The Saint and the Templar Treasure

1

It nearly proved a painful lapse. The attack was swift and unexpected. Two powerful arms closed around his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs and almost lifting him clear off the ground.

Simon Templar’s response was equally rapid and far more effective. The bear hug is a crude hold and easily broken by anyone not inhibited by a devotion to fair play, and when attacked without warning from behind, the Saint considered himself absolved from the code of gentlemanly conduct.

His left heel lashed back in three drum-beat mule-kicks played on his attacker’s left shin. The man yelped with pain and involuntarily let him down, enough to enable the Saint to stamp his full weight on to the assailant’s right instep and grind it in. The reflex yelp hiccuped into a most satisfactory scream of real agony, and as the encircling pressure on him slackened, the Saint sent both elbows driving back into the other’s ribs. The restraining arms burst outwards like broken springs and he took one step forward and turned. The workman’s chin could not have been better posed to receive the full impact of the Saint’s uppercut.

Simon did not wait to watch him fall but sidestepped to meet the comrade who should by then have been using his body as a static punch bag. The man came in with an axe handle flailing in a wide swing that even the most amateur of self-defenders would have treated with contempt. The Saint ducked low to let it swipe over him, and sprang up again to reward the unbalanced wielder with a chop of the back of the neck that put him down like the proverbial pole-axed ox.

From beginning to end that phase of the exercise had lasted no more than twenty-five seconds.

The Saint eyed the two remaining members of the hospitality committee speculatively. He stood completely at ease, legs slightly apart, hands hanging loosely at waist height as they closed in from either side. It would have taken more than two men to unsettle him at any time, even had they been experienced fighters. He knew that odds of two to one sound more frightening than they actually are, for the advantage is frequently with the one: He only has to look out for himself, while the two have to be careful not to hamper each other.

These two who had not taken part in the original attack now looked less than eager to launch a second one. Only loyalty to their fallen colleagues drove them nearer, and they might have seemed almost relieved when Mimette’s shrill cry brought all the action to a sudden halt.

“Arretez! Stop it!”

Mimette ran between the two men and the Saint. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes blazed with anger as she faced the workmen.

“Dubois. Arnould. Vous êtes fous? What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded harshly.

Her arrival drained the last of the fight from them as effectively as if the Saint had drawn a gun. They looked sheepishly at her without answering.

“They may only have been trying to teach me some steps in the harvest festival dance,” Simon hazarded.

He stepped aside so that Mimette could clearly see the other sleeping duo behind him. She stared at the crumpled bodies and her voice shook as she asked: “They’re not—?”

The Saint laughed.

“No, just taking a short rest... Attendez vous deux!”

His voice cracked like a whip with authority, and the two workmen who were still on their feet stopped their furtive attempt to back away to the door.

Mimette faced them coldly.

“Pourquoi?”

The one called Dubois pointed rancorously at the Saint.

“Because he killed Gaston.”

“Really? So you know more than the police, do you?” she said sarcastically.

“Everything has gone wrong since he came here,” said the other sullenly. “The men are saying he has re-animated the curse of the Templars.”

“You mean you are saying it, Arnould,” Mimette retorted. “That is just superstitious nonsense. And Monsieur Templar did not kill Gaston.”

“Did you think that up all by yourselves, or did someone give you lessons?” Simon inquired of the men. “And who suggested dealing with me on your own?”

The two men looked warily at each other and each understood something that was not spoken. Dubois indicated the big man who had tried to bear-hug the Saint and was now beginning to stir back to an awareness of the world.

“It was his idea,” Dubois state flatly.

“Louis?” Mimette scoffed. “He’s an ox. He never had an idea in his life.”

“Let it ride, Mimette,” said the Saint. “They’re not going to tell us unless we beat it out of them and I don’t have the time.”

Both fallen warriors were now starting to climb back to the vertical. They glared murderously at the Saint but made no move to restart the battle.

“Take your friends and get out,” Simon told the deflated quartet, and they hurried to obey.

He waited until they had left before turning to Mimette.

“And what brought you to the rescue?” he asked as he retrieved his flashlight from where it had fallen during the scuffle.

“I was looking for you. When you told me about the car and Philippe, it made me forget that I’d remembered.”

“You’re getting confusing.”

“Pardon. What I meant was that while you were away I realised where I’d seen that drawing on the parchment before. There’s something like it on the stone in the hall.”

“Interesting.”

She pouted.

“You don’t seem very excited. I thought you’d be pleased.”

The Saint grinned mischievously.

“Allow me to upstage you.”

He moved over to the hole in the floor, switching on the flashlight as he began to descend the steps. The generator had been turned off, and except for the beam of his torch centred on the statue the chamber was in total darkness. Mimette joined him and shuddered as she gazed at the hideous figure.

“This is my party piece,” he said grandly. “Watch carefully.”

He stepped over to the statue and operated the hidden mechanism. Slowly the section of wall swung back.

“Voilà! How about that?”

Mimette was fascinated. The Saint shone his torch through the opening to show the passage beyond.

“How did you find it?” she asked at last.

“Luck,” Simon admitted candidly. “To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to it at first. After all, there must be quite a few other tunnels and cellars under the château. Then I remembered something Louis Norbert had said, and it all fitted into place.”

“What was that?”

“When he was telling me about the Templars a few days ago, he mentioned that ‘Ingare’ was an anagram of ‘Regina.’ It didn’t seem to mean much to him either — then. Later, Gaston fell into this chamber, complete with statue of Hecate. Still no significance, until you know that she was supposed to be Queen of the Underworld and the ‘guardian of the crossroads.’ ” He tied a graphic knot in the air with his empty hand. “Then it all slots together. She is the Regina the Templars referred to, and she’s at a crossroads, albeit a hidden one. The parchment showed the tower and some squiggly lines underneath. I kept thinking it was a river, but it was a tunnel.”

