The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace (14 page)

“Dinner,” said the Saint
succinctly. “An army marches on
its stomach, as Napoleon was always
telling me.”

“But we have not the time to
waste—”

“We can’t find a way into the Schloss
in the dark. And we
can’t creep around looking for one with flashlights,
unless we
want someone to hose us down with a machine gun. And
even if we
were only challenged, I don’t think we could con
vince anyone that
agricultural engineers work at night. We’ll have to wait for the crack of
dawn.” Simon was cutting slices
of bread and capping them with slices
of sausage, and he proffered one to Leopold on the point of his knife.
“Mean
while, this’ll be something less to lug around.”

They had a surprisingly pleasant meal and
were hungry
enough for the liverwurst, cheese and hunks of bread to
taste
like food fit for kings—or at any rate monarchs on the run.
They
drank most of the wine, and to his delight the Saint dis
covered
that the label on the other bottle declared it to con
tain Delamain cognac.
“Nothing but the best,” murmured
the Saint appreciatively, and poured them
each a noggin in
the glasses which Max had
not forgotten to pack, but had
thriftily
not chosen from his finest crystal.

After which, he took the Gladstone bag for a
pillow and
stretched himself out as comfortably as he could on the
bare
floor,

“Switch off the chandelier when you
settle down, and save the electricity bill,” he said, and closed the eyes.

Even after the light went out Leopold could
be heard mov
ing restlessly and unhappily, until the Saint, with his
amazing
capability of controlled relaxation, drifted away into peaceful
slumber.

The built-in alarm clock which was another
of the Saint’s mental gifts awakened him within what his luminous watch
hands told
him was only minutes of the hour for which he
had set it. The hut was still dark, but
there was just enough
light outside to limn
the crack underneath the rickety door.

He was cold and stiff but quite pleased with
life. This was
the sort of expedition which compensated for the boring
in
terludes when there was no excitement, no danger, and no fun and games.
That such dull periods were not all that
frequent, nor of
great duration, in the Saint’s life, made no
difference. They did
come along occasionally and that was too
often as far as he
was concerned.

He roused the snoring Leopold, who must have
dropped off
eventually, if only from exhaustion and the wine and
brandy,
and the young man sat up in sudden alarm. “
Wo
sind
Wir?”
he gasped, his eyes still glazed with sleep.
“The
Hotel Sacher,” Simon replied cheerily, and handed Le
opold a
staling crust. “Room service coming up.”
They made a swift meal
of the rest of the sausage and c
heese and wine, discarding the glasses and
the empty wine b
ottle along with the bag in which they had been carried;
but the
Saint stowed the remaining brandy in his workman’s satchel. Delamain ‘14 was
too good to chuck away. Then he
opened the door of the shed cautiously.

Staying well in the shadows, they both
peered out into the
new day.

The sight which met their eyes would have
been well suited to
a travel poster. Two ridges of low tree-clad hills
converged.
Between them lay a small valley where nestled the hamlet
of Este, which consisted of a few high-gabled cottages clustering around a
large baroque church with an onion-shaped spire.

The village, however, was not what held their
attention. A
bove
it, set on a sheer stone cliff and perched like an eagle on
its nesting place, was the Castle.

Even under such tense circumstances, Simon appreciated it
s beauty. The towering fa
ç
ade, shining white plaster on massive
stone walls, rose storey upon storey. It was
surmounted by
a red-tiled roof, and behind this the immense medieval
keep tower loomed, its battlements gnashing at the
sky.

But not being tourists, they could not linger
just to appreci
ate the view. They had to get up to that castle without
being
seen, and, what was more, they had somehow to get into it. Looking at
its vast unwelcoming frontage, this last enterprise
would have disheartened most men. That two
unwanted
strangers could penetrate such an
imposing stronghold would
have struck
the average surveyor as a frivolous pipe dream. But
Simon Templar was not average in the least
degree, and his whole life was dedicated to making just such fantasies come
true.
Motioning
Leopold to follow him, he made off quickly
across the area of small vegetable garden allotments in which
their overnight shelter was one of a number of
similar sheds.
The villagers of Este
evidently practised some form of com
munal
farming in the small amount of arable land available.
This often occurred in the hinterlands of Central
Europe,
especially when the land was
owned by a single landlord and
rented
out to tenant farmers. The Saint judged that there was
no danger of minefields so far away from the
surrounding
barbed wire perimeter
defences, and he only hoped that whatever sentries were on duty there at that
hour would be looking
outwards from
the enclave and not inwards. He headed for
the left-hand hills rather than the right, for up against the lat
ter was a huddle of new-looking wooden huts which
probably
housed part of the military
garrison.

It was only a matter of minutes before they had reached
the shelter of the woods, and they then set their
course to
wards the Castle. The going
was easy, for on the continent of
Europe forests are an industry and are
kept clear of un
dergrowth.

