Saint Errant (9 page)

Wendel suddenly stiffened into stillness.

“I was wondering how to bring pearls into it.”

“Did you ever hear that wine would dissolve pearls?” asked the Saint. “If you collected these items, you’d have read about how the decadent Roman emperors, in their lush moments, would dissolve pearls in the banquet wine, just to prove that money was no object. And then there’s a story about Cleopatra’s big party to Caesar, when she offered him wine with her own hands, and dropped a priceless pearl in his goblet. Now if you knew-“

“What I want to know,” Wendel said, “is how much you’re interested in Lady Offchurch’s pearls.”

The Saint sighed.

“You’re such a materialist,” he complained. “I arrive in New Orleans an innocent and happy tourist, and I’ve hardly checked into a hotel when you burst in on me, flashing your badge and demanding to know what the hell I want in town. I do my best to convince you that I’m only here to soak up the atmosphere of your historic city and incidentally absorb some of your superb cooking with it. I even persuade you to have dinner with me and get this epicurean picnic off to a good start. We are just starting to relax and enjoy ourselves, with poetic excursions into history and legend, when suspicion rears its ugly head again and you practically accuse me of planning to swipe some wretched dowager’s jewels.”

“I’ll go further than that,” Wendel rasped, with the raw edges of uncertainty in his voice. “I’m wondering what made you choose this place to eat in.”

“It seemed like a good idea.”

“It wasn’t because you expected Lady Offchurch to choose it too.”

“Of course not.”

“So it’s just a coincidence that she happens to be here.”

Simon raised unhurried eyebrows.

“Behind you, on your left,” Wendel said, trap-mouthed.

The Saint drank some wine, put down his glass, and looked casually over his shoulder.

He did not need to have Lady Offchurch more specifically pointed out to him, for her picture had been in the papers not long before, and the story with it was the sort of thing that made him remember faces. The late Lord Offchurch had, until his recent demise, been the British Government’s official “adviser” to a certain maharajah, and this maharajah had be stowed upon the departing widow, as a trivial token of his esteem, a necklace of matched pink pearls valued at a mere $100,000. Lady Offchurch had provided good copy on this to receptive reporters in Hollywood, where she had been suitably entertained by the English Colony on what was supposed to be her way “home.” She had also expressed her concern over the fate of an Independent India, abandoned to the self-government of a mob of natives which even the most altruistic efforts of the British raj had been unable in two centuries of rule to lift above the level of a herd of cattle-except, of course, for such distinguished types as the dear maharajah.

She was a thin, bony, tight-lipped woman with a face like a well-bred horse, and Simon could construct the rest of her character without an interview. There was no need even to look at her for long; and as a matter of fact, he didn’t.

What kept his head turned for quite a few seconds more than identification called for was Lady Offchurch’s companion -a girl half her age, with golden hair and gray eyes and a face that must have launched a thousand cliches.

“Well?” Lieutenant Wendel’s voice intruded harshly, and Simon turned back.

“Beautiful,” he said.

“Yeah,” Wendel said. “For a hundred grand, they should be.”

“Oh, the pearls,” Simon said innocently. “I didn’t notice. I was talking about her daughter.”

Wendel squinted past him.

“She doesn’t have a daughter. I guess that’s just a friend. Maybe came with her from Hollywood-she’s pretty enough.” His eyes snapped back to Simon with a scowl. “Now quit tryin’ to head me off again. When I read this Offchurch was in town, I naturally start wondering if any big operators have checked in about the same time. I’m a lazy guy, see, and it’s a lot easier to stop something happening than try to catch a crook after he’s done it. … And the first register I go through, I see your name.”

“Which proves I must be up to something, because if I wasn’t planning a Saint job I’d obviously use an alias.”

“It wouldn’t be out of line with the kind of nerve I hear you’ve got.”

“Thank you.”

“So I’m tellin’ you. I’m having Lady Offchurch watched twenty-four hours a day, and if my men ever see you hanging around they’ll throw you in the can. And if those pearls ever show up missing, whether anybody saw you or not, you better be ready with all the answers.”