Her lively intelligence was impatient to overtake him.

“So this passage leads to the tower?”

“It seems likely. Remember I told you I saw a man leave the tower and talk to the two villains who set fire to the barn? Well, he never re-appeared, and I thought he must have kept behind the wall and beat it back to the château. No need if there was a tunnel running from the tower.”

“But that was before this place was found,” she argued.

He nodded.

“Yes. Which means there’s another way in and out. I heard voices in the chapel, but I found only Louis there. My guess is that this passage links up with a tunnel running from the tower to the chapel.”

“And Norbert knows about it? But why didn’t he say anything?”

“He certainly knows about it, and a good deal more. I’m sure of that,” Simon replied. “I don’t believe our professor is altogether the dotty academic he likes people to think he is.”

“But surely you don’t believe he could have killed Gaston?”

“No, I don’t think he did that. I figure him more as a schemer than a doer. But I’ll bet he has a fair idea who done it.”

She put a reflective finger to her lower lip.

“So you came down here to trace out the passage.”

“That was the idea, and still is,” he said.

“We’ll go together,” announced Mimette.

He shook his head. “No. This is my little project,” he said firmly. “We’re dealing with a murderer, and just in case I bump into him I’d rather not have you to worry about.”

“But...”

“No buts. I’ll feel a lot better if I know that someone somewhere safe knows where I’ve gone. Go back to the château and wait. If I haven’t surfaced in an hour or so, start ringing the alarm bells. Okay?”

“I suppose so,” she agreed reluctantly.

Simon bent over and kissed her lightly on the nose.

“A très tôt,” he said softly.

He shone the beam of his flashlight on the ladder as she climbed up. She stopped at the top.

“Good luck, Simon.”

“I might need it,” he called back cheerfully, and with a wave of his hand he strode into the darkness of the passage.

For the first several paces the floor was smooth and straight, but then it began to veer and turn until even his sense of direction had a problem to keep track of it. The tunnel was cut through the solid rock of the hill, and was so irregular that at one moment he could not touch the roof and at others had to bend low to avoid hitting his head.

Counting his steps, he estimated that he had travelled nearly one hundred metres when the passage merged with another. His sense of direction told him that the left-hand branch would lead towards the château, and he decided to explore that one first. The tunnel became wider and straighter, and the air was remarkably fresh, indicating that the passage had certainly not been hermetically sealed for hundreds of years.

Presently the way began to slope upwards and the floor became smoother, the rock eventually giving way to flagstones.

He came to a couple of smaller passages that ran off on either side, but they dead-ended in a few yards, and he reckoned that he was now on the other side of some of the brick walls he had seen in the wine-cellar.

Finally he found himself confronted by a heavy oak door. Like the one leading from the great hall to the chapel, it was studded with square-topped iron nails and had a heavy ring for a handle. He reached out and turned it and pulled. The door opened soundlessly on recently oiled hinges.

He stood against the wall and waited, but there was no sound from the other side. After a moment, he opened the door wide and entered the room beyond.

It was long and rectangular, with a low slightly curved ceiling supported by four stout columns running down the centre. In alcoves along the walls rested coffins of stone or lead with the name of the knight they contained inscribed on the side. They were simple boxes, the complete opposite of the large elaborately carved tomb that stood squarely in the centre of the crypt between the middle two columns. Its sides were adorned with what appeared to be battle scenes, and on top lay the figure of a Crusader, his armour covered by the overmantle of the Templars. His arms were folded across his chest, and his hands clasped the hilt of a huge double-edged sword that was almost as long as himself.

Hanging from each of the columns was a heavy battery lamp similar to those in the chamber the Saint had just left. Two were positioned so that they shed their light directly on to the tomb, while the others were angled to illuminate each end of the crypt.

He located the main connection and turned them on. In their cold light the crypt looked less sinister than it had by the shifting beam of his torch, but no more comforting. He could see the far end of the room for the first time. Starting from the centre of the wall was a flight of steps leading to a narrow landing which he figured would originally have been the entrance from the chapel.

The sarcophagus had clearly been designed to be the focal point of the room. At its foot was a small table of black marble that reminded him of some altars he had seen in side chapels in cathedrals, a smooth slab supported by four spiral columns rising from the floor. In the centre of the slab was a large oblong casket with a rounded lid.

As Simon bent to examine it, the door behind him slammed. He spun around and sprinted across the room, but knew even as he did so that it was a futile gesture. He hurled his weight at it, but he might just as well have battered himself against the stone wall it was set in. Nothing short of dynamite was going to make an impression on those four inches of seasoned oak.

2

The lock was massive, but given even the most rudimentary implement would have been about as difficult to crack as a can of sardines. As far as the Saint was concerned, not having on him any such utensil, it might just as well have been the front door of Fort Knox.

He turned and walked the length of the room and mounted the steps at the end. It required no searching to locate where the door to the chapel had once been. Judging by the shape and size of the arch, it had probably been a twin of the one he had just been inspecting. Most of the entrance had been filled in with chunks of broken flagstones crudely mortared together and the gaps between them crammed with small stones. On the other side, he surmised, a much neater job must have been done, hiding the old opening completely, for he had noticed no sign of a doorway in the chapel other than the entrance from the great hall.

It was obvious that the way had been stopped for many centuries, probably when the château had replaced the fortress.

“But the professor was tapping around the chapel looking for it,” he mused. “And the second voice I thought I heard... somebody could have had a way out, like the man who came out of the tower and gave a package — of money? — to the arsonists... Therefore—”

He looked up. Directly above his head, a rectangular opening had been cut in the ceiling. By the beam of his flashlight he could see through the thickness of the lath and plaster roof to the underside of flagstones. The stone in the centre of the hole seemed to be supported only by two beams of new wood.

