However, she had more practical matters to occupy her mind. She had no wish to put off her dream of a California palace any longer than was absolutely necessary. She had already made arrangements for the closing of her house, and she set Hans to work packing her luggage while she had lunch.
About an hour later the chauffeur called to her from upstairs.
“Fräulein! Somebody comes!”
“Is it the Saint?” she called back. And excitedly answering her own question: “He must have done whatever he went to do.”
She ran to the door and opened it as a green Renault pulled up in the driveway. There were two men in it, and she immediately realized to her disappointment that neither was Simon.
The tallest of the men approached her. His shorter companion limped more slowly behind him.
“Mademoiselle Lambrini, I am Inspector Mathieu. My identification.”
“The police?” Annabella asked in a controlled voice.
“Yes. May we come in? Thank you.”
He stepped into the entrance hall without waiting for a reply, and she followed him.
“I must ask you...” she began.
“You were visited by Monsieur LeGrand and Professor Clarneau this morning?” Mathieu asked.
“That is true.”
“And you sold them some paintings?”
“Yes. Is something the matter?”
“I regret to tell you that Professor Clarneau was murdered today after leaving your house,” Mathieu said heavily.
“Murdered!”
“He was killed in his car on a lonely country road. And the paintings were gone.”
“Stolen?” she asked dazedly.
“The crate was empty.”
“Then...”
“Then what?” Mathieu asked as Annabella’s voice trailed off.
“I have enemies who were after the paintings. Men who tried to kidnap me yesterday and came on to my property here yesterday evening. They must have killed him.”
“No, Mademoiselle. We have arrested the man who killed him. He has confessed.”
“Who?” Annabella asked breathlessly.
“His name is Simon Templar.”
Annabella’s face was drained of color and she did not say a word in response, so Mathieu continued.
“He was unlucky. The murder was witnessed by some woodsmen who followed him. He did not give up without a struggle. He shot my colleague, Sergeant Bernard here, in the leg.”
“Then you must have found the paintings.”
“No. According to Templar he never put the paintings in the car.”
Hans Kraus had come silently into the hallway and was listening. Now he interrupted.
“That is wrong. I helped him put the paintings into the box and into the automobile,” he said.
“I am sorry,” Mathieu said. “He denies that. He says he hid them here. We must at least try to confirm or disprove his story. You will not object if we search, Mademoiselle?”
“Not in the least,” Annabella said. “Look anywhere you wish. You will not find them.”
“Thank you,” Mathieu said with a slight bow. “Where were the paintings last seen in the house?”
“Show them, Hans.”
As Hans left the hall with the men his mutterings were clearly audible.
“A thousand times I tell her! Never trust strangers!”
Annabella stood in a kind of stupefied trance, and within thirty seconds, before she could rouse herself to any clear thinking, there was a call from the rear of the house.
“Mademoiselle! We have found them!”
She met Mathieu, his assistant, and Hans in the living room. Hans was carrying one of the da Vincis in front of him as if it were a gigantic cold fish he had just discovered in his bed.
“But, Fräulein,” he was intoning, “it is not possible. I put them in the box myself...”
“I am afraid that you were dealing with something of a magician,” Mathieu said. “This man Templar is not called the Saint for no reason, you know. He has shown, until now, some almost supernatural qualities. It takes experts to deal with him.”
Annabella did not find Mathieu’s smugness tolerable.
“Then deal with him,” she said snappishly, “and please leave me alone.”
All she could think of at the moment was the check in her purse on the mantelpiece. Would it be stopped now that one of the men who had signed it had been murdered? And yet she had a signed bill of sale.
“You should be glad that your property is safe, Mademoiselle,” Mathieu was saying. “Another dealer will be glad to buy them.”
“Thank you,” Annabella said flatly.
“Very well,” Mathieu said crisply. “Bernard, the other paintings, please. Put them in the back of the car.”
“What?” Annabella cried, coming to life like a lighted rocket. “What are you talking about?”
“I am taking these pictures into police custody,” Mathieu said with official dignity.
“But they’re mine!”
“I am afraid they are not, Mademoiselle. You sold them, remember?”
“Not to you,” the woman said. “There is no reason for this.”
“A murder has been committed for these paintings,” Mathieu said. “There are unanswered questions. I will give you a receipt. You can discuss who is to reclaim the paintings when the time comes. But for the moment you can comfort yourself that they will be absolutely safe at the Sûreté.”
“My God, this is too much!” Annabella exclaimed, turning her back and raising her hands to the heavens in a pantomime of utter despair.
“Into the car,” Mathieu said to his associate. “Cover them well with the car rug.”
“They are very large,” Bernard responded, “Can they be taken out of their frames?”
“Out of their frames?” Annabella cried almost incoherently. “Here? My paintings?”
“They are very large,” shrugged Bernard. “We do not need the frames.”
“So nice of you to leave me something,” Annabella said with livid sarcasm.
“Very well, we shall leave the frames,” Mathieu said callously. He gestured toward the storage room at the rear of the house. “After you, Bernard.”
Hans was blocking the door which led to the storage room, clutching the painting he held as tightly as he could.
“Fräulein?” he asked desperately.
“Let them go,” Annabella said with a weary wave of her hand. “The paintings are not ours any longer — and these are the noble police, after all. They go where they please.”
“Your pardon, mademoiselle,” Mathieu said. “I shall help Bernard if you will excuse me.”
“I believe that I can exist in my living room without you,” Annabella said.
She waited, pacing the floor and occasionally coming to rest briefly on a chair, drumming her fingers on a polished table top. She could hear the tapping of hammers in the back of her house and the rear door opening and closing several times, but she could not see the men carrying the deframed paintings into their car since it was parked out of the field of view of the living room window. Wild schemes whirled through her head like tornadoes dipping down from the clouds and then rising up again and disappearing, coming to nothing. She could do nothing but wait.
After fifteen minutes Mathieu, Bernard, and Hans, who had been hovering helplessly around the other two men like a toothless watchdog, came emptyhanded into the living room.
“All done?” Annabella asked sweetly. “Would you like the furniture now?”