LeGrand did not seem able to share her rather euphoric good humor.
“Indeed I want them,” he said with a chopped laugh. “Are these...”
He nodded toward the stack of canvases in Simon’s arms, and Simon handed them to him.
“They haven’t been damaged at all,” the Saint assured him. “They’ve been through quite a few escapes today, and during one of them they had to leave their frames behind.”
LeGrand was fumbling with the paintings. He propped them up against a low table, almost knocking two half empty coffee cups on to the floor.
“I think you’re both jittery,” Simon said as Annabella helped him catch one of the cups.
LeGrand snorted negatingly.
“Excited,” he said. “Not jittery.”
“Here is your check from this morning,” Annabella said.
“One of the signatures was forged by the man who impersonated the professor, of course.”
LeGrand took the slip of paper and crumpled it.
“Thank you. I have another for you here.”
He reached into a pocket of his dark suit and produced a check for the same amount as the discarded one. Annabella took it and all but kissed it.
“I am rich!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, my dear, you are,” LeGrand agreed. “And now, ah...”
He had never offered his guests seats, and he seemed trying to decide what to do with them.
“We... must go now, mustn’t we?” Annabella said uncomfortably to Simon. “We’re all very tired.”
“Very tired,” Simon agreed. He was intrigued by LeGrand’s manner and by the two coffee cups, one of which had lipstick on its white rim. “I’m just sorry we couldn’t meet your wife. Isn’t she here?”
“She is having dinner with friends,” LeGrand said. “She was disappointed to have to represent me there rather than to meet both of you.”
“Then she’s not ill any longer?” the Saint asked.
“No, she is feeling perfectly well now, thank you,” the art dealer answered distinctly.
“Good. Give her our regards. And now we must go.”
The Saint tried to meet LeGrand’s eyes, but the dealer refused to look him in the face. He edged past Simon and Annabella in order to open the door which led to the entrance hall. His face was completely expressionless, but it had a sheen of perspiration. His two guests went past him into the hall and he followed them to the front door.
Simon shook his hand.
“I’ll be seeing you again soon,” he said.
“I hope so,” LeGrand answered earnestly. “And you too, Mademoiselle.”
“Mademoiselle will be on her way to California before morning if she has her way,” Simon replied.
“France’s loss,” said LeGrand gallantly. “Au revoir, alors.”
“Thank you, m’sieur,” Annabella said. “Thank you so much. Adieu!”
She and the Saint walked out to their car, and LeGrand’s house door closed behind them. Annabella bounced into the front seat of the car, turned, and waved the check in front of Hans’s nose.
“It’s done!” she exulted.
“So was our dinner,” said the Saint, with a ghostly patient smile. “To a turn. So it was a dead duck.”
The other two must have heard him, but it could only have been at the outer surface of their awareness.
“Money!” Hans grunted, with obviously mixed emotions.
“You’ll be glad I have it when you’re sitting under a palm tree watching girls swim in a pool all day,” Annabella “consoled him.
Simon was wasting no time driving out of LeGrand’s property to the street. As soon as he was around the corner he stopped and cut off the car’s headlights.
“What’s the matter?” Annabella asked, suddenly sobered.
“I have news for you,” Simon said. “LeGrand’s latest check may be as worthless as the first one you picked up.”
She stared at him open-mouthed. He got out of the car, strode around, and looked in her window.
“Excuse us, Hans, but I have to have a little private discussion with your boss.”
He virtually hauled a stunned Annabella out of her seat and led her to a shadowy spot a few yards away.
“What is it?” she asked shakily.
“LeGrand had visitors. Did you notice the coffee cups? Most likely he and his wife were taken by surprise. His wife was being held hostage for his co-operation in another room of the house.”
“Why... that’s something out of an old television series!” Annabella protested. “And... who would it be?”
“I’m not dreaming this up,” Simon assured her. “LeGrand gave me a signal. Now you tell me who would be giving him a dastardly deal like that.”
“I?”
“Yes, you, Fräulein Lenscher.”
She stared. Even in the semi-darkness the Saint could see from the expression on her face that his words had hit the mark so suddenly and squarely that she was unable even to pretend innocence.
“Where did you hear that name?” she finally said weakly.
“A large bird told me. Now give me the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or I resign and you get stuck with a stopped check.”
She hesitated between fury and desperation.
“All right. Do you promise not to try to get me in trouble?”
“You’re already in trouble, but I won’t make it any worse — as long as I get my fair share of the profits for all the time I’ve spent on you... Never mind the indignation bit. Give me your true life story before it’s too late.”
She nodded and began to speak with frantic precision.
“My father was not Italian. He was Austrian, and in the army in the war. Hitler was having various paintings shipped from Italy to a big art museum he was building in Linz. My father was involved in guarding the paintings, along with some other German and Italian officers. When Italy was invaded and the Russians were advancing from the east it became obvious that the Linz museum would never be finished. Paintings were stored in salt mines for safekeeping, and also in other places.”
“And your father helped himself to a few?” Simon asked.
“He thought when the collapse came that it was as well he should have them as the Russians. These particular paintings came from the collection of a friend of his — an Italian count who was killed by Communists at the end of the war and left no heirs.” She paused. “You may not believe that, but it is true.”
“It should be easy to check,” Simon said. “But I’m less interested in your father’s ethics than I am in his exploits as an art collecter.”
Annabella shrugged.
“I don’t know all the details,” she continued. “Apparently it was quite easy in the confusion at the end for his Italian friend to place some of the paintings in my father’s custody. My father hid them away until it was safe for him to get them and secretly move them... and they ended up here in France.”
Not having any evidence to contradict it, the Saint had to be content with her story. He was fairly satisfied. If not pure fact, what Annabella — or Anna Lenscher — had told him at least had coherence and plausibility.
“So there are no owners to return the paintings to, and your father left them to you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said flatly.
“Why didn’t he try to sell them himself?”
“I don’t know. He liked them. And he was afraid of getting in trouble, I suppose.”
“That’s one of his weaknesses you unfortunately didn’t inherit,” the Saint said drily. “Now, about something else: this mob of aspiring hijackers that’s following you around with drawn pistols. Who are they?”
“I don’t know. Possibly men who were with my father in the war and suspected what he had done.”