That was all Simon needed. A moment suddenly seemed to elongate itself as he filled it with sudden action. Leaping across, he knocked the gun from Erich’s hand and seized the servant’s arm in a grip which should normally have compelled submission.
But the footman also knew some tricks of the trade. As the Saint began to apply the pressure on his captive arm which would have forced him to give in, Erich kicked him hard and accurately on the shin.
Simon was, after all, human, and a shin is a most painful portion of one’s anatomy when it is struck a violent blow. For a moment his concentration also wavered, and Erich was as quick as the Saint had been to use that moment to his advantage, and while Simon’s grip fractionally relaxed Erich wriggled free. He leapt back and looked around for his gun.
It lay on the floor, just out of his reach and even more out of Simon’s.
Erich automatically dived for it, and the Saint just as automatically did not try to beat him to it. Instead, the Saint’s right hand dived inside his shirt for the pistol that he had tucked away.
It was a moderately close thing, but in such circumstances moderation is more than enough.
“Well,” said the Saint, more or less to himself, as Erich crumpled quite ummistakably out of active participation, “I suppose a devout cricketer would call this a hat trick.”
VIII
How Simon Templar had the last word
1
“Only nobody in the cast,” Simon continued to himself, in the same mournful vein, “ever seemed to wear a hat.”
That line of reflection was mercifully terminated by the appearance on the landing above of Frankie and Leopold in their dressing-gowns.
“You can come down,” said the Saint. “Everything’s safe for now. But I’m afraid you missed all the fun.”
The most perfunctory examination was enough to confirm that Erich would never take part in another crime, on his own or anyone else’s behalf. It was the kind of permanent and incontestable reformation which the Saint found it easiest to believe in.
He tucked his gun away and picked up the necklace as Frankie and Leopold joined him.
“What has been going on?” Leopold demanded.
“And where did that come from?” Frankie demanded.
Simon handed the necklace to her with a bow.
“Max gave it to me. He asked me to pass it on to you with his love and a farewell kiss.”
“Max?” She was completely bewildered. “How on earth...? Where is he?”
“Probably on his way to the North Pole,” said the Saint. “I expect he’ll set up an igloo there, with a sign offering reindeer for hire and Christmas presents delivered. And God help your presents once they’re in his sack.”
The girl literally stamped her foot.
“Simon, if you don’t stop your stupid jokes I shall kill you. What has happened?”
“Well, it’s a bit long for a bedtime story,” said the Saint. “But I suppose you’ll never sleep if I don’t tell it.”
He made the telling as brief and concise as it could be without leaving any of their inevitable questions unanswered.
“And so,” he concluded, “apart from the great Annellatt himself, the opposition seems to have been disposed of. The ghosts of our three other playmates, wherever they are, can only be comparing notes on how they got there. Which leaves us in the clear, so long as nobody connects us with that little misunderstanding at the frontier.”
“But there are three dead men here,” Leopold uttered, almost in disbelief.
“That’s nothing compared with the last act of most of Shakespeare’s plays,” the Saint reassured him. “Anyhow, with a little rearrangement I think I can make it look as if they perished in a friendly shoot-out between themselves. At least convincingly enough to give the local polizei a reasonable excuse for not working themselves into exhaustion over it. Or it might even be amusing to pin the rap on this two-timing Jeeves.”
Leopold dragged his eyes away from Erich’s uninterested body.
“We shall have to call the police,” he said conventionally.
“Not just yet,” said the Saint. “I don’t want to get involved. Let the Gestapo and the Austrian Sherlock-holmes-gesellschaft sweat it out between them.”
Frankie looked again, somewhat blankly, at the necklace which she was holding as if she was still in a trance that had come on when the Saint gave it to her.
“And this?” she said. “If it is really an imitation—”
“I’m not interested in your family skeletons, whatever dungeons you keep them in,” said the Saint curtly. “But even at this unearthly hour, I think we should be heading back to Vienna as soon as we can get organised, to set up any alibis that we might inconceivably need. As for the Hapsburg Necklace, the Keeper has it, or what’s left to keep now. So I hope that closes the book.”
“You are forgetting,” Frankie said, “I gave my real name when I went to Schloss Este.”
“That was an impostor,” said the Saint. “Like the man in SS uniform who sprung her. It must all have been part of some fiendish Jewish plot, maybe to steal the necklace. But you never left Vienna. So let’s pack up and hustle back there. This place is beginning to feel like a morgue.”
2
They met that evening for a farewell supper at the Kursalon by Vienna’s Stadtpark.
It was the Saint’s idea. For one thing he liked the place, which was oldfashioned, romantically dusted with the atmosphere of the Hapsburg Empire, when it had been the scene of many an illicit amatory rendezvous. It still was, although its manner was less ostentatious and it seemed slightly anachronistic in the rather brutal climate of the times. Nevertheless, discreet waiters served one expertly and then left one alone, which made it just the place for a quiet talk in one of the cubicles it considerately provided for dallying couples.
Secondly, it was not an establishment frequented by high society. They could dine there, surrounded by chomping Viennese petite bourgeoisie, without the likelihood of being recognised. Not that the Saint was expecting trouble, but he did want them to be by themselves. At Sachers, Demmels, or any of the other smart restaurants or cafés, some friend of Frankie’s or Leopold’s might come up and, Viennese fashion, stay for a long gossip.
When they were seated in the secluded alcove and their orders had been taken by a waiter who gave the impression that he regarded culinary dishes as state secrets the Saint raised his cocktail glass.
“Here’s to us, we three musketeers. All for one and one for all — and all for the Queen’s Necklace that wasn’t.”
Frankie was looking marvellous in a dark blue dress shot with silver which did wonderful things for her figure and vice versa. The colour was a perfect foil for her raven hair and matched the brilliant blue of her eyes.
The Saint smiled at her.
“You look good enough to eat or something. Mostly something.”
Leopold yawned involuntarily and seemed slightly guilty at having done so.
“Still tired?” asked the Saint. “I’ve been asleep all day in my hotel.”
“So have I been asleep all day,” said Leopold, “but I think I need at least a week.”
“I only had a little sleep,” said Frankie, “and I’m not tired at all. I had something to attend to — and then I bought this dress. Do you like it? I thought of you, Simon, when I chose it.”
The Saint raised an eyebrow. The warning system which every confirmed bachelor always keeps switched on gave a faint signal.
“You’d better not think of me too often or you’ll go broke.”
“You are leaving tomorrow?” Leopold inquired pleasantly — but somewhat pointedly, the Saint thought.