His return journey was undertaken at a conservative pace, and the first shades of evening were spreading across the hillside by the time he retraced the rough road by which he had first entered the domaine. A group of workmen were standing talking beside the burnt-out barn, but as the Saint passed their conversation ceased abruptly, and they watched him in sullen silence as he drove on to the château.
Mimette was talking to the watchdog gendarme at the top of the steps outside the front door as Simon braked to a halt, which happily solved a couple of potential problems. She smoothly suppressed any visible surprise at his return in a different car, as if in any case his day-long absence was nothing remarkable, and went in with him through the hall to the salon.
Only there did she say: “You have a lot to tell me.”
The Saint helped himself to a Scotch of the generous proportions that he felt his day had earned him.
“It’s going to be a bit harder,” he said, “to tell your father about his precious Merc.”
As he undramatically related the day’s events, the revelation of Philippe’s wartime activities shook her only slightly less than the sabotaging of the car.
“You could have been killed,” she said.
“I almost was. And your father certainly would have been.”
“You saved his life.”
“Pas du tout. I wrecked his car.”
She bowed her head with a barely perceptible shudder.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said at last. “Why should anyone want to kill my father?”
“No Yves, no Ingare,” Simon answered succinctly. “Whoever did it knew that your father always went to that Confrérie lunch on the same day every week. The fact that he didn’t go today, and I borrowed the car, was unfortunate — for them.”
“And Philippe, why did he not tell his own family what he had done? Why did he allow us to think he was a collaborator?”
“Perhaps you never gave him the chance,” suggested the Saint. “I’m not as surprised as you. The way he helped me get Gaston out of the vat made me think that he’d dealt with death before. In my experience, collaborators don’t usually have such strong stomachs.”
“But if Philippe isn’t — what I thought he was... then it must be someone else who’s behind all the trouble we’ve been having here.”
He shook his head slowly.
“Au contraire. Unhappily, even a war hero isn’t necessarily an angel. What I wanted to check on was what Philippe might have on his conscience that would make him so very eager to get me out of the picture. And it seems that since he was able to return to Paris his operations have been on the sharp side, to say the least. Exactly how sharp, we don’t know. But the report I got seems to show that he could still be a double-dealer. So instead of being ruled out, he’s still very much ruled in.”
“Then what can we do now?” she asked despondently.
Simon consulted his watch, and finished his drink. He stood up and stretched himself catlike.
“Personally, I’m going to do a little exploring before dinner,” he told her cheerfully, and made a quick exit before she could press him further.
Back in his room, he changed quickly into the trousers which had been expendably damaged on his arrival, changed also into a pair of light but sturdy sneakers, and slipped into his hip pocket the flashlight which was as indispensable a part of his travelling necessities as the ordinary man’s razor.
He left the château by the front door, with a nonchalantly affable wave to the gendarme standing there, who by this time seemed to have graduated from bewilderment to boredom with his comings and goings and changes of vehicle and costume. He headed around the side and downhill to the outbuilding where the late Gaston Pichot had fallen into the Hecate crypt.
The labourers whom he had seen at the barn were lounging outside. They appeared to ignore him as he passed, but continued to talk heatedly among themselves in hoarse patois, pitched too low for him to distinguish any words. Whatever the argument was about, there was evidently a clash of strongly held opinions.
It was almost dark inside the storehouse and the Saint switched on his flashlight and allowed the beam to roam along the tiers of barrels stacked against the walls before turning it down into the hole that Gaston’s fall had made. The underground chamber was empty — the professor had either finished for the day or was busy elsewhere. He was not expecting any trouble at that stage, and the sounds of movement behind him did not register as a threat until it was almost too late.
VI
How Simon quoted Francois Villon again, and the Templar Treasure came in Handy
1
It nearly proved a painful lapse. The attack was swift and unexpected. Two powerful arms closed around his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs and almost lifting him clear off the ground.
Simon Templar’s response was equally rapid and far more effective. The bear hug is a crude hold and easily broken by anyone not inhibited by a devotion to fair play, and when attacked without warning from behind, the Saint considered himself absolved from the code of gentlemanly conduct.
His left heel lashed back in three drum-beat mule-kicks played on his attacker’s left shin. The man yelped with pain and involuntarily let him down, enough to enable the Saint to stamp his full weight on to the assailant’s right instep and grind it in. The reflex yelp hiccuped into a most satisfactory scream of real agony, and as the encircling pressure on him slackened, the Saint sent both elbows driving back into the other’s ribs. The restraining arms burst outwards like broken springs and he took one step forward and turned. The workman’s chin could not have been better posed to receive the full impact of the Saint’s uppercut.
Simon did not wait to watch him fall but sidestepped to meet the comrade who should by then have been using his body as a static punch bag. The man came in with an axe handle flailing in a wide swing that even the most amateur of self-defenders would have treated with contempt. The Saint ducked low to let it swipe over him, and sprang up again to reward the unbalanced wielder with a chop of the back of the neck that put him down like the proverbial pole-axed ox.
From beginning to end that phase of the exercise had lasted no more than twenty-five seconds.
The Saint eyed the two remaining members of the hospitality committee speculatively. He stood completely at ease, legs slightly apart, hands hanging loosely at waist height as they closed in from either side. It would have taken more than two men to unsettle him at any time, even had they been experienced fighters. He knew that odds of two to one sound more frightening than they actually are, for the advantage is frequently with the one: He only has to look out for himself, while the two have to be careful not to hamper each other.
These two who had not taken part in the original attack now looked less than eager to launch a second one. Only loyalty to their fallen colleagues drove them nearer, and they might have seemed almost relieved when Mimette’s shrill cry brought all the action to a sudden halt.
“Arretez! Stop it!”
Mimette ran between the two men and the Saint. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes blazed with anger as she faced the workmen.
“Dubois. Arnould. Vous êtes fous? What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded harshly.
Her arrival drained the last of the fight from them as effectively as if the Saint had drawn a gun. They looked sheepishly at her without answering.
“They may only have been trying to teach me some steps in the harvest festival dance,” Simon hazarded.