The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace Read Online Free PDF Page A

bag.”
    “All right,” he said,
“supposing I am the Saint. What can I do for you now?”
    “You can help me get the Necklace
back.”
    The Saint fixed her with a long cool stare.
When he wanted to he could make his eyes quite mesmeric.
    “Why should I?”
    There was excitement in her voice as she
sensed victory.
    “For a reward, and a big one at
that.” She looked at him sideways. “But also the fun and
adventure of an enterprise which might be just the sort of thing you
like.”
    His admission was a little quirk of the lips.
    “You seem to have spotted my weakness.
Danger and beau tiful women—often the same thing!”
    “You will help me then?”
    “Perhaps. But first, tell me how you
escaped.”
    “I was lucky. It was a typically
Viennese affair. In Vienna even the Gestapo cannot be sure of operating
efficiently. We got into a traffic jam outside the Opera at the end of a per formance
of Tristan with Novotna and Mayer, so you can imagine the crowds.
Those two men were really stupid to go that way at that
time of night. That’s another reason why I think they were
Germans. A true Viennese would not have done it.”
    “A true Viennese might do almost
anything,” Simon dis sented. “What happened then?”
    “There was a policeman standing nearby,
doing nothing to help the traffic of course, and so I merely got out.
There was not a thing they could do about it. They couldn’t shoot
me and get away.
If they had tried to stop me I would have screamed,
and the policeman would have had to do something about that.” She looked
pleased with herself. “I never saw
two more frustrated people.”
    “Why didn’t you tell the cop
anyway?”
    “The who?”
    “The Schupo.”
    “Ijust wanted to get away.
Anyway, he would have de tained me as a witness, and nowadays in
Vienna I am afraid the police are ultimately ruled from Berlin. In the end they would have had to give me up to the Germans.”
    “Which really means you’re still not
safe anywhere.”
    A shadow of fear darkened the girl’s eyes.
“You are right. But since the Anschluss who is safe in
Austria? Gestapo agents are everywhere. One cannot even trust one’s
friends.”
    “What about Max Annellatt?”
    Her expression was oddly secretive and she
tossed the hair back from over her eyes in a gesture which was almost
dismis sive.
    “Oh Max, he’s all right. He’s a very
good sort really. Just a little eccentric.”
    “He seemed to me a little nuts.”
    “Nuts?”
    “Mad. Crazy.”
    “No, he is not mad, he just carries
being Austrian to an ex treme.”
    The Saint got up.
    “It comes to the same thing. Anyway, I think we’d better get
you back either to him or your dear old white-haired mother, knitting in that rocking-chair in the Malffy Palace.”
    His words amused her.
    “If you knew my mother! She’s out every
night with a different admirer. Admittedly some of them are gigolos,
but she has fun.”
    “Good for her,” smiled the Saint.
“Remind me to look her up sometime. I like swinging Erstegesellschaft mums. Well, which is it to be, her or Uncle Max?”
    She looked at him from under her lids.
    “Wouldn’t it be safer for me to stay
here?”
    “No, it wouldn’t,” the Saint told her with candour.
“Be sides, I want my beauty sleep. I
need it even if you don’t.”
    She pouted.
    “You Englishmen are all the same. I
don’t think you really like women.”
    “No man in his senses does. Loving them
is a different mat ter. But come on, make up your mind. It’s after midnight.
I’ll run you round in my car.”
    She thought it over. “I think it had
better be Max. As I said, they may be waiting for me outside the Palais. I
don’t think they know yet about my connections with Max. Be sides,
he’ll be worrying about me.”
    The Saint looked sceptical.
    “I don’t think he’ll be in a condition
to be worrying about anything by this time.”
    “Oh, Max never gets drunk. It’s only
Thai that does. But anyway,
I want to tell him