knocking Curdon off balance.

The automatic fired into the air, the detonation ear-shattering in the confined space.

The two men wrestled in the doorway, half in, half out of the plane, and the Saint took advantage of the diversion to reach the other side of the cabin. He vaulted into the plane, one arm locking around Cordon’s throat, the other pinning his gun hand to his side.

Maclett released his hold and jumped down beside his daughter as the Saint gathered all his strength into one titanic heave that threw Curdon clear out of the plane. The gun flew from his grip as he crashed onto the runway with barely enough wind left to crawl to his knees.

Curdon’s hate-filled eyes blazed up at the Saint, the voice a rasping sob.

“Ten years ago I’d have taken you... you...”

Slowly, almost comically, Curdon pitched forward and lay still, face down on the warm tarmac.

The Saint raised a sardonic eyebrow.

“I always like a gallant loser,” he remarked, to no attentive audience.

He watched as two policemen dragged Curdon to their car, and then turned and walked over to the plane where Maclett, Emma, and Lebeau were waiting.

Simon gave Lebeau a mocking bow, and held out his wrists as if inviting the handcuffs.

“A pleasure to meet you again, Inspector. Am I under arrest?”

Lebeau shook his head.

“Not exactly, but it would not be to your advantage to prolong this stay in Cannes.”

“Forty-eight hours?”

“That is exactly the time it will take me to decide what charges are to be answered. Now if you will excuse me I have some pressing matters to attend to. The British Government has already been making some extraordinary representations to Paris about this affair.”

“Then there’ll surely be a lot of lovely forms to fill out,” Simon prophesied.

When the detective had left them the Saint studied the professor. Maclett’s shoulders drooped and he looked as if he had aged ten years in a few hours. Emma was holding his arm, but he refused to meet her eyes.

“You wouldn’t have been free, Daddy. They were just going to use you and keep your work for themselves.”

“Aye.”

“I think there may be a way to sort things out, Professor,” Simon ventured. “Depending on how you feel.”

Maclett looked up with some of the old fire returning to his eyes.

“I feel like a damn fool.”

“Which is the beginning of wisdom,” said the Saint.

13

The Palais des Festivals was packed to overflowing, with scientists making up only a part of the audience. News of Maclett’s adventure had made headlines around the world, and photographers and reporters vied with ordinary sensation-seekers for the best seats.

Maclett stood alone in the center of the dais, a lectern before him and a huge blackboard covered with the hieroglyphics of chemical equations behind. He closed his folder of notes and moved aside from the lectern.

“That is the basic premise as it will be published by Her Majesty’s Government. The rest you are free to work out for yourselves — if you can.”

The hall rang with the applause, and in the wings Simon smiled at Emma and nodded towards the exit.

“Let’s leave your father to enjoy his moment of glory alone.”

As they walked away from the Palais, Emma asked: “Why did you rush off from the airfield yesterday?”

“Being a loyal taxpayer and realising that our friend Willie was likely to have a good deal of government expense money in the villa, not to mention whatever the Russians had paid him in advance, I felt it my duty to ensure its safety.”

The girl stopped, looking at him accusingly.

“You mean you stole it?”

The Saint laughed.

“Let’s just say I believe in making sure that good deeds are properly rewarded and so now does Gaby. He’ll probably start up his own fleet of taxis with his share.”

A little farther west he steered her away from the Croisette, up the Rue Commandant Andre.

“Where are we going?”

“To Mere Besson’s, the best Provencal restaurant on this coast, for the best meal she can provide, courtesy of Sir William.”

Emma snuggled against his shoulder.

“I don’t know how I’m ever going to thank you for what you did,” she said.

The Saint smiled and put an arm around her.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Between us, we’ll probably think of something.”