The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots (24 page)

“What about Liskard’s letters?”

“I don’t know. When you asked for them,
and I found
them gone, I
…
kind of lost my
head. I was afraid of what
you might think—because of the blackmail you
were talking
about and everything—so I just said they’d been stolen
too.
But I don’t know. I thought they were there.”

Simon let considerably more credence show on his face
than he felt in his mind.

“Then you obviously had a real theft
here which you
didn’t know about,” he said. “Who could have
taken those
letters?
More importantly, who would have wanted them?”

She got up and paced over to the record
shelf and began
pulling down all the records she had pulled down the
evening
before.

“Maybe they’re here,” she said a
little feverishly. “I’ll find
them if …”

“They’re not,” Simon assured her.
“I’ve already looked.”

She turned back toward the bed and glared at
him.

“You’re a regular sneak, aren’t
you?” she snapped.

“No, I’m an extraordinary sneak. I see
all and know all. So
tell me——did Jeff Peterson take the
letters?”

She looked indignant.

“Jeff? Of course not! Why on earth
should he?”

“Maybe he’s gotten himself into debt too.
Twenty-five
thousand pounds is a nice amount of money for an hour or
so of playing post
office.”

Mary Bannerman looked at him with puzzled
anger and
began to lose control of her temper.

“Twenty-five thousand pounds? I
absolutely do not know
what you are talking about, and I’m not
interested to know.
I happen to be in love with Jeff Peterson, and I’m not
going to have you breaking into my apartment and insulting him.
Go find
the letters yourself, if you’re so full of ideas. But
whatever you do, just
get out!”

Simon did not raise his voice.

“When and what did you tell Jeff
Peterson about Liskard?”

The girl tightened her lips in rage, then
shouted at him:
“None of your damn business! Now get out before I
…”

The Saint was smiling.

“Call the police?” he suggested.
“Good. You can save me
the trouble.”

Her spirit crumpled again, and she looked
hopelessly at
the suitcase.

“You’re not going to tell?” she
asked. “Why?” She moved
closer to him, and her voice was more
pleading than angry.
“Are you so perfect that you can’t let
anybody else get away with anything? What do you care about some old insurance
company’s money?”

The sweet scent of the room was concentrated
in her
clothes and hair and skin, and it was fairly obvious that she
expected
the effect of her proximity to be devastating.

“I don’t care about the insurance
company,” Simon said.
“What I care about is
…”

She ran the tip of one of her fingers along
his lapel.

“Wouldn’t it be more fun to help me spend it than to take
it away from me?” she murmured.

“Much more
…
as soon
as you give me those letters.”

She dropped her arms to her sides.

“I don’t have them, I told you!”

“Then the moment of truth has arrived
for you, darling.”

Without turning his back on her, he began to
repack the
contents of the suitcase.

“What do you mean?” she asked,

“I mean you must find those letters and
give them to me by
ten
o’clock tomorrow morning,” said the Saint. “Otherwise
I’ll arrange a little
t
ê
te-
à
-t
ê
te
between you and the insurance
people. And also with a friend of mine at Scotland
Yard who’s starving for a pinch.”

She followed him to the door, ready to grab
the suitcase,
which he carefully kept just out of her reach.

“I’ve told you I don’t have those
letters!”

“If you don’t, your boyfriend does. So
get them … And if you release those letters to the papers I’ll do worse
than
I’ve already promised.” He stopped and looked at her just
before he
opened the door. “I’m just curious. If you’re after money, why didn’t you
say so in the first place when you threatened Liskard? You might have gotten it
instead of me.”

“I’m not after
anything!”
she
moaned. “I don’t know
anything!”

Simon stepped out into the hall.

“Then how is it you knew I was supposed
to be fast asleep
somewhere at eight o’clock this evening instead of
picking
you up here for dinner?”

It was a strictly rhetorical question, which
was just as
well, since Mary Bannerman was visibly incapable of
answer
ing it—at least in the brief interval before Simon closed the
door
between them and walked away down the hall swinging
the suitcase and
whistling to himself.

That was the last she saw of him for some
time, but he
saw her again very shortly. He almost ran to his car and
then
quickly drove it to a corner which gave him a view
of the block where
she lived. Within ten minutes her small
sports car pulled out
from the curb and headed for the Cromwell Road. Simon stayed within sight of
her without
making himself conspicuous in the moderate traffic.
Within
ten minutes they were on the M
₄
motorway heading west. When
Mary Bannerman reached the Windsor exit she turned
off and took minor
winding roads for several more miles. Twice Simon turned off his lights
briefly, so that she would
be less likely to suspect that the same car
was staying behind
her on that unlikely route of twisting country lanes.

