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

from
one of the bookshelves. It sailed harmlessly past Simon and crashed not
at all harmlessly through the front window.
    “What a woman, eh, Hans?” said the
Saint admiringly. “When she wants fresh air she wants it now!”
    Annabella emitted a choked whinny of fury
and charged around the sofa to engage him in hand-to-hand combat,
but on the way her feet got tangled up in a lamp cord and she sprawled
full length on her face with her eyes just a few inches from the toes of Simon’s
beautifully polished shoes.
    “You’re better than a wrecking
crew,” he said, leaning down to help her up.
    She shook off his hand and sat on the rug
bawling.
    “Oh, go away!” she sobbed.
“Just leave me alone.”
    “All right, I will. But first I’ll give
you a going-away present.”
    Hans had simply settled on one of the
chairs, the poker drooping loosely in his limp hands. He was obviously in
a mild state of shock. Simon went past him into the adjoining room and
came back with five large unframed pieces of can vas. He held up one
of them for Annabella to see. She stared incredulously, then scrambled to
her feet.
    “Simon!” she gasped ecstatically. “You …
darling!”
    An instant later she had thrown her arms
around his neck and was covering his face with kisses and lipstick.
    “A bit changeable, aren’t you?” he
remarked.
    “I’m so sorry! I had no idea. I
thought—I had to blame somebody. How did you get them?”
    “Mathieu and his chum put them in the back of their car and tucked a blanket around them. I just took them
out again and tucked the blanket
back where it was while they were
saying goodbye.” He interrupted her with a lifted hand as she
started to speak. “I know. They may already have noticed, so let’s scoot out of here and deliver these treasures to
Marcel LeGrand so you can get them off your hands and I can get you off mine.”
    Hans, carrying two of the unframed canvases,
joined them in hurrying out the back door of the house and through a gate in the
wall which bordered Annabella’s property. Simon also carried two
paintings, and Annabella brought the fifth. The Saint had parked his car in the
shelter of a clump of trees in the neighboring wooded area.
    “Wait,” he said abruptly. “No
noise for a minute.”
    They listened and heard an automobile engine
roaring at high speed up the drive on the other side of the wall. Simon left
Annabella and Hans in his car and peeked through the gate. He could see
nothing but the back and side of her house, but he could hear shouting and
the pounding of fists on the front door.
    Simon trotted back to his car grinning.
    “The return of Inspector Mathieu,”
he said as he got into the driver’s seat. “Hold on to your Leonardos,
darling.”
    He rocketed off toward the main road, and if
Mathieu associated
the sound with his escaping prey he had no time to react before the Saint and
his charges were a mile down the highway.
    Hans, in the back seat, closed his eyes and
heaved a sigh.
    “I am too old for this,” he said.
“I think I go back to Linz.”
    Annabella looked over her shoulder at him.
    “You’re going to California,” she
bubbled. “It’s over now. You can relax.”
    “Let’s hope so,” the Saint said.
“We may run into a wait ing line at LeGrand’s. You know there are at
least two batches of people even less principled than ourselves
after these paintings.”
    “Two?” Annabella said.
    Hans groaned and closed his eyes again.
    “Mathieu’s team and another crowd that
seems to be half German and half Italian,” Simon continued. “I had
the in ternational squad locked up—the ones who tried to kidnap you in
Paris—but then Mathieu bopped me in the head, and when I’d worked
my way out of the room he locked me in, they were gone. I
was fully expecting them to show up at your house too. You wouldn’t have
any idea who they are,
of course.”
    “No. And who is Mathieu, really?”
    “I don’t know that either. But your
theories