The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace (3 page)

He need not have worried. The cat lay on its
owner’s
shoulders like a fur collar. It looked like a particularly valu
able
specimen of its kind.

The man saw Simon at once and made for his
table. He
was short, stocky and balding, with somewhat flabby
features,
a flat nose, and merry brown eyes. His age could have
been
anywhere between forty-five and sixty. He wore a green loden
coat and a
black Tyrolean hat, which he removed as he came
through the door.

“Ach,” he called out to Simon, coming over and holding
out his hand. “It is good to see you, my
friend Anonymous.”

Simon got up and shook the extended hand.

“Is this table all right for you?”
he asked.

“Excellent. There is no one within
earshot.”

“That’s why I chose it,” said Simon
as they seated them
selves. “What will you have to drink?”

“Six brandies. But this is my party.
What are you drink
ing?”

“I’ll stick to
Barack,
thank
you—just one!” Simon said.

The waiter evidently knew the Saint’s
companion, for with
out question or comment he brought along a tray on which
were six
brandy glasses, each with a double measure of golden
. liquid in it, and
a liqueur glass containing Simon’s drink. He bowed and departed, a handsome tip
clutched in his hand.

“Here’s to you, Simon said, raising his
glass.

“Prost!”
said the
other, draining the first of his brandies at
a gulp. “By the
way, please excuse that Radio Paris busi
ness. It is a means
of letting me know who is calling.”

“I don’t quite see how.”

“My friends who know my methods simply
go right ahead
and talk. Strangers apologise and hang up.”

“And you never take calls from
strangers?”

“Not late at night. That’s when I do
most of my business. I
only use this trick in the evening. It
didn’t work with you
because you are a witty man, and I like to be
amused.”

His cat slipped down off his shoulders and
licked the inside
of his empty glass. Its owner stroked its ears
affectionately. “You had better look out, Thai, or you’ll become a
drunkard
like your papa.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, do you
always have six bran
dies at the same time?”

“Usually.”

“Wouldn’t it be more convenient just to
order a bottle and pour your own?”’

The other laughed. “Ah, but that would
be the sign of the
confirmed alcoholic. This way I know exactly how much I
have had
to drink.” He tossed off another brandy.

Simon warmed to the man. He had a certain
infectious gai
ety which was cheering, especially in a Vienna which was
stark with the tensions and gloomy forebodings of the time.
“I
take it you’re not married,” he said.

“No, I’m not, but why do you say
so?”

“Married men don’t wear cats,” said
the Saint. “Their
wives won’t let them.”

His vis-à-vis tossed down his third brandy.
“My name is Max
Annellatt—with two ‘n’s, two ‘l’s and two ‘t’s. Are you still
shy about telling me yours?”

“Not at all, now that I’ve met you. It’s Taylor, Stephen
Taylor. I’m in the oil business.”

Herr Annellatt nodded.

“A very good business too in these
times. You can’t fight a war without oil.” He gave Simon a shrewd look.
“If you are smart both sides will end up buying it from you.”

“You think it will come to war,
then?”

The other shrugged.

“Eventually it always comes to war, and
we lose everything we have gained by making the machines to wage it. Then we
have to
start getting rich all over again. It is unfortunate, but
it is also
a fact of life. In 1922 I was broke. I literally did not
have
enough to buy food. Now I am a millionaire—in your
currency!” He
suddenly turned serious. “Now tell me, what
do you know about
Frankie?”

“I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get around to
that.”

Annellatt laughed.

“Everything in Austria takes a long
time, including living—
and therefore dying!”

When Simon had finished his tale, Annellatt
whistled.

“It looks bad but we will cope with
it.” He stubbed out his
cigar. “Anyway, thank you very much, Mr
…
er
…
Taylor.
You can
forget about the whole thing now.”

Simon was piqued by this bland dismissal, but he only
smiled lazily.

“Perhaps I ought to go to the
police.”

The other gave him a sharp look.

“Where would that get you? If they
thought there was anything in your story, all they could do would be to get in
touch
with me, and I would say I had never heard of Frankie.” He
caressed Thai’s attenuated ears. Animal and master both wore
the same
expression of calm self-assurance. “Believe me, Mr
Taylor, it is better for
Frankie if I keep both the police and
you
out of this business.”

The Saint did not see why this cool customer should have
everything his own way. He could be pretty cool,
even arc
tic, himself. Besides, he
was curious to learn more about Max
Annellatt
and the situation in which he himself had become
involved.

“As a matter of fact, I imagine you
probably wouldn’t be
too keen yourself on the police nosing into
your affairs,” he remarked pleasantly.

There was a long pause. Max’s eyes reminded
Simon of the
glacial snows on the mountains above Innsbruck. They had
that same
quality of cold blue timeless menace, as if their
owner had existed
since the dawn of history. Well, in a sense
he had. Every
generation has its quota of Max Annellatts.
In his own way, the
Saint was one of them. The thought
amused him. It also pleased him. He
liked dealing with peo
ple of his own calibre, and Max looked like
measuring up to
this.

