They had first met during the tail-end days of the Spanish Civil War when Franco’s soldiers and agents were rounding up all those who had opposed him. Father Bernardo had been the pastor of a small town in Aragon and from the start had defied the official line of his church and preached in favour of the Republicans. By the time the Falangists marched into the region to mop up the last of the resistance he was already a marked man.
As the Fascists drew nearer, the townspeople begged him to flee but he refused. Only when they implored him to take the children and the treasures of their church to the safety of a nearby monastery did he relent. By the time his mission was completed the town had been occupied and there was no going back. And so he had set out on the long journey into exile.
It was on that road that he had met the Saint and in the few days they had spent together a mutual respect and liking had flowered. Simon Templar’s activities in the madness that was to prove merely a dress rehearsal for a much greater insanity have yet to be chronicled; but for now it must be enough to say that they had shared more than one adventure before Father Bernardo eventually crossed the Pyrenees. But the megalomania of Franco’s principal sponsor had made his stay in France a comparatively short one, and he became a refugee for the second time. In the blitzed wreckage of St. Jude’s he at last found another home.
His first action was to open the crypt as a sanctuary for fellow outcasts. At first they had come from many lands submerged in the world turmoil, but by now most of them had been gradually replaced by the destitute and the rejected of his adopted country.
He refused no one help or shelter, but quickly found that those who were the first to applaud his charity were usually the last to dig into their pockets for the cash to make it possible. One by one the church valuables he had brought with him were sold in order to keep St. Jude’s open. Now only one remained. Which was why Simon Templar was picking the safe lock and Father Bernardo was watching him.
Simon had renewed their acquaintance as soon as he heard that Bernardo had arrived in London, but the nature of his vocation and his constant travelling had resulted in long gaps between meetings. A call at the church the previous day had been the first for nearly a year. His reception had been as warm as always, but it was not long before he had detected the strain beneath the priest’s smile.
The Saint gave a final twist to an instrument resembling an old-fashioned buttonhook and with a triumphant smile turned the handle and opened the door of the safe. Inside, on the single shelf, wrapped in a black velvet cloth, rested the object he sought. He took it out and placed it on the desk before removing the cloth.
It was an intricately engraved silver chalice about ten inches high. Carved in relief around the cup were the Stations of the Cross, while on the cover was depicted the Last Supper. Around the base were set evenly spaced rows of semi-precious stones, and the handles were formed by ornately sculptured golden crucifixes.
“It’s very beautiful,” Simon observed softly.
Father Bernardo sighed.
“Yes, it is beautiful. But beauty will not buy bread or pay for clothes or purchase coal. My people are not concerned with beauty but with survival.”
They had reverted to Spanish, which to the Saint had once been almost another native language.
The old priest’s words were an echo of the conversation that had passed between them the day before and which had led to that night’s activity. Father Bernardo had needed little prompting to tell the Saint his troubles. St. Jude’s had always existed on the borderline between solvency and bankruptcy, but rising costs and a fall in donations had finally combined to push the sanctuary over the edge. Simon’s first reaction to the news had been to reach for his cheque book, but before he could make his offer Father Bernardo had shown him the chalice. He had been unusually bitter.
“Look at it,” he had invited his guest with an impatient, almost angry sweep of his arm. “It is worth a small fortune, a fraction of its value would save St. Jude’s. It is useless to me, yet I cannot sell it.”
In answer to the Saint’s question he had explained that the chalice had been the most prized possession of his church, the richest and most valuable thing in the entire town. It had been given three hundred years ago in gratitude for some service, long since forgotten, that the villagers had rendered to a member of the royal family. But there had been a condition; it must never leave the custody of the priest.
“And so it stayed, beautiful but rarely used, while the villagers lived in poverty. There was never any suggestion that it should be sold, such a thing was unthinkable and still is forbidden,” the priest had complained, and his voice had trembled with suppressed frustration.
“What you might almost call treasure in heaven,” said the Saint.
“It is a very common story. Far too common. Go into any cathedral in almost any Latin country and you will marvel at how magnificent it is, the sculptures and the carvings and the paintings and all the other priceless things. And then go outside and walk a little way and you will marvel again, but this time at the slums and the squalor, at the tenements and the children in ragged clothes and the despair on the faces of those whom poverty has made old before their time. The Church cares for its treasures and it cares if it can for the needy, but rarely is the one used for the other. That is not the way it should be, not the way it was meant to be. The true treasures of the Church are the poor, but the Church holds onto what it has and the poor can only dream of what they have not.”
“And yet you wouldn’t sell the chalice to save St. Jude’s?” Simon had asked, wondering that Father Bernardo would be bound by something which was against his deep convictions.
The priest shook his head sadly.
“I could not, Simon. My people entrusted the chalice and the other church valuables to me when we knew that the Falangists were coming. I feel I have already betrayed them by selling the other things, even for the best of purposes, but they were not actually consecrated. The chalice is in my care under the most sacred vows, until I can take it back.”
The Saint had considered the situation for a while and his immediate solution to the problem was one that the good pastor would not have thought of.
“Supposing,” the Saint had asked conversationally, “supposing it was stolen. Would you keep the insurance money or send it to the people of your town?”
“It is not likely to happen.”
“But if it did,” Simon had persisted.
“Then I expect I would keep the money and use it to maintain St. Jude’s. I should consider it a loan in a good cause, which my people might well approve. And I would pray that one day it might be repaid. But it will never happen.”
Simon had smiled as he watched Father Bernardo rewrap the chalice and put it back in the safe.
“One certain thing in life is that you never know what is going to happen next,” he said.
“I can be sure that what you have suggested will never happen,” said the priest. “You see, the chalice is not insured. I could never afford the premiums.”
For a moment the Saint had been stumped. But only for a moment.
“What then would you do if it was stolen and the thief had a sudden change of heart and sent you the money he got for it?” he asked.