The sun was now well up and was beginning to
warm even the inner regions of the woods. A few late butterflies danced,
madly
amid bracken as if they knew they were performing a
last waltz before
winter and death overtook them, and warm woody scents began to fill the air.

Their passage, though easy, was slowed down
by the fact
that
they had to try not to be seen. But even so, it was not
long before they came to an opening in the trees where some
time
ago the face of a cliff had fallen down the side of the
hill. The jagged rocks of this fall presented quite an obstacle.
For one thing they were steeply stacked, jumbled
and in some
cases as jagged as
dragon’s teeth. For another they were
clearly visible from the entire
valley below and especially
from the road
which ran along the foot of the rock fall and up
to the Castle gate.

This hazard would have to be crossed as
quickly as possible
and they would have to trust to luck that no one saw them
from the
valley or came along the road while the traverse was
being made.

Simon moved out into the open with Leopold
following.
The young man seemed at last to have tacitly accepted the
Saint’s leadership, or at least recognised his superior competence in
this kind of activity. They squirmed Indian-fashion between the rocks on their
bellies, only rising when a particu
larly large obstacle forced them to.
The farther they got out into the open the more they could see of the road and
con
versely the more chance there was of their being spotted.

Suddenly a hoarse shout of command made them
both
duck down behind a large rock. Peeping cautiously around it
they saw
a small detachment of German soldiers marching up
the road towards the
Castle.

The Saint was surprised. Hungary, though
sympathetically
inclined towards Hitler’s regime, was not then officially
in the
German orbit, and Admiral Horthy still managed to preserve
autocratic
rule in his own country. It must have gone against
his grain and the feelings of many of his
colleagues to be
forced to allow the Gestapo
to take over Schloss Este. And
these
German troops implied much more. Max was obviously
right. The Castle was garrisoned by the
Wehrmacht.
That
was going to make entry
even more difficult.

Then Simon saw that the troops were guarding
a prisoner,
who walked along proudly, head up, in their midst.
Leopold
saw too, and gave an involuntary gasp. The Saint stilled him
with a
gesture.

The prisoner was Frankie.

IV

How Simon
Templar
changed
costume, and

a Reichsmarshal was deprived of transport

1

Frankie marched along briskly, looking every
inch the aristo
crat in spite of the peasant costume she wore. She had
dropped
the scarf from her head, and her raven hair glistened
in the sun like a
black plume. Then she and her guards
vanished around a bend in the road,

Leopold was white-faced and shaking.

“They have captured her!” he
whispered hoarsely.

“Could be,” agreed the Saint.
“On the other hand, it’s her
easiest way into the Castle.”

“What do you mean?”

“Simply, that if you arrive at the
village of Este, or even at
the gates of the compound, and let it be
known that you are
the
Countess Malffy and the real owner of the Castle, the
guards are bound to pay attention to you. They’d be neglect
ing their duty if they failed to take you up to
the Comman
dant for
questioning.”

“You mean, she did it on purpose?”

The Saint nodded.

“Knowing your cousin, it’s on the cards.
She’s clever
enough and daring enough—I’d almost say mad enough—to
think it up
and perhaps even get away with it.”

“But she is captured. No one can save
her now. They know she has the secret of the Necklace, and the Gestapo stop at
nothing.”

“Since she thought this up, she must
have a plan to save
herself,” said the Saint optimistically. “That
is, after she’s got the Necklace.”

“I’m going to rescue her,” declared
Leopold, struggling to
his feet.

Simon pulled him down again.

“It won’t help if somebody sees you. Anyway, you can’t
take on a whole squad of soldiers
single-handed.”

The young man was almost beside himself with
emotion.

“What better way to die?”

“As somebody once remarked,” Simon
said patiently, “the
only trouble with death is that it is a
permanent occupation.
Wouldn’t you be more useful alive?”

“Not so long as Frankie is in
danger,” replied Leopold,
somewhat obscurely.

“I don’t think she’s in any actual danger at the moment. If I
were the Commandant I’d find out what the higher-ups
wanted me to do, and in German bureaucracy that means
that the higher-ups will want to find out what
their
superiors
think, and so on and so
forth. That sort of thing takes time.”

His words struck home.

“You are right,” Leopold agreed.
“But what can we do?”

“Well, to begin with, we can try to let
Frankie know that
we’re around.”

“I know.” Leopold’s eyes lit up.
“I’ll go back to the village.
She must have friends there. Someone
will be able to get a
message to her.”

“Not on your nelly you won’t. They’d get
a message
straight to the Commandant. If that village doesn’t have
its quota of collaborators, I’m a bishop.”

“What can we do then?”

The Saint stretched himself like a great
lithe animal, but
keeping well down behind the rock.

“You wait here. I’ll go and
recce.”

“But what if you are captured?”

The Saint grinned.