Free The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots by Leslie Charteris

the paper down in front of him on
the table.
    “Do you take me for an idiot?” she
demanded angrily. “Describe them. Name the painters!”
    Mathieu sighed and pushed the paper back in
her direction, offering her the pen.
    “You describe them, mademoiselle. I shall
sign.”
    She wrote a list, Mathieu and Bernard checked
her descrip tion
of the confiscated paintings, and then Mathieu signed the paper again. Annabella took it, folded it, and clutched it tightly.
    “Now go,” she said rudely.
    Mathieu and Bernard walked to the front door.
    “You are staying here, I assume?”
Mathieu said. “We may need you when we bring the formal charge
against Monsieur Templar. You will be available?”
    “Of course,” she lied. Then her
voice softened and became less self-assured. “Templar … is he
hurt? Was he shot?”
    “No,” said Mathieu. “He is as healthy and arrogant
as always.”
    She nodded. Mathieu and Bernard made stiffly
formal part ing bows and left the house for their car.
    Annabella closed the door and walked
dejectedly to the living room. Hans was watching her.
    “I am sorry that you had to learn this lesson,” he said hesitantly.
    “You’re right, Hans. I’ll never trust
anybody again. I promise!”
    “Not even your old friends?” asked
a third and entirely different voice.
    Annabella gave a little shriek and whirled to
face the other end of the room. There stood an impeccable and
nonchalant Simon Templar, not a hair of his handsome head out of
place, more cheerfully arrogant and healthy than the man who called
himself Inspector Mathieu could have imagined in his most fearful dreams.
     
    9
    “Simon!”
    Annabella’s cry was a crazy mixture of relief
and horror. The latter emotion at first had the upper hand.
    “You—you killer!” she said. “How did you
escape?”
    She whirled to look out of the front window
in time to see Mathieu’s car racing down the drive among the trees. In only a
second or two it was out of sight.
    Hans grabbed up a poker from beside the
fireplace and put himself between the Saint and Annabella. He held the
poker like a ready axe in front of him, and his hands were white and
trembling. The Saint smiled at him with unperturbed amiability.
    “I assure you that you’re both getting yourselves worked up for no reason,” he said quietly.
“You were in much worse danger
just a few minutes ago.”
    “You killed a man!” Annabella said.
    “You killed the professor!” Hans
joined in, bracing his legs and his makeshift battleaxe defensively.
    “I’ve killed a number of men,” said
the Saint calmly, “but I haven’t killed anyone this morning, and
Professor Clarneau is as much alive as we are. The man who came here and
took the paintings, or thought he did, wasn’t Clarneau, of course.”
    “You’re completely insane,”
Annabella said. “You’re not making any sense.”
    “It’s the gospel,” Simon said.
    “But the police. The Inspector told me
himself—”
    “He wasn’t a real Inspector,
either.”
    “What?”
    “A fake cop. This Mathieu is about as
close to being a policeman as I am, which is about as far as you can
get.”
    “But I gave him the paintings!”
Annabella almost shrieked.
    “Then you’re a very silly girl.”
    Whatever Mediterranean strains Annabella’s
pedigree in cluded went suddenly on full power. She clenched her
teeth, whirled completely around, shook both fists at Simon, and with an
explosive shudder began to scream at him.
    “This is your fault! All of it! You
idiot! You traitor! You’re behind this whole thing!”
    She snatched up a vase of roses from one of
the tables and hurled it at him, spilling most of the water and
most of the roses
over the front of her dress. Simon easily avoided the vase, which smashed against the wall beyond him, and awaited the next attack.
    “Fr ä ulein!”
Hans cried.
    He cast an almost imploring look at the
Saint, who only shrugged and dodged Annabella’s new missile—a potted cac tus