The Saint in Pursuit

1

“I hope you won’t think I’m rude,” Vicky Kinian said. “It sounds ridiculous to turn down an invitation to a night club on my first night in Portugal, but I’m absolutely bushed. I feel as if I hadn’t slept in a week.”

Curt Jaeger was as sympathetic as ever.

“I don’t blame you,” he said as he escorted her across the lobby of the Tagus. “And from the sound of what you told me at dinner you have an even more exhausting time ahead of you.”

Vicky nodded and wearily started up the stairs.

“I’m getting worn out just arguing with my conscience about the whole thing.”

“If I were you,” Jaeger told her, “I would go on and find this treasure while I was arguing with my conscience. It might be an amusing adventure, and if in the end you decide not to keep it, you should at least be entitled to a finder’s reward.”

His reasoning appealed to Vicky, since it allowed her to do what she wanted to do while telling herself that she was really not doing it.

“I’ll think about it,” she said when they had come to the door of her room. “Anyway, I’ll be going on as soon as I can arrange it.”

“Going on?” he asked.

“I might as well tell you, it’s such a coincidence and you’ve been so nice. I have to go to Switzerland next. I can’t see any harm in telling you that.”

Jaeger almost laughed.

“You do lead a merry chase,” he said. “But the fates seem to be conspiring to keep us together. Of course I too will be going to Switzerland, to my head office, when my business is finished here — which it almost is.”

“Well, I’m glad the fates brought us together here,” Vicky said. “The dinner and the champagne were delicious. And you were very kind to listen to my troubles.”

“Not troubles — opportunities,” he said. “And in case you should worry, let me assure you again that as a point of honour I am as anxious as you that no one else will ever learn what you have told me.”

They shook hands then and said goodnight. Jaeger went back down the stairs to his own room, while Vicky, faint with tiredness, unlocked her door and pushed on the light switch just inside.

For an instant she thought that the strain of the past few days was making her see things, for lounging perfectly relaxed in an armchair half-facing the door was the tall devastatingly magnetic man she had noticed downstairs in the lobby that afternoon.

She froze, stared, and her next thought was that she had walked into the wrong room.

“I’m so sorry...” she began, but before she could even start to retreat she collected her wits enough to notice a pair of her own shoes on the floor near the bed, and her cosmetics on the dressing table.

By now the visitor had risen unhurriedly to his feet.

“You needn’t be sorry,” he said in a soothing tone. “Please come in.”

Vicky’s impulse was to turn back and call for help, but the man’s manner and the almost supernatural holding-power of his blue eyes — as clear and bright as a tropical sea even in the yellowish illumination of the hotel room-kept her where she was, poised on the threshold.

“This is my room,” she said unnecessarily. “What are you doing here?”

The man seemed to resist the temptation to make some lighthearted joke.

“I’ll be glad to answer that question, Vicky, but it’ll take a little while,” he told her. “If you’ll please come in and sit down I’ll tell you. Right now you look like a doe ready to bolt for her life.”

“I am ready to bolt,” Vicky assured him. “You tell me what you want, and I’ve got plenty of wide open spaces behind me in case I don’t like what I hear.”

He shrugged.

“At least you’re willing to listen,” he said. “We’re making progress.”

“I think I’ll get the manager,” the girl said uncertainly.

The lean, towering man looked around innocently.

“If you need help, I’ll be glad to oblige. What’s the problem?”

She did not return his glimmer of a smile, but she was no longer quite so tensed for flight.

“All right,” she said. “So you’ve given me a chance to scream or make a run for it, and if you’d wanted to hurt me you could have hidden somewhere and grabbed me after I closed the door. But that still doesn’t mean we’re old buddies. Who are you?”

“My name is Simon Templar, sometimes called the Saint, and I’m not dangerous if taken as directed. Why don’t you shut the door and let me start convincing you that I’m on your side?”

She had reacted sharply to the sound of his name, and now she studied his face with heightened interest.

“The Saint?” she repeated incredulously. “Why should I believe that?”

“Would a passport convince you?”

She was already convinced enough to risk leaving the doorway and coming forward far enough to take the booklet he held out to her. Still keeping a safe distance, she looked at the photograph and the pages crowded with visa stamps. She half-smiled as she handed the passport back at full arm’s length.

“So a celebrity broke into my room,” she said whimsically. “That makes it all right, I guess. What did you do-pick the lock?”

“I was afraid it might compromise your reputation if I asked the room clerk to let me in. So I did what any gentleman cracksman would have done.”

“Well, that certainly needs explaining, even if you are the Saint,” she retorted indignantly.

“It was quite easy, really. I’ll show you the trick if you’re interested.”

“I mean, why should you want to get into my room?”

He took a step towards the open door, and she moved back so that he could not cut off her escape route.

“Wouldn’t it have been out of character if I hadn’t?” he answered unassumingly. “I mean, think what a disappointment it would be if the Saint showed up politely ringing your doorbell with his hat in his hand.”

“And that’s the only reason?” she asked sarcastically.

“I’ll be glad to discuss this if you’ll close the door,” he replied. “Just in case there are any bog ears flapping down the hall.”

“Mighty thoughtful of you,” she conceded. “Okay, I’ll take a chance — but if you do anything funny I’ll scream my head off. You stay over there by the sofa and I’ll stay over here.”