By standing on his toes he could just touch the stone with his fingertips but it was impossible to exert enough pressure to lift it. He cast around the crypt for something to stand on, and saw again the casket at the foot of the master tomb.

Being imprisoned in a vault by a murderer and separated from the remains of devil-worshipping knights by a few centimetres of stone or lead is not a very hilarious situation, but the smile that played on Simon Templar’s lips was as genuine as any that ever lingered there. Running around in circles had never been his favourite method of keeping fit but had been the commonest form of exercise since his arrival at Ingare. The one incontrovertible, self-evident, and very definite result of his present discovery was that, for the moment at least, the running was over.

He felt a new vitality that came from the prospect of action. In less than an hour Mimette would raise the household and start a search, but instinct told him that by then there would be no need. His imprisonment, he was sure, was only meant to be temporary. Whoever was responsible would return to make quite certain he did not escape, and would come prepared. But not, perhaps, for the reception that the Saint might contrive to arrange.

He allowed himself a few moments to examine the casket. It was more than two feet long and almost a foot high. The metal was almost black, but a section of the lid and front had been cleaned to reveal the pure gleam of silver. In spite of the overall tarnish, it was possible to make out every detail of the embossed figures of knights and horses that formed a frieze around the edge of the lid. It had once been locked by a flap attached to the lid that fitted over a stanchion set halfway down the front and presumably secured by some form of padlock. Now both flap and stanchion were twisted and the lip of the casket was dented.

For such a rich container the contents seemed disappointingly dull. Inside was only a roll of parchment, brown with age and brittle to the touch. Carefully the Saint lifted it out and untied the two leather thongs at each end. He laid it beside the casket and delicately unrolled it until the first three or four inches became visible.

The parchment was so cracked and dark and the letters so faint that he had to strain his eyes to distinguish them. They ran in closely spaced lines without a break or capital to show where one word ended and another began. The last time he had seen such a text it had been in the clear print of a Bible appendix illustrating some of the original source material, with a translation underneath. For the first time since those days he wished he had paid more attention to the schoolmaster who had tried to convince him of the beauty of ancient Greek. Here and there he recognised a word or a short phrase, but not enough to make any sense of the meaning.

Even while he studied the scroll he was listening, alert now for the slightest sound. When he heard it, it was only a faint scrape of stone against stone. It came from the direction of the hole in the ceiling, and told him that someone was opening the improvised trap-door in the chapel.

The Saint moved like lightning. He killed the lamps and padded as swiftly and silently as a ghost across the room. He was already standing against the wall beside the steps when the noise grew louder and a shaft of weak light speared the floor beneath the opening as the flagstone above was removed. He watched as a short ladder was lowered and a pair of legs climbed down.

They brought after them the dwarfish body and gnomish head of Professor Louis Norbert.

The professor stood for a moment regaining his breath, and switched on a flashlight. He directed the beam on to the floor and followed its path towards the plinth. The Saint fell soundlessly into step behind him. As they neared the centre of the crypt, Norbert raised the beam and stopped so abruptly when he saw the open casket that the Saint almost bumped into him.

Judging his moment with the timing of an actor, Simon tapped him on the shoulder.

“Priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre,” he said sepulchrally.

It is physically impossible to jump out of one’s skin, but Louis Norbert made the best attempt that the Saint had ever seen. His whole body jerked so violently that the flashlight flew from his hand. He whirled around but the Saint was no longer there. Simon side-stepped, picked up the torch, and shone it straight into the professor’s ashen face.

“Bon soir, maître. How nice of you to drop in.”

“Templar!” Norbert gasped the name.

“Who were you expecting? Turn around slowly and raise your hands.”

“Why?” Norbert sounded genuinely puzzled.

“Because I’m getting cautious in my old age,” the Saint explained patiently, but with an edge to his voice that told the professor it would be wise to obey.

Norbert did as he was told and the Saint ran an expert hand over him.

“Excuse my suspicions, but one can’t be too careful,” he remarked when he was satisfied that the most dangerous weapon the professor possessed was a fountain pen. “Now let’s have more light on the subject.”

He moved across the crypt and switched on the lamps. He leant against one of the columns and eyed the professor thoughtfully. Norbert was staring at the casket.

“You have been reading the scroll?” he asked.

“I was trying to, but it’s all Greek to me.”

Norbert appeared too relieved to enjoy the joke and was in a hurry to change the subject.

“How did you get in here?”

Simon indicated the locked door.

“Through there. Hecate let me in, and I just followed my nose.”

“You found the tunnel yourself?”

“Purely by luck — but whether it was good or bad remains to be seen,” replied the Saint. He pointed towards the parchment. “What do you know about that piece of antique toilet paper?”

Norbert hesitated as he sought the right reply.

“Nothing much. Why should I?”

It was such an obvious lie that the Saint felt like laughing.

“Couldn’t you understand it?”

Norbert shook his head, and even managed a half-hearted shrug.

“It is too fragile to unroll, without special treatment. And unhappily I am not very versed in ancient Greek. But from the few lines I have seen, it would appear to be a history of Ingare. Interesting in its own way, but no, not important.”

The Saint picked up the parchment. His eyes narrowed.

“A history of Ingare in ancient Greek,” he repeated. “Obviously, not very interesting. So we needn’t bother with it.”

With deliberate slowness he broke off a small corner and let it fall to the floor.

Norbert watched horrified as he prepared to repeat the operation. Suddenly he threw himself forward, clawing for the scroll, but the Saint was waiting for just such a move. He raised the parchment out of Norbert’s reach as he pushed the little man away with the palm of his free hand.

