The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots (6 page)

“And then you came to live in
France?” he said. “You’ve
led quite a cosmopolitan life.”

“I’ve never really lived here for
long,” she said. “I suffer
from
Wanderlust,
you might say. In fact I have every
in
tention of taking my money when I’ve
sold these paintings
and going to
California and building myself a gorgeous house
and living like a movie star … and marrying for love.”

“Like a movie star?” said the Saint
cynically.

She smiled and went to the door.

“Would you care for some sherry before
dinner? It’s all
we have. The supply of alcohol is rather limited. It’s a
strange
feeling, living on nothing but appearances one day and ex
pecting
millions the next.”

Simon said he would like the sherry. When his
hostess
came back with it, after a delay caused by starting a leg of
lamb
roasting in the oven, she found him inspecting the
sliding bookcase—which was not sliding,
but still in place.

“Clever,” he said. “I assume you press one of the
shelves
to open it?”

Annabella handed him a bottle of Dry Sack,
and put
down the two glasses she carried.

“You are interested in carpentry?”
she asked, arching an
eyebrow.

“Was it one of your father’s hobbies?”
the Saint countered,
uncorking the bottle and pouring for both of
them.

He left the shelves and sat down near the
woman on the
sofa. She looked beautiful and he liked her—and for
those
reasons among others he had no intention of swiping her
paintings
and keeping all the loot for himself, although of
course he did
anticipate a reasonable material reward for the
troubles he had
already gone through as well as those he
probably still had in
store.

“I don’t know who built it,” she
said. “I know very little
about my father, really.”

“And the paintings?”

“Even less. My father was from an aristocratic family.
Before the war they were rich and owned property
in many
countries. This house, for example, had been in the family for
several generations. During the war, things fell apart.
These paintings, as I understand it, had been in the family
for a
long time. To my father, they were not an investment
—a way of making money. They were a trust. He made
certain they were hidden before he went to fight
the Com
munists. Then he told me as he
saw the war was going to
be lost, he
was afraid that the Communists very possibly
would take over Austria and Italy, and of course would con
fiscate
private property. He sent instructions for the paint
ings to be taken out through the Alps to Switzerland by his
sister. Then, as I told you, he was captured by
the Russians
and held for years. When
he came back, his sister was dead.
He
didn’t tell me the details, but somehow he located the
paintings. He did not want to sell them, but when
he died this
year he told me they
were all he had to leave me, that I
would
find them here in this house, and that I should sell
them with no publicity to a reputable dealer.”

The Saint sipped his sherry meditatively.
Annabella Lam
brini seemed genuinely moved as she told the end of her
story.
She had lowered her eyes, and now she sat without speaking.

“Don’t feel you’re smashing up the family tradition,” he
said. “Three Leonardos and a Titian or
two thrown in are
quite a
bit for any woman to live with. I think
LeGrand is
your best bet, unless you can
afford a mansion and a small
private
army.”

She raised her eyes and looked at him with a
new expres
sion.

“I think you are the only army I need,
or want,” she
said.

“And I’ve never had a pleasanter job of
guard duty,” the
Saint replied.

He raised his glass, and she raised hers,
and the crystal
bubbles touched with the sound of tiny bells, and Simon
wondered if he believed a single word of what she had told
him.
  

5

There were no disturbances that night.
Whoever was after Annabella Lambrini’s little cache of masterpieces had ap
parently
given up trying to take them by storm, at least
for the time being.
By nine-thirty in the morning the Lambrini
household was a
picture of commonplace and cozy
normality. A completely recovered Hans Kraus was out in
the gravel driveway washing the Mercedes with hose
and
chamois, and Simon and Annabella were polishing off the
last of eggs, rolls, jam, and coffee in the
bright dining room.
The Saint looked out through the large window at the
chauffeur moving around the streaming black car and re
leased a contented sigh.

“I must have been born with royal blood
in my veins,”
he said. “There’s nothing that gives me a greater
sense of
well-being than sitting at a late breakfast with a
beautiful
woman and watching other people work.”

Annabella smiled. She was not only visibly
excited about
the fortune the day was supposed to bring her; she
seemed
absolutely radiant compared with the tense tired state she
had been in
the evening before.

“After this morning I won’t let Hans
work,” she said
happily. “He deserves to retire.”

“Are you sure he wants to? Some people
thrive on hard
labor.”

“I can’t imagine it.”

The Saint chuckled.

“Neither can I. It makes me think of a
prison sentence.”
He looked at his watch. “When is it
you’re going to legally
raid the banks of France?”

“LeGrand said he would be here with his friend at ten-
thirty. Maybe we should put the paintings out for
him to
see.”

“They are still there, aren’t they?”

She laughed.

“I’ve checked three times already.
They’re quite safe.”

