“Don’t rub it in,” she answered resentfully.
“I won’t, but I’m afraid the shocks are starting to come thick and fast now. Do you think you can take another one?”
She stared at him, alarmed at his tone of voice.
“Why? Has something else happened?”
“Yes, and you’ll hear about it when you get back to the hotel anyway. It’s about your pal, Curt Jaeger.”
“What about him? And he’s not my pal. I met him on the plane from New York purely by chance.”
Simon concentrated with unusual intensity on making a left turn at an intersection.
“He’s not anybody’s pal now, because purely by chance he tried to throw me out of a window about an hour ago — and fell out himself.”
Vicky gazed at him unbelievingly.
“You mean he’s injured?”
“Quite fatally,” said the Saint, with a perceptible lack of mourning. “Which is just how he wanted me because I was sowing a few weeds in the primrose path he was leading you down.”
Vicky covered her face with her hands and started sobbing.
“You killed him!” she wailed.
“Gravity killed him, with the help of a large section of concrete pavement.” He glanced at her. “I didn’t know you cared so much about him, though.”
She lowered her hands from tear-glazed cheeks and her next words were almost a scream.
“I don’t! I’m having hysterics!”
“You’re much too sophisticated now for hysterics,” Simon intoned soothingly.
“I’m not sophisticated! I wish I’d never left Iowa!” Then she tried hard to get control of herself. “Well, tell me! Why would Curt Jaeger want to kill anybody? He’s just a watch salesman.”
“He’s more a watcher than a salesman,” said the Saint. “I told you that there were probably other competitors in this gold rush.”
“But when he got on the plane in New York he couldn’t possibly have known what I was going to do over here.”
“He’d been keeping an eye on you for years, ever since the end of the war. He was one of Hitler’s Gestapo buckos, and he was the one who was on the same trail your father was. When they met, I’m afraid your father got the worst of it.”
“You mean that’s what happened to my father? Curt Jaeger did something...”
Her words trailed off, and Simon nodded.
“I’m afraid Jaeger killed him. But before he did he found out enough about your father’s plans to make him take a long-term interest in your whereabouts.”
Vicky sat limply beside him, staring straight ahead.
“I feel numb,” she said finally.
“And I don’t blame you.”
He was pulling the car into a parking space not far from the Hotel Portal. Vicky thought a minute longer and turned to him.
“Then you won’t blame me for not trusting anybody, including you,” she said. “I won’t necessarily believe you, but why did you start following me?”
“I’m sure you won’t believe me, but it wasn’t with any idea of loot. I knew nothing about it at the start, and I’ve still got no real idea of what you’re after.” He shut off the Volkswagen’s engine and killed the lights. “Somebody in Washington asked me to get in on the fun when the Pentagon heard you were taking a short-notice Grand Tour of your dad’s old stomping grounds. Apparently some tax-supported computer has also had you in its memory bank for a long, long time.”
“Then you were tied in with that army man from the embassy in Lisbon who talked to me?”
“Yes. It was through his good offices that I almost did a swan dive from six flights up on to Lake Geneva’s moonlit shore. I did a few odd jobs for the cloak-and-dagger divisions during the Nazi war and they figured I knew my way around some old alleys better than most. As far as I can tell, they were merely assisting me to try on the old school noose again.”
“You don’t mean they wanted to see you get in trouble?”
“No. They just didn’t care. I walk through the fiery furnace, and if I come out with my skin uncrisped Colonel Wade gets another oak-leaf cluster on his good conduct ribbon.” Simon tapped the oilcloth packet inside his coat. “Which makes me hope very sincerely that more material rewards of virtue are wrapped in this little bundle from the beyond that your father has led us to.”
“I’m glad you said us,” Vicky put in. “When are you going to give those papers or whatever they are back to me?”
Simon shrugged and opened his door.
“I must quibble about the word ‘back’. After all, when did you ever have them?”
When he had helped her out of the car on her side she immediately jerked her hand out of his.
“So you’re planning to steal them from me?” she asked bitterly.
“Before we start using emotional words like ‘steal’, let’s get our ethics straight. We not only don’t know what we’ve got here, but we also have no idea who it belonged to in the first place. When we’ve settled all that we’ll worry about who’s stealing from whom.”
He took her arm, tucked it around his, and walked with her to the entrance of the Portal, purposely keeping himself between her and the dark stain on the sidewalk which was all that remained of Curt Jaeger in that immediate vicinity.
“Meanwhile,” he said, “now that you’ve heard everything I can tell you, why not come clean with the rest of your own story?”
“You know most of it already,” she answered. “My father’s letter didn’t tell me what I’d be looking for, and I don’t even know if that package you’ve confiscated is the end of the line or not.”
They passed across the hotel’s lobby to the reception desk, where Simon asked for his own and Vicky’s keys.
“You’re staying here too?” she asked. “I didn’t even think to wonder...”
“I thought it’d be cozier that way,” Simon said. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that half the guests in this joint belong to the Vicky Kinian Fan Club and Snooping Society.”
He started them towards the elevators; but just before they reached the closed doors their way was partially blocked by a grave-looking middle-aged man in a neat business suit.
“I beg your pardon,” he said in slightly accented English. “You are Monsieur Simon Templar?”
“Almost always,” the Saint replied.
The stranger held out an identity card and studied Simon’s face with a chess master’s intense grey eyes for any reaction. Simon read the card without obliging him with the slightest twitch of a muscle.
“Ah, yes, Inspector Edval,” he said coolly. “And what are you inspecting this evening?”
“What is it?” Vicky asked, her face a picture of worried confusion.
“This gentleman is a police inspector,” the Saint explained. “He has probably been so kind as to come over to report on his progress in finding our wandering mynah bird.”
Inspector Edval regarded him impassively before continuing.
“Do you know anyone named Curt Jaeger?” he asked.
“I never heard of him,” said Simon positively.
He had shifted his position slightly so that he could observe Vicky without obviously looking at her. Her cheeks had reddened. Her lips parted as if she was about to speak, and then she lowered her gaze to the floor.
“This man, Jaeger, fell to his death from a window in this hotel which could have been yours,” Inspector Edval said, with a precision which implied that his sentence had been rehearsed several times before its debut. “Have you any knowledge of any man who might have fallen from your room?”
“No,” Simon said. “Since I’ve been at the Portal I’ve never noticed anybody passing outside my window in any direction.”