The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace

1

“You would have done what?” exploded Leopold.

“Escorted them out,” Simon repeated. “Very politely. If they’d offered me a tip, I’d have taken it.”

Frankie’s incredulity was no less violent.

“You can’t mean it, Simon!”

“I do, you know. They were very naughty boys, and they I still had guns. I believe one should never get killed unless one has to — and then only as a last resort.”

“But-but-but... they took the Necklace!”

“Ah yes, so they did,” Simon agreed smoothly. “Well, perhaps it won’t do them as much good as they think.”

Frankie was taken aback.

“What do you mean?”

“Yes,” Leopold said harshly. “Now they’ve got it, our whole cause is lost.”

“You never know,” Simon replied inscrutably. “The strangest things do happen, as the hen said when she hatched out an ostrich.”

Frankie stamped her foot.

“Always you make a joke. Nothing is important to you. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important to someone else. What about me? Is it nothing to you that I have betrayed my charge as Keeper of the Hapsburg Necklace?”

“To tell the truth, in words of one syllable,” responded the Saint amiably — “No.”

“You are impossible.”

“Worse,” Leopold amplified. “He is a coward.”

The Saint was unmoved.

“That’s right. I am. Only mugs get medals. Sensible men take good care to live to fight another day.”

“Your reputation as a hero seems to have been easily earned,” said Leopold sarcastically.

Still the Saint was not ruffled.

“Reputations don’t matter. It is what a man knows about himself that counts.”

“And does it mean nothing to you that Anton is dead?”

The Saint’s eyes were expressionless although he smiled.

“I expect it means more to him. Presumably he was mixed up in this business of his own free will. I mean, he didn’t have to work for Max, and he must have known that Max likes to live dangerously — and that goes for his associates, including me!”

Frankie shook her head.

“Sometimes I think you are just a machine.”

The Saint shrugged.

“It’s not such a bad thing to be if the machine is good enough. I’d like to be Rolls Phantom III Continental Touring Saloon with a V12 cylinder engine, 7,340 cc capacity. But right now I’d settle for almost anything on wheels in good running order.”

“Simon, will you please stop! I’m not interested in your silly cars. I want to get my Necklace back.”

The Saint moved towards the door.

“All right then, but aren’t you a bit tired of hiking? It’s a long way to walk.”

“Where?” asked Leopold in perplexity.

“Back to Schloss Duppelstein.”

“But if the Gestapo know about this place,” Frankie argued, “Max must have been arrested, and—”

The Saint’s voice was suddenly steely. “Look here, sweetheart, let’s get something straight. You asked for my help. You got it — for better or for worse — until death do, etcetera. I’ll get your Necklace back, but you must trust me.”

“You did not try to stop them taking it,” Leopold insisted.

“True,” agreed the Saint. “But one of us might have been killed in the attempt, probably Frankie as she was the nearest. Look what happened to Anton. That reminds me. I suppose we’ll have to notify the police eventually, so we’d better leave everything here just as it is.”

“Since he was shot by the Gestapo,” Leopold said, “why would the police be interested?”

Simon regarded him pityingly.

“You blessed innocent dimwit,” he said. “Those two goons weren’t the Gestapo. If they had been, and they were under orders not to shoot us out of hand, they’d at least have loaded us up and carted us off to one of their special rest homes. They wouldn’t have left us here to get loose or be rescued by somebody.”

The other two stared at him open-mouthed.

Leopold said: “Then you think—”

“That we were much too ready to buy that Gestapo story. There are still plenty of other villains in the world, plain ordinary commercial ones, and they haven’t gone out of business just because Himmler came in. Obviously some of them, somehow, have got wind of you and your necklace, and they want it for purely mercenary reasons.”

Frankie finally made up her mind.

“We’re in your hands completely from now on, Simon.”

“Okay,” said the Saint. “Then may I go back to that car business I was talking about? I feel that there ought to be something here that Anton could have used if necessary, even if it isn’t a Rolls.”

It turned out to be a rather ancient Adler van, stabled in an open shed adjoining the cottage; but the key was trustfully in the ignition and the engine started after a few turns and ran purposefully if noisily.

Simon went back indoors and happily reported his find.

“We’ll never catch our two playmates in it,” he said, “but it should get us back to Max’s. And that’s an immediate priority — except to change these clothes, which the cops have probably had descriptions of by now.”

“Max must have left something for us here,” Leopold said, “in case we arrived wet from having to swim back across the river. Wait a minute. I’ll go and look.”