When the sports car turned off into one of
the bordering
fields in what could only be the direction of the river,
Simon
stopped his own car and got out. Along that part of its
wandering
course, about midway between its youth at Oxford
and its maturity in
London, the Thames flows quietly through
small towns and woods and pastures. What
buildings there
are on its banks between the
towns are private and well
spaced,
and there are many miles as rural and serene as they
must have been at the time of William the
Conqueror. Such stretches of the river’s banks are popular with the owners of
small cabin cruisers, who simply make fast a
couple of lines to
the shore and spend
the night.

Apparently such a mobile and secluded
hideaway was being
used by Jeff Peterson and his friends who had
entertained
Simon in the graveyard. The fact that the Saint had heard
the
mention of a boat would have been of no particular im
mediate help if Mary
Bannerman had not been thoughtful
enough to lead him straight to its
current moorings.

The red lights on the rear of her car had
faded and dis
appeared into mists. Now Simon could no longer hear the
sound of
its engine. The only interruption of the silence
was the lowing of a
cow in the pasture through which she
had driven. Then the cow was quiet
again, and Simon moved through the gate and across the uneven soggy ground
toward
the river. The water was so close that he could smell it,
and he
decided it was wisest to stick close beside the fence
which ran that way so
as to be camouflaged by the trees
which grew along it on the edge of the
meadow.

He moved as quietly as his own shadow, and
even so
he disliked the degree to which he had to expose himself.
If
Peterson and his boys were the least bit clever, they would
have a man
posted to watch all approaches to the boat.
So far they had not
shown much sign of all that intelligence,
but if they had begun
to develop some efficiency the Saint
might find himself in trouble.

Ordinarily he would never have approached
the boat so
directly. Ideally, he might have come up to it in another
boat, or crossed over from the other side of the river. But
he fully
expected that Peterson’s first move on hearing from
Mary would be to take
the boat to another spot on the
river as a precautionary measure. The time Simon had in
which to board the floating hideout—where he hoped
to find
not only the blackmailers
but also Liskard’s letters—might be
limited
to the next three or four minutes.

He went on as fast as he dared. He could see
Mary Bannerman’s
small car, and a few feet beyond it, tied alongside
the low
bank, a grayish-looking, medium-sized cruiser with
lights glowing behind
the curtains of its portholes. There were no other cars. Apparently the boat
had been moved
there from another mooring up or down the river after
its occupants had driven to it. Maybe the two from the church
yard were
not there, although it seemed likely they should
have hurried out to
report their failure to Peterson.

There was not much to be gained by mere
speculation.
Between Simon and the boat, separating the pasture from
the tow-path, was a ramshackle
fence put together of wire
and iron posts.
The only inconspicuous way for him to get
through was on his hands and knees. Holding his gun at ready, he dropped
to the ground and started through an
opening
below the last strand of wire.

That was when a voice behind him said:
“Stop there,
Templar, or I’ll blow your head off!”

9

There was no room for argument. The Saint was
not in
a position
to move quickly or even to see behind him. His
main emotion was sheer rage at himself. He had been in a
thousand more dangerous situations, but rarely in
one which
he could blame so
completely on his own carelessness.

“Just hold it there,” the voice
said. Then it rose to a
shout. “Come on, Benson!”

The tall man from the churchyard appeared on
the deck
of the boat and jumped ashore.

“Drop the gun!” he ordered.

Simon obeyed, continued on through the
fence, and stood up. Jeff Peterson came out of the trees carrying a rifle. The
man called
Benson picked up the Saint’s pistol.

“On to the boat,” Peterson said.
“Tie him up.”

The hefty man from the churchyard came up
from the
boat’s cabin, and Mary was with him.

“You’re very observant,” Simon
called to her cheerfully.
“I thought I’d kept out of sight most of
the way.”

“She didn’t need to be observant,”
Peterson said. “Benson
was watching the road.”

Benson’s rough-faced companion grabbed the
Saint’s arm
and shoved him toward the boat. Simon yielded, and then
with a
sudden shift of balance pushed the man with a splash
into the narrow space between the side of
the boat and the
short perpendicular drop of
the bank. Amid the general con
sternation
and cursing, Simon continued obediently—mindful
of the two guns pointed at him—down into the cabin.

“Lie down on your face in the
bunk,” Peterson said.

Simon followed the order, and Benson tied his
hands.

“Now I’ve got no clothes to put on and
what am I going
to do?” bellowed the man the Saint had shoved.
“I’d like to
bash …”

He was coming down the companionway, but the
cabin,
with a bunk on either side, was scarcely large enough for the
four
people who were already in it.

“Never mind, Rogers,” Peterson interrupted. “Go
pace
around up top until you’re dried
out.”

“It’s foggy! It’s freezing! What’ll I
do?”

“Try catching pneumonia,” suggested the Saint.

The man lunged at him, but Peterson pushed
him back.

“Let’s keep our heads,” Peterson
said. “There’s no point
getting this far and then fouling things
up.”