When the Saint moved, he went straight into the dressing alcove which led off the bedroom, and silently opened the first of the doors of a row of wardrobe closets. And there it was, arrogantly undisguised — a medium sized but massive steel cube that would have been a major problem to cart away and a total impossibility to break open without considerable uproar.
The Saint had encountered — not to say opened — a good many safes in his time; but in this case he had secured what a purist might have called an unfair advantage. He examined the lock and the bunch of keys in his hand, selected one to try, reached forward... and hesitated.
Could the safe be connected to the alarm system? Simon was mentally kicking himself for having neglected to put it out of action before he started on the burglary expedition. But having got that far, it was not in his temperament to turn back. He steeled himself for the jangling of alarm bells, held his breath, and opened the safe.
There was no sound from the machined and well-oiled hinges as the heavy door swung open; and the Saint’s long and controlled exhalation of breath that followed was less audible still.
He reached inside the safe and quickly found and extracted the codebook. He flicked through its pages by the fine beam of the pencil torch, only enough to be sure that it was what he wanted, and then in an amazingly short space of seconds he had relocked the safe, shut the wardrobe, put the keys back on Patroclos’ bedside table and crept out as silently as he had arrived.
8
Back in his own room, the Saint stopped only long enough to seal the codebook in one of the envelopes thoughtfully provided by the secretaire for the convenience of guests who might be seized by an urge to communicate with the outside world, and to pull on his socks. His shoes, for the time being, he preferred to carry, as he found his way down to the ground floor.
Burglar alarms, as a safe general rule, are designed to detect or deter the unwelcome would-be guest who is outside and trying to get in. To anyone who is inside and wanting to get out they constitute only the most minor of nuisances.
Simon stood on a chair to reach the alarm mechanism, which was prominently in view above the front door, and took die simple course of switching it off. Then he replaced the chair and let himself quietly out, leaving the front door on the latch.
The Hirondel was still parked around the corner in Bruton Street, where he had left it the night before. He headed west, and stopped at his mews house to make a phone call to Athens, where he left a brief message. Then he drove out on Cromwell Road, making for the airport.
He was somewhere near Hounslow when his keenly tuned antennae for such matters told him that the big headlights in his rear-view mirror were showing rather more than chance persistence. Few drivers cared to keep pace for long with Simon Templar just for the hell of it; and yet he had no doubt that the same headlights had maintained their position behind him for at least five miles. The Saint had registered their presence from the first; or rather, some idle circuit in his subconscious mind, part of the automatic pilot that was so indispensable to a modern buccaneer, had registered them and had then monitored them moment by moment as he drove until their continued presence began to seem noteworthy, whereupon the appropriate signal had surfaced. Only then did he become conscious of the phenomenon and begin to consider what it might imply.
He slowed abruptly, stepping hard on the brake, and watched in the mirror as the car behind bore down rapidly for a few seconds and then dropped back to its original distance. He speeded up again, and the other car kept pace. And the Saint smiled, hearing the battle trumpets begin to sing in his ears as of old.
Even at its closest the car had been too far behind for him to identify the model. But he guessed that it must be a big car, perhaps a Rolls — or a Bentley.
The Saint’s mouth tightened into the fighting lines which had heralded defeat for so many of his adversaries in the past. There were many questions still to be answered, but he knew now with an ice-crisp certainty that there was more to this particular game than he had supposed. The option was there, he knew, to leave it gracefully, but because the Saint was what he was, he knew he could never have done anything but play it out move by move to the final checkmate, or thrust by thrust to the last clash of steel against steel.
He drove on in a mood of fresh thoughtfulness, with the light of battle in his eyes mingling with an amazed conjecture. And before he reached the airport he had laughed aloud, slapped the steering-wheel with both hands, and shaken his head in sheer helpless disbelief.
At the airport he went to the Parnassian Airways desk and handed the sleepy girl on night duty a small manilla envelope addressed FOR THE PERSONAL ATTENTION OF D. PATROCLOS, ATHENS.
“This is very urgent,” he stressed. “I’ve telephoned for it to be collected from Athens airport.”
The girl examined the envelope.
“Of course. Mr Patroclos. A very important man. Our own — our own big boss-man. I will see that it goes by the next plane.”
“Thanks. And would you see that your people at the other end notify Mr Patroclos’ office as soon as the package arrives there?” It didn’t surprise the Saint to see that the car which had been following was no longer in evidence during the drive back to Patroclos’ house in Berkeley Square. He let himself in through the front door, making no particular attempt at silence, and reset the alarm more from neatness than a sense of necessity.
From his room he could see the street at the front of the house; and after a few minutes, as he had expected a silver Bentley glided to a halt. Out of it stepped Patroclos Two.
Simon heard him enter almost soundlessly by the front door, presumably after somehow disconnecting the alarm from outside. He had only been in view for a few seconds, but that was long enough for Simon to see the confirmation he was looking for.
Patroclos Two was carrying a small manilla envelope.
9
“What do you mean — how do I know?” snapped Patroclos Two down the telephone. “It is here in the newspaper. What for do I pay you thousands when I can buy a paper for pennies, hah?”
Patroclos Two was surrounded by newspapers, mail, and breakfast things; Ariadne Two sat nearby taking shorthand notes. They both looked up as the Saint, fresh and relaxed but poised for trouble, was ushered in by Bainter the valet.
Ariadne Two nodded a preoccupied greeting. Patroclos Two held the phone receiver briefly aside and bared his teeth in a mechanical smile.
“Good morning, Templar. I trust you slept well. Help yourself from the sideboard. And pour me some more coffee.”
And Patroclos Two returned to the phone.
The Saint murmured an equally casual greeting and attended to the coffee. The tycoon or his substitute’s manner gave no hint that anything at all untoward had taken place during the night, and for one instant Simon wondered half-seriously if he could have dreamt the entire episode. And yet he knew that it had happened — that he had seen clearly, with his own two eyes, Patroclos Two returning about half-past four in the morning with what could only have been the codebook.
Obviously he must have recovered it from the Parnassian Airways girl at the airport — an undertaking that would have been easy enough for the man who, certainly as far as she knew or could tell, was ultimately her employer, and to whom the package was addressed. Simon could well imagine how the scene might have gone: unseen eyes had almost certainly watched as he handed in the envelope; and after that Patroclos Two need only have happened to walk by the Parnassian desk and the girl would be sure to recognise him and mention the package, which he would promptly have claimed there and then, with perhaps a remark to the effect that his presence in London was being kept quiet for business reasons.