He went into the bedroom, and in a moment or so he returned bearing an armful of clothes.

“It’s all right,” he said, looking pleased with himself. “These are our own things. Frankie, there is an outfit in there for you.”

“Good thinking, Leo,” Simon approved generously. “So you hop in there, Frankie, and put on your party dress or whatever it is, while Leopold and I get changed here, and we’ll be off. I must say I’m ready for some of the amenities of Max’s château.”

It did not take them long to get changed and packed into the one banquette seat of the shabby little van. The Saint drove, with Frankie pleasantly squeezed close to him in the middle. He had no doubt that a similar contact on her other side helped Leopold to endure the discomfort of his wound.

The rutted cart track by which the Rat and the Gorilla had reached the cottage, which was little more than a cleared space along which logs could be dragged in the work of forestation, eventually debouched on to a better secondary road. Banking on a usually reliable sense of direction, the Saint turned right, and in a few kilometres a signpost told him that they had rejoined the road by which Annellatt had brought him to the river crossing the previous evening.

Now the route back to Schloss Duppelstein was only a problem for his memory, which in such situations had almost never failed him.

A growing sense of jubilation crept into him and began to dissipate his earlier fatigue.

“We’re on our way again, boys and girls,” he proclaimed. “And with one pain less in our necks. Maybe we’re still unpopular on account of a slight argument at the border, but at least we know that we don’t have the Gestapo to contend with. And anything less than that has got to be less formidable.” A new-found optimism in him was effervescent and infectious. “Common or garden villains we can eat for canapes — and I’m sure Uncle Max has the underworld connections to put us on their tails!”

2

As it turned out, for the rest of the trip they were not even challenged. Either the alarum had been slow to disseminate from the border, or the local constabulary maintained reasonable working hours and were not about to go prowling after supper on the off-chance of running into some fugitives who should have had enough sense to be holed up somewhere for the night by that time.

When they reached Schloss Duppelstein, to their surprise the main gate of the Castle was open. It was usually locked at night. Max must have been expecting visitors, or perhaps someone had just left and the gates had not been closed after him. Maybe, because of Anton’s absence, the routine of the Castle had been upset.

They walked across the courtyard without seeing any sign of life except a light high up in Max’s study, another one in a ground-floor room, beneath the state rooms in the central block, and the lights of the great chandelier in the entrance hall.

The front door was unlocked, and as they entered the hall they met the young footman Erich coming up from downstairs, a pair of trousers hanging over his arm. His eyes widened when he saw the trio.

“Ach, Frau Gräfin!” he blurted. “Thank God you are back safely. The Herr Baron will be greatly relieved.”

“Where is he, Erich?” Frankie asked as she swayed on her feet.

The footman stared at her with concern.

“Are you unwell, Gnädigste?”

“No, just tired. Very, very tired. But where is your Master?”

“He is upstairs in his study, Gnädigste. If you will allow me to go ahead I will tell him that you are here.” He caught sight of the blood on Leopold’s bandage. “The Herr Graf is injured!” he stammered.

“It is nothing, Erich,” Leopold said, managing a smile. “An unfortunate accident. A mere pinprick.”

Erich turned to Simon.

“And you, mein Herr, are you all right?” he asked in heavily accented English.

“Right as rain, whatever that means,” replied Simon breezily. “But we could do with a good stiff drink and then bed.”

“Ach, yes sir,” said Erich. “Unfortunately Anton is away tonight, but I will get you something right away. Would you care to go into the library? There is a fire there still and I have not yet locked up for the night.”

“That’s true enough,” said the Saint. “The alarm must be switched off or we couldn’t have got in. By the way, why were the front gates open?”

“Anton usually sees to that, sir. I was going to attend to it, but I am new here and not very used to the routine.” He fluttered his hands apologetically. “There is so much to do. Also the Master had visitors late tonight. I was about to put these away,” he indicated the trousers on his arm, “and when I had done so I was going to lock the place up and switch on the alarm.”

“Right,” said the Saint. “We’ll go into the library if you will tell the Baron that we’re back.” He was careful to conform with Annellatt’s fictitious local identity. “But be a good chap, and don’t forget the drink when you return — or perhaps even before you go!”

“Certainly, sir,” replied the young footman obsequiously.

It struck the Saint that Erich was the kind of man who enjoyed taking orders. It was more a German type than an Austrian, but then the Germans owned Austria now, so perhaps Erich would prosper.