Simon agreed with an amused shrug, and settled his rangy frame on the sofa cushions. Vicky Kinian shut the door, and perched uneasily on the arm of a chair not far from it.

“Now,” she said, “please tell me what’s going on.”

“I will; but bear in mind that I agree in advance that I’m completely unscrupulous — so you can spare me any outbursts of righteous indignation.” He crossed his long legs and swung one arm along the back of the sofa. “I broke in here the first time when you went out to dinner. I was looking for a certain letter...”

Her dark eyes flashed angrily, and she glanced towards the top of the wardrobe.

“Well, I never heard of such—”

“Gall,” Simon supplied helpfully. “And if I hadn’t found the letter at the time that reflex of yours would have given away where it was hidden.”

She was on her feet.

“Well, you can just give it back to me right now!”

The Saint’s face showed genuine regret.

“I would if I could, Vicky. Unfortunately you have more followers than Moses did when the going was easy — and I was set upon by a couple of rude fans who were ready to go to any extremes to get a souvenir.”

“Who? Where?”

“A couple of unsavory types who were disfiguring the corridor when I came out — I would guess with ideas of combing out your room themselves. I tried to start a false scent by marching straight on out of the hotel, but they followed me up the street with the notion of finding out whether I’d brought anything valuable with me. I managed to discourage them somewhat, but during the short but merry tussle your letter still managed to disappear. I searched all around while the cops chased my playmates, and I checked with the cops after the chase was over, and all I can deduce is that some other ardent admirer of yours — some fourth party — picked it up and ran off with it while the rest of us were getting our exercise at the other end of the alley.”

“Brilliant!” commented Vicky. “Now nobody has it!”

“Not nobody — just somebody unknown. Maybe you have a clue as to who it might be — and it’s certainly important now for you to tell me what was in that letter.”

The girl’s temper was at the flash-point.

“Well, if that doesn’t take the blue ribbon! You’d think it was your letter or something. You haven’t even started to explain what you’re up to!”

“All right,” he said in a business-like voice, “I can’t prove to you — or even risk telling you in a room that may be bugged — just how legitimately I found out why you’re here in Lisbon. But if you want proof in the morning I’ll supply it. In the meantime, I’ll just say that I know in a general way what you’re after, and I know that there are some pretty vicious parties on the same trail.” He studied her keenly. “It occurs to me that you may not even realize how much danger you’re in — and what kind of rough characters are in this paper chase with you.”

“Why, no, I didn’t,” she answered in honeyed tones. “You’re the first one I’ve met.”

“Think it out for yourself,” Simon urged her, unabashed. “This other character has the letter now, anyway — and his methods prove that he’s up to no good.”

“Of course, your methods are perfectly normal and prove that anyone ought to trust you,” she responded.

“As I said, I can’t prove much of anything at this hour of the night,” he admitted patiently. “Maybe we should concentrate on the point that you now know that your father’s secret isn’t completely secret, and that the hounds of the Ungodly are even now sniffing at your threshold.”

Vicky glanced fearfully towards the door of her room.

“At my threshold?” she breathed.

“Figuratively speaking. And when they come after you in some dark alley, you may be very glad to have somebody on your side who knows at least as much about these sorts of shenanigans as they do.”

The girl’s distracting mouth hardened.

“Shenanigans is right,” she said brusquely. “And you, I suppose, are the knight in shining armour who’s going to defend me through thick and thin.”

“In two easy cliches, that’s it,” Simon said.

“Well, I’ll tell you what’s going on,” she said belligerently. “You stole my letter, found out that the most important part was missing, and now you’re giving me this nice saintly story to get me to tell you what was in it!”

Simon rose and faced her.

“I’ve told you the truth. I’d only just started to read the letter when—”

“A nice trick, but it’s not going to work, Mr Templar,” she interrupted. “I memorized the part that had the important instructions in it, and destroyed it so nobody else could find it — and it’s going to stay that way!”

She had to admit to herself that the Saint looked genuinely concerned.

“But don’t you see, if that’s true you’re in even more danger,” he said urgently. “If the other side knows you did that, they’ll go to any lengths to find out from you what was in it. Don’t forget what happened to your father...”

“Nobody knows,” she said, wanting to contradict him in any way she could.

“Exactly,” said the Saint. “You, too, could disappear.”

She was determined not to give in.

“And so could you — if you could take a fortune with you! I think I’ve heard a few things about the Saint’s affinity for loot.” She stalked to the door and threw it open. “And now will you kindly leave, or have I got to call for help? There’s no reason on earth why you should be so anxious to save my skin. You’re just trying to get your hands on something that doesn’t belong to you.”

“And that may not belong to you either,” he pointed out.

“The difference is that I know more about it than you do, and you won’t fool me into giving up that advantage.”

Simon took a very deep breath, and finally walked past her into the hall. He turned again after he had assured himself that it was deserted and that no other doors seemed to be ajar.

“I can’t say I don’t admire your nerve,” he said. “I just wonder if you’ve got the muscle to back it up. Well, if things start to look too tough, just let out a reasonably loud scream, and I’ll try to be within range.”

“I don’t believe your story about some other gang being after the same thing at all,” she returned defiantly. “I think you’re just trying to scare me!”

