The Saint in Europe Read Online Free PDF Page A

expect it’s all there,” he said. “The one valuable piece was safe all the time.”
    He held out the St. Christopher medal.
    She took it, and stared at him.
    “You’ve got to talk now,” she said. “If you don’t, I’ll go crazy-or do something I may be sorry for.”
    “I’m ready now,” he said. “Turn that medal over.”
    “Yes.”
    “You see that little square impression in the back?”
    “Yes.”
    “I put it under a microscope this afternoon. There’s fine engraving in it. Here’s a copy that you can read.”
    He gave her the scrap of paper on which he had written down the inscription and its translation. While she looked at it, he cleared a space on the bed, and sat down and lighted a cigarette. He felt very placid now.
    She read:
I, Eli Rosepierre, bequeath to the bearer, of whom this shall be sufficient identification, one half of the $50,000 which I have on deposit at the Chase National Bank, New York.
    Eli Rosepierre.
    “You see,” he said, “you’re moderately rich. Your father was lucky enough to have some assets that the krauts couldn’t reach.”
    Her face was a study.
    “Then Charles’s medalнн”
    “Must have been a duplicate of that one, leaving him the other half.”
    She sank unsteadily into the nearest chair, ignoring the clothes which she crushed underneath her.
    Simon laughed, and got up again to give her a cigarette.
    After a full minute, she said: “Where is the other medal now?”
    “I expect your brother’s murderer has it. But he hasn’t had time to do anything with it. Besides, he won’t be satisнfied until he has both of them.”
    “Why hasn’t he done anything until now?”
    “Because he couldn’t. Your father confided at least part of his secret to a friend whom he trusted, named Georges Orival. But Orival turned collaborationist, and after the war he was tried and imprisoned. He only recently got out, and he hasn’t wasted much time. He introduced himself to you as Georges Olivant.”
    “Olivant!”
    “Apart from his obvious phoniness,” said the Saint, “I know I had something when I shook hands with him. He looks like one of the idle rich, but he has corns on his hands like a laborer. He didn’t get them from pottering about in his garden. He’s been doing several years at hard labor.”
    The girl’s hand shook a little as she drew at the cigarette.
    “And he’s waiting for me downstairs!”
    “I’m sure it would take a lot to keep him away.”
    “We must tell the police!”
    “Not yet. We still haven’t got enough evidence for a murнder charge against him. And we still want that other medal. So we’re going to meet him just as if you didn’t expect a thing.”
    “I couldn’t!”
    Simon Templar gazed down at her with level blue eyes in which the steel was barely discernible.
    “You must, Valerie. And you must go along with anyнthing I say, no matter how absurd it sounds. You said you’d let me help you. I haven’t done badly so far, have I? You’ve got to let me finish the job.”
    7
    M Georges Olivant folded the evening paper he had been reading and tucked it into his pocket.
    “Eet say ‘ere,” he said, “ze police ‘ave learn nozzing new about ze tragedy of your brozzer. But do not fear. Zey are very pairseestent. Soon, I am sure, zey will ‘ave ze clue.”
    “They know more than they’re saying for publication,” Simon remarked: “They told me so.”
    He wanted to draw Olivant’s attention to himself, not only to turn it away from Valerie North’s pale stillness.
    “So, you ‘ave talk wiz zem?”
    “And I’ve got a few leads of my own.”
    “I ‘ave read American stories,” Olivant said, “where ze reporter is always a better detective zan ze police. You are per’aps one of zose?”
    “Sometimes I try to be. Anyway, at least the motive for the murder is known.”
    “Eet is?”
    Simon took a leisured taste of his cocktail.
    “Miss North’s father-and the father of Charles Rosepierre-had a nice piece of