“I’ve seen you in enough news pictures, caricatures — and television. Now I remember reading about you being here on an official visit. It’s really very thoughtful of you to be around just at this moment.”
The Secretary stared at him grimly over the top of his glasses.
“Mr Templar, what do you know about my daughter?”
Simon Templar’s eyebrows rose a little and drew together.
“Your daughter? I didn’t even know you had one.”
The uniformed sergeant started a threatening gesture, but the plainclothes man checked it with an almost imperceptible movement of his hand.
“My daughter, Sue,” Inverest said.
“A willowy blonde?” Simon said slowly. “With short curly hair and gray eyes?”
“You were with her at the Colosseum — just before she was kidnaped.”
It all clicked in the Saint’s recuperating mind, with a blind and devastating simplicity — even to a reaction of hers which had puzzled him at the time.
“I was talking to a girl like that,” he said. “I’d just made some silly crack about the State Department, and I noticed she took it in a rather funny way. But I hadn’t the faintest idea who she was. And then I got slugged over the head myself. If there were any witnesses, they must have seen that.”
“That was seen,” said the plainclothes man. “But it did not explain your presence there.”
“I was unable to leave,” said the Saint. “I was knocked cold, remember? Do you always arrest any innocent bystander who gets hurt at the scene of a crime?”
“When your pockets were searched for identification,” said the plainclothes man suavely, “it was found out at once who you are. Therefore you were brought here. I am sure that being arrested is not such a new experience for you.”
Simon turned to the Secretary.
“Mr Inverest, I never saw your daughter before in my life. I didn’t have the faintest idea who she was. I just happened to meet her outside the Colosseum. She was having an argument with a cab driver who was trying to overcharge her. I helped her out, and we went into the place together. We went on talking, naturally. And then I was conked on the head. That’s all I know.”
“There were two others,” said the superior policeman impartially. “After they knocked out Mr Templar, they grabbed Miss Inverest and rushed her out to a car which was waiting outside. I think, your Excellency, that if you give us a little time alone with Mr Templar, we may persuade him to tell us who they were and how he arranged to — as you say — put the finger on your daughter.”
Inverest waved him down impatiently. “Mr Templar is to be released at once.”
“Your Excellency must be joking.”
“I demand it in the name of the Government of the United States. There is no reasonable charge that can be brought against him.”
“But a man of his reputation—”
Inverest’s level gray eyes, oddly reminiscent of his daughter’s, searched the Saint’s face over his spectacle rims with the same detached appraisal that the girl had given it.
“Inspector Buono,” he said, “Mr Templar is rumored to have considerable disregard for the law, but there are no actual charges of lawbreaking pending against him in my country. His notoriety, as I understand it, comes from his reprehensible habit of taking the law into his own hands. But it is well known that he is a relentless enemy of criminals. I cannot think of anyone who would be less likely to have any part of such a crime as this. O si sic omnes!”
It was a quaintly professorial and almost pedantic speech, even to the Latin quotation at the end, of the type that frequently made Mr Inverest an easy butt for the more ribald type of political heckling, but his handling of it gave it an austere dignity.
Inspector Buono shrugged helplessly.
They went into an office. The Saint’s personal belongings were returned, and a paper was drawn up.
“Your Excellency will have to sign this,” Buono said, with ill-concealed disapproval. “I have to protect myself. And I hope your Excellency knows what he is doing.”
“I accept full responsibility,” Inverest said, taking out his pen.
Simon watched the signature with the feeling of being at an international conference.
“You’re a really big man, sir,” he said, with a sincere respect which came strangely from him. “Not many people would be capable of giving a ready-made devil like me his due, in a situation like this. Certainly not the average small-time cop.”
Buono scowled.
“Damnant quod non intelligunt,” Inverest said wryly. “It’s part of my job to be some sort of judge of human nature. Besides, I have access to special information. I checked on your record in Washington by telephone while we were waiting for you to come to. I talked to the man who was in charge of the OSS section you worked for during the last war.”
“Hamilton?”
“He gave you quite a remarkable reference.”
Simon lighted a cigarette. He had almost forgotten the throbbing in his head, and his brain was starting to feel normal again.
“I wish I could be some use to you now,” he said sympathetically. “I liked your daughter a lot... If I’d only had the least idea who she was, I might have been a little on guard. But there wasn’t any reason for me to be suspicious of anyone who came near us. How come she was running around on her own like that, without any kind of protection? Or does that question embarrass Inspector Buono?”
“A special escort was provided for Miss Inverest,” Buono said coldly. “But she gave them the slip. Deliberately, I am told.”
“There was a young fellow detailed by the Embassy to take her around, too,” Inverest said, “and she stood him up. Sue’s always been like that. She hates the VIP treatment. Getting away from Secret Service men and all that sort of thing is just like playing hookey from school to her. She says she just wants to get around on her own and see things like any ordinary girl. I can’t really blame her. I couldn’t be telling her all the time what special danger she might be in.”
“Do you have some idea what the special danger might be right now?” Simon asked.
“Unfortunately, I do. In fact, I know it.”
Inverest took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. That mechanical movement was the first break in his Spartan self-control, the first outward betrayal of the desperate anxiety that must have been eating his insides.
“Does the name Mick Unciello mean anything to you?”
“I read all the crime news,” said the Saint, with a slight smile. “He was the official executioner of the Midwestern crime syndicate. The FBI finally got the goods on him, and he was sentenced to the chair some time ago.”
“His final appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected last week.”
“The Supreme Court can collect a bouquet from me.”
“Now, do you remember the name Tony Unciello?”
“Yes. He was the vice lord in the same syndicate. The FBI didn’t do so well with him, but they were able to get him deported — I think that was in 1948.”
“Mick Unciello, of course, is the younger brother of Tony. And Tony is here in Italy.”
“It begins to figure,” said the Saint quietly.
“Nothing can save Mick Unciello’s life now except the personal intervention of the President,” Inverest said in his dry schoolmasterish voice. “That, of course, is unthinkable. But it may be quite another matter to convince Tony that my influence would not be enough to bring it about.”
“Is this something more than a fast guess on your part?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Secretary wearily. “I’ve already had a telephone call from a person claiming to be Tony Unciello, and I have no reason to doubt its authenticity. He said that unless Mick Unciello is reprieved, Sue would die too — but more slowly.”