She closed the door hurriedly, turned the key in the lock, and leaned against the varnished woodwork with one hand over her pounding heart as her lips added soundlessly:

“...and you’ve done quite a job of it!”

2

The Saint was awakened next morning by the ringing of the telephone beside his bed.

“Good morning!” said a booming baritone.

“Is it?” inquired the Saint, with reasonable curiosity.

“This is Jim Wade — Embassy. Just thought I’d check in and see how it’s going.”

Simon looked at his wristwatch and the almost horizontal rays of sunlight which slipped between the drawn curtains that covered the French windows.

“You boys must have a long working day,” he remarked. “Do you always hit the desk by seven-thirty in the morning?”

“Not always, but I’ve got big brass breathing down my neck on this thing. Any luck yet?”

“No more than usual, but I had a couple of middle-aged delinquents with full-grown switch knives breathing down my neck in an alley last night.”

“You mean there’s somebody else in on this too?”

“In brief, Colonel, we are not alone. There are more bloodhounds on Vicky Ionian’s trail than you could shake a steak at. I wouldn’t be surprised to see TV cameras being set up down in the lobby for live coverage.”

He quickly filled in the intelligence officer on the events of the night before.

“So you see,” he concluded, “it’s something of a standoff so far — but that was only the first round.”

“These men who jumped you — could you figure anything else about them? Ill check with the local police, of course.”

Simon, already sitting up in bed, punched a second pillow behind his back to make himself more comfortable.

“They were local talent, I’d say, from their looks and accent, but hoof-and-knife men only. They were obviously recruited by somebody who knew what to tell them to look for.”

“And with the only one who was caught dead, nobody’s likely to get much information out of him,” the colonel reasoned unimpressively.

“I could make two guesses about their employer, and they could both be right,” Simon said. “Obviously there were Nazis who knew what Major Kinian was trying to find out — and they, or some of them, may still be around.”

“Besides which,” Colonel Wade put in, “other intelligence services than ours may have been on the same track that Kinian was.”

“Exactly. So we may still have both oppositions to cope with today. And so could the gal. There’s a character staying here with the intriguing name of Curt Jaeger — Swiss passport — that she’s already gotten friendly with, or who’s gotten friendly with her. Took her out last night. Of course, it could be just a harmless pick-up, but you might try to find out more about him.”

“Curt Jaeger.” Simon could visualize Wade jotting down the name. “Okay... It would make our job a lot easier if we had some idea of exactly what Kinian may have gotten on to before he disappeared. Any ideas yet?”

“A few. While Miss Kinian was gently throwing me out of her chambers, she let the word ‘loot’ slip out — and something about my wanting to get away with a fortune. Any escape hatch a Nazi bigwig was counting on would’ve certainly had plenty of boodle stashed along the route.”

Wade’s voice was suddenly grimmer.

“You’re thinking Major Kinian stumbled on a cache like that and planned to pick it up for himself?”

“Or left a clue for the folks back home in case he sevened out — which I have a strong feeling he did.”

The colonel grunted thoughtfully.

“I hate to think one of our guys could’ve decided to take a profit like that, but it’s the most likely possibility. Weirder things have happened. A lot weirder. Now... if this gal is just an ordinary kid, she might respond to the ‘good citizen’ approach. After all, she’s led a perfectly respectable life until now.”

“It might work,” Simon agreed, “but only you could make that pitch. She might trust the uniform, and if you could bring along a small flag to wave it wouldn’t hurt either. I suggest you hurry, though. I have a feeling she’s not going to waste any time.”

“Don’t worry,” Wade said smugly. “She can’t fly the coop without us knowing it. I’ve got a man watching the hotel. I’ll give her a call now and shoot right on over there.”

“Maybe you should just shoot over without calling first,” the Saint advised. “She’s pretty jumpy.”

“Will do,” replied the colonel smartly. “You sit tight, okay?”

“Okay, but don’t let on to the girl that you know me, in case a good healthy streak of self-interest proves stronger than philanthropic patriotism. After all, the government dumps a few million down rat-holes every month, and she puts in eight-hour days for ninety dollars a week. I have a feeling you’ll still be needing me after you try the friendly persuasion.”

In order to stay out of the way while the officially certified forces of righteousness had their go at Vicky Kinian’s conscience, Simon had breakfast sent to his room. He had scarcely finished the last bite of a juicy pear when his telephone rang again.

“This is Wade,” said a defeated baritone. “She turned me down.”

“No go, hm? Didn’t take long.”

“No. I got her to meet me in the lobby, and she just kept claiming she didn’t have any idea what I was talking about.” Wade coughed unhappily. “The only thing else was, she started complaining that the army and the government never did anything special for her father’s dependents — and what was I doing turning up now trying to get something out of her?”

Simon chuckled.

“I’m beginning to think she’s got the coldest shoulder this side of Point Barrow. What next?”

“I’m dumping it back in your lap, Saint. Like you said, she still thinks you’re on your own, and maybe if she runs into real trouble she’ll be only too glad to turn to you for a helping hand. In the meantime, we’ve got contacts at your hotel and the travel agencies. If she should be thinking of leaving town I think I’ll hear about it pretty fast and I’ll let you know.”

“Good. You say you’ve got a man watching the hotel?”

