The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace (21 page)

“And how glad I am to see you,
Anton!” exclaimed
Frankie.

A wood fire was burning in the grate and the
aromatic scent
of scorching resin filled the room, which was comfortably
furnished with a sofa, some armchairs, and a table with chairs
to go with
it. There was no carpet on the floor but the room
was scrupulously
clean and had a cosy appearance. On the far side were two doors, which the
Saint figured probably led to a bedroom and a kitchen respectively. When Simon
asked him,
Anton confirmed that they did.

Frankie sank into one of the armchairs.

“My God, I’m tired,” she said.
“I could sleep for a week.”

She kicked her shoes off and began rubbing
her feet. Leopold went over to the fire and held his hands out to it.

“It is nice to be warm again,” he
said with feeling.

“My master told me to ask you to rest comfortably here
until he sends for you,” said Anton.
“Perhaps you would all
like
some food and drink?”

“You are a mind-reader, Anton,”
beamed the Saint.

The old servant smiled.

“No, sir, just long training.”

He went to a sideboard in a corner and
fetched out a
bottle
of Jaegermeister. Soon its mellow fire was
coursing through
their veins. Anton provided them with a meal of the
ubiquitous
leberwurst,
ham, cheese and black bread, but there was also
some marvellously fresh butter and a cold game pie with
a glazed
golden crust to turn the occasion into a feast. They
ate in silence, concentrating their whole
attention on what
they were doing in the
manner of starving people. Anton tact
fully
withdrew into the kitchen and left them to themselves
and their repast.

Finally Leopold gave a sigh and pushed back
his chair.

“That,” he said, stretching out his legs, “was the
most
beautiful meal I have ever had. It was
almost worth the whole
adventure.”

Frankie looked at him affectionately.

“You are still a child, Leopold. Your
stomach means every
thing to you.”

The youth showed a rare gleam of humour.

“Not everything,” he said with a
grin.

She laughed.

“I love you, Leopold—when you are not
being serious.”

“I am only serious about you,
Frankie,” he said directly.

“Well, you shouldn’t be.” She
seemed anxious to change
the subject but feminine enough not to let it
go too easily.

“Serious, I mean. People who are
serious are usually dull. Is
that not so, Simon?”

“No,” answered the Saint,
expanding his sinewy frame in a
sudden cat-like movement, his arms behind his
head. “I don’t
find them dull at all. The ones I meet are usually quite
seriously
out to get me. They may be a nuisance but they are
not dull.”

Frankie gave him a quizzical look. “I
think you are trying
to be tactful. But if we must be serious,
what do we do now?”

Simon smiled at her. When he was in the
right mood, the
Saint’s smile could be quite an experience for ladies on
the
receiving end.
Frankie blushed, as the personality of this strange man seemed physically to
envelop her. Watching
them, Leopold
fidgeted and did not attempt to conceal his
jealousy.

“I’ll find out from Anton when he expects to hear from
Max,” replied the Saint. “But first,
tell us how you came to be
captured
by the Gestapo.” His tone and manner brooked no
argument. “No more holding out. We’ve waited
for it too
long already.”

She met his challenging gaze with bland
composure.

“I arranged it.”

Leopold sat straight up in his chair.

“You did
what?”

“I wanted them to capture me. In fact, I
wasn’t really cap
tured
at all. I just walked up to the guards at the outer gate
and told them who I was. They telephoned the
Castle and
they were kind enough to
send a whole squad of soldiers to es
cort me. The Germans are always
very respectful when it
comes to dealing
with people of title.”

The Saint nodded approvingly.

“That was a very good touch. What better
way of getting
into the Castle than to get your enemies actually to
compel
you to go in.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“But what good did you think that was
going to do?”
protested Leopold. “Surely you couldn’t have
imagined that
they would let you wander about unguarded? You must have
known they
would put you straight into a dungeon.”

Her smile mocked him.

“I did——and they did just that.”

He flushed angrily.

“Then you are a complete idiot—
eine
dumme Gans!
It is
typical of you. You go through life thinking
people will
always come along and pull you out of whatever mess you
get
into.”

“Which is just what you both did,”
Frankie said sweetly.

Leopold stuttered with rage.

“You … you
…
are
totally irresponsible! You don’t
mind what trouble you cause to others just as
long as you get
your way. We might have been captured or even
killed!”

Frankie wafted a smile in the Saint’s
direction. “Do you
agree?”

Simon nodded.

“He’s dead right, but you’re pretty
enough to get away with
it.”

She was obviously pleased with the
compliment, especially
as it came from him. In spite of that, she
shook her head.

“But I am not so irresponsible as you
both think.”

“No?” The Saint’s eyebrows were
raised satirically.

“No, no!” she reiterated, her eyes
wide with excitement
that she was finding it harder and harder to
suppress.

