“Explain yourself a bit further.”
“On the surface you were helping us. But you arranged to have your men hijack the Necklace when we got back to the cabin. Though how they knew when we got back I still don’t know. I suppose you just told them to check the cabin at regular intervals. Wouldn’t it have been simpler if they’d waited for us there?”
Max flashed him a shrewd look.
“Were I the villain you think I am, I might not have wanted to run the risk of your seeing them or their car before you got settled in and relaxed.”
The Saint nodded.
“That would add up, especially as you told Anton to hold us there until someone arrived.” He looked at Max levelly. “You know, that Gorilla of yours really shouldn’t be allowed out. Is he a dope addict or something? I mean, for anyone to be so slug-happy is plain ridiculous. He shot Anton without even looking to see who he was!”
“A very stupid man, almost an animal,” agreed Max benignly. “Such people are dangerous, but they are also sometimes useful.”
“You figured we’d never know he was working for you and would think that the Gestapo must somehow have got on to your plans. That’s why you were able to welcome us back with such hospitality. Otherwise you would have made sure we were all killed, either in the cabin or somewhere along the line. Like me, you prefer to avoid complications whenever possible. It must have been a nasty shock when you found you were a candidate for a murder rap.”
Max stiffened.
“I was a candidate for what?”
“A murder rap. It’s American slang. It means you were responsible for Anton’s death even though you didn’t plan it, do it, or even want it.”
“But how can that be?”
“I imagine Austrian law recognises some universal principles. Anyone who is an accessory to a crime must take the consequences as much as the person or persons who commit it. That makes you guilty.”
Max leaned back in his chair and surveyed the Saint thoughtfully.
“You know,” he said, “I like you. I like you very much. I don’t know how old you are, but you look young enough to be the son I never had, and I am not all that old myself. If we had been on the same side, perhaps you might have inherited my... er... connections.” He unleashed a smile. “But with regard to the Hapsburg Necklace—”
“That proves your guilt if nothing else,” interrupted Simon.
Annellatt raised his shoulders.
“My lawyers would put up a good defence. You still don’t really know how I got it.”
“You could only have got it from the Rat or the Gorilla. That’s another crime in this country, I’m sure. There must be a law against stealing national monuments.”
Max’s smirk was almost triumphant.
“Ah, but I did not steal anything of the kind.”
“What do you mean? There it is.” Simon pointed to the Necklace which glimmered in a heap of fire on the desk.
“Do you know anything about jewels?” Annellatt asked.
“Enough to get by.”
Max picked up the Necklace from the desk and tossed it over to Simon. “It’s a fake,” he said.
2
Simon caught the Necklace deftly.
It shimmered and glittered with a thousand facets of light. Reaching over, he picked up Max’s jeweller’s magnifying glass and examined it. He was expert enough to be able to confirm at once that Max was telling the truth. The feel of the gems, moreover, gave them away. They lacked the voltage quality of real stones. The fires, though beguiling to the eye, were as false as those created for the grates of luxury flats or for sinners by evangelical missionaries.
Again he was shaken but not rocked out of reason. In his life, anything could happen and often did. But there was always a good reason for even the most extraordinary occurrences.
The explanation behind this one was fairly easy to see. Frankie’s father, grandfather, or one of her ancestors, must have had a duplicate made, perhaps with a view of selling the original secretly. Such a plot might have been a criminal conspiracy, but this did not make it any more improbable. To aristocrats, honour was all important, second only to exposed insolvency. If a distinguished bankruptcy could have been averted by the substitution of a string of baubles that would bedazzle anyone but a probing expert, what was the harm? Besides, the Necklace might even have been hocked with the connivance of the Austrian Government, to raise money for the State Treasury. Such things had been known to happen in the convolutions of Balkans economics.
On the other hand, the false necklace could have been made to safeguard the real one, for use as a decoy, red herring or other fraud to occupy the attentions of crooks, while the genuine one rested safely in secret custody.
In any case, the necklace he held in his hand was worthless to him, Max, Frankie, the Third Reich, or anyone else concerned with the value of the original. It was a beautiful piece of work and undoubtedly cost a tidy sum, but compared to the real thing it was only worth its weight in peanuts.
“You must be very disappointed,” remarked Simon. “I mean, after all your hard work and the efforts of your bully boys, to end up with a pup must be disheartening to say the least. Oh, well, don’t let it get you down. Every silver lining has a cloud, as my Aunt Agatha used to say about her rich fat husband.”
Max smiled wryly. “You are an incredible man. We Austrians may make a joke about everything, but underneath we take it seriously. I believe you really do see everything as a joke.”
“A very serious joke.”
Annellatt sighed.
“What interests me very much now is where is the real Necklace?”
“Well, if it’s not still at Schloss Este or some Swiss bank or other, I have a business pal who could find out who sold it to whom recently — if it was recently. I have just concluded a deal with him myself, and there isn’t much that goes on above board or under the counter in the international diamond markets that he doesn’t know about.”
Max’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Do you think Frankie knows?”
“Who knows? She might be trying to cover up some ancestral fiddling, for the honour of the family. Or she might be trying to outsmart all of us.”
“We shall have to find out.”
“I shall have to find out.”
The set of Annellatt’s head took a speculative slant.
“Does that mean you would consider working with me?”
“No more than I have already. We weren’t made to be partners. We’d always be competing. Besides, as I’ve said before, I don’t change my loyalties so easily.”
“Neither do I. But my prime loyalty is to myself. Surely yours is too?”
“Not always. Believe it or not, I’m quite old-fashioned sometimes. I believe in honour and the code of a gentleman. I know it’s a bit out of date but purely practically it does make civilisation work. I mean, even Hitler would find life easier if one could trust his word.”
Max laughed, a trifle ruefully. “You mean you can’t trust mine?”
“I haven’t said that.”
“Ah, but you have implied it. I have a feeling that if I were an Austrian aristocrat you would feel differently.”
“I know a lot of aristocrats who are not gentlemen at all,” smiled the Saint. “And conversely, I know a lot of gentlemen who are not aristocrats.”
“But I am neither. I am an Austrian peasant who has made good, as you say in your language.”
It was an extraordinary conversation, at such a time. But Simon had long since realised that Max Annellatt was no ordinary man, and he was intrigued enough to let the chat take its course.