The Saint in Trouble (3 page)

The concierge took down his room key, checked the box under it, and informed Simon that no one had called. The Saint thanked him, and on looking around saw that the bookstall was deserted.

Once in his room, he barely had time to change his clothes and pour a small dose from the duty-free bottle he had brought from London Airport onto a pile of crushed ice before Emma knocked. He opened the door with one hand and proffered the drink with the other.

Emma accepted the glass with a smile.

“Thank you. That was quite a performance you staged this afternoon.”

Simon provisioned another glass and led the way out to the balcony.

“I must say I thought I caught the tone rather well,” he admitted modestly.

For a few moments both were silent as they tasted their drinks and gazed out across the rooftops to the sea.

“Do you think it will do any good?”

The Saint shifted his chair to get the maximum benefit from the breeze that was beginning to drift shorewards.

“It already has.”

He recounted the drive back to the hotel and described the man in the Mercedes.

Emma thought for a while but finally shook her head.

“I don’t know him, so he certainly isn’t anything to do with the conference, not officially anyway. But how do you know he was following you? He could simply have been coming to the hotel.”

“He would hardly have taken the route I chose, and he left in a hurry as soon as he had found out my name-to report back, I suppose. The question is-to whom?”

He was about to put forward some of the possible answers to that problem when a violent hammering on the door made further conversation impossible. The Saint put on his glasses and stood up. He pointed Emma towards the bathroom door: “In there, and stay quiet.”

The girl hesitated.

“What if it’s reporters who saw you at the conference?”

“Then they are going to have much better headlines if they find you in my room, so shoo.”

The banging grew louder and Simon hurried to open the door before it broke under the strain.

The moment he slipped the catch, the door was sent crashing back against the wall, and without waiting to be invited Professor Maclett strode in, planting himself in the centre of the room, legs apart, arms folded across his chest, fingers twitching as he clutched the cloth of his jacket sleeves. He was obviously fighting to control his temper, and the Saint kept a prudent arm’s length away in case he lost it.

“All right, young man, let’s hear it! You pop up in the middle of a major conference, shouting I’ve stolen yer recipe. Before I rip yer liver out I’d like t’hear just exactly what y’think yer talking about.”

The Saint raised two hands in a gesture of peace.

“Professor, I do understand you…”

“M’process is me own, and so’s me honour, y’young pup. If ever in me life I’ve stole s’much as a dram from any man’s locker I’ll be having y’tell me so t’my face right here and now in private.”

From the corner of his eye Simon saw the bathroom door open, and stood aside so that Maclett could see his daughter. A look of astonishment replaced the one of anger that had coloured the professor’s face. Simon waved his hand between them.

“Professor Maclett, Miss Maclett. Miss Maclett, Professor Maclett.”

Maclett turned on his daughter, ignoring the Saint.

“What the hell are you doing here, girl?”

“Employing me to watch you, I’m afraid,” Simon explained. “Now that we all know each other, why don’t we discuss this over a drink?”

But Maclett was not to be so easily pacified.

“I’ll be taking no drinks with you, young man!”

Emma came between them, putting her hands on her father’s shoulders, her voice softly scolding him.

“Now, Daddy, stop shouting. You know no one can understand that accent of yours when you start yelling.”

“I was not yelling,” Maclett yelled.

“You were yelling. Now why don’t you take Simon’s advice and go for a drink with him, it’ll help you to calm down.”

The big man visibly softened as he looked down into his daughter’s eyes.

“Aye, I suppose I could do with a dram at that.” He turned back to the Saint. “C’mon then, young man-but I warn ye, your story had better be a good one.”

They rode down in silence and did not speak again until the drinks had been poured and they were seated in a corner of the hotel bar.

“Your daughter’s simply afraid for you.”

“Nonsense.”

And with good reason,” Simon continued. “You’re a very big fish with a very big secret.”

Maclett smiled grimly, more to himself than to his companion.