“Oh no?” sneered Leopold. “All you’ve done is to
put the
Germans in Schloss Este on their
guard, nearly get us killed,
and turn
us into fugitives. I tell you, I am not used to this sort
of thing and I don’t like it unless there is a
good reason for it.
What you hoped
to achieve I can’t imagine.”

“This!” she said proudly, flinging
back the shawl from her
neck and shoulders.

The jewels in the Hapsburg Necklace flashed
and glinted
on her bosom with a brilliance that made them seem alive.

3

Leopold could only gape at her.

The Saint exhaled a breath of utter joy and
delight.

“Very neat,” he remarked.
“And very dramatic too. You’d
make a sensational actress and an
even better producer. Your
sense of timing is perfect.”

“But
…
but…” stammered Leopold. “Where
…
how
… how
did you get it?”

Her smile was wicked.

“I just went straight to the place where
it was.”

“You couldn’t have. They put you into a dungeon. You
told us so yourself! “

“Exactly.”

“All right then, how did you get
out?”

She was like a cat playing with an irritated
mouse, Simon
thought. He was amused by the quaintness of his simile.
He
gave Frankie a conspiratorial wink.

“I got her out,” he told the
frustrated young man.

“I know that!” exploded Leopold.
“I mean how did she get
out before you came along?”

“I didn’t,” Frankie said demurely.

Leopold stamped his foot furiously.

“Stop playing games! This is a serious
business, and you
have caused enough trouble already without trying to
turn it
all into a joke.”

“I think,” murmured Simon,
“that you’d better come
clean, Frankie, before your cousin has a
seizure.”

The girl’s smile made a bond between them.

“He really should be intelligent enough
to guess. You have,
haven’t you, Simon?”

He nodded.

“But I’m an old rogue, much versed in the ways of the
wicked, even when they are beautiful girls.”

She turned to Leopold.

“You really are a stupid idiot,”
she said unkindly but without
malice. “Do you mean to tell me that
you’ve no idea?”

“I am no longer playing your
game,” he said sullenly.

“Leopold, stop behaving like a spoilt
child.”

“I think,” interjected the Saint, “that he wouldn’t
mind if you were to thank him for all the trouble he went to to get
you out of the Castle.”

Frankie jumped up and flung her arms around
Leopold and
kissed him.

“Thank you, thank you,
mein Schatz!
I
am very naughty,
but I am truly grateful, and you were very brave.”

Leopold went a brick red, but he could not help being
honest.

“It was not all me,” he said,
glancing over at Simon.

Frankie triumphantly took up a position in
front of the
fire.

“All right then, I’ll tell you.”

“You do just that,” the Saint
pursued her sardonically.

Frankie was enjoying her moment of glory,
which she had
been looking forward to.

“It’s really so simple if you just
think about it. As I have already
told you, I got into the Castle by
letting myself be captured
—quite deliberately. To do something that
dangerous I
must have had a really important objective. In fact, I
must
have known not only where the Necklace was hidden but also
that I should be able to get at
it from where I was certain to
finish
up.”

Her cousin’s eyes widened and his jaw hung
open.

“You don’t mean—?”

“Precisely.” She rippled the
Necklace with her hand so that
it burned even more scintillatingly, and
then hid its glories
once more with her kerchief. “In the
dungeon.”

“So,” Simon prompted, “by
walking into a trap you were
sure of getting the cheese.”

“Except that I am not a mouse.” She
flashed him a smile.

“Yes, I knew that my father had hidden
it in the dungeon.
On
his deathbed he told my mother exactly where. It was
under a small flagstone in one corner. He put it there because
he
thought that the dungeon would be the one part of the Castle where no one would
ever go, because most people think of dungeons as being totally outmoded and
useless.”
She made a wry face.
“That is, most civilized people do. But nowadays the Germans have some
rather oldfashioned ideas.”

“Tyranny is the oldest form of
government,” Simon ob
served. “That it happens to be one of
the newest as well,
merely brings it up to date and sets us all back a few
cen
turies.”

“But,” argued Leopold, “how
did you think you were going
to get out again?”

“Oh, I would have got out even if you
had not come after
me,” she stated airily.

“Really? And how did your clever little
mind tell you you were going to accomplish that?”

She shrugged.

“I am a woman. The Kommandant there was
a man.” Her
sophistication
had a touch of malice. “He had already made
that fact quite clear to me. What is more, he was not only a
man but a snob. Oh yes, I should have got out all
right.”

“You would have degraded yourself and
our family?” Leo
pold’s face was a study.

“In England they call it ‘letting down
the side,’ ” Simon
drawled. “That’s because everything is a
sport there. But you
know, you really were being a bit
scatterbrained.”

Her look was defiant.

“Why? I tell you, I should have got
out.”

“Yes, dear old Countess and
femme
fatale,”
responded the
Saint affably. “And Leopold and I might
have got in—and
stayed in. There’d be no point in
our
trying to
seduce the
Kommandant … although I must admit you never know
with
Prussian military types. It’s probably all that leather and
boots
that gets them.”