Лесли Чартерис - Salvage for the Saint

If it had been only Bernadotti and Gomez pursuing, she would certainly have made it. But the other man was clearly a far better horseman; he was well ahead of them and now bearing down on her at speed.

She made the change of direction abruptly, taking advantage of the cover given by some bushes. Still she heard the horses coming after her. But she heard another sound, too — one that sang in her ears as no sound of that kind ever had before.

It was the engine of the Saint’s Hirondel springing into throbbing life.

Arabella made straight for it, the endurance of her legs and lungs now close to their limits. The car must be, from the sound, a good fifty yards away, and that horseman, with his pic poised, could be no more than a few paces behind her. And then, still running with a speed and surefootedness that astonished her, she was suddenly out of the swamp and back into that narrow strip of scrubby undergrowth bordering the track. She could feel her legs giving way as she ducked and swerved between the bushes in a last desperate endeavour to evade the thundering hooves and the murderous-looking lance. But the horseman crashed straight on through, simply flattening the bushes in his path.

Now she could see the car ahead, the engine still running...

And there was no one at the wheel.

The horseman was now so close behind that she could all but feel the point of the lance already impaling her through the small of her back. And then her legs buckled under her, and she tripped — exhausted, gasping, and covered in muddy slime. She must have passed out for a few moments; but through a kind of fog she heard a sharp crack, followed by the sort of heavy thud that might be made by a man falling off a horse.

The fog cleared, and she saw that a man had indeed fallen off a horse. And she saw Simon Templar standing in front of her, an automatic in his steady hand and a smile of admiration in his equally steady gaze.

Ten seconds later she found herself, somehow, in the passenger seat of the Hirondel and travelling rapidly towards the main road.

The Saint grinned at the pathetically dirty and dishevelled figure beside him, and wrinkled up his nose.

“Nice perfume,” he remarked.

“Ho bloody ho!” she snorted, between gasping breaths. “Just look at me. And look at you! No dirt, no gook, no gunge — you’re not even puffed!”

The Saint, cool and debonair, grinned again.

“Sorry. It was the only way. It was you they wanted. They were bound to take off after you once they spotted you.”

“But just look at me!” she repeated. She grabbed the driving mirror and turned it to gaze in horror at her face. “All my things, my bag—” She wailed: “—they’re back there somewhere in my car. You found me. You could at least have found my bag.”

“Oh, you’re quite welcome,” Simon said cheerfully. “Think nothing of it. I’m always saving people’s lives.”

She digested that for a while.

“I guess I am incredibly lucky you found me,” she said finally, with conciliation in her voice. “But come to think of it, how on earth did you find me? What are you even doing in France, anyway?”

“Oh, you know, this and that,” he told her. “I thought I’d see if I couldn’t look up your husband’s murderer.”

“My husband’s — murderer?” She looked at him aghast. “Are you mad? Is everybody mad?”

Simon recoiled fastidiously as she leaned rather too near. He waved her away.

“Uh... would you mind? I’m still fairly clean.”

Her eyes blazed with anger at that.

“Yes, I sure damn well would mind,” she exploded. “And what on earth makes you think Charles was murdered?”

The Saint said: “There was a third person on the boat with him and Fournier. One who survived.”

“And who was that third person?”

“That remains to be seen. But one thing we can be pretty certain of. Charles must have talked before he was killed. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been killed. So the survivor — the murderer — is at least one person who knows where the gold is.”

“But how can you be so sure—” She stopped short, now very thoughtful. “Now you’re talking about this ‘gold’. Simon, how do you know all this? If Charles had some gold, how come they, and you, know all about it and I don’t? And how come you were able to turn up back there, in the proverbial nick of time?” Arabella stopped again, with suspicion clouding her features. “What is all this, Simon? I can’t even be sure of your part in it any more. So where’s the nearest police station around here?”

The Saint sighed patiently.

“Dear lovely Arabella, you’re understandably overwrought and suspicious, especially as I’ve had all the clean and heroic bits of the action today and you’ve had all the dirty, dangerous and the strenuous ones. But wouldn’t you like to know where there’s several million dollars in gold bullion?”

“Several mill—” She sat back and thought for a minute, as they sped through the landscapes of southern France, now on the main road for Marseilles. Then, looking no less confused, she shrugged and said: “I could get used to bullion.”

“Then you see why we’re not going to the police just yet.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Plenty of time to think — while you’re bathing.”

After they had installed themselves in twin communicating suites in one of the better hotels of Marseille, Arabella lost no time in making the acquaintance of the bathroom, while Simon went out on a rapid shopping trip.

He came in carrying assorted feminine garments in both the under- and the outerwear categories, as well as sundry toiletries. There was no end to the surprising range of knowledge he had picked up in his adventurer’s life, and the fact that he was capable of choosing well-matched feminine accoutrements to suit a woman’s taste should occasion neither surprise nor indelicate enquiry.

He dropped the clothing on the bed and knocked on the door of Arabella’s bathroom, from which issued forth exuberant sounds of splashing.

“All right if I come in? I promise not to look. Unless you insist, of course.”

He went in, face half-averted.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You can look.”

Simon looked.

She was lying in a bath full of completely opaque brownish liquid covered with suds.

“Lovely, isn’t it? Like Lake Erie.”

“Anything you find in there,” he said gravely, as he deposited some appropriate toiletries on the end of the bath, “—spray it with this. Or better yet, you might let that water out before you take root.”

As she turned to go, she called out softly.

“Simon?”

“Yes?”

“You’re a very attractive man.”

The Saint grinned, and indicated the bath water.

“I’m the one who should be doing the flattering — you filthy rich widow, you. I almost wish we were here for a dirty weekend instead of on dangerous business.” His face was suddenly serious and intent. “You’ve been through enough already to know that gold, in the quantities we’re talking about, is very dangerous business. Make no mistake — Descartes and his less philosophical cronies aren’t going to give up easily. Don’t run away with the idea, even when you finally get out of that water, that we’ve got clean away from them.”

Even as the author of this paronomastic caution, Simon was unaware of quite how timely it was. For as he drove away from the hotel shortly after, he was observed from a black Citroen that lurked not fifty yards along the street. The obese body of Jacques Descartes oozed comfortably across the back seat, while in the front Enrico Bernadotti and Pancho Gomez exchanged small smiles of satisfaction as the Hirondel disappeared around the next corner.