Soho is a place of restaurants where in one street the aromas of paella, bouillabaisse, goulash, and lasagne ride the air along with the music of half a dozen different tongues. Most of all it is a place of people who provide proof that different creeds and complexions can exist peacefully side by side.
But there is also a darker, more dangerous undercurrent. Before the first immigrants arrived, Soho was already established as the red light district of London. The houses of pleasure which Victorian gentlemen patronised had long since disappeared and been replaced by streetwalkers and their more discreet sisters who plied their trade via carefully worded advertisements in news agents’ windows. The vice trade has spawned every type of crime and breed of criminal, from those selling pictures that would make a Port Said pedlar blush to those who deal in the death that comes from a syringe. Violence and danger lie very close to the surface and invest Soho with an excitement that is found nowhere else in London.
East of Wardour Street, the Saint zigzagged through smaller lanes in the direction of Soho Square, and as he did so drew a pair of thin black leather gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. On another side street, he stopped and appeared to consider the menu displayed in the window of an Italian restaurant that stood on the corner of a cobbled alley. And then he was gone.
The shadows cast by the walls of the buildings each side of the narrow entrance enveloped him immediately. The operation was carried out so slickly that anyone only a few steps behind would have missed it in the time it took them to blink. Had any of his neighbours who earlier might have wondered at his change of clothes been following, the reason for the switch now became obvious. It is very rarely completely dark in a city in the way it often is in the country. Even if the night is starless the light from windows and the glow of street lamps keeps the blackness at bay and replaces it with an ever shifting variety of deep blues and purples and a hundred shades of grey. In such a situation a man dressed in black can stand out almost as distinctly as one in white, but the combination of subdued colours the Saint had chosen blended perfectly with his surroundings.
The alley led into a small courtyard where the squares of light from the windows of the buildings that formed its perimeter laid an irregular checkerboard of yellow and black across the flagstones. Simon kept close to the walls and moved slowly and cautiously until he reached the building immediately opposite the entrance.
He stopped there to take from his pocket a length of string already knotted to form a circle. Looped through the handle of the violin case, over his head and under one arm, it became a sling which suspended the case behind his shoulders and left his hands free.
He was at the rear of a four-storey house, and beside it, so close that a man could not have walked between them, was a square tower topped by a spire and what remained of one wall of the church it had once dominated. A donation from the Luftwaffe had put a permanent end to its services. The roof was gone, and the windows in the tower and wall had been boarded up. Two giant props rose from the interior to support the tower, one side of which seemed to consist more of boards and tarpaulin sheets than of stone.
Simon placed both hands around the drainpipe on the tower end of the house, braced his feet against the brickwork, and began to climb. As he scaled the wall he paid a silent tribute to the Victorian builder’s love of exterior plumbing and wide window ledges that enabled him, despite the slipperiness of the wet metal and smooth stone, to reach his goal as quickly and easily as if he had brought a ladder.
The only difficulty arose when he reached the top-floor window and had to hold onto the pipe with one hand while he took a roll of sticky tape from his pocket and crisscrossed it on the glass. That operation completed, he leaned outward and brought the flat of his forearm against the pane. It shuddered arid cracked with the first blow, and the second shattered it and sent it into the room without the noise of cascading glass.
He swung himself onto the window ledge, grabbed the top half of the sash window, and used it as a support as he slid into the room. Only after he had drawn the heavy curtains and paused to listen for any indication that his entrance had been heard did he take a small flashlight from his pocket. Silver foil had been stuck over the glass so that just a needle-thin stream of light escaped but it was enough to show him the general layout of the room and pinpoint the safe in the corner.
He crossed and knelt before the safe, unhitching the violin case and putting it down. From inside his jacket he took a soft leather roll, untied it, and spread it out on the floor beside him. The Saint was very proud of that rolclass="underline" it contained a collection of precision instruments, many made to his own design, that would have earned instant promotion for any policeman fortunate enough to find them on him. He inspected the lock of the safe and then extracted the tool required. With the torch between his teeth so that its light was focused steadily on the lock, he went to work.
The lock was complex and included a triple lever mechanism that made it a problem even for someone of his experience. He concentrated intently on the delicate probing and turning of the instrument gripped tightly between his thumb and forefinger, his ears straining to pick up the whisper of a click that would tell him the first stage was over. When it came he allowed himself the luxury of a brief pause while he took a deep steadying breath. He returned to work but had barely begun when a noise on the landing outside made him stop.
It was followed by the sound every burglar dreads. The handle rattled, a key grated in the lock, and the door behind him started to open.
2
He spun around, every nerve and sinew taut, ready to attack or defend on the instant.
The door swung fully open to reveal a lone figure on the threshold. Simon stayed motionless and waited. The man stepped into the study and raised his hand to the light switch.
Simon blinked at the sudden brilliance as the man walked casually to within a few feet and stood looking down at him. Delving deep into the pocket of his robe, the man produced a key and held it out to him.
“Puedo ayudarte?”
Simon sat back on his haunches and waited for the adrenalin to dissolve and his muscles to relax before replying.
When he did speak, it was in an urgent whisper:
“Father Bernardo, for heaven’s sake! I’m supposed to be robbing you!”
The priest smiled.
“For heaven’s sake? No. For pity’s sake? Yes,” he said in a gentle voice which bore only the faintest trace of an accent.
The Saint sighed in exasperation as he stood up.
“For whosever sake it is, especially for my sake, let me get on with the burglary.”
“I am sorry, I did not think you would come so soon.”
“Next time I’ll hang a notice outside and you can charge admission. If you’re going to stay, don’t interrupt.”
“Dispénsame, I will not bother you again,” the priest promised, in such a contrite tone that the Saint could not help smiling.
He had robbed many people in the course of his criminal career, but never had he dealt with such a helpful and willing victim. He switched off the now superfluous torch and returned his attention to the intricacies of the lock. The priest sat quietly and calmly on the far side of the room and watched.
Father Bernardo looked older and frailer than his sixty years. The voluminous folds of his cassock highlighted his thinness, and his sparse white hair added to the overall effect of making him seem smaller and weaker than he was. Despite the gauntness of a face that had once been more than passably handsome, the eyes still sparkled with kindness and good humour, and there were the lines of many smiles at the corners of his mouth. But Simon knew that the image of a genial, fragile old man was deceptive and that the priest possessed reserves of strength and stamina that a man twenty years his junior might have envied.