Лесли Чартерис - The Saint and the Templar Treasure

The Saint met his eyes in a long steady acknowledgement.

“D’accord.” With a deliberate lightening of the intensity, he scanned the room as if in search of a missing person. “By the way, what happened to Henri’s girl?”

Mimette pouted.

“Jeanne Corday? Charles told me she sent for a taxi and left in a hurry this afternoon. She must have decided that Henri was too much of a problem.”

“I expect she’ll survive,” Simon said cheerfully. “I’ll have to look her up next time I’m in Paris.”

To dodge the invisible daggers that Mimette launched at him, he turned hastily to Yves.

“Well, if the parchment in that casket really is the testament of Judas Iscariot, your money troubles are over. You can either sell it to a museum for a fortune or keep it here and charge everybody admission to come and see it. The Ingare Scroll. And put on a full production of the château’s history in son et lumière.”

“I think I will keep it here where it has been for so long,” said Yves reflectively. “But I have a better name for it. It shall be known as the Templar Scroll. What do you think of the idea, Simon?”

The Saint stretched his legs in front of him and sipped his drink as he considered the proposal.

“Yes,” he said at last. “I rather like that.”

He thought of his namesakes in the crypt, and the thousands more who had fallen on the battlefields of the Crusades, and added quietly to himself: “But would they?”

Original outline by Donne Avenell

Developed by Graham Weaver