“Right.”

“Then why don’t you have him keep an eye on her movements? They’re nice movements, but she knows me now and she’s liable to spot me if I stay too close for too long. I’ll hang around in the background until we see what’s up, and I’ll phone the hotel desk occasionally in case you’ve left any messages for me.”

The Saint shaved and dressed, and about half an hour later he went downstairs to the lobby. Leaving his own key at the desk, he observed that the key to room 302 was in its slot.

The same clerk to whom he had confessed his admiration of Vicky Kinian the day before was on duty again.

“Miss Kinian is already out?” Simon remarked disappointedly. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where she went?”

He gave his question additional priority by extending an example of the national currency halfway across the counter between two fingers as he asked it.

“I gave her the name of a travel agency, senhor,” answered the clerk, “making the bill disappear on his own side of the desk with consummately unobtrusive prestidigitation. She also asked my advice about sightseeing and I recommended a few places of interest.”

“A travel agent?” Simon asked with unhappy surprise. “She is leaving, then?”

“She is leaving the hotel this afternoon, senhor. She wishes to fly to Switzerland. If you wished to begin a friendship with her, senhor, I am afraid you have not had enough time.”

“Perhaps I shall have to follow her to Switzerland,” Simon said jokingly. “You don’t know which flight she’s taking?”

The clerk shook his head and glanced at another customer who was waiting his turn.

“I am sorry I cannot tell you more. Perhaps at the agency just around the corner...”

“Fine.” The Saint hesitated before leaving. “The sightseeing she mentioned — do you know...”

“She wanted to know how she could see the most places in a short time, and I suggested to her the bus which makes a tour of the city in three hours.” The clerk glanced at his wristwatch. “It stops in front of the hotel here to take on passengers at eleven.”

“Is it one of those tours that herds the sheep from church to church and gallery to gallery and allows them fifteen seconds to gawk at each masterpiece?”

The clerk smiled deferentially.

“I am afraid so, senhor.”

“I think Miss Kinian will be very occupied, then, and well taken care of without any help from me,” Simon reflected aloud. “Maybe I shall have better luck later.”

He had just thanked his informant and turned from the reception counter when the clerk called him back from the switchboard with which he also had to divide his attention.

“Senhor! Please, a call for you. Would you like to take it in your room or here?”

“In my room, I think. Have them hold the line for just a minute.”

As Simon climbed the stairs he considered the relative advantages and disadvantages of joining Vicky Kinian on her sightseeing tour. It seemed probable that she was motivated by a real desire to see some of the sights of Lisbon before leaving. With only a few hours left before she flew to Switzerland, she would want to fill in the time as touristically as she could. After all, she might be zeroing in on a fortune, but while she was in the process she was just a thrifty Iowa girl bedazzled by her first glimpse of Europe. If she expected to pocket her bonanza in Lisbon, she wasn’t likely to choose to do it in the company of forty other rubbernecks.

The Saint unlocked the door to his room, locked it again behind him, and picked up his telephone.

“Hello, Mother,” he said brightly.

“It’s Wade again,” replied a disconcerted, low-pitched voice.

“Just thought I’d fool any wiretappers, but now you’ve given the game away. What’s up?”

“The girl, she’s made reservations to—”

“Fly to Switzerland?” Simon suggested.

“How did you know?”

“A pal of mine decided to sing for his vinho. But I didn’t get the hour of departure.”

“She’s leaving on the Air Europe flight at four-thirty, for Geneva. I just got a call from our contact at one of the travel agencies. She seems to be travelling with that man you mentioned — Curt Jaeger. He bought a ticket on the same flight. Know anything more about him?”

“I’m afraid not,” Simon answered. “I’m counting on your organization for that. In the meantime, our gal is booked on a sightseeing bus tour which leaves here at eleven. Do you think your watchdog on the spot could trail along? She’s liable to drop the whole idea if I show up and try to hold her hand, but I’d like to feel that somebody was protecting her.”

“Affirmative,” said the colonel efficiently. “Will do. What’s your next move?”

“I’ll try to catch a plane earlier in the day and pick up my gorgeous little prey and her friend again at the Geneva airport. Ill give you a ring from there to be sure nothing catastrophic happened after I left.”

“Sounds like the best program,” Colonel Wade agreed. “If nothing else happens, I’ll hear from you from Switzerland. I’m afraid you’ll have to be on your own there until I can arrange...”

“I’d prefer it that way,” Simon said. “Don’t arrange anything. Just see that Vicky gets on her plane safely. I’ll take care of the rest at the other end of the line.”

3

The Saint landed at the Geneva airport at five-twenty in the afternoon — by which time Vicky Kinian would have taken off from Lisbon in another plane headed for the same destination. As soon as he had cleared Customs he found a telephone booth and rang up Colonel Wade back in Portugal.

“The girl left on schedule,” the intelligence officer told him over the crackling fine. “This Jaeger character was with her. From what my man could overhear on the sightseeing bus they’re just friends — and not very close ones at that. Jaeger’s a respectable businessman as far as we can find out up till now. Sales manager of some kind of Swiss watch export company, which explains why he’s going to Geneva.”

“But not why Vicky is,” said the Saint. “I’ll be waiting under the Welcome mat when they light here. You’ll be hearing from me.”