“Well?”

Norbert glared at him in an impotent frenzy.

“I told you, it...”

“Try again.”

The professor looked from the scroll to the Saint and realised that the time for bluff was past. He spoke slowly and distinctly.

“It is the treasure of the Templars.”

Simon laid the parchment back on the marble slab beside the casket, his expression a mixture of perplexity and disbelief.

“This?”

Tenderly Norbert rolled it up, retied the thongs, and put it back in the casket and closed the lid. He turned to face the Saint.

“Yes, that is the treasure. No gold or jewels, but something more priceless than any amount of them,” he announced calmly.

“But what is it?” Simon persisted impatiently.

“I believe...” the professor began and then stopped abruptly. He looked directly at the Saint, and his voice was almost defiant as if he anticipated the response his words would receive. “No, I am sure. It is the Testament of Judas Iscariot.”

The idea seemed so absurd that the Saint could hardly keep a straight face.

“The Gospel according to Judas? You’ll have to do better than that.”

Norbert spread his hands in a gesture of resignation.

“I did not believe it either at first, but I have studied it as best I can. The writing, the parchment, everything can be scientifically dated and verified.”

“But surely Judas gave back the blood money and hanged himself. He didn’t have time to write anything,” Simon protested.

Norbert’s lips curled in a patronising smile.

“You were there? St. Matthew says he hanged himself. In the Acts of the Apostles, it is written that after using the money to buy a field, later given the cursed name of Accidama, he fell down and ‘burst asunder.’ Who knows? When the Gospels were written, and remember that was more than thirty years after the Crucifixion, it would be important to show that the man responsible for Christ’s death had come to a bad end. How could the converts believe in a God that allowed such a man to live? It would have been an impossible question for them to answer.”

The professor was no longer looking at the Saint but at the casket. His hands were clasped at his waist and the original excitement in his voice when he had revealed his discovery had given way to the dry monotone of a don addressing his students on an academic puzzle.

“There is no reason why he should not have escaped the wrath of the other disciples and later told his story to someone who wrote it down. Judas has always been an enigma, yet in many ways he is the second most important person in the Gospels. Without Judas there might have been no Crucifixion, without a Crucifixion no Resurrection, and without a Resurrection no Christian religion. In his own way, he has a greater claim to sanctity than any of the other disciples.”

Simon was fascinated by the idea. “St. Judas and All Traitors? That sounds like a fun parish. How did you find it — from the map or the stone?”

Norbert visibly stiffened.

“So you know about the map, too,” he said slowly. “Well, I suppose it does not matter now... No, not from the map or from the stone, but from my own observations. I, Louis Norbert, discovered it. I did it all on my own. While he was chasing gold, I pursued truth. I solved the riddle the Templars left behind them. They were clever, clever enough to keep their secret for six hundred years, but not clever enough to fool me.”

The professor’s voice had tightened until it almost choked him. His hands clenched and unclenched spasmodically as he spoke, and his staring eyes seemed to look straight through the Saint. For the first time Simon felt the real force of an obsession.

“The stone and the map were deliberately left to mislead. Why do you think they left them where they might be found? They were useless. Anyone who found them would search for a hoard of loot but find nothing, while the real prize was under their noses all the time. In there!”

Norbert pointed to the sarcophagus and then stepped towards it. His shaking hands caressed the recumbent figure sculpted on it.

“It was mere accident that neither the map nor the stone were found when the Templars left, but those who followed knew all about the tomb and they ignored it. Just a tomb in a crypt, and then they blocked up the crypt and even forgot about that. It was left to me, me, to open the crypt again and ask the questions no one else had asked. Why was such a magnificent tomb hidden in a crypt? Why was it not in the chapel where all could see it? An important person’s tomb, but whose? There is no name on it. And why an altar at the foot of a tomb? To put something on. But what?”

Norbert grasped the corner of the sarcophagus beside the Crusader’s left foot and pushed hard. The whole top slid halfway back on invisible rollers to reveal the hollow interior of the base, big enough to have held a giant’s coffin, but now empty.

The professor chuckled.

“So simple, but so effective. And so safe. The Templars brought back many trophies from the Crusades, but this scroll was unique, and they kept it a secret. It was their treasure. They were accused of Devil worship, in the main it was a libel, but here at Ingare a cult must have developed around this unholy relic. And what greater prize for a Satanist than the words of the man who betrayed God?”

The Saint heard Norbert’s words and their meaning registered, but he was no longer consciously listening to the little man’s lecture. For a moment he was hardly aware of the present at all as his mind flooded with the images of the past.

He thought of the Knights whose name he carried going out to do battle, their ideals as bright as their armour, their standards billowing in the wind of the charge. Fighting and dying and winning respect and renown. But when the campaigns were over, when there were no more pilgrims to protect or battles to win or walls to storm, growing rich and complacent and eventually corrupt. Accepting a life of luxury and indulgence, playing politics, storing wealth, and then at last dabbling in strange heresies against the faith that had first inspired them.

Instantaneously he remembered his own beginnings — the ideals that had sent him and his own small band of crusaders out into a world grown stale and lifeless from what was called progress. Ideals they had fought for and one had died for. To deliver justice in a world that no longer understood the word. To wage their own private war against the men who grew bloated on the life-blood of the weak. Could it happen to him — a twentieth-century privateer akin to every soldier of fortune who had ever nailed his colours to the mast and set out to seek his destiny?

But that depressing prospect survived only a microsecond against the utterly gorgeous grandeur of the historic reality that had just exploded before his comprehension: a Templar treasure that could be truly priceless — and in ordinary terms completely unsaleable.

