Leslie Charteris - The Saint in Europe

His human sympathy, however, detracted nothing from the delight with which he viewed the immediate future. It was true that only a few hours ago he had promised to be good, but there were limits. His evening, and in fact his whole visit to Amsterdam, was made.

He signaled to a waiter.

“I think we should all have a drink on this,” he said.

The half-incredulous joy in Mrs Upwater’s tear-dimmed eyes, to anyone else, would have been enough reward.

“You will help us?” she said breathlessly.

“There’s nothing I can do tonight. So we might as well just celebrate. But tomorrow,” Simon promised, “I will pay a call on your Mr Jonkheer.”

The name was on the door, as Mr Upwater had said, of a narrow-fronted three-storied brick building in a narrow street of similar buildings behind the Rijksmuseum: “HENDRIK JONKHEER,” and in smaller letters under it, “ Diamantslijper ” From the weathered stone of the doorstep to the weathered tile of the peaked roof, the house had a solid air of permanence and tradition. The only feature that distinguished it from its equally solid neighbors was the prison-like arrangement of iron bars over the two muslin-curtained ground floor windows. Definitely it bore no stigma of a potentially flashy or fly-by-night operation.

Simon tugged at the old-fashioned bell-pull, and heard it clang somewhere in the depths of the building. Presently the door opened, no more than a foot, to the limit of a chain fastened inside, and a thin young man in a knee-length gray overall coat looked out.

“May I see Mr Jonkheer?” Simon said.

“Your business, sir?”

“I’m a magazine writer, doing an article on the diamond business. I thought a man of Mr Jonkheer’s standing could give me some valuable information.”

The young man unfastened the chain and let him in to a bare narrow hall. There were doors on one side and another at the back, and a flight of uncarpeted wooden stairs led upwards. On a hard chair beside the stairs, with a newspaper on his lap and one hand under the paper, sat a burly man with blond close-cropped hair who stared at the Saint woodenly.

“One moment, please,” said the young man.

He disappeared through the door at the end of the hall. The burly man continued to stare motionlessly at the Saint, as if he were stuffed. In a little while the young man came back.

“This way, please.”

The back room was a homely sort of office, the only possible sanctum of an individualistic old-world craftsman who needed no front for his skill. It contained an ancient roll-top desk with dusty papers overflowing from its pigeonholes and littered over its surfaces, a battered swivel chair at the desk, and two overstuffed armchairs whose leather upholstery was dark and shiny with age. There were china figures and family photographs in gilt frames on the marble mantelpiece over a black iron coal fireplace. The safe stood under another barred window, and massive though it was, it would not have offered much more resistance than a matchbox to a modern cracksman.

Mr Jonkheer was a short bald man in his shirtsleeves, with a wide paunch under a leather apron and a wide multiple-chinned face. It was obvious at a glance that no make-up virtuoso could have duplicated him. His pale blue eyes looked small and bright behind thick gold-rimmed glasses.

“You are a writer, eh?” he said, with a kind of gruff affability. “Which magazine do you write for?”

“Any one that’ll buy what I write.”

“So. And what can I tell you for your article?”

The Saint sat in one of the heavy armchairs and opened a pack of cigarettes.

“Well, anything interesting about your work,” he said.

“I cut jewels — principally diamonds.”

“I know. I’m told you’re one of the best cutters in the business.”

“There are many good ones. I am good.”

“I suppose you’ve been doing it all your life?”

“Since I am an apprentice, at sixteen. I have been cutting stones, now, for forty years.”

“You must have cut some famous jewels in that time.”

A twin pair of vertical lines began to pucker between the cutter’s bushy brows.

“Famous?”

“I mean, well-known jewels, that people would like to read about.”

“I have cut many good stones.”

This was manifestly going to make no revelationary progress. Simon said, as offhandedly as he could, “You’re too modest, Mr Jonkheer. For instance, how about the Angel’s Eye?”

There was no audible sound effect like a sickening thud, but the response was much the same. In a silence that fairly hummed with hollowness, the diamond cutter’s small bright eyes hardened and froze like drops of his own gems.

The Saint exhaled cigarette smoke and tried to appear as if he noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

At last Jonkheer said, “What about the Angel’s Eye?”

“You know the stone I mean?”

“Of course. It is a famous diamond.”

“How are you going to re-cut it?”

“I am not re-cutting it.”

Jonkheer’s tone was still gruff, but no longer affable. Simon looked puzzled.

“But you have it here.”

“I do not.”

“I was told—”

“You are mistaken.”

“I don’t get it,” said the Saint, with an ingenuous frown. “The fellow who referred me to you said positively that the Angel’s Eye was brought to you for re-cutting only the other day. I don’t mean to pry into your business, but—”

The other’s steady stare was cold with suspicion.

“Who was this person?”

“It was somebody in the trade. I don’t know that I ought to mention his name. But he was very definite.”

Jonkheer gazed at him for a longer time, with no increase in friendliness. Then he turned his head slightly and called, “ Zuilen, kom tock binnen! ”

The burly blond man who had been sitting out in the hall walked in instantly, and without any preliminary sound, so that Simon realized that the door of the little office had never been fully closed and the big man must have been standing directly outside it. He brought his newspaper with him, carrying it rather awkwardly, as if he had something underneath it. With his left hand, he took a small leather folder from his pocket and showed Simon the card in it. The card carried his photograph and an inscription which Simon did not have time to read, but he recognized the official-looking seal and the word politie .

The big man, whose name was evidently Zuilen, was a very polite politieagent.

“May I see your credentials, please?”

“My passport is at the hotel,” said the Saint.

“Something, perhaps, from the magazine you write for?”

“I don’t write for any particular magazine. I just peddle my stuff wherever I can.”

“You must have something on you, some evidence of identity,” said the blond man patiently. “Please.”

He did not openly suggest that if none were produced, the matter could be continued at headquarters. That would have been superfluous.

Simon produced his wallet, and watched interestedly while Zuilen glanced at the contents. The detective’s eyes snapped from the first card that caught them to the Saint’s face as if a switch had been flicked, but his manner remained painstakingly correct.

“Mr Templar,” he said, “I did not hear that you were a writer.”

“It’s a new racket,” said the Saint easily.

The blond man handed the wallet back.

“You would do well to search for your material somewhere else,” he said. “There is nothing to interest you here.”

“Now wait a minute,” Simon argued. “I’m not making any trouble. I was told on the best authority that Mr Jonkheer had received a diamond called the Angel’s Eye to re-cut. I simply asked him about it. That isn’t a crime.”