Before Simon heard or saw a car approaching
the house
he noticed through the window that Hans Kraus had paused
in his polishing and was peering down the driveway toward
the road.

“I think he’s here,” he said,
getting up from the table.
“Or somebody.”

Annabella was fidgeting like a schoolgirl
before her first
dance.

“Don’t tease me. Or somebody, indeed! It
will be him.
It has to be him!”

It was LeGrand. The Saint recognized his
dark-bearded
head as a frog-nosed blue Citro
ë
n crunched to a halt near
the Mercedes. There
was no one else with him in the car.
Annabella Lambrini almost ran for the
front door. Outside,
Hans Kraus, looking fiercely protective, had
taken up a posi
tion by the front steps as if preparing to repel boarders.

Still making his way at a fairly leisurely
rate toward the
entrance hall, Simon heard Annabella exclaiming in
French
as she opened the door to LeGrand.

“Oh, I am so glad to see you,
monsieur!
Come in, please.
Did you have trouble finding my house?”

“Blind intuition would have led me
here, I am sure,” LeGrand said elegantly. “What a great day this is
for both of
us,
n’est-ce pas?”

“Vraiment, monsieur, vraiment!”

Simon joined the enthusiastic pair in the
hallway, greeted
LeGrand and shook hands with him.

“What a surprise!” LeGrand blurted.
Then he covered his
surprise smoothly. “I had no idea that you two
charming
people would have become friends
…
so
…”

“So early in the morning?” Annabella
said archly.

Marcel LeGrand only shrugged and smiled.

“If it were not for Monsieur Templar I
would probably
not be here this morning to meet you,” Annabella
told him.
“And neither would my paintings.”

LeGrand looked shocked, and the woman gave
him a de
tailed account of what had happened after she had left
his
gallery the
afternoon before.

“These men: you have seen nothing more
of them since
yesterday evening?” LeGrand asked nervously.

“No,” she answered, darting a fond
look at the Saint.
“I think that when they discovered I was not alone
here
with my
chauffeur—who is no longer strong enough at his
age to be much protection—they gave up their ideas of rob
bing me.”

LeGrand was stroking his beard thoughtfully.
“Assuming
their object was robbery,” he said.

The three of them were standing in the big
front living
room now, and Annabella offered them chairs. LeGrand sat
down
along with the Saint and his hostess and then bobbed up again and began to pace
the floor after her next question.

“What other object could they have?”
she asked.

“I can think only of the police,”
LeGrand answered. “This
Inspector Mathieu who called on me so
inopportunely yester
day. Perhaps he and his fellow bureaucratic
bloodhounds are going to desperate lengths to pry into your business.
Such things have been known to
happen—unofficially.”

“Even if that were believable,”
Annabella said—“why?”

LeGrand turned from his pacing and faced
her, his stubby
legs apart. It was a way of standing which suggested that
he needed to assure a firm support for a torso that clearly
showed
the cumulative result of several decades of rich cook
ing.

“Do we need to be surprised at anything a government
does?” he asked with sudden passion.
“Is there any privacy
left
anywhere today? When we move from our beds they take an interest!”

The Saint had relaxed totally in his softly
upholstered
chair. He brought the long fingers of both his hands
together
against his lips as LeGrand spoke, and then lowered them.

“But still,” he intervened
politely, “wouldn’t these be
rather peculiar cops? Your deal with
Mademoiselle Lambrini has to be legal. A man of your reputation can’t afford
under-
the-counter games. You pay your taxes, I’m sure—or
enough
of them,
at least. And Mademoiselle Lambrini tells me that
the paintings have
been in her family’s hands—legally—for many years. That hardly seems to call
for special investiga
tions.”

“Maybe they do not have your trusting
nature,” Annabella
said.

LeGrand, still standing at the center of the
room, sud
denly clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly.

“What use is it to speculate about
this?” he said. “We have more important things to do.”

“Certainly,
monsieur,”
Annabella
replied eagerly. “It is
time for the unveiling.”

She got to her feet and went to the bookshelf
beside the
fireplace.

“Clever,” LeGrand said with a
giggle of pure nervous
anticipation when she pressed the release
mechanism and
opened the secret compartment in the wall.

Then he froze, his eyes glittering, biting
his furry underlip as he waited for Simon and Annabella to uncover the paintings.
They removed the cloth covering and stepped back to
show the first
Leonardo da Vinci.

The art dealer’s first audible reaction was a
prolonged,
awed, “Ahhh …” He hurried forward and fell
down on his
knees in front of the painting, gazing at it with hungrily
darting eyes from two or three feet away.

“Oh, exquisite. Magnificent. It is not
only real, real Leonardo, but good Leonardo.
Great
Leonardo.”

He heaved himself back on to his feet and
looked at
Annabella, who was smiling joyously.

“You are rich,
mademoiselle.
This
alone will bring …
well, I don’t know how much!”