Leslie Charteris - The Saint in Pursuit

Vicky Kinian said: “My father was risking his life for his country as a soldier, and I know he wouldn’t have betrayed it for any amount of money. But this must have seemed like something quite apart from winning the war. Whoever got this money, so long as it wasn’t the Nazis, it wouldn’t have hurt our side. Somehow, he found out about it and had a chance to leave it to me instead of getting it turned over to the Government. I honestly can’t blame him for being tempted.”

“You shouldn’t blame me either, then,” Simon averred.

She looked worried.

“Any more than I should blame you,” he concluded.

She seemed a little relieved.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I propose to keep one of these for my services — and please don’t embarrass both of us by telling me you can’t spare it.”

He separated the Johannesburg letter from the stack and handed the other five sheets to Vicky. Her face was white and her fingers trembled so much that the papers rustled loudly. She sank down on the sofa, gazed uncomprehendingly at the typed text of the documentary forms, and hugged them close against her body.

She looked up at Simon, hardly able to speak.

“So you think I’m entitled to this money?”

The Saint had already tucked his personal dividend into his pocket.

“Maybe,” he said thoughtfully. “But unfortunately I’m not the one who’ll decide whether to let you keep it. One can assume that the happy Aryans who stashed it away got it by some unsavory or illegitimate means, but where did they embezzle it or which individuals did they rob? That could keep an army of lawyers busy for another twenty years.” He sat down in a chair facing her, rested his elbows on the arms, and folded his hands underneath his chin as he considered the problem. “Remember, I’m in on this hunt because some lads in the Pentagon asked me to solve the mystery of your father and report what I could find out. If Washington releases the information, there are going to be more claimants for this dough than bees in a clover patch.”

Vicky was beginning to look more defiant than worried.

“I don’t see how any of them could prove they’ve any right to it!” she said. “How could anybody else have found it?”

“I doubt that anybody could, but both of us would be far beyond caring by the time the legal weasels finish gnawing the bones.”

“So you mean I’ve got a choice between being a sort of thief and being broke for the rest of my life,” Vicky said sulkily. “Assuming you give me any choice at all. I notice you’ve already got your share safely tucked away. I’m the only one who’ll be sitting around waiting for my reward for the next eighty years.”

Simon picked up the remaining five letters of credit and spread them like playing cards in his hands.

“Well, just in case the authorities aren’t properly grateful, I guess it’s only fair that you should have a little something to tide you over while they embroider the red tape.” He selected the letter addressed to the Zurich bank and passed it to her. “There. Sweets for the sweet. We can say there were only four letters — which, as anybody can plainly see, there are.”

He placed the four sheets of paper back on the table and noted the ambivalent look Vicky was giving them.

“Don’t be so sad,” he said. “Ten million dollars is more than you’re ever likely to spend, and if you had the rest you could only bequeath it to the care of indigent wombats or the restoration of ancient Egyptian outhouses.”

“I’d still rather decide what happens to it than let a lot of bureaucrats get their hands on it!” she protested.

“I’d rather you did too, but I’ve got to maintain a few of my personally tailored ethics or I’d never get invited to nice people’s homes.”

He folded the four papers and put them in one of his pockets separate from the letter he had reserved for himself.

“And how do I know what you’ll do with those?” Vicky asked suspiciously.

“Come with me to the American Embassy, if you like, and watch me hand them in,” he answered without hesitation. “In fact, you’d better stick to me like a burr till tomorrow. If there are any other treasure-hunters left, they may realize they’ve got to get us before the banks open in the morning. In fact, any life insurance that’ll do us any good will only take effect when the Ungodly are convinced that all the loot is out of our hands.”

Vicky, who had been in the process of putting her own letter in her purse, suddenly stopped and looked up again at Simon.

“I never thought of that,” she said in a hushed voice. “Do you really think there might be others? I just assumed we’d finished with them.”

“Well, your boyfriend Jaeger didn’t strike me as the type to share his toys with his friends, but it’s possible that he wasn’t working alone. And assuming that Graveyard Mischa isn’t a free-lance ghoul, he may have been working with Jaeger or with some equally unwholesome party — perhaps Soviet in origin, judging by his name. I don’t want to make you nervous, but if we live to eat lunch tomorrow that in itself will be something to celebrate.”

Vicky snapped her bag shut and stared at the Saint’s calm face with wide eyes.

“Oh, no, you don’t make me nervous,” she said shakily. “You just make me petrified.”

“A little dose of caution wouldn’t hurt you a bit,” he said. “And a little dose of strong drink wouldn’t hurt either of us. Scotch is all I’ve got in stock. Is that all right?”

Vicky nodded numbly.

“Straight,” she said.

Simon poured each of them a dollop of Peter Dawson and added ice from the melting supply in a bucket on his dressing table.

“I think you must have cat blood,” he said over his shoulder to his subdued guest. “Even so, you must be down to your seventh or eighth life by now. I’d suggest a long and pleasure-rich retirement far from scenes of international intrigue and strife.”

“You’d never believe it,” she said, “but in Des Moines I’d have been scared to take a bus alone at night. I don’t know what came over me to give me the nerve to do what I’ve done on this trip.”

Simon handed her a glass and raised his to her in a casual toast.

“Whatever it is, here’s to it,” he said. “And if you’ll pardon the analogy, since there’s no resemblance to you whatsoever in shape, here’s to all the broomstraws who’ve found they can drive straight through a solid oak door in a strong wind.”

Vicky smiled and drank, meeting his eyes with really human warmth for the first time since they had met.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so—”

Her sentence was cut off by a series of precisely spaced knocks at the door. Vicky blanched, and Simon got to his feet.

“Just stay where you are,” he said quietly.

He was ready for anything when he unlocked the door and partially opened it, but he was not called upon to resist any violent onslaughts. There in the hallway, looking as harmless as an overfed guinea pig, stood only a shortish plump man with a bald head and a white Vandyke beard.

“And what can we do for you?” inquired the Saint courteously.

He stood blocking the door, and his bespectacled caller, dressed in a slightly rumpled dove-grey suit of vaguely outmoded cut, held out an identity card encased in clear plastic.

“I hope you recognize this,” the man said quietly. “It is not often shown.”

“As a matter of fact,” Simon said with equal smoothness before looking at the card, “I recognize you. Didn’t we bump into one another on the stairs of a hotel in Lisbon?”

“It is more than possible,” the stranger said.