Rolfieri and the Naccaro team were already inside. He could hear the muffled mutter of their voices as he tiptoed down the dark passage towards the front of the house; and presently he stood outside the door of the room where they were. Through the keyhole he was able to take in the scene. Rolfieri, still safely trussed, was sitting in a chair, and the Naccaro brothers were standing over him. The girl Maria was curled up on the settee, smoking a cigarette and displaying a remarkable length of stocking for a betrayed virgin whose honour was at stake. The conversation was in Italian, which was only one language out of the Saint's comprehensive repertoire; and it was illuminating.
"You cannot make me pay," Rolfieri was saying; but his stubbornness could have been more convincing.
"That is true," Naccaro agreed. "I can only point out the disadvantages of not paying. You are in England, where the police would be very glad to see you. Your confederates have already been tried and sentenced, and it would be a mere formality for you to join them. The lightest sentence that any of them received was five years, and they could hardly give you less. If we left you here, and informed the police where to find you, it would not be long before you were in prison yourself. Surely twenty-five thousand pounds is a very small price to pay to avoid that."
Rolfieri stared sullenly at the floor for a while; and then he said: "I will give you ten thousand."
"It will be twenty-five thousand or nothing," said Naccaro. "Come, now—I see you are prepared to be reasonable. Let us have what we ask, and you will be able to leave England again before dark. We will tell that fool Templar that you agreed to our terms without the persuasion of the soap, and that we hurried you to the church before you changed your mind. He will fly you back to San Remo at once, and you will have nothing more to fear."
"I have nothing to fear now," said Rolfieri, as if he was trying to hearten himself. "It would do you no good to hand me over to the police."
"It would punish you for wasting so much of our time and some of our money," put in the girl, in a tone which left no room for doubt that that revenge would be taken in the last resort.
Rolfieri licked his lips and squirmed in the tight ropes which bound him—he was a fat man, and they had a lot to bind. Perhaps the glimpse of his well-fed corporation which that movement gave him made him realise some of the inescapable discomforts of penal servitude to the amateur of good living, for his voice was even more half-hearted when he spoke again.
"I have not so much money in England," he said.
"You have a lot more than that in England," answered the other Naccaro harshly. "It is deposited in the City and Continental Bank under the name of Pierre Fontanne; and we have a cheque on that bank made out ready for you. All we require is your signature and a letter in your own hand instructing the bank to pay cash. Be quick and make up your mind, now—we are losing patience."
It was inevitable that there should be further argument on the subject, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
The cheque was signed and the letter was written; and Domenick Naccaro handed them over to his brother.
"Now you will let me go," said Rolfieri.
"We will let you go when Alessandro returns with the money," said Domenick Naccaro. "Until then, you stay here. Maria will look after you while I go back to the farm and detain Templar."
The Saint did not need to hear any more. He went back to the kitchen with soundless speed, and let himself out of the window by which he had entered. But before he left he picked up a trophy from a shelf over the sink.
Domenick Naccaro reached the farmhouse shortly after him, and found the Saint reading a newspaper.
"Rolfieri has-a marry Maria," he announced triumphantly, and kissed the Saint on both cheeks. "So after all I keep-a da secret of my leedle trick wis-a da soap. But everyting we owe to you, my friend!"
"I guess you do," Simon admitted. "Where are the happy couple?"
"Ha! That is-a da romance. It seems that Signor Rolfieri was always fond of Maria, and when he hear that she have-a da baby, and he see her again—presto! he is in love wis her. So now they go to London to get-a da clothes, queeck, so she can go wis him for da honeymoon. So I tink we drink-a da wine till they come back."
They spent a convivial morning, which Simon Templar would have enjoyed more if caution had not compelled him to tip all his drinks down the back of his chair.
It was half-past one when a car drew up outside, and a somewhat haggard Rolfieri, a jubilant Alessandro Naccaro, and a quietly smiling Maria came in. Domenick jumped up.
"Everything is all right?" he asked.
"Pairfect," beamed Alessandro.
That was as much as the Saint was waiting to hear. He uncoiled himself from his chair and smiled at them all.
"In that case, boys and girls," he drawled, "would you all put up your hands and keep very quiet?"
There was an automatic in his hand; and six eyes stared at it mutely. And then Domenick Naccaro smiled a wavering and watery smile.
"I tink you make-a da joke, no?" he said.
"Sure," murmured the Saint amiably. "I make-a da joke. Just try and get obstreperous, and watch me laugh."
He brought the glowering Alessandro towards him and searched his pockets. There was no real question of anybody getting obstreperous, but the temptation to do so must have been very near when he brought out a sheaf of new banknotes and transferred them one-handed to his own wallet.
"This must seem rather hard-hearted of me," Simon remarked, "but I have to do it. You're a very talented family— if you really are a family—and you must console yourselves with the thought that you fooled me for a whole ten days. When I think how easily you might have fooled me for the rest of the way, it sends cold shivers up and down my spine. Really boys, it was a rather brilliant scheme, and I wish I'd thought of it myself."
"You wait till I see you da next time, you pig," said Domenick churlishly.
"I'll wait," Simon promised him.
He backed discreetly out of the room and out of the house to his car; and they clustered in the doorway to watch him. It was not until he pressed the starter that the fullest realisation dawned upon Signor Rolfieri.
"But what happens to me?" he screamed. "How do I go back to San Remo?"
"I really don't know, Comrade," answered the Saint callously. "Perhaps Domenick will help you again if you give him some more money. Twenty five thousand quid instead of five years' penal servitude was rather a bargain price, anyway."
He let in the clutch gently, and the big car moved forward. But in a yard or two he stopped it again, and felt in one of his pockets. He brought out his souvenir of a certain fortunate kitchen, and lobbed it towards the empurpled Domenick.
"Sorry, brother," he called back over his shoulder. "I for-get-a da soap!"
X
The Loving Brothers
"You never saw a couple of brothers like 'em," said the garrulous Mr. Penwick. "They get enough pleasure out of doing anybody down, but if one of 'em can cheat the other out of anything it's a red-letter day."
Dissension between brothers is unhappily nothing new in the world's history. Jacob and Esau, Cain and Abel, disagreed in a modest way, according to the limitations of their day. Walter and Willie Kinsall, living in times when a mess of pottage has no great bargaining value, disagreed on a much more lavish scale.
Naturally this lavishness of discord was a thing which grew up through the years. It was not achieved at one stroke. When Walter, aged four, realised that Willie, aged two months, was commanding the larger share of his parents' time and attention, and endeavored to brain him with a toy tomahawk, their mutual jealousy was merely embryonic. When Willie, aged seven, discovered that by lying awake at night until after Walter, aged eleven, had gone to sleep, he was able to rifle Walter's pockets of a judicious share of their current collection of sweets, pennies, pieces of string, and elastic bands, his ideas of retaliation were only passing through the experimental stage. But when Walter, aged twenty, found that he was able to imitate the handwriting of Willie, aged sixteen, so well that he succeeded in drawing out of Willie's savings bank account a quantity of money whose disappearance was ever afterwards a mystery, it might be said that their feud was at least within sight of the peaks to which it was destined later to rise.