The servant was saved from having to go upstairs by the sudden appearance of Max on the balcony which ran around the top of the hall.

“Who is it, Erich?” he called. “Who are you talking to?”

“It’s only us chickens,” Simon called back.

For a long moment Max remained utterly still. Then he let out a mild oath and came hurrying downstairs.

“Frankie!” he cried, and caught her in an avuncular embrace.

She rested her head on his shoulder, too weary to say anything. Max looked past her at Leopold.

“What is that blood? Are you badly injured? What has happened?” He turned to the Saint. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

The Saint grinned back at him.

“I’m suffering from acute thirst.” He looked at the footman pointedly. “I think Erich was about to end the drought. Shall we go into the library and talk? I’m afraid we do have some bad news for you, about someone we had to leave behind.”

Max’s eyes widened as Erich hurried off towards the pantry.

“Who is that?” he asked when the servant was out of earshot.

“Anton is dead.”

“Good God, who killed him?”

“How clever of you to know he was killed,” Simon remarked. “But, you’re right. It wasn’t a heart attack, not even a seizure. And he didn’t die of old age. He was killed by one of Frankie’s kidnappers, the nasty little twerp who looks like a rat.”

“Come, we will go into the library,” said Max. “You must all be dead with tiredness.”

He led the way helping Frankie along, and the Saint put out a hand to steady Leopold as they followed.

As Erich had said, a fire was still burning in the book-lined room. Max threw on a log and busied himself with stirring up a blaze. Frankie sank into a leather-upholstered armchair. Leopold collapsed full length on a sofa. The Saint sat easily on an elegant gilded chair.

Max turned and faced them.

“My friends,” he said. “I am only thankful to have you back. For me it is unimportant whether or not you managed to get the Necklace. I should never have allowed you to go, and if you had been captured or killed I should have felt guilty for the rest of my life. As it is, poor Anton...”

“We got the Necklace all right,” Simon told him. “That is, Frankie did.”

Leopold groaned. Frankie lay back quite still and silent in her chair, her eyes closed.

“Gott im Himmel!” Annellatt’s voice almost cracked. “The Necklace too! It is almost too much to have you three back safely, and the Necklace as well—”

“But unfortunately we haven’t still got it,” the Saint went on. His voice was bland, almost conversational. He could have been talking about the weather.

Max’s face dropped dramatically.

“I don’t understand.”

“Just that those two Gestapo types took it away from us. That’s how Anton got killed. It was a very nasty case of trigger-happiness. But it was not a Gestapo job.”

Erich came into the room just then, bearing a silver tray on which were a decanter and several glasses.

“Thank you, Erich,” said Simon. “You are a ministering angel. Remind me to leave a halo under your pillow when I go.”

The servant placed the tray on a table, bowed impassively, and left the room. Max walked over and started pouring out the drinks.

“What did you mean by that?” he demanded. “About the Gestapo?”

With a glass in his hand, Simon settled down to recap the whole story, as briefly as he could without leaving anything important out. He wanted to be sure that Max got the picture exactly as he saw it himself.

Annellatt’s bright brown eyes concentrated raptly on his face throughout the recital.

“And so,” Simon concluded, “the Gestapo might or might not take an interest in that little scuffle I got into at the border, but they aren’t after us for the Necklace — which is good for us. On the other hand, what’s bad is that we haven’t a clue where to start looking for this mob that’s hijacked it. Unless your ‘connections’ can get a line on them.”

Annellatt’s knitted brows only expressed the intensity of his concentration.

“That may be easier than you think,” he said. “You three have done more than your share. Now, when I have put a proper dressing on poor Leopold’s wound — I am quite qualified to do it, without sending for a doctor who might ask embarrassing questions — you should all get some rest, while I go to work. Tomorrow I may have a surprise for you.”

3

The Saint did not go to sleep.

He did not even get undressed, although he drank the hot chocolate from the Thermos which Erich had thoughtfully placed on his bedside table.

He stood by the window of his room in the central block of the Castle on the floor above the state rooms, and gazed out over the moon-washed roofs of the Castle. It was a romantic sight. So it must have looked on moonlit nights for centuries to people long dead and gone. But the Saint was not concerned with the past. It was the urgent present which occupied his mind.

He looked across to where the light still gleamed from Max’s study window. For the Saint it illuminated one inescapable fact.

The time had come for action. The final drama was about to be played out. But first he must go and see Max. By himself. That enigmatic man with the charm which he could turn on and off at will, and a mind as calculating as a machine, yet filled with warmth and humour, must be told certain facts. And he must be informed of them without delay, late though the hour was. Otherwise the Hapsburg Necklace might be lost to them for ever.