For a moment as his gaze swept over the lines of coffins he could wonder if one day he too would settle for a fading glory and the pleasures of the idle and the unconcerned. But only for that moment; and then he laughed. A deep, rich “to hell with it all” laugh. The sword was still bright, and ideal was still a spur, and the jest was magnificent. So there was no treasure, just the words of a traitor. Something for the academics and theologians to argue over while the rest of the world carried on — business as usual. And a Nobel Prize or something of that sort for somebody, perhaps Louis Norbert.

“Of course, Henri knows about this,” said the Saint.

“He refuses to believe it,” Norbert said. “He is still convinced of a treasure that can be counted or weighed and banked—”

At that same instant the key grated in the lock of the tunnel door. Before the startled professor realised what was happening he was engulfed in a whirlwind of action. The Saint killed the lamps, clamped a silencing hand over Norbert’s mouth, and in a continuation of the same hold threw them both down behind the tomb.

The door swung open and the beam of a powerful flashlight carved the darkness. The Saint peered cautiously around the farthest side of the tomb. Standing in the splash of light just inside the doorway was Mimette, and from the awkward way she stood with her hands behind her he could tell without seeing them that they must be tied together there. At her side, a gun pressing into her ribs, was Henri Pichot.

3

There were fifteen feet of darkness between the sarcophagus and the probing light source of Henri’s torch. Had the Saint been alone, he would have asked for nothing more and cheerfully pitted his speed and stealth against the quickness of the lawyer’s reactions. But even to attempt such a tactic now would have placed the girl in unacceptable danger, besides leaving Norbert free on his flank. Shielded by Mimette, within a pace of the open door and controlling the only light in the room, Henri’s position was impregnable.

Stalemate. Henri, with no way of knowing whether the Saint was armed, could not approach further without putting himself at risk. The Saint, restricted by his hold on the professor, could not make any move that would take Henri by surprise. There was only one way the impasse could be broken, and Simon waited calmly for the inevitable, only slightly reassured by the conviction that his nerves were the stronger, and therefore every second that limped past, every fractional increase in the tension, must be to his advantage.

Henri swept the beam of his torch wildly around the crypt; but, hidden by the tomb on one side and the thickness of a column on the other, Simon stayed safely hidden. Only when the light told him that the beam was pointed another way would he steal a quick peep around the sarcophagus to keep track of captor and captive.

He weighed with icy detachment the significance of what he saw. Pichot’s drawn features glimpsed in the dim illumination reflected by his flashlight from the walls, his too rigid stance offset by a slight trembling of the hand that gripped the automatic, revealed his inner desperation, and the Saint had found that there are few men more dangerous than a frightened amateur. By contrast, Mimette appeared almost relaxed. She stared straight ahead, her face calm and composed but her eyes wide and frozen. Grimly he recognized that shock would shield her for a short while, but if hysteria took over it would be a dangerous complication.

Still he waited.

Norbert began to wriggle, and the Saint was forced to shift his position slightly to straddle the professor’s body, pinning his arms and legs against the floor. It made only the thinnest scuff of cloth against stone, but it was enough. The light beam swung towards the tomb, and when Pichot spoke his voice faltered and he could not quite control a rising pitch.

“Templar. I am going to count to three. Come out into the light with your hands up or I shall shoot Mimette.”

He spotlighted the floor a dozen feet away and jabbed the muzzle of his gun into the girl’s side.

“One.”

Simon rolled off the professor and glided towards the other end of the tomb. Behind him he heard Norbert clambering to his feet. Henri started and swung his flashlight towards the noise.

“No, don’t shoot, it’s me!” Norbert shouted frantically, and superfluously, as the light pinned him.

For a second, Pichot lost his place in the countdown.

“What are you doing here?” he rasped.

“I just came to have another look—”

“N’importe,” Henri cut him off. “Templar, this is — two!”

Perhaps the professor’s appearance broke the spell or the first shock simply subsided, but at that moment Mimette snapped back into full personality.

“Simon?” she cried. “Simon — if you are there, don’t listen! This no-good—”

She began to strain furiously against the cord that bound her wrists. Henri grabbed her roughly around the waist and held her body against his own. His lips began to shape “Three.”

The Saint stepped out into the light.

He stood completely relaxed and regarded Henri Pichot with the ghost of a mocking smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“You’ve been watching too many old B movies, Henri. One, two, three, fire? How very unoriginal!”

Pichot ignored the taunt. The sight of the Saint apparently surrendering injected a new confidence into his voice and actions. He called to the professor to turn on the lamps, and when the crypt was fully lit he shoved the girl towards the Saint, at the same time side-stepping so that he could keep them both covered.

“So the great Simon Templar isn’t so clever after all,” he sneered, but the Saint only shook his head reproachfully.

“I’m sorry, Henri, but that isn’t a unique observation either. You must get another writer. It’s the stock line at the end of Act Three, Scene Two. I’ve seen the play more times than you.”

He put his arm around Mimette and drew her close. His main hope now was to play on Pichot’s nerves until he goaded the lawyer into a mistake, while at the same time building up the girl’s confidence until he could rely on her reactions. As a plan of campaign it was about as watertight as the Titanic but there was no alternative.

Henri gestured towards the tomb.

“Get over there.”

Still holding Mimette, Simon backtracked towards the foot of the sarcophagus until he felt the cold stone behind him. Nor-bert was standing on the other side of the tomb, his eyes switching uncertainly from Henri to the Saint. Pichot spoke without looking at him.

“Search him.”

The professor opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and in the end said nothing. He scuttled around the casket table and patted the Saint’s clothes in the same way he himself had been checked over a short while before. His clumsiness made it impossible for Pichot to keep a steady bead on the Saint, and it would have been ridiculously easy to grab the little man and use him as a shield if it would not have meant leaving Mimette unprotected. Regretfully Simon let the opportunity pass.