“Good luck, Saint!”

The first thing that impressed Simon when he emerged from finishing his business was the crisp freshness of the Swiss air as contrasted with the humid sea level atmosphere he had left behind. The second phenomenon that impressed him was a stout, bald, rather scholarly looking man whose facial topography was somewhat concealed between a Vandyke beard and a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles. He left the telephone booth which shared a common wall with the one Simon had used, and stayed in the same area of the lobby. When the Saint paused to glance over the magazines displayed at the newsstand, the white-bearded man took an interest in a display of chocolates a few feet away. When the Saint moved on to study the arrival-and-departure boards, the stout man concerned himself with the purchase of a newspaper.

Simon felt certain he had seen the man — without paying any particular attention to him — on the same plane he had taken from Lisbon. Why should he hang around the terminal building and, by chance or design, not let any great expanse of waxed rubber tile get between him and the Saint?

Simon deliberately walked off at a brisk pace towards the far end of the lobby. The other man did not follow, although it was possible that his eyes tracked Simon’s changing position from behind his thin-framed glasses. A short while later, as the building became more crowded with passengers and their friends, the bearded man turned, tucked his paper under his arm, and strode out of one of the doors towards the taxi stand as if whatever mysterious business he had had in the lobby had suddenly been consummated.

Simon relaxed more completely and tried to decide whether the episode had really been an episode or whether it had been no more than a suspicion in an alert and uncharitable mind. If Grandpa Trotsky did not reappear, well and good. If he ever materialized as an innocent lurker again, it would be time to consider countermeasures.

There was a U-Drive car rental kiosk in the lobby not far from where the Saint was standing when his bewhiskered friend left the scene. Simon went over to it and spoke to the gray-uniformed brunette behind the counter.

“Salutations, Lieutenant,” he said cheerily. “I wonder if you have anything in the motor pool that would suit me.”

The girl touched her pert forage cap self-consciously and gave him a smile that seemed to say, “If you’d like to see me in something more glamorous, just ask...” But as is usual with girls in real life, what she actually said was less exciting.

“I’m certain we do, m’sieur. What kind of automobile would you need?”

“I’d like to hire something that’s fairly fast but not too conspicuous. Bigger than a breadbox but smaller than those chrome-plated hearses you rent to couples from Miami.”

“A Volkswagen, m’sieur, or...”

“A Volkswagen is fine.”

The formalities took only a short while, and when he was putting his signature on the completed forms the counter girl asked him, “What hotel will you stay at here in Geneva?”

“I don’t know yet. Where I go depends on some friends who’ll be in a little later. As soon as I’ve settled on one I’ll phone you.”

“Can I do anything to help you?”

Simon regarded her.

“If I told you,” he said regretfully, “I’m afraid you’d tell me that your Hertz belongs to Daddy.”

When his friends did arrive, the Saint was waiting for them in his green Beetle near the terminal building’s entrance. He watched as Vicky Kinian and a tall man came out of the swinging glass doors and waited to step into a taxi. The girl’s companion — sharp-featured, with closely trimmed light hair — held the cab’s door for her, gave an order to the driver, and got into the back seat himself. Simon did not recognize him; even from a number of yards away he could be sure that their paths had never crossed before. There was no way to tell yet, then, whether Herr Jaeger’s main interest was in attractive American girls or some more negotiable and enduring embodiment of pleasure, perhaps in the form of several tons of SS gold at the bottom of an Alpine lake.

The taxi pulled away from the curb. Simon had already started his car. Now he accelerated after the cab, not hesitating to stick quite close behind it during its trip into the city.

While the Saint followed, Curt Jaeger was beginning to doubt his once considerable powers as an interrogator. All the way from the green-and-brown coats of Portugal to the white icy crags of the Alps he had been subtly trying, without the slightest success, to lead Vicky Kinian on to the subject of her treasure hunt, and in particular on to the events which he knew had taken place the night before.

He had waited in his room at the Tagus after coming back from dinner with Vicky, expecting his telephone to bestir him at any minute with a ring from Pedro reporting on his search for her letter. A great many minutes had passed — one hundred and forty-eight, by Jaeger’s own count — before the telephone did ring, and then the breathless voice which blabbered ungrammatical Portuguese over the wire did not belong to Pedro.

“This is Fano, the driver. I know where you at so I call. Pedro, he’s dead — shot by the cops!”

A moment of panic had threatened to shatter Jaeger’s usual self-control; but recalling the necessity for superior races to maintain a firm facade when dealing with such low forms of life as Portuguese cab drivers, he had managed to keep his voice completely steady.

“Do they know about me?” he asked.

“They do not know nothing,” replied the driver emphatically. “I hear Pedro was dead the minute they plugged him. So it’s all right if you pay me.”

“What did you find in the girl’s room?” Jaeger asked without optimism. Vicky’s revelation during dinner that she had memorized and destroyed the vital part of her father’s letter had already made Pedro’s search of her room seem hardly necessary.

“We didn’t go in,” was the answer. “A man come out-had a letter on him.”

“Came out?” Jaeger asked impatiently, straining to understand the difficult accent. “Out of what?”

“This man, he come out of the girl’s room. We followed him to an alley. Pedro took him and there was a big fight. Then the cops come and we run—”

“Without the letter?”