The Saint slipped out of his room and down the passage to the balcony round the top of the main hall. Here the lights had been extinguished, but the moon broke through the slats of the shutters to illuminate portions of the black and white marble floor of the hall below him.

The Saint moved like a wraith in the shadows. It was as if he had become a shade himself. Anyone standing in the hall would neither have seen nor heard him. On the far side he tried the door leading to the other rooms of the central block on that floor, and from thence to Max’s wing. It was locked. The Saint had suspected it might be. Max was the sort of man who would ensure total privacy for himself.

Simon took out of his pocket a piece of wire which he usually kept in his suitcase ready for emergencies, and picked the lock. It was to no avail. The door was barred or bolted on the other side, and the hinges were on that side too.

Well, Max was going to have a visitor tonight whether he liked it or not. The Saint was determined on that. There was too much at stake to allow Max the perfect seclusion he desired. There was only one snag. All normal methods of getting to Max’s study were barred and the entire ground floor of the central block, as Anton had explained to him, was wired with burglar alarms, including the inside doorways leading from the main hall to the state rooms. Thus all communication with the wings was prevented at that level.

On the floor where he was there were no burglar alarms, and had not the door leading to Max’s wing been barred, he could have walked straight through and along to Max’s study. He could, of course, go around to the other side of the balcony and into the wing which housed Frankie and Leopold, for this must surely be open. Then he could make his way to the ground floor and unbolt a door into the courtyard. But he did not know the set-up in that part of the Castle. That wing could be bristling with henchmen and servants — and no one must be allowed to get in the way of his private session with Max that night.

But it rather looked as if someone did mean to interfere. The door leading to the stairway from the main hall to the rooms below the state apartments suddenly opened, and the black and white flagstones of the great hall far below were brightly lit up by a wedge of electric light as someone came through that door into the hall. It was Erich. The Saint could not see him but he heard his voice calling out some instruction to another person still in the basement. Then Erich began to mount the stairs, curiously without turning on the lights and treading lightly.

There was nothing for it but to beat a retreat unless Simon was willing to be involved in a tiresome extempore explanation of why he himself was coming down the stairs. The Saint did not want any such encounter. For personal reasons he wanted his visit to Max to be completely private.

He slipped noiselessly back round the balcony and into his room. He heard Erich’s footsteps coming stealthily nearer, and then they stopped outside his door.

The. situation was piquant enough to be just to the Saint’s liking. He figured that for some reason Erich apparently was about to enter his room, presuming that by now the Saint was fast asleep. If he found the Saint awake he would probably make some excuse and depart, possibly taking with him the Saint’s shoes to polish, or some article of clothing for pressing. Indulging himself, the Saint gave vent to a loud snore. There was nothing he would have liked better than to catch Erich sneaking into his room and surprise him by jumping out of the dark and saying “Boo!” He could picture the astonishment, dismay, fright, and total incomprehension on the man’s face.

The door slowly opened, inch by inch. This time the Saint added a grace note to his snore. It was a truly operatic production and he was pleased with it.

But surprisingly Erich did not open the door further. Instead, Simon could see in the moonlight the manservant’s arm curl silently around the door and equally silently remove the key from the lock.

It took a lot to confuse the Saint, but for a moment he was completely flummoxed. Then the door closed without a sound. A moment later there was a click as the lock turned, and there was a grating noise, slight but unmistakable, as the key was withdrawn.

The Saint realised that for some reason Erich had made him a prisoner. He would probably come back in the morning, unlock the door, and wake Simon just as if nothing had happened. The thought amused Simon.

But the fact that he had been barred from wandering spelled out clearly that something was going on in the Castle that visitors must not know about. Well, Erich and any of his pals could play their games and he could play his. But it was now imperative that he get to Max as quickly as possible.

He went to the window and leaned out. The height from the courtyard had looked alarming enough in daylight, but at night there was one thing about it: Erich and his colleagues would never think that the Saint would leave his room by such a dangerous route.

Now he was reminded that one happening after another had bereft him of conventional fire-power. But in the bottom of his suitcase, still untouched, was the switch knife which he had taken from the Gorilla in Vienna and kept as a souvenir of that encounter. As he slipped it into his hip pocket, he felt a surge of invincible excitement that had its source in days of youthful recklessness that he had sometimes almost forgotten.