Norbert turned to shake his head at Henri and the young lawyer smiled.

“No weapon? How reckless of you,” he observed, with a little more assurance.

Silently the Saint agreed, although he was inclined to place the oversight in the category of criminal negligence rather than mere recklessness. Aloud he said: “I didn’t know it was going to be this kind of party. Anyway, I thought pokers were more in your line.”

He was surprised by the effect his words had on Norbert. As soon as Henri had entered the crypt, Simon had accepted the lawyer’s guilt as a matter of fact and had since been mentally fitting the final pieces of the pattern into place. He knew that Mimette must already have observed the revelation, and in the same way he had assumed the professor to be Henri’s full partner and had not given that association a second thought. Now he realised that his assumption had been wrong.

“Henri! No! You killed Gaston?”

There was no doubting the genuineness of Norbert’s shocked disbelief.

Henri’s lips curled. He was clearly beginning to enjoy his moment in the centre of the stage.

“Why so astonished, Professor?” His tone was bitingly sarcastic. “Scruples? They never bothered you before.”

“But not murder!” Norbert protested vehemently. “You told me—”

“What I thought you would accept. To keep you quiet, while I could use you.”

“But why kill Gaston, Henri?” demanded Mimette fiercely. “What did your uncle ever do to hurt you?”

Simon supplied the answer, working out the details as he spoke them.

“He realised that Henri was trying to ruin the business, but he hesitated to expose his own nephew. He tried to warn me by telling me not to trust anyone, whoever they might be, but I was still thinking about Philippe. I should have realised that Henri was the only one who could have stirred up the workers against me. He was the only one they would have listened to. They were his friends and he’d grown up among them.”

Pichot said tonelessly: “He kept going on about loyalty, about the family. Like all the Pichots he was a serf at heart. He couldn’t understand that the Florians are not royalty and Ingare is not a kingdom. Only I had the will and the brains to outgrow that antiquated mental bondage. He wouldn’t see that we had as much right to the treasure as the Florians, if we found it. He told me he was going to show the map to Yves. I couldn’t let that happen.”

The Saint had always been mildly sceptical about the propensity of story-book villains for unravelling their own mysteries in the final showdown scene, but if Henri was determined to conform to that convenient convention he was not going to discourage him.

“After all,” he prompted, “you’d gone to a lot of trouble to get it.”

“For years I’ve searched for it,” said Pichot forcefully. “Why do you think I kept coming back here, Mimette? So you and your father could patronise me?”

“We should have known better than to expect any gratitude for all we’d done for you,” she retorted scornfully.

Norbert sagged against the side of the tomb. His face was grey and he clutched at the stone to steady himself. The self-satisfaction of a few minutes before was gone as if it had never existed.

“But you said there would be no violence. You promised!” he protested furiously. “Just let Philippe get control of the château, and he would put you in charge and we could look for the treasure openly...”

Pichot’s clipped humourless laugh cut through the professor’s spluttering.

“And you believed me. You’re a fool, Professor. You even thought the seance was for real. Philippe’s interest in buying In-gare was waning. I had to use the treasure as a bait to make him stay. A message from the dead. It was a good idea, but Templar spoiled it, just as he threatened to spoil everything.”

“So when you went prepared to kill Gaston, you also went prepared to frame me for it,” said the Saint. “And when even that didn’t work, you tried to kill Yves by jiggering the brakes on his Mercedes. Which didn’t kill either of us. Not having a great deal of success, are you, Henri?” he concluded with mocking sympathy.

“Success?” Pichot seemed to savour the word. “Perhaps not at first, but it could not have worked out better. I heard you and Mimette talking about exploring the tunnel, and then I saw how I could still get Ingare and dispose of you both as well.”

The nervous tension that he had shown when he pushed Mimette into the crypt was only a shadow behind his eyes. He was confident now of his control of the situation and relishing the power it gave him.

“Do tell us how,” Simon invited.

“You and Mimette will simply disappear. Have you eloped together? No — you have kidnapped her. In a few days the ransom notes begin to arrive. One from Marseille, I think — yes — and the next from Paris. A piece of Mimette’s jewellery with each one. And then, nothing.”

“Except my car left here.”

“Abandoned because it was too conspicuous. When you went to Carpentras, you arranged to be picked up by an accomplice.”

“Very neat.”

“Without his precious daughter, Yves will not have the heart to hold out for long against Philippe, and I will be free to find the treasure. So you see I do win in the end.”

“But I have found the treasure,” Norbert insisted. “I told you.”

Pichot snorted derisively. He pointed with his free hand to the casket, but his gun never wavered from its aim at the Saint’s chest.

“That scroll? You must think me as naive as you are, Professor. But the box, that is valuable, and there will be more like it, with more precious things in them.”

“But the map was a trick, don’t you understand?” pleaded Norbert passionately.

Pichot’s pudgy face set into harder lines, and there was a more dangerous coldness in his eyes.

“It is you who are trying to trick me. You want the treasure for yourself. Be careful, Professor, or perhaps the Saint will shoot you as he kidnaps Mimette.”

For a moment he appeared to be thinking out that possibility, and then slowly he nodded.

“Yes, it might be better that way in any case. I don’t need you any more. I can’t trust you. We shall see. Open the tomb, Professor. It will be a fitting resting place for a Florian and a Templar.”

“I would prefer it to the company of at least one Pichot,” said Mimette disdainfully.

Simon Templar knew that he had to make his final assessment of the situation, but from whichever angle he considered it the scales were always tipped in the lawyer’s favour. He and Mimette were standing near the altar, while Norbert was towards the other end of the tomb, a few feet from Henri. The way Henri gripped his automatic told the Saint that he was not accustomed to handling firearms, but with only a dozen feet between them he could hardly miss even a moving target. To attempt to tackle him without any diversion would merely hasten the end for both himself and Mimette.