Annellatt suddenly gave Simon a brilliant
and charming
smile.

“All right, what do you want to know? I
should have
thought you would have realised by now that the less you
do
know the better it will be for you.”

“Well, for a start you can tell me if I’m breaking the law
by not going to the police. I don’t really care,
but I am inter
ested.”

The other shook his head.

“No, because the police would never be
able to prove that a
crime has been committed.” He shot Simon
a knowing look.
“I also am a good judge of men. I have to be in my
business—
in fact in order to stay alive. My intuition tells me
that
perhaps you too would not want the police making enquiries
about you,
Mr er… Taylor?”

Simon erupted into laughter. He was genuinely
delighted. In his lonely and dangerous life he was seldom able to find such
instant rapport as he had achieved with Max Annellatt
They were two of a
kind.

It remained to be seen whether they were
equal in quality. Simon felt sure he knew the answer to that one. But he was
always pleased to meet a really formidable opponent, espe
cially a
likeable one. He rarely got a chance to stretch his own
powers to
the full, and even less frequently against someone
he admired. Perhaps
one day he would lose to someone like
Max Annellatt and like it, just as he
had almost lost to Crown
Prince Rudolf in the same country some years
before. It had
been a near thing, and the Saint had liked Rudolf even
when
they were doing their best to kill each other. He felt the stir
rings of
the same sort of appreciation for Max.

“Anyway,” Max continued, “you
will have the comfort of knowing that you have helped a young woman in
difficulties
and perhaps even saved her life. Believe me, matters can
be
left safely in my hands.”

“What sort of difficulties?”
inquired the Saint. “They must be pretty big to involve kidnapping.”

“I cannot tell you that without your
getting involved; And
for your sake, to say nothing of Frankie’s, I
cannot allow that.”

The Saint shrugged. There was obviously no
point in argu
ing or probing further. But what Herr Annellatt did not
know
was that the Saint was going to get involved anyway. His dander was up
and he was not going to be fobbed off. The
Saint had never in his life settled for
the role of pawn. A
knight, or a rook (spelt
with a silent “c”?) perhaps, but never
a pawn.

But he would get involved in his own way and
in his own
time. He got up to go.

“Well, thanks for nothing, but I’ve
enjoyed it.”

Herr Annellatt clasped Simon’s hand warmly.

“Goodbye, my friend. I am so sorry you
had all this bother.
But do not worry, the girl will be all
right.”

Simon looked back over his shoulder as he
went through
the door. Max was finishing his last brandy. The cat was
back on his shoulders. Its eyes momentarily caught Simon’s.

The Saint could have sworn that Thai winked
at him.

3

The Hotel Hofer was one of the new
commercial hotels, still
blessedly rare, which the burghers of Vienna
considered to be
in tune with the times.

Hotels in Vienna, for the most part, have
always been
noted for their old-world charm. Guests in them were
treated as if they were Hapsburgian nobility, which made the Aus
trian
aristocrats feel at home and foreigners that they were ex
periencing
something of a culture other, and possibly higher,
than their own.

In the new commercial hotels, however,
guests were treated like the travelling salesmen most of them were. The
emphasis
was less on politeness than on efficiency. Viennese
efficiency
being what it has always been, the guests were the losers
all
round and were neither made to feel at home nor welcomed
with the
deference due to honoured clients. They were, in
fact, as far as
possible ignored by management and staff, who
were in the grip of
that most pathetic fallacy of the twentieth
century, namely that
efficiency means less work and less cour
tesy.

The night clerk at the Hotel Hofer appeared
to be completely disinterested in his job.and indeed in life itself. But
then,
Simon decided, being a night clerk must be rather like
being in limbo and
living in a half-world of demi-reality and
semi-emotions.

The clerk just managed to summon up enough
energy to
fumble in the pigeonhole for the key to Simon’s room. It
was
not there, and the clerk suggested bitterly, as if this was the last
straw in a stack of irritations, that it must have been left in the door. Simon
abandoned him to his subtle reproaches
and went up in the
lift, which was one of that strange Conti
nental variety that
can be said only to go upwards, since they
return immediately to
the ground floor without being able to
stop at any stations
en route. Simon could never understand
why. Perhaps the
theory behind them was that even someone
with a weak heart or
a gamey leg should, with typical Aus
trian reasoning, walk downstairs for
the exercise.

His key was in his door. He turned it
cautiously, for of one
thing he was certain: he had not left it
there. Some chamber
maid or other hotel employee might have done so, although
this was unlikely since chambermaids had master keys, and
there
would be no legitimate reason for anyone else to enter
his room, using
Simon’s key to do so.

He opened the door inch by inch. The bedside
light was
on. From where he stood in the passage he could see the
body on his bed.

It was a girl. Simon recognised her
immediately. Her name
was “Frankie.” Or perhaps it had
been up to now. Her arm
hung limply down the side of the bed—and
lifelessly.