Annellatt pursed his lips.
“It could be arranged.”
“Then while you’re at it, it would be better still to have a second set, in totally different names, to fall back on if the first lot get blown and we find ourselves on the lam — should I translate that?”
Annellatt’s brown eyes bubbled momentarily with the impish merriment to which they were disarmingly susceptible.
“For my sins, I have learned some of those expressions,” he said, but made a colloquial German translation.
He turned back to Simon.
“If one can be done, both can be done,” he said. “Anton will take and develop the necessary pictures, at once. They could be ready tonight. But the papers will take a little longer. It may take two days.”
“The Hapsburg Necklace has been around for quite a few years,” said the Saint. “I expect it can hold out for a couple more days, if the moths don’t get to it.”
Max stood up.
“Then make your list, Simon, and you can rely on me to do my part. While I am busy, will you all please regard Schloss Duppelstein as your own home.”
2
Simon Templar, as a natural sybarite, greatly enjoyed the next forty-eight hours. Schloss Duppelstein was run luxuriously. He had a sumptuously furnished bedroom, with a bathroom attached, in the east wing of the Castle overlooking the courtyard. Frankie and Leopold were housed in the west wing. Max’s quarters were in the central section. What delighted the Saint most about his accommodation, however, was the beautiful porcelain stove which stood in the corner of his bedroom and filled it with heat. He considered such stoves to be works of art and regretted that in Austria they were getting rarer as more modern forms of heating took over.
There was only one small cloud on his horizon. Erich was seconded to be Simon’s valet, and the Saint got the impression that his work entailed a bit more snooping and curiosity about the Saint’s affairs and effects than was normally permissible. Still, he reckoned he could deal with Erich firmly enough should the need arise, and he was never one to let such small matters, or the opinions of servants (or anyone else, for that matter) bother him.
Cars and tennis courts were at the disposal of the guests, and the weather was still warm enough to allow hardy individuals a quick dip in the icy, highly ornamented outdoor swimming pool. There were many lovely walks and rides in the hills around the Castle, and Max Annellatt had his own stables, filled with thoroughbreds, which he frankly admitted he could not ride.
Max was kindness itself, and he personally drove Simon, together with Frankie and Leopold, to see some of the sights of the surrounding countryside. His cat came along on the expedition, and even when his master drove, Thai lay on his shoulders like a fur collar. Simon came to the conclusion that the Siamese was the only creature Max really loved, for he treated it with a tenderness he never showed to humans. When they drove into the flat Burgenland to see the tomb of Haydn at Eisenstadt in the extraordinary church built in the shape of a huge rock, but not in a huge rock, Thai wandered off and got lost, and Max was distraught until the cat was discovered in one of the sentry boxes of the nearby Esterhazy Palace. Max joked that as a member of the Siamese Royal Family, Thai had probably been looking for a sentry to salute him, or even for Prince Esterhazy himself.
The following morning, Max left early on his self-imposed errands. Either from tact or malice, he asked Leopold to go with him for company, which the young man could scarcely refuse. A little later, Frankie suggested to Simon that they go for a drive in Leopold’s car.
“I don’t think he’d like that,” Simon demurred.
“Perhaps,” she said carelessly. “But if I tell him it was my idea, he won’t dare to say so.”
They both enjoyed each other’s company and recognised that they shared a certain cavalier attitude to life, and they found it very pleasant to be temporarily free of the jealousies of Leopold, and Max’s somewhat overpowering hospitality. Although Patricia Holm was never far from his thoughts, it was very tempting to accept Frankie’s open readiness for a flirtation. And he would have had no guilty feelings about Patricia, who had never tried to tie him any more than he tied her. He was more wary of feeling guilty about Frankie, who he felt might get in deeper than she intended, if he went too far with her game. For all her independence of spirit, the Saint figured, she was the sort of girl who would take a love affair seriously, and seriousness in such matters can lead to the sort of complications the Saint did not want at that stage of his career.
However, he had no compunction about taking advantage of her ardour to make another attempt to find out from her where the Hapsburg Necklace was hidden in Schloss Este. She was wickedly cagey and enjoyed teasing him with hints while at the same time never giving him a clue as to its whereabouts. She told him her father had told her mother where the Necklace was hidden as he lay dying from a heart attack. Her mother had given the secret to Frankie when the girl came of age. Frankie told Simon all this while they were driving through the Wienerwald in the midst of glorious autumn colours.
He finally changed the subject, to try something else.
“How did you meet up with Max?” he asked. “He’s not your league at all.”
“My what?”
“Your class. He’s not Erstegesellschaft, or even Zweite. In fact, he’s not Gesellschaft at all. He admits it himself. He’s a self-made man, and he’s made a pretty good job of it, but you know how snobby you Austrian aristocrats are.”
“That’s why we adore the British and the Americans. They are the only other people who assume that the entire world was made for them. The Germans think that even if it was made for someone else, they can conquer it. The French think that France was made for them and the rest of the world doesn’t count. The Italians say ‘See Naples and die’ or ‘See Rome and pay.’ They are not even a nation. And so it goes. But the English and Austrian upper classes seem to have sprung from the same womb.”
“But not from the same father. Funnily enough I’ve heard exactly the same piece from some of my other Austrian friends. Do they teach it to you in school?”
For a moment Frankie looked annoyed. Then she burst out laughing.
“Certainly only the English-speakers can be as rude as the Austrians,” she said. “But seriously, we are not nearly so snobby as we used to be. Nowadays we are quite democratic. We mix with all sorts of people.” She gave Simon a mischievous look. “Especially if they have money.”
“Well, Max certainly has that.”
“Yes, he does. He’s very well-known in business indeed in many other circles. I met him at a party given by an Archduke — a very poor Russian archduke.”
“And you liked him straight off?”
She shrugged.
“One can like anyone one needs if one puts one’s mine to it.”
“I don’t think you’re as cynical as you pretend,” Simon said.
“I’m not cynical at all. I’m just a realist. I needed someone like him, powerful and unscrupulous, with the power and influence money brings to help me get the Necklace back. I also knew that he is a strong Royalist. He would like to see the Pretender, young Archduke Otto, back on the throne. He told me himself that he was prepared to use all his power and money in the cause of the Monarchy. And that means that he must be in favour of the aristocracy.” She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “But he is the type who never does anything which he does not consider an investment.”
“And so you told him about the Hapsburg Necklace?”