Simon Templar smiled, and it was like the kindling of a light in his keen, dark, reckless face. His blue eyes danced with an audacity that only belonged with cloaks and swords.

“Now you’re really making it sound interesting.”

Wendel’s face reddened.

“Yeah? Well, I’m warning you.”

“You’re tempting me. I wish policemen wouldn’t keep doing that.” Simon beckoned a waiter. “Coffee-and how about some crépes Suzette?”

The detective bunched his napkin on the table.

“No, thank you. Let me have my check-separately.”

“But I invited you.”

“I can take care of myself, Saint. I hope you can too. Just don’t forget, you had your warning.”

“I won’t forget,” said the Saint softly.

He lighted a cigarette after the police officer had gone, and thoughtfully stirred sugar into his coffee.

He was not affronted by Wendel’s ungraciousness-that sort of reaction was almost conventional, and he hadn’t exactly exerted himself to avoid it. But it was a pity, he thought, that so many policemen in their most earnest efforts to avert trouble were prone to throw down challenges which no self-respecting picaroon could ignore. Because it happened to be perfectly true that the Saint had entered New Orleans without a single design upon Lady Offchurch or her pearls; and if it was inept of the law to draw his attention to them, it was even more tactless to combine the reminder with what virtually amounted to a dare.

Even so (the Saint assured himself), his fundamental strength and nobility of character might still have been able to resist the provocation if Destiny hadn’t thrown in the girl with the golden hair… .

He didn’t look at her again until Lady Offchurch passed his table, on her way to the special conveniences of the restaurant; and then he turned again and met the gray eyes squarely and timelessly.

The girl looked back at him, and her face was as smooth and translucent as the maharajah’s pearls, and as brilliantly expressionless.

Then she lowered her eyes to a book of matches in front of her, and wrote inside the cover with a pencil from her bag.

The Saint’s gaze left her again, and didn’t even return when a passing waiter placed a match booklet somewhat ostentatiously in front of him.

He opened the cover and read:
27 Bienville Apts.

St Ann Street
at 10:30
Lady Offchurch was returning to her table. Simon Templar paid his check, put the matches in his pocket, and strolled out to pass the time at the Absinthe House.

This was the way things happened to him, and he couldn’t fight against fate.

So after a while he was strolling down St Ann Street, until he found the Bienville. He went through an archway into a cobble-stoned courtyard, and there even more than in the narrow streets of the Vieux Carré it was like dropping back into another century, where cloaks and swords had a place. Around him, like a stage setting, was a chiaroscuro of dim lights and magnolia and wrought-iron balconies that seemed to have been planned for romantic and slightly illicit assignations, and he could make no complaint about the appropriateness of his invitation.

He found an outside stairway that led up to a door beside which a lantern hung over the number 27, and she opened the door before he touched the knocker.

He couldn’t help the trace of mockery in his bow as he said: “Good evening.”

“Good evening,” she said calmly, and walked back across the living room. The front door opened straight into it. There were glasses and bottles on a sideboard in the dining alcove across the room. As she went there she said: “What would you like to drink?”

“Brandy, I think, for this occasion,” he said.

She brought it to him in a tulip glass, and he sniffed and sipped analytically.

“Robin, isn’t it?” he remarked. “I remember-you had a natural taste.” His eyes ran up and down her slender shape with the same candid analysis. “I guess there’s only one thing you’ve changed. In Montreal, you were pretending to be Judith Northwade. What name are you using here?”

“Jeannine Roger. It happens to be my own.”

“A good name, anyway. Does it also belong to the last man I saw you with?”

For an instant she was almost puzzled.

“Oh, him. My God, no.”

“Then he isn’t lurking in the next room, waiting to cut loose with a sawed-off shotgun.”

“I haven’t seen him for months, and I couldn’t care less if it was years.”

Simon tasted his brandy again, even more carefully.

“Then-are you relying on some subtle Oriental poison, straight from the pharmacopoeia of Sherlock Holmes?”

“No.”

“This gets even more interesting. In Montreal-“

“In Montreal, I tried to pull a fast one on you.”

“To be exact, you set me up to pull a job for you, and I was damn nearly the sucker who fell for it.”