“We couldn’t get it,” the thug said excitedly. “Like I tell you, the cops come, shoot Pedro. I beat it out of there.”

“This man who came out of her room — do you know him? Who was he?”

“Don’t know. Very tall, black hair, eyes blue...”

“Thin? Fat?”

“More thin — like a matador. Strong as hell — and quick!”

The Latin began appealing to his gods and their female relatives to witness the inhuman power and swiftness of his foe in the alley fight. Jaeger interrupted him again.

“And you found out nothing else?”

“No, but we done as you told us, so you can pay me. You can pay me for Pedro too. I give to his widow.”

Jaeger had needed all his powers of self-restraint to prevent himself from screeching hysterically.

“You are a stupid idiotic oaf,” he had said coldly. “If I ever see you again or hear from you again, it will be your fortunate widow who needs a donation.”

He had slammed down the receiver and spent many feverish hours during the wakeful night raking his brain for some clue as to who the stranger might be who was threatening to interrupt his long, long climb just before he reached the pinnacle.

In the taxi with Vicky in Geneva, he tried once more. Surely, he told himself for the hundredth time, if someone had broken into her room and taken something, she would be aware of it — and eventually admit it to him. He was, after all, her only friend in a foreign land.

“I am worried about you,” he insisted. “Perhaps I can ask one question that will not seem like prying into your secrets...”

“Worried about me?” Vicky asked.

She had spent most of the flight, as well as the drive between airport and city center, in a pensive, quiet, apparently almost depressed mood.

“Yes. Is it possible that anybody else could be looking for the same thing as you may be?”

Vicky’s reaction was not at all sophisticated. She glanced at him sharply.

“What made you ask that?”

“A simple logic,” Jaeger said offhandedly, raising a cigarette to his lips. “There are few secrets of which rumors do not reach the wrong people. Luckily you need not worry about the little you have told me. I said I was a salesman of watches, but to be less modest, I am owner of the agencies which distribute them, and frankly I have too much money to be tempted by your story.”

“I’m not very experienced about anything like this,” Vicky began, but Jaeger went on.

“I only want to warn you to look out for some adventurer or other who may try to steal your secret or talk you out of it. If anything like that happens, would you tell me?”

Vicky stared at him for a few seconds before she answered.

“I think you’re a mindreader, Curt. As a matter of fact something did happen.” She looked out of the window rather than at him as she went on, but her entry into Geneva carried none of the glamorous charge that had excited her when she had first arrived in Portugal. She was too preoccupied with worry and indecision about what she was doing to experience any very happy sensations. “It happened last night, while you and I were out for dinner. Somebody broke into my room.”

Jaeger’s eyes narrowed.

“I was afraid of just that sort of thing,” he said gravely. “Did he — the burglar — did he take anything?”

“He took the letter my father wrote me, and—”

Jaeger allowed himself to become agitated.

“Well, did you not report this? Did the police—”

“I have to tell you the rest,” Vicky said evenly. “In the first place, you’ll remember that I’d already cut out the part that mattered from the letter. But the most fantastic thing is, the man who took it came back to see me!”

This time Jaeger did not need to squander any theatrical talents on looking astonished.

“To see you? And you never said a word?”

“He was waiting in my room when you took me home,” she explained. “And he had the nerve to offer to help me.”

“Well, naturally!” Jaeger exploded. “He stole your letter, confirmed that you were after something valuable, and since you had cut out the important part of the letter he had to come back and find out more.”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t tell him anything.”

“Don’t worry?” Jaeger exclaimed incredulously. “You’re lucky to be alive! And you let this criminal go?”

“He wasn’t a criminal,” Vicky retorted with a sudden heat that surprised even her. “In fact, he almost convinced me...”

“You sound as if you’re defending him,” said Jaeger. “Who was he? Or I should say, who did he claim to be?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell anybody — just in case I have to change my mind about him. If I’m going to be an adventuress I’ll have to learn to think like one.”

Jaeger almost glowed visibly with elder-brotherly exasperation.

“How could there be any doubt? If the man had had good intentions of any kind he would scarcely have broken into your room!” He turned in his seat to plead with her earnestly. “Vicky, have I not been a good friend to you? A new one, but one who has not given you the slightest reason to distrust his motives?”

“That’s true,” she said.

“Then you must — you absolutely must tell me who this man is! I know officials here in Geneva who can investigate him. It is utterly foolish for you to expose yourself to this kind of risk, and I won’t stand by and allow it.”

She looked at him with a new kind of fear in her eyes-one related to her own unconventional intentions.

“I don’t want any officials poking their noses into my business,” she said.

“All right,” Jaeger replied more calmly. “They won’t — if you’ll tell me who this man was.”

Vicky thought for a moment and then gave a defeated sigh.

“His name was Simon Templar — the Saint...”

4

Although the Saint’s formidable reputation was strongly in the minds of both Vicky Kinian and Curt Jaeger when their taxi stopped in front of the Portal Hotel, they would probably have experienced something like the supremely invigorating shock of a bucket of ice water on the nape of the neck if they had been aware of his actual physical proximity. Mercifully for their adrenal equilibrium, they were not subjected to this brusque exhilaration; although when they walked into the hotel, Simon was watching from his car only a hundred feet away, and when Curt Jaeger came out alone a few minutes later the Saint was able to take a long unobstructed look at his face before he got into another cab and rode away.

