“That’s Pargit,” Teal whispered in Simon’s ear.
The Saint nodded to acknowledge this unnecessary information, and moved so that he could unobtrusively observe the dealer as he urged his enthralled client to admire a peculiarly bulbous lump of bronze near the window. Mr Teal was inspecting a large surrealist canvas in which snakes and elongated females writhed through a large Swiss cheese, and he was only vaguely aware that the gallery’s entrance door had opened for a moment and closed, then opened again.
“Templar,” he muttered, peering at the strangely inhabited Gruyere, “what do you make of this?”
When he got no reply, he looked round, and Simon Templar was no longer there.
Chapter 4
By the time Chief Inspector Teal noticed that the Saint was no longer beside him, Simon Templar was fifty yards down the street outside. Mr Teal’s first thought was that he had moved into one of the other exhibition rooms. Pargit was still talking to his client not far away. Teal had heard nothing that suggested a hasty departure. He wandered, somewhat disagreeably mystified, farther back along the pathways of paintings.
Simon had left Pargit’s establishment so hastily because of something only he had seen. When the door from the street had opened, letting in a sudden glare of sunlight not admitted by the tinted glass, Teal’s back had been turned, and Pargit and his client had been in such an intent huddle that they did not even look round. Only the Saint had seen the Gainsborough girl open the door and start to step a little hesitantly into the gallery. Only he was placed so that the brilliance of the back-lighting from the afternoon sun did not dissolve the girl’s features, and only he witnessed the swift and total transformation that came over her as soon as she had crossed Cyril Pargit’s threshold. As she started in from the street she had been tentative but poised. Then, as her eyes fell on Pargit and his client, her body froze, she gasped, and Simon saw her pale face flush to a deeper shade. He might not have been observing her so interestedly if she had not been the same girl he had pointed out to Teal outside the shop a few minutes before. As it was, he had very little time to observe her now. Something had shocked her so acutely, or frightened her so badly, that she backed out the doorway before ever letting go of the knob, and hurried away without looking back.
The Saint had no idea what had caused her agitation, but he was drawn to mysteries as naturally as a shark is drawn to a stir on the surface of the sea. If he had been an ordinary person he could have explained her reaction in several theoretical ways that would have made it unnecessary for him to concern himself any further. If he had been an ordinary person who felt that her reaction was extraordinary enough to warrant some attention, he would still have run up against that great protective barrier reef of the human psyche that bears the marker “It’s none of my business.”
But Simon Templar was not an ordinary person. He felt that her behaviour virtually screamed for investigation, and that it was very much his own peculiar, individualistic kind of business.
So before anyone in the gallery area was aware of what he was doing, he had moved across the thick carpet with a casualness that belied his speed, and was once more out in the bright sunshine and heat of the street. There were quite a few people moving in and out of the shops all along the way, and many more just standing looking in the windows. It was the height of the tourist season; American accents at moments outnumbered British. In spite of the crowds, Simon caught a glimpse of that unmistakable blond hair a hundred feet or more away from him. The girl must have been walking very fast, almost running at times. She disappeared round a corner before Simon had come anywhere near her, but when he rounded it she was not ten paces away, just standing with her back to a brick wall beneath a red-and-white-striped awning. Her cupped right hand was pressed to her mouth, and her eyes, if they were seeing anything, must have been focussed on something far beneath the surface of the earth which only she could see.
The Saint slowed his pace as he approached her.
“I can help you,” he said in the kind of voice he might have used to calm a nervous filly.
It took her a few seconds to accept the notion that he was speaking to her, and to realise that his words held something more meaningful for her than the general hubbub of the street. Her head turned so that her large green eyes could meet his, and for a moment he thought she was going to run again. But he could tell that she was more confused and overwrought than really frightened of him, especially out here in the open, where a single cry could have brought a dozen people to her aid.
She did not say anything. She just turned and walked quickly away. But the Saint, with two strides of his long legs, caught up with her and went along at her side.
“I can tell you’re very upset,” he said soothingly, “and I know it must have something to do with the Leonardo Galleries. There are certain things in the Leonardo Galleries that upset me too, and I don’t mean the bad paintings.” He took her arm gently but insistently and steered her away from the middle of the pavement. “Now that we know we have something in common, shall we sit down and decide where to go from here? There’s a nice little café that looks your style.”
She finally managed to reply with somewhat forced indignation: “I really don’t just...”
“Your mother warned you about accepting sweets from strange men?” Simon put in. “I agree with her completely. But I’m not a strange man, and I’m not trying to pick you up. Talk with me for ten minutes, and if you want to drop the whole thing, I won’t follow you. At the moment I’m all business.”
Just before he slipped his fingers from her arm he felt her relax a little.
“Well, what is your business?” she asked. “I don’t really understand.”
“That’s a very long story, but I promise you I’m not a white slaver or any nonsense like that. Let’s have a cup of coffee or something before we go any further into it.”
She allowed him, uncertainly, to seat her in the open at a round table under an umbrella. The Saint got a purely aesthetic enjoyment out of studying his Gainsborough girl at close quarters. He was touched by her yellow summer dress: There was something naive and childlike about it, just as there was about her, quite unlike the sophistication of the women he usually met in London. She was probably so shy because she was so undefended by artifice. Her eyes divided their time mainly between the pink tablecloth and the passing pedestrians, and only occasionally flickered across his face.
Only one thing gave the Saint some doubts about his approach: It might account for her reaction in the Leonardo Galleries if she was romantically involved with Cyril Pargit and had recognised the woman Pargit was talking to as a rival. Into such strict personal matters, Simon Templar would not have gratuitously intruded one centimetre. And yet, in that case she might prove a valuable source of information about the man who was doing her wrong.
“I’m sorry you’ve so obviously had a shock,” he said. “Is there anything I can do to help just at the moment?”
“Do you think I’ve had a shock?”
“Haven’t you?”
“Yes. I suppose I have.” She met his eyes suddenly and looked away. “Are you a policeman or a detective?”