Frankie flashed him a scathing glance.
“Even when poor Leopold may be dying and Anton is dead you try to turn everything into a joke. Have you no heart?”
The Saint stepped over to Anton, knelt down and felt the old servant’s pulse.
“It’s no joke about him,” he said sombrely. “He must have died instantly. That trigger-happy gorilla must have thought the old boy was coming to our rescue. That’s the trouble with these amateur hatchet men, or torpedoes as they’re called in America. They often shoot first and hang later. I find I like that pair less and less every time I meet them. Perhaps we’ll see to it that the next time is the last,” he added grimly.
He crossed over to examine Leopold’s shoulder.
“Not fatal,” he announced shortly. “Luckily the bullet went clean through, and you don’t have any vital organs up there unless you’re built most peculiarly.” He turned to Frankie. “I hate to ask you, but do you have any more underwear to spare? I mean, you must be getting down to bare essentials. But if you had a piece of... er... something...?”
Frankie tore a strip off her last petticoat and tried ineffectually to bind up Leopold’s wound. The boy gave a yelp of pain, and Frankie turned pleadingly back to Simon.
“All right,” said the Saint easily. “Let Matron do it. In the Regiment they used to call me Florence the Nightlight, and strong soldiers wept in gratitude for my tender ministrations. At least, I think that’s what they were crying about. Of course, they might have just been biting on an onion. They did that a lot in those days.”
As he chatted nonsensically the Saint was efficiently and swiftly binding up Leopold’s shoulder.
“There you are, sonny boy,” he said when he had finished, “that’ll do for the time being. See your local doctor when you get home and just remember to use your other arm when swinging from trees or hugging your girlfriend — or both. I’d put it in a sling but I don’t think we can ask Frankie for any more sacrifices.”
The young man sat up straight.
“You let them get away,” he said uncompromisingly.
“I wasn’t exactly in a position to stop them. I mean, I could have invited them to stop and play spelling games, but somehow I don’t think they were in the mood.”
“You don’t seem to care at all that they’ve taken the Necklace,” said Frankie acidly.
The Saint massaged his chafed wrists.
“My dear,” he said blandly, “I would even have held the door open for them. We’re well rid of them — and it.”
VI
How Max received the news, and the Saint went for a climb
1
“You would have done what?” exploded Leopold.
“Escorted them out,” Simon repeated. “Very politely. If they’d offered me a tip, I’d have taken it.”
Frankie’s incredulity was no less violent.
“You can’t mean it, Simon!”
“I do, you know. They were very naughty boys, and they I still had guns. I believe one should never get killed unless one has to — and then only as a last resort.”
“But-but-but... they took the Necklace!”
“Ah yes, so they did,” Simon agreed smoothly. “Well, perhaps it won’t do them as much good as they think.”
Frankie was taken aback.
“What do you mean?”
“Yes,” Leopold said harshly. “Now they’ve got it, our whole cause is lost.”
“You never know,” Simon replied inscrutably. “The strangest things do happen, as the hen said when she hatched out an ostrich.”
Frankie stamped her foot.
“Always you make a joke. Nothing is important to you. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important to someone else. What about me? Is it nothing to you that I have betrayed my charge as Keeper of the Hapsburg Necklace?”
“To tell the truth, in words of one syllable,” responded the Saint amiably — “No.”
“You are impossible.”
“Worse,” Leopold amplified. “He is a coward.”
The Saint was unmoved.
“That’s right. I am. Only mugs get medals. Sensible men take good care to live to fight another day.”
“Your reputation as a hero seems to have been easily earned,” said Leopold sarcastically.
Still the Saint was not ruffled.
“Reputations don’t matter. It is what a man knows about himself that counts.”
“And does it mean nothing to you that Anton is dead?”
The Saint’s eyes were expressionless although he smiled.
“I expect it means more to him. Presumably he was mixed up in this business of his own free will. I mean, he didn’t have to work for Max, and he must have known that Max likes to live dangerously — and that goes for his associates, including me!”
Frankie shook her head.
“Sometimes I think you are just a machine.”
The Saint shrugged.
“It’s not such a bad thing to be if the machine is good enough. I’d like to be Rolls Phantom III Continental Touring Saloon with a V12 cylinder engine, 7,340 cc capacity. But right now I’d settle for almost anything on wheels in good running order.”
“Simon, will you please stop! I’m not interested in your silly cars. I want to get my Necklace back.”
The Saint moved towards the door.
“All right then, but aren’t you a bit tired of hiking? It’s a long way to walk.”
“Where?” asked Leopold in perplexity.
“Back to Schloss Duppelstein.”
“But if the Gestapo know about this place,” Frankie argued, “Max must have been arrested, and—”
The Saint’s voice was suddenly steely. “Look here, sweetheart, let’s get something straight. You asked for my help. You got it — for better or for worse — until death do, etcetera. I’ll get your Necklace back, but you must trust me.”
“You did not try to stop them taking it,” Leopold insisted.
“True,” agreed the Saint. “But one of us might have been killed in the attempt, probably Frankie as she was the nearest. Look what happened to Anton. That reminds me. I suppose we’ll have to notify the police eventually, so we’d better leave everything here just as it is.”
“Since he was shot by the Gestapo,” Leopold said, “why would the police be interested?”
Simon regarded him pityingly.
“You blessed innocent dimwit,” he said. “Those two goons weren’t the Gestapo. If they had been, and they were under orders not to shoot us out of hand, they’d at least have loaded us up and carted us off to one of their special rest homes. They wouldn’t have left us here to get loose or be rescued by somebody.”
The other two stared at him open-mouthed.
Leopold said: “Then you think—”
“That we were much too ready to buy that Gestapo story. There are still plenty of other villains in the world, plain ordinary commercial ones, and they haven’t gone out of business just because Himmler came in. Obviously some of them, somehow, have got wind of you and your necklace, and they want it for purely mercenary reasons.”
Frankie finally made up her mind.
“We’re in your hands completely from now on, Simon.”
“Okay,” said the Saint. “Then may I go back to that car business I was talking about? I feel that there ought to be something here that Anton could have used if necessary, even if it isn’t a Rolls.”
It turned out to be a rather ancient Adler van, stabled in an open shed adjoining the cottage; but the key was trustfully in the ignition and the engine started after a few turns and ran purposefully if noisily.
Simon went back indoors and happily reported his find.