“It won’t be a secret for long. I came to this convention to make it so public they’ll have to recognise it. Those big oil corporations and consortiums are always stuffing independent progress on the back shelf somewhere. Well, not in this case, I can tell y’. Not in this case.”

“Yes, I can understand …” Simon began, but Maclett overrode him

“Y’know how many life-giving breakthroughs get locked away in closets every year by the big-money fellas with their vested interests and their-“

The Saint could see the conversation becoming a somewhat hackneyed diatribe on the evil machinations of big business, and cut in firmly.

“Professor, we were talking about your security.”

“Look here, now, lad, right now I just want one thing-“

“I agree, another drink.”

Simon signalled to the waiter to refill their glasses. While that was being done, he took the opportunity to put his case.

“Listen, Professor, I’m sorry about all the melodrama back in the conference hall, but at least now no one will accuse me of being concerned about your welfare.”

Maclett downed half his second Scotch in one.

“Laddie, I tell you, and I’ll tell that silly daughter of mine, I don’t need t’be coddled. I haven’t been doin’ equations so long I can’t still throw a good right hand, y’know.”

“That I can believe.”

“I swung a pickaxe for every minute o’physics they ever taught me.”

Simon was not to be swayed, though he admitted that he would have welcomed Maclett on his side in a free-for-all.

“Emma’s told me you’ve already turned away some tentative probes by the eastern bloc in the last year alone. You’re valuable. They want yon, and if they want you badly enough they’ll keep trying to have you. One way or another.”

Maclett chuckled at the vision conjured up by the Saint’s words.

“Come on, laddie, what do you think they’d do-kidnap me?”

“It’s possible.”

“Once I announce th’application of m’theory, who th’devil’s going to bother needing me then? M’daughter’s a well-meanin’ child and yer may be a well-meanin’ man, but I haven’t needed ye and I don’t and I won’t.”

Maclett drained his glass and rose. “

I thank ye fer the drink, laddie, if fer nothin’ else.”

Simon watched the professor leave and decided to follow his example. He was rapidly tiring of being cooped up in conference halls and hotels, and the prospect of a stroll by the sea in some fresh air was inviting. Besides which, it would give him an opportunity to assess how the Ungodly’s interest in him was developing.

He paid for the drinks and sauntered through the foyer and out into the afternoon sunshine. He paid no attention to the young man leaning against one of the pillars supporting the hotel portico, or to the black Renault that just stopped in the centre of the car park until he felt something hard jab into the hollow of his spine. The voice in his ear was low but firm.

“There’s a car over there. Why don’t you step into it?”

3

The Saint turned his head and appraised the bulge in the speaker’s pocket with an expert eye, but he did not move. He was annoyed at having been caught so easily and had no intention of further damaging his record by instantly obeying the order. His eyes travelled the length of the young man who stood slightly behind him, subjecting him to a silent, mocking evaluation. They started with the suede slip-ons, journeyed up the slightly rumpled trousers of the light grey suit, lingered for a moment on the stainless steel watch bracelet that showed on the left wrist and the heavy heraldic ring on the third finger of the one square hand that was visible to him, took in the thick set of the shoulders, and finished on the freshly scrubbed face. His nostrils registered the assault of a lavishly applied cheap aftershave.

This was not the playboy type of the Mercedes, but one of an outwardly tougher class, or consciously trying to give that impression. The voice was public-school English moderated by an affected mid-Atlantic drawl. There was a tenseness to the features and a flicker behind the eyes that told him the young man might act rasMy if his ego was scratched.

Simon caught the other’s tone perfectly.

“I believe I’ll do just what you suggest.”

The young man’s eyes narrowed at the mimicry and he pushed the gun viciously into the Saint’s back.

“Move!”

The Saint strolled leisurely across to the Renault, which was parked a few yards away from Gaby’s taxi. The cab driver was sitting in the front passenger seat, contriving to read a newspaper while keeping his eyes switching to a look-out for possible customers. As he saw the Saint approaching, the newspaper disappeared and he was standing outside with the rear door open by the time Simon drew level.

