Лесли Чартерис - The Saint and the Templar Treasure

It was full of steam, and he opened the window to let it out. The sight that greeted him made him step quickly back and stand very still.

On the track that led from the castle down towards the river was parked a black Citröen identical to the one he had seen beside the burning barn, and walking towards it from the tower were two men whose shapes he clearly recognised even at that distance.

In a movie, Simon Templar would have leapt from the window on to the balcony below, then swung like Errol Flynn across to the battlements, and after running along the crumbling catwalk would have dived like an avenging angel on to the two unsuspecting miscreants. In real life, the Saint stayed where he was and watched.

It was not that he lacked the athletic agility and strength to perform the required gymnastics. The main restraining factor was that he wanted to win the confidence of the Florian family, and such trust is not normally given to guests who leap stark naked from bathroom windows and jump on other men, however laudable their motives. There was also the equally practical consideration that they might well have gone away before he could reach them.

The men were climbing into their car when a third figure ran from the tower and pressed a package into the hands of the smaller of the other two. The combination of angle and distance prevented the Saint from getting anything more than a fleeting glimpse of the newcomer before he turned back and was again hidden by the tower.

The Citröen turned and accelerated away down the track. Simon did not waste time following its route but instead focused his attention on the tower. For several minutes he maintained his vigil but the third man did not re-appear. The Saint was disappointed but realised that his view of anyone leaving the tower by an outside door would have been screened by the walls.

When it was obvious that he was not likely to see any more, he lowered himself into the no longer scalding water and pondered every detail of what he had witnessed. There was a deduction to be made, but it only added to his collection of question marks.

The major-domo returned, and came as far as the bathroom door.

“I have brought your valise, m’sieu. Do you wish me to unpack it?”

“Non, merci,” Simon said. “I’d prefer to find what I want.”

“If you ring the bell when you are ready, m’sieu, I will come and show you to the principal salon.”

“Thank you.”

“A votre service.”

Service was a fine thing, Simon reflected, but he could soon have too much of it.

When he had completed his ablutions and dried himself, he returned to the bedroom and found his suitcase on a stool beside the bed. As he bent to unlock it he could not help looking out of the window at the panorama now suffused with the rosy tints of approaching sunset into which the Citröen had disappeared, and remembering how the third man had returned towards the tower and not been sighted again.

The inescapable conclusion was that he had come into the château. And was probably still inside. And very possibly had been all along.

An illuminating corollary was that there had been no attempt to hide the Citröen even though it could have been seen by anybody looking out of a window on the second or third storey. Which suggested that the accomplice was in a position to account for his actions if challenged, or that he knew the whereabouts of everyone else in the house.

“But how corny it would be,” Simon told his reflection in the mirror as he combed his hair, “to have the faithful old butler be the villain...”

To replace the garments which had suffered the dishevelment of his salvage efforts, he selected an extravagantly patterned shirt from Nassau, a pair of light blue slacks, and a featherweight jacket. The combination restored the image of a disarm-ingly relaxed vacationing tourist which, in essence, was exactly what he was.

He ignored the bell-pull that would have summoned the major-domo to show him to the drawing-room and quietly turned the door handle and slipped out into the deserted corridor. His action might be frowned upon by his hostess and would certainly scandalise the worthy Charles, but he had had enough of being shepherded for a while, and he felt like doing a little exploring on his own. He reasoned that if he was found anywhere he should not be, he had the perfect excuse of being lost in a strange house — which, he mused as he remembered the maze of passages, he probably would be.

He was able to retrace the route the servant had taken until he arrived at the right-angled turn-off of a narrow corridor which seemed to connect the east wing with the main body of the château. He had a feeling that if there was anything to be discovered during his wandering it would be in the older section of the house.

Inside the main building, the corridor abruptly became a much wider passage, lighted by a tall window at the far end. From the number of doors along either side, it appeared to bisect the building, giving access to both front and back rooms.

The Saint moved swiftly along it, making less noise than a stalking cat. He opened doors at random, but found nothing more exciting than bedrooms and an occasional cupboard or lumber room.

The end of the passage, by the tall window, proved to be also a landing for a spiral stone staircase leading both upwards and downwards. Judging that the upper floor would be no more exciting than the one he was on, he took the stairs down to the first floor, which turned out to be an equally barren hunting ground. The only room of any interest was a large well-stocked library that would have taken far too long to search.

The main problem, he conceded, as he found himself looking down another corridor leading to the balcony around the entrance hall, was that he had no idea what he was hoping to find. He was simply gambling on blind luck to produce something.

He glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that well over an hour had passed since he had left Mimette. He could not delay much longer, or Charles would be coming to look for him, whether summoned or not. He was considering whether to abandon his quest when he heard a door slam and the sound of footsteps coming along the balcony towards the corridor.

On impulse he stepped back on to the spiral staircase and continued down it. The steps became steeper with every turn, and he expected that they would eventually lead to a basement, perhaps even to the original dungeons of the castle. Instead, they ended on the ground floor, but from the way they twisted towards a blank wall they must have once carried on down to the foundations. A padlocked door set in the wall facing the final step had pointedly been installed to restrict entrance to the cellars.

It was evident that he had reached the oldest part of the château. A bare stone passage with a low ceiling of tiny red bricks ran from the foot of the stairway into what had once been the great hall of the castle. The room was vast compared to the others he had visited, being at least eighty feet long and almost half as many wide. The ceiling was made of planks the width of the trees they had been cut from, and broad shafts of fading light slanted down from a dozen arched windows set high up in the wall. Except for a few faded tapestries and a couple of roughly carpentered trestle tables, it was completely empty. The entrance from the passage was in the centre of the hall, an equal distance from two doors which were the only other breaks in the flat lines of the walls.

Simon considered each in turn as he weighed his next move. The more imposing of the two was set in the wall which he estimated to be nearest the centre of the château, while the one at the east end of the hall was much smaller and half hidden in a recess. Of the two, the smaller looked the more intriguing but he was acutely aware that time was not on his side. Regretfully he turned towards the main door which, he guessed, would take him in the general direction of the reception hall and, very likely, the salon.