The thought that he might not survive such a vertiginous descent did not bother him at all. His theory had always been that his time would come when it did, and that certainly was not yet. He expected to go on operating on this theory for many years to come. It had got him out of scrapes which would not only have daunted others but which would have been lethal to them as well. “High ho, the long drop O,” he sung gently to himself as he swung one leg over the window-sill and prepared to climb down the face of the building to the courtyard below.

It was going to be a difficult, almost impossible journey. His room was at a corner of the central portion of the Castle, which meant that he did not have the aid of the colonnaded balconies that adorned the wings. Once on the ground, it would be relatively easy for him to break into the wing which housed Max’s study, since this was not equipped with burglar alarms. But first he had to get down to the courtyard.

Although most of his enemies, and indeed the majority of his friends too, would not credit it, the Saint was subject to human failings, including the very natural protective fear of heights which is instilled into humans to keep them from thinking they are mountain goats. On the other hand, his whole training had been to neutralise these weaknesses. In dealing with heights, therefore, he was as cautious as the best mountain climber, but he had long ago evolved a system of overcoming vertigo and muscle-freezing panic. It was very simple. He just pretended that the height on which he stood was two feet off the ground and told himself firmly that he could therefore not possibly be hurt if he fell. It was a psychological trick, deliberately practised to fool himself, but it worked.

He leaned now over the cobblestone courtyard, casually holding on with one hand to the jamb of the window, and examined the face of the building. He might have been surveying the North Face of the Eiger, looking for footholds preparatory to an organised climb complete with ropes, crampons, ice axes and all the necessary equipment. But in this case he had nothing to rely on except his own strength, agility and coolness.

The climb at first sight appeared totally impossible, even for him. His idea had been to get on to the roof and walk across to a point above Max’s window, and then climb down. But he could see now that this scheme was not feasible. There was simply no surface between him and the roof which would give the necessary holds. Nor was there anything which would provide an opportunity for him to work his way sideways along the front of the building to the wing. The stuccoed plaster on either side of his window was as smooth as a board, and the neighbouring windows were too far away for him to swing across to, even if he cared to take such a potentially lethal risk.

On the other hand, perhaps the Saint’s greatest asset was his conviction that no problem was unsolvable, if you approached it with an open mind. He had to reach Max’s wing somehow, and if he could not do it by climbing upwards, then the feat might be accomplished by making a descent.

As in most Renaissance buildings, the State Apartments were on the floor above the ground floor and below the one on which the Saint was. The windows of these large rooms opened on to an ornamental stone ledge above the top of the ground floor which on the outside was “rusticated” with plaster imitation slabs of stone. The tops of these state room windows were covered with a jutting pediment of stone. If he could drop on to the one below him, he could climb down on to the windowsill and then simply work his way down the rusticated stonework of the ground floor to the courtyard. Then he could walk across to Max’s wing and climb up the outside of it to the canopied verandah. From the roof of this it would be a relatively easy climb to Max’s study.

Some might have considered that only a superb gymnast with a lunatic mind could seriously consider this enterprise. The Saint would have laughed and agreed with them. But without further hesitation, he gripped the windowsill with both hands and gently lowered himself downwards, singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” in a low voice as he did so. It was not the most appropriate of songs but it had a strong vigorous tune and remembering the words kept his mind occupied and away from thoughts of the void below. When his arms were fully extended he let himself drop.

4

His descent was short and sharp and he landed on the ledge on top of the window underneath. The drop had to be completely accurate, for the stone pediment was not more than about a foot wide and if his body had swayed outwards in landing he would have crashed backwards to the courtyard below. As it was, in order to save himself from the natural inclination to teeter, and to keep his body pressed against the face of the building, he had to use every ounce of his determination, will-power and muscular strength.

With infinite caution, and this time humming “Rock of Ages” by way of a change, he turned around and lowered his body to a sitting position on the ledge.

So far so good, but his difficulties were not yet over. He had to get down to the windowsill some twelve feet below, and this sill sloped slightly outwards to cast rain off into the courtyard below. That slight declivity might also throw a Saint on to the cobblestones — and the sill was high enough to make that a formidable fall.

One thing was certain. He could not go back. He must go on, even if it meant purposefully dropping the rest of the way on to the cobblestones. But that might easily result in a broken leg or at least a sprained ankle — and possibly even in death if the drop were miscalculated. The Saint felt very strongly that death would curtail his activities, and there were certain of them he was not yet ready to give up.