Simon put his left arm across Mimette and pressed her back so that his body partly shielded her. He moved smoothly, easily, intent on making his action look like a chivalrous gesture rather than a threat, but combining it with a step of his own that brought him half a pace closer to the casket.

“Stay where you are,” rasped Henri. “Professor, I said open the tomb.”

Pichot raised his gun, and his finger looked tight on the trigger. The Saint braced himself for the spring that he had to make even though he knew it would almost certainly be useless. And at that instant something seemed to snap inside the professor.

“No!” he shouted, and launched himself towards Pichot like an infuriated elf.

Henri had been concentrating on the Saint and Mimette and had to turn sideways to meet the unexpected attack. Norbert was blundering and clumsy, but his hands were already clawing at the gun when Henri fired.

Norbert screamed and fell, still clinging to the sleeve of Henri’s coat, but the lawyer kicked viciously at his chest as he went down and the hold was broken. Henri swung around to face the Saint again, but the Saint was no longer there.

He did not try to reach Henri. Even with the advantage of the distraction Norbert had caused, he could not have covered the ground fast enough. But the casket he could reach in one stride. Pushing Mimette away, he leapt towards the altar as Henri turned.

He picked up the heavy casket with both hands and in the same continuous flowing movement sent it hurtling through the air.

Pichot fired, but it was a wild reflex action, and the bullet scraped the top of the tomb and ricocheted harmlessly away. He had no time for another shot. The casket smashed into the side of his head and he went down without a sound. The automatic spun from his hand, and the Saint dived for it and caught it before it reached the floor.

Simon rolled over and up to his feet, but when he saw Henri’s face he knew he would not need the gun.

4

The edge of the casket had opened a gash from Henri’s cheekbone to his chin as it smashed into the side of his face and most probably broke his jaw. He lay on his back, his arms flung out, and only the rasp of irregular breathing showed that he remained to be counted among the living.

Simon retrieved and pocketed the automatic as he stepped over him, and knelt beside the professor. Norbert was moaning faintly, lying on his side and clutching at the top of his leg. Unceremonious pulling down of his trousers revealed that the slug had passed through the fleshy inside of his thigh but managed to miss both bone and artery. It was a fairly tidy wound and not dangerous providing the bleeding was stopped soon.

Mimette came over, and the Saint stood up and greeted her with a grim smile.

“He’ll live, they both will,” he said tersely as he untied her hands.

She gazed down at Henri and shuddered.

“I’ve known him all my life. I still can hardly believe he did such things. The family was always so good to him.”

“Perhaps that was the trouble. To some people, kindness is an unforgivable insult,” Simon remarked cynically. “I’ll see to these two while you go and summon our amiable gendarme and call an ambulance.”

Mimette nodded and turned towards the tunnel, but he stopped her and pointed to the ladder.

“You’d better use the professor’s private entrance. It’ll be shorter.”

She saw the trap-door for the first time and her brow furrowed, but the Saint forestalled her questions.

“You’ll understand as soon as you get out. Just do it quickly.”

She hurried towards the far end of the room and Simon turned back to Norbert. He commandeered the professor’s large handkerchief and tore it into three equal strips which he knotted together, and bound the improvised bandage around Norbert’s leg, to hold pads of cloth ripped from the professor’s shirt-tails in place over the bullet’s entrance and larger exit hole, which staunched the worst of the bleeding.

The old man was returning to full awareness as the shock that had helped mask the pain was wearing off. He whimpered as the necessary pressure was applied to the dressing, and his face was pale and drawn as he looked up at the Saint.

“I’m sorry,” he began weakly. “I didn’t understand. I was a fool. I...”

Simon cut him short.

“Save it. It isn’t me you’re going to have to make your excuses to. As far as I’m concerned, we can call it quits. If you hadn’t gone for Henri when you did, I probably couldn’t have taken him.”

He took another look at the lawyer. Pichot was still unconscious and was likely to remain so for some time. The Saint had no idea how efficient the local ambulance service might be, but given the château’s isolation there was likely to be a considerable delay before they arrived. If the professor was going to get the prompt treatment he needed, a car might be a faster solution.

“This may hurt,” Simon warned, and before Norbert fully understood his meaning he found himself slung in a fireman’s lift across the Saint’s shoulders. He yelped at the sudden pain and all but fainted as he was carried to the ladder.

The opening was only a couple of feet wide, and the Saint had to shift his burden and carry it piggyback fashion until his head and shoulders were through the opening. As gently as possible he rolled Norbert on to the altar carpet that had previously concealed the trap-door, and was climbing the last few rungs when the door from the great hall opened.

Led by Sergeant Olivet and followed by three gendarmes, Mimette, Philippe, and Yves rushed down the chapel aisle towards him.

“That was quick,” Simon remarked as they reached him. “How did you get here — by one of Hitler’s leftover V-2’s?”

Olivet returned his smile.

“I was already here. Monsieur Florian called me.”

The Saint looked questioningly at Yves, who shook his head.

“He means Philippe.”

“Well, well, well,” Simon drawled. “Today is full of surprises.”

He watched Philippe thoughtfully while Olivet was directing the transport of Norbert to hospital. The industrialist was subdued and without a trace of the arrogance that had grated on the Saint ever since his arrival at Ingare. By contrast Yves looked tired but no longer defeated, and there was a new strength to the fingers that grasped Simon’s hand. Mimette had a look in her eyes that told him her private thanks would be worth the waiting for.

“I don’t know how we are ever going to repay you,” said Yves fervently.