Simon was less impressed by Vicky Kinian’s sharp-featured boyfriend than he was by the hotel she had chosen. Apparently the prospect of future riches had completely subverted her ingrained standards, for from a one-horse elevatorless hostelry in an unpretentious quarter of Lisbon she had seen fit to remove herself to one of the finest examples of solid understated elegance in Geneva. The Portal was directly on the lake, and beyond the braid-draped doorman who stood beneath its crested marquee the Saint could watch the course of sails and speedboats across the calm water.

He did not watch for long, however. Once Curt Jaeger had been carried well out of sight by his taxi, and once Vicky Kinian had had ample time to get herself and her luggage to her room, Simon himself let the doorman usher him into the quiet bronze and gold of the lobby. Within three minutes he had signed for a room and seen his bags carried away to it. Without bothering to inspect his new lodgings more thoroughly, he used a lobby telephone to notify the car-hire agency of his whereabouts, and then went back to the Volkswagen he had rented from them, unfolded a newspaper, and prepared to wait as long as necessary for Vicky Kinian to make her next move. He could only hope that whatever she had to do next involved an actual excursion of some kind on her part, and not some such less detectable form of communication as a phone call. He was also gambling on the probability that she would be too anxious to get on with her quest to sit around the hotel for the remaining few hours of summer daylight.

While Simon waited, and while Vicky unpacked and changed her clothes, a new member of the Kinian caravan was going into underhanded action back at the Geneva airport. The Saint had, in fact, seen him not many minutes before, but he had been no more than a rather ugly face among a great many other unimpressive faces in the terminal building. The only thing which might in any way have made him memorable was his nearness to the bald man with the white Vandyke whiskers just before that dawdling character had made his abrupt departure from the airport; but there had been a host of other people in the same area too, and it would have taken a full-time paranoid to suspect them all.

The new character’s name, for the convenience of our own record, was Mischa Ruspine, and his dour countenance seemed to be suspended limply between two protrusive ears which resembled a pair of not quite identical outsized teacup handles. Sheltering that wholesome and inviting physiognomy was a display of unwashed brown hair that started thin on top, gathered momentum behind his ears, and ended in a thick climactic heap on his coat collar. He was indeed an associate of the persistent eavesdropper in the white Vandyke, and just before that latter party had forsaken the airport terminal he had muttered out of the corner of his mouth:

“The tall man with black hair down by the photograph machine.”

“Hm,” Mischa had confirmed identification.

He had received his instructions earlier, so no further dialogue was necessary. He watched his assignment stroll to the booth of a car rental agency, and managed to stand inconspicuously near enough to overhear most of his conversation with the uniformed counter girl. What he heard convinced him that he could combine pleasure with business by relaxing in the terminal bar and returning to the U-Drive agency later. There was no point in wasting energy and running the risk of losing the Saint in traffic as he followed him, when he could instead wait in comfort and then follow with perfect certainty about where he was going.

So Mischa had sipped his way through two cold lagers, stretching them over thirty minutes, and then had shuffled back to the car rental booth. His normal gait was somehow as dour as his countenance.

“I have something to deliver to a Mr Templar,” he told the girl. “He said you would know what hotel he had gone to.”

The girl looked at him with ingenuous surprise.

“Your timing is very good,” she said. “He just telephoned. He is staying at the Hotel Portal.”

“Merci, mademoiselle.”

“Do you know where that is?”

“Oui, mademoiselle. I do.”

His next stop was at a telephone kiosk near the terminal exit. He dialled a local number and within a few moments heard the voice of the man in the white Vandyke.

“Realite Foto.”

“This is Mischa. I have the information. He hired a car at the airport to drive himself, and then followed the other two when they left.”

His revelation failed to spark enthusiasm at the other end of the line.

“I could have predicted that without leaving you there to watch. But where did they go?”

“Templar has registered at the Portal,” Mischa answered. “Obviously the girl stays there too.”

“Are you sure he did not see you following?”

“I was too smart to follow. He said he would let the car renters know which hotel he chose, so I waited until he phoned them.”

In spite of Mischa’s smug self-satisfaction, the reaction of his superior was still anything but congratulatory.

“Then you can be still smarter and go there prepared to begin following — and at once! What if Templar has already left the hotel? You may never pick him up again. And the girl...”

“Do not worry,” said Mischa. “I am on my way.”

“The thought that you are on your way is most unlikely to relieve my worry. Hurry, and report back when you have something worthwhile to tell me!”

The phone connection clicked abruptly dead, and Mischa turned sulkily from the kiosk and ambled with deliberate slowness out to the airport’s public parking area, then panicked at the thought of possible failure in his assignment and exceeded the speed limit all the way to the Hotel Portal. There, to his immense relief, he saw Simon Templar sitting by the curb in his rented Volkswagen reading a newspaper.

Smugness returned. Mischa parked his car at a safe distance behind the Saint’s and began his own share of what he correctly assumed to be the wait for Vicky Kinian.

It was almost half an hour later when she came out of the hotel and had the doorman call her a taxi. The Saint’s car spat smoke for an instant as its engine caught. Mischa turned the key in his own ignition. The procession set off along some of the less-travelled streets of Geneva, away from the central city.