Simon registered regret by spreading out his hands and shaking his head. “Not now, Gaby, mon vieux. This gentleman insists on showing me the sights himself.”

Another forceful prod in his ribs told him to keep moving, and the Saint obeyed it. He caught the puzzled look in Gaby’s eyes, and knew that the significance of the situation had not escaped him.

Simon got in beside the driver, who reached over to open the door, and the young man climbed in the back, sitting directly behind him. The Saint settled himself comfortably in his seat, stretching out his legs and resting his feet on a small fire extinguisher clipped to the side of the car under the dashboard. The driver, a sallow, hound-faced type with a droopy moustache, looked at neither of them, but simply took his foot off the brake and sent them skidding out of the hotel grounds to the sound of protesting rubber. In the wing mirror Simon could see the white Buick a half-dozen car lengths behind.

“Don’t you think you should introduce yourselves?” said the Saint, “I’d like to have something to call you, beside the rude names that my grandmother always told me never to use.”

“Shut up.”

Simon detected the first sign of strain in the young man’s voice, and he smiled. The driver showed no emotion at all but looked only at the road ahead, his whole concentration devoted to his piloting.

The Saint turned to his captor.

“Wherever we’re going, is it far?”

He was met with a silent stare. Simon nodded understandingly.

“I suppose they only program you for specific tasks.” An idea seemed to strike him. “Of course, that’s it, you’re really mobile computers, and you’re going to be the star turn at the science conference, but someone let you out by mistake, and you’re wearing that aftershave to mask the smell of oil.”

A red glow was creeping up the young man’s neck.

“Shut up and turn around. Any more cracks, and you’ll arrive with a lump on your head.”

The Saint shrugged, and resumed his former position. His feet tested the spring bracket holding the extinquisher and he spent the next few minutes calculating angles and distances. This task completed, he settled back to enjoy the ride.

They had zigzagged through on to the main road out of town westwards towards Antibes, but now immediately took a minor side road on the left that wound steeply up into the landscaped terraces of the snob residential section known idolatrously as La Californie. From the car, there were occasional backward glimpses of the sea shimmering in the summer warmth, but the best views were reserved to the expensive properties set back from the road, most of which were established before the upper classes had accepted the practice of sea bathing. To an unobservant observer, Simon Templar might have seemed to have fallen half asleep, his body relaxed, his eyes half closed against the sun’s glare. The driver’s concentration was completely absorbed by the intricate windings of the road, and his colleague was looking out of the side windows in obvious confidence in his control of the situation. The Saint knew that if he was to make a move it would have to be soon.

He slid the toe of his right shoe under the fire extinguisher and flicked the release catch with his left, sending the cylinder spinning towards him. He caught it on the half turn and smashed down the handle as he completed the maneuver, directing the jet of foam straight into the face of the gun-toter behind him. Suddenly blinded, the victim shot his hands to his eyes as the Saint dived across the back of his seat, one hand reaching for the young man’s gun, the other flinging the spurting extinguisher into the clean-scrubbed face.

The driver had stamped on the brake as soon as the commotion started, but he was too busy trying to control the resultant skidding to offer any resistance, and too sensible to do anything but leave his hands on the wheel once the motor had stopped. Simon turned to him.

“Now be a nice boy and give us your toy.” Simon took the gun from under the driver’s armpit and considered the relative merits of the arsenal he had collected. The first was a nickel-plated .22 that, although deadly enough at close range, was more suited to a lady’s handbag. The Saint tossed it out of the window and retained the heavier army issue .38 automatic wMch the aftershave advertisement had provided. He turned off the engine and pocketed the ignition keys before getting out of the car and opening the rear door.

“Out.”

The junior kidnapper stumbled out, still trying to clear the foam from his eyes. Simon pushed him into the front passenger seat, got into the back, and returned the keys to the driver.

“Don’t think I don’t want to go wherever you were going,” he said. “I just don’t like being crowded. Now just carry on as if I hadn’t interrupted.”

The Saint waved an arm out of the window as a sign to Gaby, who had stopped his taxi a safe twenty metres behind to follow.