Then he remembered that the window below him was in two sections: a relatively small area of glass permanently fixed at the top above a transverse wooden lintel, and below this two large window sections which opened outward on hinges like doors. If he could break part of the top section without setting off an alarm, he could get an arm through it and lever himself down on to the sill.

Thought was followed by immediate action. Taking off his shoes he tied the laces together. Then he hung the shoes around his neck. He manoeuvred himself so that once more he faced inwards, and then lowered his body off the ledge slightly to one side of the window.

He was now hanging so that he faced the window. As carelessly as if it were the most everyday thing in the world the Saint let go with one hand. Then, taking the shoes from around his neck, he used one of them to break one of the small panes in the top part of the window. A few splinters fell to the cobblestones but most of the glass dropped inside, between the glass panel below and the interior curtains. To the Saint the noise seemed vastly magnified, but his cool mind told him that unless somebody had been in the room or the courtyard no one would have heard it. He cleared the remaining splinters of glass from the wooden frame with his shoe, and then hung the pair of them back round his neck. He thrust his arm through the hole he had made and let go of the pediment above with his other hand, thus allowing his body to swing downwards until his feet touched the sill.

He was now able to turn his body so that he was half facing outward. At this point he realised that the “rustication” was not going to do him any good — on his way down at any rate. It might be of help in climbing the face of Max’s wing, but there was no way in which he could get his feet off the ledge and into the crevices between the fake stone slabs below. He considered for a long moment what he should do and finally decided that there was nothing for it but to drop the remaining distance to the courtyard below. He had, after all, reached a point where he was standing only a floor above the ground, and whereas a fall backwards off the sill would have proved damaging or even fatal, a deliberate drop for a man of the Saint’s athletic prowess was quite feasible. He might end up with a few bruises but it was unlikely that he would suffer any more grievous harm.

He twisted himself so that his feet faced outward on the sill. Then he dropped his shoes on to the cobblestones. Finally, he let go of the lintel above his head.

For a moment he balanced, poised on the windowsill like a huge bird ready for flight. Then he sank to a sitting position, reducing by that much the height from which he had to fall, and pushed himself off.

The drop was a bone-shaking one, to put it mildly, but it was no worse than a parachute landing, of which he had done a few. As his feet touched the ground he relaxed his knees and body-rolled across the pavement. Of course, the cobblestones were distinctly unresilient cushions to land on, and had it been anyone else who was landing on them that person might have been quite severely hurt. But the Saint’s muscles, fitness and agility allowed him to get away with it.

He picked himself up off the stones and straightened his clothing.

“Well, well, well,” he remarked to himself inaudibly. “What a carry on. I must remember to bring a rope ladder next time I go for a country visit.”

It was his own way of congratulating himself on the successful conclusion of his descent. It might of course have been more seemly if someone else had done it, but there was no one else around to perform that service. And in its own way, perhaps, that lack of an audience was itself a compensation.

Simon took the shoes from around his neck, untied the laces, and put them back on. Then he surveyed the side of the wing beneath the light of Max’s study.

With any luck he should not have to do any more climbing. It was, after all, only the central block of the Castle, housing the state rooms and its treasures, that was fitted with a burglar alarm system. If he could gain entrance through a ground-floor window of the wing, therefore, there would be little risk of rousing anyone at this time of night, or rather morning, and he could simply walk upstairs to Max’s study, since the only doors in the wing with burglar alarms were those leading from it to the state rooms.

Using his knife, the Saint slipped the catch of a ground-floor sash window. He opened the window and quickly dealt with the shutters inside. Luckily for him they were only secured by a catch and not a bar. Obviously Max was not worried about burglars in that part of the building. There was no reason why he should be. A burglar would have to gain entrance to the courtyard before arriving where the Saint was, something which would be none too easy after the gates had been locked for the night. Only Annellatt’s obsession with his own security made a burglar alarm even remotely necessary there.

Simon found himself in a small room. As far as he could see in the dark it was a sort of office. He did not bother to investigate, and went straight to the door opposite and through it into what proved to be a long passage. At the end of this a flight of stairs led upwards, and these he took on soundless tiptoes.

On the landing at the top of the stairs two flights up the light from under the door of Max’s study shone like a beacon. Swiftly Simon crossed over to it and with infinite gentleness turned the handle of the door and pushed it open.

Max was sitting behind a large desk. He looked up in slack-jawed startlement as the Saint entered.

On the blotter in front of him crouched Thai, gazing at the Hapsburg Necklace with unwinking eyes.