Лесли Чартерис - The Saint and the Templar Treasure

“I’m sorry,” he began weakly. “I didn’t understand. I was a fool. I...”

Simon cut him short.

“Save it. It isn’t me you’re going to have to make your excuses to. As far as I’m concerned, we can call it quits. If you hadn’t gone for Henri when you did, I probably couldn’t have taken him.”

He took another look at the lawyer. Pichot was still unconscious and was likely to remain so for some time. The Saint had no idea how efficient the local ambulance service might be, but given the château’s isolation there was likely to be a considerable delay before they arrived. If the professor was going to get the prompt treatment he needed, a car might be a faster solution.

“This may hurt,” Simon warned, and before Norbert fully understood his meaning he found himself slung in a fireman’s lift across the Saint’s shoulders. He yelped at the sudden pain and all but fainted as he was carried to the ladder.

The opening was only a couple of feet wide, and the Saint had to shift his burden and carry it piggyback fashion until his head and shoulders were through the opening. As gently as possible he rolled Norbert on to the altar carpet that had previously concealed the trap-door, and was climbing the last few rungs when the door from the great hall opened.

Led by Sergeant Olivet and followed by three gendarmes, Mimette, Philippe, and Yves rushed down the chapel aisle towards him.

“That was quick,” Simon remarked as they reached him. “How did you get here — by one of Hitler’s leftover V-2’s?”

Olivet returned his smile.

“I was already here. Monsieur Florian called me.”

The Saint looked questioningly at Yves, who shook his head.

“He means Philippe.”

“Well, well, well,” Simon drawled. “Today is full of surprises.”

He watched Philippe thoughtfully while Olivet was directing the transport of Norbert to hospital. The industrialist was subdued and without a trace of the arrogance that had grated on the Saint ever since his arrival at Ingare. By contrast Yves looked tired but no longer defeated, and there was a new strength to the fingers that grasped Simon’s hand. Mimette had a look in her eyes that told him her private thanks would be worth the waiting for.

“I don’t know how we are ever going to repay you,” said Yves fervently.

“Right now I’ll settle for a drink,” Simon replied lightly.

He turned to Olivet, as the sergeant finished giving instructions to the two men who now had the professor seated in a chair formed by their interlocked arms. As they carried him from the chapel a vague sound of movement drifted up from the crypt.

“Your murderer awaits,” said the Saint with a flourish of his hand towards the opening in the floor. “I’m afraid he’s a bit damaged but I’ve left his neck intact for your official chopper.”

“Vous êtes trop gentil,” Oliver said, with saturnine gravity.

He drew his pistol and climbed down the ladder. Simon waited until the remaining gendarme had followed his leader into the crypt before suggesting that the drink he had already mentioned was long overdue.

As they walked back through the great hall towards the centre of the château he told them about the scroll and his conversation with Norbert. Yves and Mimette speculated excitedly about the find but Philippe hardly seemed to hear. He trailed along behind them without speaking and avoided the eyes of anyone who glanced at him.

It was Philippe the Saint most wanted to talk to, but it was more than two hours before he was allowed the chance, when Henri had been taken away and both he and Mimette had made their statements.

Finally the gendarmes left and he was able to ask the question that Olivet himself had not put. He sank more comfortably into his chair and looked across the salon to where Philippe was opening a new bottle of Scotch.

“So you called the cops, Philippe?” he said quietly. “And told them that Henri was a prime suspect. Why?”

Philippe seemed almost relieved that it had been asked at last. He sighed deeply and his voice came low and stiffly apologetic.

“Because I knew one thing that you did not. I knew that I did not kill Gaston. Last night I thought — no, I hoped — that it was you who had done it. I didn’t want to face the alternative.” Philippe paused and looked at his brother. “You see, Yves, I knew that Henri was trying to ruin Ingare. Oh, I had no actual proof, but it was clear that only he could be behind all that had happened. I wondered sometimes if he thought he was doing me a favour. But of course he believed that if I got control I would put him in charge.”

“And you did nothing to stop him?” stormed Mimette, her eyes sparkling with anger and a deep flush colouring her cheeks. “How could you?”

Philippe continued to address Yves, trying to meet his eyes.

“Believe me, I did not intend to let it go too far. You must believe that. I was only waiting for conclusive evidence that it was Henri. But in the meantime, I hoped that what he was doing would force you to see sense. To see that the old ways are no longer good enough, that running a vineyard is a business, not a pastime. I wanted to make you move into the twentieth century...”

“By bankrupting us? How kind!” said Mimette scathingly, and Philippe turned on her with a show of his old aggression.

“No, by making you accept my kind of help. Then I could have insisted on doing what had to be done to make Ingare viable again.”

The Saint intervened quickly to head off the confrontation.

“But that still doesn’t explain why you thought Henri killed Gaston,” he said.

Philippe refilled his glass before replying. He held it close to his face and gazed into the light golden liquid.

“I knew the old man suspected his nephew. He had guessed just as I had. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that Henri was the only one with a motive. Even then I couldn’t believe that that would make him commit murder. But this afternoon I searched his room.”

He drew a small dog-eared notebook from his pocket and tossed it on to the coffee table in the centre of the room.

“I found that. The writing inside is Gaston’s. Something about treasure and a tunnel. There is an old parchment map, too. They had to be what the murderer was looking for when he ransacked the cottage. So I called Olivet. Perhaps fortunately, Henri had convicted himself before I had to produce this evidence. So you can keep it in the most secret archives of Ingare.”

There was an extended silence, while each of those present digested the various implications of what had been revealed.

After some time, Yves voiced what might have been a general question: “I wonder what Henri and Louis will say when they are interrogated.”

“They can only involve each other,” said the Saint confidently. “They were both using each other, with different motives. Henri is much smarter, in a lawyer’s way — he was clever enough to defend me, when Philippe was accusing, which made it look as if he had no need of a scapegoat — but Norbert is such an obviously genuine archaeological nut that he’s pretty sure to get off on the grounds of idiocy. Also in consideration of having finally tried to stop Henri putting down two more victims.”

Mimette shivered.

“Simon was magnificent,” she said. “But for him—”

“I was temporarily deranged,” Simon contradicted her firmly. “Or how could I have turned down the chance of sharing a coffin with a more delightful companion?”

Yves Florian pressed his fingertips together, not quite in an attitude of prayer, with a half-smile on his lips but a deeper tautening of the muscles around it.

“Simon is now one of the family,” he said. “I think that the private affairs of our family — including Philippe — can be trusted to his discretion.”