“Right now I’ll settle for a drink,” Simon replied lightly.

He turned to Olivet, as the sergeant finished giving instructions to the two men who now had the professor seated in a chair formed by their interlocked arms. As they carried him from the chapel a vague sound of movement drifted up from the crypt.

“Your murderer awaits,” said the Saint with a flourish of his hand towards the opening in the floor. “I’m afraid he’s a bit damaged but I’ve left his neck intact for your official chopper.”

“Vous êtes trop gentil,” Oliver said, with saturnine gravity.

He drew his pistol and climbed down the ladder. Simon waited until the remaining gendarme had followed his leader into the crypt before suggesting that the drink he had already mentioned was long overdue.

As they walked back through the great hall towards the centre of the château he told them about the scroll and his conversation with Norbert. Yves and Mimette speculated excitedly about the find but Philippe hardly seemed to hear. He trailed along behind them without speaking and avoided the eyes of anyone who glanced at him.

It was Philippe the Saint most wanted to talk to, but it was more than two hours before he was allowed the chance, when Henri had been taken away and both he and Mimette had made their statements.

Finally the gendarmes left and he was able to ask the question that Olivet himself had not put. He sank more comfortably into his chair and looked across the salon to where Philippe was opening a new bottle of Scotch.

“So you called the cops, Philippe?” he said quietly. “And told them that Henri was a prime suspect. Why?”

Philippe seemed almost relieved that it had been asked at last. He sighed deeply and his voice came low and stiffly apologetic.

“Because I knew one thing that you did not. I knew that I did not kill Gaston. Last night I thought — no, I hoped — that it was you who had done it. I didn’t want to face the alternative.” Philippe paused and looked at his brother. “You see, Yves, I knew that Henri was trying to ruin Ingare. Oh, I had no actual proof, but it was clear that only he could be behind all that had happened. I wondered sometimes if he thought he was doing me a favour. But of course he believed that if I got control I would put him in charge.”

“And you did nothing to stop him?” stormed Mimette, her eyes sparkling with anger and a deep flush colouring her cheeks. “How could you?”

Philippe continued to address Yves, trying to meet his eyes.

“Believe me, I did not intend to let it go too far. You must believe that. I was only waiting for conclusive evidence that it was Henri. But in the meantime, I hoped that what he was doing would force you to see sense. To see that the old ways are no longer good enough, that running a vineyard is a business, not a pastime. I wanted to make you move into the twentieth century...”

“By bankrupting us? How kind!” said Mimette scathingly, and Philippe turned on her with a show of his old aggression.

“No, by making you accept my kind of help. Then I could have insisted on doing what had to be done to make Ingare viable again.”

The Saint intervened quickly to head off the confrontation.

“But that still doesn’t explain why you thought Henri killed Gaston,” he said.

Philippe refilled his glass before replying. He held it close to his face and gazed into the light golden liquid.

“I knew the old man suspected his nephew. He had guessed just as I had. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that Henri was the only one with a motive. Even then I couldn’t believe that that would make him commit murder. But this afternoon I searched his room.”

He drew a small dog-eared notebook from his pocket and tossed it on to the coffee table in the centre of the room.

“I found that. The writing inside is Gaston’s. Something about treasure and a tunnel. There is an old parchment map, too. They had to be what the murderer was looking for when he ransacked the cottage. So I called Olivet. Perhaps fortunately, Henri had convicted himself before I had to produce this evidence. So you can keep it in the most secret archives of Ingare.”

There was an extended silence, while each of those present digested the various implications of what had been revealed.

After some time, Yves voiced what might have been a general question: “I wonder what Henri and Louis will say when they are interrogated.”

“They can only involve each other,” said the Saint confidently. “They were both using each other, with different motives. Henri is much smarter, in a lawyer’s way — he was clever enough to defend me, when Philippe was accusing, which made it look as if he had no need of a scapegoat — but Norbert is such an obviously genuine archaeological nut that he’s pretty sure to get off on the grounds of idiocy. Also in consideration of having finally tried to stop Henri putting down two more victims.”

Mimette shivered.

“Simon was magnificent,” she said. “But for him—”

“I was temporarily deranged,” Simon contradicted her firmly. “Or how could I have turned down the chance of sharing a coffin with a more delightful companion?”

Yves Florian pressed his fingertips together, not quite in an attitude of prayer, with a half-smile on his lips but a deeper tautening of the muscles around it.

“Simon is now one of the family,” he said. “I think that the private affairs of our family — including Philippe — can be trusted to his discretion.”

The Saint met his eyes in a long steady acknowledgement.

“D’accord.” With a deliberate lightening of the intensity, he scanned the room as if in search of a missing person. “By the way, what happened to Henri’s girl?”

Mimette pouted.

“Jeanne Corday? Charles told me she sent for a taxi and left in a hurry this afternoon. She must have decided that Henri was too much of a problem.”

“I expect she’ll survive,” Simon said cheerfully. “I’ll have to look her up next time I’m in Paris.”

To dodge the invisible daggers that Mimette launched at him, he turned hastily to Yves.

“Well, if the parchment in that casket really is the testament of Judas Iscariot, your money troubles are over. You can either sell it to a museum for a fortune or keep it here and charge everybody admission to come and see it. The Ingare Scroll. And put on a full production of the château’s history in son et lumière.”

“I think I will keep it here where it has been for so long,” said Yves reflectively. “But I have a better name for it. It shall be known as the Templar Scroll. What do you think of the idea, Simon?”

The Saint stretched his legs in front of him and sipped his drink as he considered the proposal.

“Yes,” he said at last. “I rather like that.”

He thought of his namesakes in the crypt, and the thousands more who had fallen on the battlefields of the Crusades, and added quietly to himself: “But would they?”