Now, although she could still have been barely old enough to vote, she had a refined beauty that Goya would have paid to paint. The sheen of the long black hair which swirled across her face when she turned her head, the pout of her lips, the mystery and promise of dark flashing eyes, and a figure that curved in exactly the right places and proportions were as much as any man, artist or not, could have asked for. Perhaps one day the smooth skin would wrinkle and the taut figure would spread, but that would not be for a long time to come.
Simon closed the door and turned.
“Well, well!” His eyes flicked unashamedly over the girl and widened with approval. “I won’t say ‘Haven’t you grown’ — just tell me what happened to the pimply little girl who used to put itching powder in the cassocks.”
Mila smiled.
“I left her behind at the convent.”
“Those poor sisters,” he murmured. “Bernardo told me you were helping at the mission now. I’d hoped to see you but you were out running a soup kitchen or something.”
“Collecting jumble, actually. He told me you’d called.”
Her voice was strained. She stood awkwardly in the centre of the room, nervously fingering her handbag. Simon read the signs and nodded towards a chair.
“Sit down and tell me what’s on your mind. You haven’t dropped in just to chat.”
Mila shook her head. She perched on the edge of the cushion while the Saint lowered himself at a more comfortable angle into the neighbouring chair. She did not speak at once and he allowed her time to collect her thoughts. He could guess that at least part of her reason for visiting him was a result of the previous night’s skylarking, and her first words confirmed his prescience.
“We’ve been robbed. Last night someone broke in and stole a chalice...”
“The one the villagers gave to your uncle for safekeeping?” he enquired innocently.
“Yes, it’s very valuable. Uncle is terribly upset about it.”
“I can imagine.”
The Saint suppressed a smile. He hoped the priest wasn’t hamming it up too much.
“I shouldn’t get too alarmed,” he continued soothingly. “The police are really far cleverer than those writer blokes would have you believe. I’m sure they’ll get it back, though I don’t hold out much hope of them catching the man who took it.”
“But that’s just it,” said Mila despairingly, her eyes shining with tears. “They already have.”
4
It is a testimonial to Simon Templar’s self-control that not even the faintest flicker of reaction crossed his face. His features maintained the same interested but detached expression. But behind the façade it was as if floodgates had opened to release a fresh torrent of questions and problems that threatened temporarily to submerge the ones he was already wrestling with.
“You mean,” he asked in a voice empty of any emotion, “that the police caught the thief who stole the chalice?”
“Yes, I mean no, I mean...” Mila paused, took a breath, and began again. “What I really mean is that they’ve arrested who they think did it. But he didn’t. He couldn’t have done. They’ve got the wrong person.”
Simon regarded her steadily.
“I have a feeling that this conversation is about to get complicated, so before we get entangled in it I think some lubrication is called for.”
He crossed to the drinks cabinet, looked from the array of bottles to the girl, and raised an enquiring eyebrow.
“Coffee?”
She nodded.
“Thank you.”
He handed her a cup.
“What makes you think the constabulary have fingered the wrong collar?” he asked.
“They’ve arrested Taffy, Taffy Owen. But he didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done,” Mila replied, her voice rising in protest.
“So you’ve already said,” Simon remarked calmly. “Let’s get down to basics. First question: who is this Taffy Owen, besides being a son of the valleys?”
“He helps out at the mission. He’s been there just over a year. He got into some trouble at home — Cardiff — and came to London. Uncle found him sleeping rough and brought him back to the mission for the night, and he’s stayed ever since. He was a bit wild at first, it’s true, but he’s settled down now.”
“So Taffy’s a sheep returned to the fold,” the Saint said, and hoped it didn’t sound too cynical. “Question two: how do you know he didn’t do it?”
The query was innocent enough on the surface but there was a dual reason behind it. He already knew the answer, but he needed to know whether Mila did as well. Had Bernardo told her? Her reply was open enough to convince him that her uncle had kept silent.
“It’s just not in his nature,” she explained. “Once, perhaps, but not now. He thinks far too much of Uncle Bernardo, and...” She paused and mumbled the final few words of the sentence: “... and of me.”
Simon’s eyebrows rose only enough to make his point.
“And you of him?”
A blush highlighted her smooth olive cheeks. She continued to avoid his eyes.
“I like him, if that’s what you mean,” she answered at length.
The Saint’s smile lingered thoughtfully.
“It wasn’t all I meant, but we’ll let it pass. So the police have Taffy. Do they also have the chalice?”
The Saint was aware of a slight quickening of his pulse as he waited for her reply, and wasn’t sure whether he was disappointed or relieved when he was told that the chalice had not yet been found.
“I came to you because Uncle Bernardo said you would know what to do,” Mila went on. “He has great trust in you. He said that if anyone could prove Taffy’s innocence you could.”
“You don’t say? I’m touched by his faith in me,” Simon said drily. “Then I mustn’t let him down. Where did they take Taffy?”
“To Vine Street police station.”
“And do you know who’s in charge of the case?”
“An Inspector Peake.”
“Then I’d better go and make him see the error of his ways,” he said with a lightness he was far from feeling. “Tell your uncle I will do everything I can.”
He walked her to Bruton Street and kept the conversation superficial until he could put her in a cab despatched towards St. Jude’s, while he began the short stroll to Vine Street.
“This is the last time I do anyone a favour by robbing them,” he vowed to himself as he contemplated the latest twist of events.
In a shade over twelve hours what had started out as a simple well-intentioned felony had turned into an imbroglio of bedlamic dimensions. Besides having lost the chalice and facing the job of retrieving it, he was now presented with the problem of absolving a third party from having stolen it, without incriminating either himself or Father Bernardo. He could imagine the old priest’s quite unholy glee as he blandly suggested to his niece that she should ask the Saint to help. It was easily the most magnificently brazen piece of buck-passing that could ever have been performed.
Simon wished, not for the first time, that he had opted for the easy solution and just written a cheque he could easily afford and so saved St. Jude’s Mission and himself a lot of trouble.
But was this Taffy character as innocent as Mila and her uncle believed? Certainly he hadn’t taken the chalice from the safe, but it had been stolen twice and someone had to be guilty of the second theft, so why not he?
At Vine Street police station the desk sergeant told him:
“Inspector Peake is at lunch. Can anyone else help Simon shook his head.
“No, I could do with a drink myself.”
As expected, he found the man he wanted, together with some other non-uniformed members of C Division resting his elbows on the counter of the nearest hostelry. He had no difficulty recognising the detective. He regarded it as part of his professionalism to know by sight most of the West End’s officers above the rank of sergeant, but to date Peake had not crossed his path.