Mischa, who knew the town well, speculated with each new turn about their ultimate destination. Even so, he was completely surprised when the rear lights of the Saint’s car flashed red as he approached the entrance gate of the International Cemetery. The cab carrying Vicky Kinian pulled over to the curb. The Volkswagen’s brake-lights went off and it whipped on past. For an instant Mischa was undecided, but his orders gave priority to following Simon Templar. As he zipped past the taxi, Vicky Kinian was getting out and walking towards a flower vendor beside the cemetery gate.

The Saint’s car moved on beyond the graveyard, made a U-turn, and stopped just out of sight of the entrance gate. Mischa’s car flew past, made a U-turn, and stopped just out of sight of the Volkswagen’s occupant.

The cemetery was set in a locale which permitted such automotive acrobatics to take place without much danger either of smashups or police intervention. The road was almost unused, and the countryside immediately around the graveyard’s perimeter was a preserve of rocky slopes and evergreens which might have been fifty miles into the Alps instead of on the outskirts of a bustling city.

The cemetery itself was an uncrowded community of quiet stone whose streets were deserted pebbled walks and whose houses were marble sepulchres. Scattered yew trees and ranks of solemn monuments cast long shadows across the grass in the red light of the sinking sun. Following on foot behind the Saint, Mischa could see Vicky Kinian walking uneasily among those shadows, a spray of white flowers clutched like a protective talisman in one of her hands.

She seemed unsure of her course, but after each hesitation she would start out with an air of fresh confidence, as if she had satisfied herself that she was heading in the right direction. It was easy for Mischa to saunter, hands clasped behind him, in the distant background, appearing to admire the herbaceous borders which lined the footpaths. It was obviously less easy for the Saint to make himself inconspicuous, since he, unlike Mischa, was known to the girl. He kept well away from her, using trees and the massive walls of mausoleums as cover for his apparently innocent movements.

Suddenly the girl stopped and then walked forward rapidly until she came to a very large monument set back in a semicircle of shrubs and trees. Mischa, from his faraway vantage point, could not make out the letters carved into the stone above Vicky Kinian’s head, but he could tell that the monument was no ordinary one. It was like a semicircular wall of granite ten feet high and twenty feet or so wide, topped by a great stone eagle with wide drooping wings. The concave front of the structure was faced with a bronze-framed glass door behind which there seemed to be several shelves.

Mischa could observe nothing more from where he had to wait his turn for a closer view. Vicky Kinian stood close against the glass door and studied whatever lay behind it for almost twenty minutes. Several times she looked around to make sure nobody was watching her, and she seemed to be having trouble making some sort of decision. Finally she hastily stooped and dropped her bouquet on to the semicircular stone step that formed a low platform in front of the monument. Then she turned and walked away through the cemetery at a much faster pace than she had used when she had come in.

The Saint did not follow her, so Mischa waited, now moving closer to the big monument, concealing himself behind a conventional tombstone more notable for lavishness of proportion than good taste. Simon Templar, once the girl was completely out of sight, went and stood in front of the glass-fronted memorial himself. In less than two minutes he turned away and strode back toward the cemetery’s gate.

Now Mischa could have his own turn at the Cimetière Internationale’s suddenly most popular landmark. He hurried up to the curved granite structure, gazed dolefully at the doleful face of the carved eagle, and read the lettering which the bird protected with outspread wings.

The words translated themselves automatically in Micha’s mind: Here rest the ashes of free Germans to whom fate denied a return to their Fatherland.

Behind the glass door, which was locked flush against the granite, were four shelves, each bearing a row of ten small metal caskets.

Mischa had no time for meditation on the meaning of it all. He turned again, and by walking fast managed to bring the Saint within his purview near the cemetery gate. There followed another tripartite procession back to the Hotel Portal, where Vicky Kinian and Simon Templar got out of their respective vehicles and went separately into the lobby. Mischa walked to the bar across the street from the Portal and telephoned his supervisor, his voice betraying unmitigated self-approbation.

“I have interesting news,” he said.

“Useful as well as interesting, I hope,” snarled the man at the other end of the line. “Has he been anywhere? Have you lost him?”

“Of course I haven’t lost him!” Mischa said indignantly. “He has just come back to the hotel, and I can see the entrance from where I am. He seemed to tell the doorman that he would be inside only a few minutes.”

“You are a mindreader as well as a hunting dog. Tell me everything Templar did while he was out.”

Mischa described his processional tour of the graveyard.

“This gravestone that they were both looking at,” his bearded superior said with great interest. “Tell me more about it.”

“That is all I know. It was a monument to Germans who died in Switzerland during the war. It is full of ashes.”

“And of what else? Something much more intriguing than ashes, I have no doubt. The girl or Templar will go back for whatever is hidden there as soon as they think it is safe. But you must see that they do not get it.”

“I shall take tools and go as soon as it is dark,” Mischa said.

“Go now!” the other man responded impatiently. “What if somebody should get there before you?”

“I go,” said Mischa with dignity. “But what about the Saint? I cannot watch him also.”

“You concern yourself with whatever is in that shrine,” was the reply. “I shall occupy myself with Mr Templar!”