As he spoke, the Saint placed a row of cheap pens in the breast pocket of his jacket; a crumpled tie was knotted loosely around the unbuttoned collar of his shirts and a pair of heavy black-rimmed spectacles rested earnestly on the bridge of his nose. Finally he went down and retrieved a bulging manila folder from beneath the table.
In less time than it took him to explain his activities, the elegant tourist who would have had the doors of any casino on the coast immediately opened for him was replaced by a harassed understrapper who would have gone unnoticed in any important office.
The girl watched the transformation, wondering if the man she had entrusted with her father’s protection had been affected by his luncheon lubricants.
“And the file?” she asked at last, because she felt she had to say something.
“Ah, that’s the piece de resistance! It is my belief that you can walk into any official building anywhere in the world so long as you carry a file and look as if you know where you’re going. A clipboard is better, but I couldn’t get hold of one. A man carrying a briefcase will be searched, but there is something inherently innocent about a man with a folder of papers. This one contains a copy of Paris-Match, yesterday’s Figaro, and half a ream of hotel notepaper.”
The Saint spread folding money on the bill which had been placed before him, and stood up.
“I’m going to work. You can watch if you like, but don’t show that you know me. I’ll see you back at the hotel in an hour.”
2
Head bowed, arms protectively cradling the file of papers, the Saint trotted up the steps and in through the main doors of the Palais without earning a second glance from the attendants standing by them. Once inside he stood for a moment to gain his bearings and savour the welcoming coolness of the foyer before following the signs directing him to the hall where the official opening ceremony was taking place.
The two men standing on either side of the salle entrance wore no uniforms but there was an impressive breadth to their shoulders and an alertness in their eyes that told the Saint they would not be so easily fooled as their colleagues outside. He left the file on a window ledge and pretended to be studying a noticeboard on the opposite side of the foyer.
Through the glazed doors he could see Riguard standing on the stage at the far end of the auditorium. Those scheduled to be the principal speakers at the conference were ranged on both sides of him with Maclett in the place of honour on his right.
With no apparent haste the Saint neared the doors. As he did so the chairman’s words became clearer:
“... And the great event of the week will, of course, be the lecture by our honoured guest, Professor Maclett, on some of the implications of his spectacular breakthrough in the field of solar energy...”
The cue was too apt for a person with Simon Templar’s sense of the dramatic to miss. It came as he drew level with the double doors, and he moved with the speed of a panther. He took two steps to his right and launched himself into a charge, hitting the centre of the doors with his shoulder. Before the first steward had begun to react he was standing in the middle of the main aisle, his voice raised in impassioned protest.
“His breakthrough! It wasn’t his breakthrough, it’s mine! I was his research student at Cambridge. The great Professor Maclett stole it from me. The man’s a thief and a liar!”
The stewards were quick to recover. Grabbing Simon by the arms, they prepared to drag him away. The Saint’s biceps tensed instinctively at the contact, and for an instant the two men paused, surprised by the muscle beneath their fingers. Simon took advantage of the delay to fire his next salvo.
“He put me off it, told me it was rubbish — now he announces it as his own! He stole it, I tell you!”
The spectators were torn between watching the antics of the raving protester halfway down the aisle and the spectacle being provided by Maclett. At the Saint’s first words the professor stood up, rage quickly taking the place of astonishment as the allegations registered. His face had turned an interesting shade that was a mixture of dark red and bright purple; his hands clenched into fists, and he began to climb down from the stage.
The possibility of a physical brawl with the man he was sup posed to be protecting had not figured in Simon’s plan of campaign. His muscles relaxed.
“OK, boys, take me away,” he whispered to the men trying to do just that, and as they roughly obliged he managed one final shout at the lumbering professor and his goggle-eyed audience.
“He’s a fraud and a thief!”
Once away from the auditorium, the stewards made it clear that they planned to conclude their work with an airborne descent of the steps outside the Palais. The Saint had other ideas. He stopped. The stewards, finding their acquiescent charge suddenly as immobile as an oak, had no option but to do the same. They looked at each other and then at the Saint, who by that time should have been picking himself up off the sidewalk. Simon’s ringers closed around the wrists of the hands holding him with the strength of a bear trap snapping shut and removed them from his person.
He smiled.
“Don’t bother. I’ll see myself out.”
A few curious passers-by had gathered, and the Saint was eager to vacate the scene before the possible arrival of the Law. An empty taxi was stalled in the intermittent traffic jam outside, and Simon opened the rear door and slid in behind the driver.
“Hotel Bellevue, please.”
The driver nodded and re-engaged the gears. He was small and slightly built and out of proportion to the spacious white Buick he drove. His skin was tanned the color of old mahogany, he wore a black waist-length zipper jacket over a casual shirt of eye-searing hues and shapeless blue jeans met equally ancient blue sneakers.
As he eased the big car into the flow of traffic the Saint looked back in time to see a dark blue Mercedes pull out of the line of parked cars behind and swing in behind them. Simon leaned forward and spoke in fluent French.
“Drive to the station, then up the Boulevard Carnot, then turn back towards the Croisette by the Boulevard d’Alsace. I would like to arrive at the hotel from the other side.”
The driver nodded his acceptance of each eccentric direction without argument, as if being asked to drive three times the necessary distance was an everyday event. Once his eyes met the Saint’s as both glanced in the rear-view mirror at the same time. What might have been a smile hovered at the comers of his mouth. He raised his hand and adjusted the glass a few degrees.
“Like that, you will see better,” was his only comment.
The Saint laughed.
“Yes, that is much better. Thank you.”
The driver shrugged, as if to say that it was quite usual for him to have passengers who thought they were being followed.
As he turned the car into the Boulevard d’Alsace, he asked: “The Mercedes, you want me to lose it?”
Simon shook his head.
“No, thank you. I wish to know who is in it, not get away from them, once I am sure they are on our trail.”
It was an admission that could have proved foolish but the Saint had the gift of being able to judge the characters of others after the briefest of encounters, and his intuition told him the driver was not only likely to be discreet but might be able to offer real help if trusted.