Soon the scientists would be gone and Cannes and the Palais would welcome arrivals more in keeping with their raison d’être. Hollywood had recently staged its seasonal corroboree, turning the town into a film fan’s fantasy: starlets had enjoyed their exposure while photographers enjoyed the starlets, producers and directors had enjoyed talking about art while calculating how much their latest flick had grossed, gossip columnists had enjoyed one of the best junkets of the year, and everyone had gone home happy. Soon now the midsummer lemming swarm of traditional holiday-makers would be jostling each other for sweating room and paying exorbitantly for this privilege.
Anyone not knowing his identity might easily have thought him to be a leftover from the April Film Festival. The face was as tanned and handsome as any that ever appeared on the giant screen. The thick black hair swept straight back, the blue eyes that could be as warm as the Mediterranean or as cold as a Norwegian fjord, and the strength of the finely cut features, would have found him a place on any casting director’s list. The subtle difference was that in him it was not type casting: it was the real thing.
Among the throng on the sidewalk the Saint spotted Emma Maclett approaching. Even in a crowd twice as dense as that now perambulating the Croisette it would have been difficult to miss her. She was tall and slim and she moved with a weightless grace, her feet hardly seeming to touch the ground as she walked. Peat-brown hair curled just past her shoulders, green eyes flashing beneath a fringe. There was a mysterious, almost elfin air about her that was testimony to her Celtic ancestors. As she drew nearer, Simon recognised again the mixture of strength and innocence that had so attracted him at their first meeting.
The Saint’s notoriety was such that it ensured him a steady flow of visitors to his door. Most of them wanted to enlist his services for something and Emma Maclett had been no exception. He had succumbed to the shy forthrightness of her by asking her in and inviting her to tell him her problem. It had been a dull day in a dull week and on such occasions the Saint would have been prepared to have been bored by someone far less attractive.
In the end her story had turned out to be far from tedious. Her father was Professor Andrew Maclett, a physicist. Did the Saint know much about science?
Simon had admitted that his scientific qualifications could be written on a postcard and still leave room for the address.
“But you have heard of solar energy?”
“Trapping the sun’s rays to provide heat.”
“That’s the principle. Using the sun’s energy obviously has tremendous potential. It’s free and there’s an unlimited supply. There are already houses which are heated by solar panels in the roof, but that’s only scratching the surface. Lighting and heating a house is one thing, developing the technology to light and heat a town is another. That’s what my father has done. The application of his process means that we could harness enough of the sun’s energy to operate a full-sized power station. Think of it — free energy, no more reliance on oil or coal that are someday going to run out, with none of the dangers of nuclear power.”
“I’d say that beats hanging around the local pub every afternoon. So what is your father’s problem?”
“Free energy is fine in theory, but it also means a lot of trouble, and a gigantic loss for a great many people — oil companies, ancillary industries who rely on them, governments, trade unions — and they are only the major ones. My father has been officially told to shelve his plans. Not in the public interest! How on earth can they say that?”
“I take it Daddy has no intention of buttoning up.”
“If you knew my father you wouldn’t even ask. This is his life’s work. Because he has insisted on carrying on with it, he was sacked from his chair at the university, and also lost the government grant that was paying for the research. He can’t say anything publicly in Britain but he is to be the principal speaker at an energy conference in Cannes, and he intends taking the opportunity to tell the world. I’m scared they’ll try to stop him. Also he’s already turned down offers from the Soviets, who want the process for themselves, and I’m frightened they won’t take no for an answer.”
“And you want me to tag along and keep an eye on him?”
“That’s right, just until after his speech. He’s very independent, he’d never agree to the idea, so we can’t tell him. You would somehow have to do it without his knowing.”
Simon had looked out at the drizzle falling from a stone-grey sky. Something only he saw there amused him, and he smiled.
“I’m free at the moment, and the Riviera looks an increasingly inviting alternative to London in which to expend some energy.”
And so it had been decided.
Simon caught the eye of his waiter, and made the international sign-language symbol of asking for his bill, holding up a flat-open left hand and miming the act of writing on it with his right. He rose as Emma reached the table and sat down.
After glancing cautiously each way she leaned across the table and whispered: “What have you found out?”
The Saint copied her actions, adding an exaggerated search under the table, and whispered: “Nothing.”
The girl looked into two mocking blue eyes that dispelled the send-up before it could offend. Simon sat back in his chair and finished his cognac.
“I’ve been here three days and I’m three thousand francs up at the casino, but of villains I have seen neither hide nor hair.”
Emma frowned.
“Then you think I was overreacting?”
“I didn’t say that. I haven’t found anything because I don’t know what I’m looking for. There are thousands of people in Cannes, and any of them could be a prospective kidnapper or assassin. It’s harder than looking for a needle in a haystack because at least you know what a needle looks like before you start.”
Emma’s face brightened.
“You’re not giving up, then?”
Simon looked shocked.
“Certainly not. I’ve no intention of wasting the time I’ve spent on this jaunt so far. But if I can’t go to the ungodly because I don’t know who they are, then they will have to come to me because they do know who I am, or think they do... This must be your father now.”
Emma turned her head to watch as a taxi stopped outside the Palais and her father emerged. To the casual observer the Saint would have appeared to be looking directly at his companion but he had carefully placed his chair so that he could see without being seen to be watching. It was the first time he had viewed the professor except from photographs, and he liked what he saw.
Maclett stood a head above the tallest of the welcoming committee, and looked as if he had been hewn from a Highland hillside. His shoulders strained against the confines of a check tweed sports jacket, a mop of reddish hair that hadn’t seen a brush since breakfast framed a strong, confident face that should have belonged to a trawler skipper or an oil prospector rather than to a physicist. The Saint could picture him wearing a kilt and wielding a claymore, and instantly believed his daughter’s account of his temper.
The introductions over, the party was mounting the steps.
“Who is he?” asked the Saint, indicating the little goateed man who led the way.
“Dr. Francis Riguard. He’s the president of the institute and the chairman of the conference.”
As the group disappeared inside the building, Emma turned back to the table to see the Saint vigorously tousling his hair.
“What are you doing?”
“I am engaged in practising the art of disguise, or rather creating a personality. It is a common myth that to change your appearance you have to hide behind a hedge of false hair, puff the cheeks out with rubber pads, and apply a coating of plaster calculated to result in you looking like a make-up artist’s conception of the Thing From The Pit. In fact, all that is necessary is to adopt an identity. In this case, the angry young scientist.”