Annellatt looked mildly offended.
“It’s the sort of thing you do, Mr Templar.”
The Saint could not help but admire his coolness. The Austrian was in a nasty spot but he might have been discussing the high price of coffee for all the tension that he showed.
“No one would ever accuse me of being your type,” Simon said. “But to get back to you. Why didn’t you just go to the police if you thought Frankie had been kidnapped? After all, she hadn’t done anything illegal — if she really was the hereditary Keeper of the Necklace.”
Max wagged his head patiently.
“In normal times, yes. But nowadays even the police are not entirely respectable. Don’t forget that the Gestapo controls Vienna and its police and I am sure the Germans would not be willing to see the Necklace taken away, perhaps altogether out of their hands. My concern was only to help Frankie in what she thought was her duty.”
The Saint shook his head.
“The Gestapo were never involved. The Rat and the Gorilla were not Gestapo, not even the Austrian branch. They were too inefficient for one thing.” His voice was suddenly cold and his blue eyes grew icy. “You thought you were dealing with a foreigner who wouldn’t understand the Austrian character. You thought I would buy your story that you just were in your quaint Austrian way trying to strike a blow against the invading tyrants.” His tone grew even chillier. “You were not just unlucky, you picked on the wrong man. Most foreigners think that because the Austrians do crazy things they are all a bit mad. I happen to think that there are few races that are more sane. The Gemans live in a dream world and try to make it real. The Austrians live in a real world and only pretend to dream.”
Max chuckled.
“That is a good epigram, but like all good epigrams it is as false as it is true. So now you have decided that I am a villain, and the men you have been fighting were in my employ. What, may I ask, could I have possibly have gained from such actions?”
“In Austria,” said the Saint, “you have to be aware that one and one often make three. In this case the Rat and the Gorilla added up to a third person who controlled them, you. You stood to gain quite a lot and to lose nothing at all.”
“Oh yes?” Max’s eyes sparkled with interest. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself.
“Yes. You see, I remembered that when we met in your apartment Frankie told you I knew where the Necklace was. She merely meant that she had informed me that it was in Schloss Este, and she was about to explain this when Leopold interrupted and lost his temper. After that the whole thing got sidetracked, but you concluded that she had told me more than she had you. From that moment on, I became useful to you. So you had me slugged in the garage by your men, who were told to extort the information from me. If they got it, you’d be in the clear all along the line, for if I survived I’d think I’d been kidnapped by the Gestapo, and you would be free to double-cross Frankie at the most propitious moment.”
“But why, may I ask, if I was working, as you say, against her, could I not have seized her in the first place and forced her to tell me everything I needed to know?”
“Because until you knew exactly where the Necklace was hidden, you didn’t know if it might be impossible for anybody except Frankie herself to get at it.”
“But then why would I let you join the party, to add another complication?” Max smiled disarmingly. “Even for an Austrian, is that not a bit exotic?”
“You wanted to keep all your options open, and you didn’t let me join — Frankie stuck you with me. You had to accept me or have me bumped off, fast, to maintain your credibility, for you knew I was a dangerous customer to fool around with. You wanted to keep an eye on me. Also you decided I might be more useful alive than dead. You’d figured out another angle.”
“What was that?” Max might have been listening with polite fascination to a tale Simon was inventing.
“It was that you might be able to get me to work for you.”
“Phantastisch!” said Herr Annellatt.
Thai seemed to blink in sleepy agreement.
“Maybe. But it’s all true.”
Max’s head moved in negation.
“It is a very interesting story, but you give yourself a little too much credit. After all, I am a wealthy man and I could employ any number of people to do the job of getting the Necklace. Why should I be so ready to engage you?”
“For two reasons. When you realised I didn’t know exactly where the Necklace was hidden in the Castle, you figured that Frankie might trust me more than you. You’ve been up against that deadlock for months. Frankie would never tell you where it was. You thought I might perhaps get it out of her.”
“Why you rather than me?”
The Saint smiled with shameless impudence.
“Possibly because I’m — a more romantic type.”
“And the second reason?”
“Because I am the Saint. You knew my reputation, and so do a lot of dreary policemen. You thought you could let me get the Necklace for you, and then steal it from me, and still throw me to the cops as the fall guy.”
“And so I persuaded Frankie to run away to Hungary just to get you to go after her?” Max spoke drily.
“Not at all. You were genuinely surprised and upset by her going. So was I. It loused up both our plans completely. You had to improvise a new one in a hurry.”
“And what was this new one?”
Max’s voice was silky. Both he and Thai regarded Simon from between narrowed lids.
“I must say you kept your head. You had to act fast because Frankie was going into Gestapo territory, and if she got captured your chances of getting the Necklace would have been finished. That meant you had to work with me and against me at the same time, once I had volunteered to go and get her out.”
“Surely all this is too clever, even for me,” Max protested.
Simon’s smile held genuine warmth.
“No, it’s not too clever for you, nor for me. It’s a pity we’re on opposite sides. We have very much the same kind of brain. But perhaps it’s inevitable that we should compete. There’s only room for one at the top, and I have a big advantage over you.”
“What is that?”
“I work on my own and do all my own dirty work. You have to rely on other people to do yours for you. That makes you as vulnerable as they are. For instance, your tame Rat made the mistake of addressing me by name, which he shouldn’t have known unless he’d been told. That was another thing that helped to confirm my suspicion that those two nasties were hooked up with you.”
Annellatt’s mouth turned down at one corner.
“It cuts both ways. If you lose once you lose totally. I can lose a lot of times and still win in the end.”
“In other words, your associates are expendable,” said the Saint sardonically.
“Exactly.”
“Like Anton.” The Saint looked directly into Max’s eyes.
For a moment Max’s gaze flickered.
“Believe it or not, that was a mistake. He was only a servant. I never thought he would be in any danger. It made me very sad. He was such a nice man.”
“He only made the mistake of working for you, in fact.”
“Possibly. But I tell you, I am sorry about Anton.” Max’s voice became warm, almost caressing, as he leant forward across the desk. “I still think we might work together, my friend.”
The Saint shook his head. “No dice. I don’t change my habits so easily. But to get back to your cunning little scheme. It was pretty clever, I admit. You’d probably worked out a method of getting across the border a long time ago. In fact, you told me as much. The cleverness lay in incorporating these old plans with the new and in keeping out of the whole affair yourself.”