“Only instead of that you made a sucker out of me.”

“And now all of a sudden I’m forgiven?”

She shrugged.

“How can I squawk? I started the double-cross, so how can I kick if it backfired? So now we’re even.”

Simon sat on the arm of a chair.

“This is almost fascinating,” he said. “So you sent me that invitation so we could kiss again and be friends?”

A faint flush touched her cheekbones.

“When you saw me with Lady Offchurch, I knew I’d have to deal with you sooner or later. Why kid myself? So I thought I’d get it over with.”

“You thought I was after the same boodle.”

“If you weren’t before, you would be now.”

“Well, what’s the proposition?”

“Why don’t we really team up this time?”

Simon put a cigarette in his mouth and struck a match.

“It’s a nice idea,” he said. “However, you may be overlooking something. How do you see the split?”

“Fifty-fifty, of course.”

“That’s the trouble.”

“That’s how it has to be. You can’t turn it down. If you can louse me up, I can do the same to you.”

The Saint smiled.

“That isn’t the point. You’re forgetting something. Remember when you were the damsel in distress, and I was all set up to be the knight in shining armor? You had the right idea then.”

“You hijacked me,” she said sultrily, “like any other crook.”

“But I didn’t keep the spoils, like any other crook,” he said imperturbably. “I found out how much Northwade had underpaid that young inventor, and I sent him the difference- anonymously. Minus, of course, my ten-per-cent commission,”

She was not quite incredulous.

“I’ve heard stories like that about you, but I didn’t believe them.”

“They happen to be true. Call me crazy, but that’s my racket… . Now in this case, It seems to me that most of the value of that necklace ought to go back to the poor bloody Indians who were sweated by the maharajah to pay for it while the British Government, as represented by Lord and Lady Off-church, were benevolently sipping tea in the palace. So if you helped, I might let you have another ten per cent for yourself; but that’s all. And you can’t turn it down. Don’t forget-if you can louse me up, I can do the same to you.”

She sat down in another chair and looked upwards at him under lowered brows, and her gray eyes had the darkness of storm clouds.

“You certainly make it tough-stranger,” she said, and her smile was thin.

“Can’t I sell you a good cause, just once?”

“I think your cause stinks, but I have to buy it. You don’t give me any choice. Damn you.”

The Saint laughed. He crossed to her and held out his hand.

“Okay, Jeannine.”

She put her cool fingers firmly in his; and he knew, he knew quite surely, that the handshake was as false as the way her eyes cleared. The certainty was so real that it was a fleeting chill inside him, and he knew that now they were committed to a duel in which no tricks could be ruled out. But his gaze matched hers for frankness and straightforwardness, and he said: “Well now, pardner, let’s know what track you were on.”

“I was on the Coast when she arrived. I was working out on a producer. He took me to a party that she was at. I knew I couldn’t risk her in Hollywood, but I found out that New Orleans was the first place she wanted to stop over in on her way East. So right away this was my home town. I took the next plane here and got hold of this apartment, and don’t ask how. Then I wired her the address and said I was sorry I’d been called away suddenly but she must look me up and let me show her the town. Then I spent my time with a guide book finding out what to show her.”

“As an inspirational worker, it’s an honor to know you,” Simon murmured approvingly. “Of course, you can’t belong to an old Creole family, because you can’t introduce her around. So what are you-an artist?”

“A writer. I’m getting material for a novel.”

“Which the producer was interested in.”

“Exactly.”

“And how did you figure the job?”

She was silent for a few moments, her eyes turned to a corner but not looking at anything.

“I’ve been able to get the necklace in my hands long enough to count the pearls while I was admiring them, and take a wax impression of one of them for size. I’m having an imitation made in New York. As soon as it gets here, I’ve only got to make the switch.”

Simon showed his respect.

“You can write scripts for me, any time,” he said.

“Now tell me your angle,” she responded.

“Darling, I never had one.”

She stared.

“What?”

“I didn’t even know La Offchurch was here, until that guy I was having dinner with pointed her out and practically dared me to steal her necklace. He just happens to be the local Gestapo.”