Leslie Charteris - The Saint Returns

One of the attributes of a supremely alert intelligence such as the Saint’s is the ability to see the relationship between apparently unrelated facts. As he listened politely to Brother Anton’s historical notes and pretended to study the architectural details of the ancient building, his thoughts were hours ahead. He was noticing the interesting but seemingly irrelevant fact that the pump in the kitchen, the well in the courtyard, and the source of the stream outside the walls were in a more or less direct line.

“And so,” Brother Anton was concluding, “for five centuries, for those who joined us here, the world ended at that door through which you entered.”

“But one worldly thing still comes out through it,” Simon said, “but for which we might never have heard of this place. Is it possible to see the manufacture of Grand Abrouillac?”

He was curious to know whether the cenobite was frowning or smiling under his veil in response to that additional request.

“To see the place, but not to see the method,” was the reply. “Therefore, to see very little. But come this way.”

“We must not stay long,” Simon said pointedly, looking at his watch. “We have friends below in the village who will come up looking for us if we do not return for supper. I don’t want them to start worrying about us.”

“It will take only a minute to see what I am permitted to show,” the monk said.

He led the way down stone steps made smoothly concave by scores of years of sandaled treading. Now they were in a basement whose only windows were narrow grated slits near the ceiling at the level of the ground outside. The walls were lined with the spiraled bottles such as Simon had seen in Molèire’s office. Jars of herbs and unidentifiable liquids gathered dust on other shelves. Pungently spiritous casks and vats stood about the floor and were racked in tiers along one wall. There was a big wood-burning stove at one end of the room with a flue extending into the ceiling.

“Central heat?” Simon inquired.

“Yes. It becomes very cold here even in summer. Only a few hundred meters above us is always snow.”

“No point in mortifying the flesh that much,” Simon commented in English.

“Bitte?”

“I suppose it would be bad for the brew to freeze.”

The Saint touched a kind of thick wooden faucet in the wall, from behind which came a faint gurgling sound.

“The mountain spring water which is one of the secret ingredients?”

“Sie haben recht. The water is most important.”

The monk took a bottle from one of the shelves.

“If you wish to take a bottle with you, it is forty francs here, much less than outside.”

Simon took a bill from his pocket and pressed it into the man’s hand.

“Danke sehr, Bruder. For your holy work.”

“Vielen dank.”

“Bitte.”

As they started up the stairs, Simon indicated a large ceiling fan which had been almost invisible from directly below because of a kind of false ceiling hung under it.

“You have installed some other modern comforts, I see.”

“Ach, ja. The fumes, you know. In the old days the brothers used to become quite drunk while working here, merely from breathing.”

“All good things must come to an end, I suppose.”

“All good things and all bad things,” the monk said, and quickly showed them the way out of the cloisters to the main doorway.

Simon had gone with Tanya only a few yards out of sight of the walls when he took her arm and said: “Excuse me just a moment.”

He knelt down and put the bottle of Grand Abrouillac between two rocks and covered it with pine needles.

“As much as I love good liquor, I love life more, and I’m in no mood to be poisoned, exploded, or shot in the head.”

She stared.

“You do not think...”

“I do think. And I wouldn’t take any chances with anything that came out of that crypt. Now let’s go on and make plenty of noise as we recede into the sunset.”

Twenty seconds later he stopped again. From above drifted the singing voices of the Brotherhood.

“Why do we wait?” Tanya whispered.

“To listen. I’m a student of bird calls and other forest noises.”

The vigil produced results more practical than aesthetic. After about two minutes the voices of the choristers stopped abruptly in mid-syllable, even in mid-note, to say nothing of mid-phrase.

The Saint and Tanya looked at one another.

“No wonder our friends sounded so professional,” Simon said. “They were.”

“A gramophone record.”

“Right, my dear. The invisible Brotherhood is just about as genuine as everything else in that joint. Did you notice those vegetable plots? Weeds bigger than the cabbages. Nobody’s bothered to cultivate them for days — or weeks.”

He took Tanya’s hand, and they went on down the path.

“So” she said, “you think they make our equipment there?”

“Seems very likely. There could be all sorts of hidden chambers. I was studying that possibility, too, but we can’t be sure until tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight. When I come back for another look around. I’ve never liked these conducted tours. By the way,” he added with a quizzical frown, “what do you think that was they were cooking in the kitchen?”

“I don’t know,” she answered absently. “Kasha? Rice?”

Suddenly Simon stopped and looked at her.

“Rice,” he said, and threw back his head and laughed.

A half-moon was just riding high enough to illuminate the snow on the great peaks above as the Saint began his return climb to the monastery. Everything was silvered, the sky was clear, and the air was keener than it had been in the daytime. The cold wind’s stimulus to his walking speed helped to nullify the reductive effect of his dinner (there was no menu and no choice) of goulash, noodles, and red cabbage.

Tanya had wanted to come, but he had convinced her that it was foolhardy for them both to be committed at the same time. If he had not returned by midnight she would be free to take whatever action she thought best — an old tactic but, like most lasting traditions, a sound one. It was almost ten o’clock now.

There was another logical reason for her to wait at the Gasthof: Igor and Ivan might arrive at any moment, following directions that had been left in Paris, and any news they had of Molière might be vital. Someone should be at the inn to meet them if they did turn up.

As he came closer to the monastery, Simon’s stride slackened and became more stealthy, until the last yards were covered with the silence of a stalking cat. The silence within seemed to be just as complete, and the few leaded windows high up in the walls were dark, but he could not believe that all the inmates would go to sleep at the same time, leaving no one on watch, if his suspicions had any foundation.

He picked up a couple of pebbles in one hand, and stood with his back pressed against the wall to one side of the great doors. In his other hand he held the long branch which he had discarded there on his earlier visit. He reached over and tapped with it on the door. After a pause, he tapped again, insistently. And again.

He heard the spy-slot open, but knew he could not be seen from where he stood. He waited another second or two, and then scratched hard with his stick on the lower part of the far door, where the watcher inside would not possibly see what was doing it.

The panel slid shut, and bolts and bars scraped on the inside. The door gave a faint cautious creak, and the profile of a man came through the opening. But the man was no monk — at least, no monk in the regular accoutrements. He was wearing military style fatigues, boots, and a forage cap. Even more unorthodox was the large pistol he carried, its barrel lengthened by the thick cylinder of a silencer.