The Saint in the Sun Read Online Free PDF

she said carried the complete scores for the session. In addition, her phraseology left no doubt of her majestic contempt for the intelligence of the police, and of one policeman in particular.
    “Alors, mon vieux,” the Saint said to him finally. “You were anxious to get home, I believe. What else is keeping you?”
    The inspector stood up, looking somewhat crushed.
    “It is only my job,” he mumbled. “]e m’excuse-“
    “Je vous en prie,” said the Saint, with exaggerated courtesy, accompanying him to the small vestibule. “Et dormez bien.”
    He closed the outer door and returned to the room where Bertha Noversham still stood looking somewhat Wagnerian.
    “I don’t know how I should thank you,” he began, and she cut him off unceremoniously.
    “Don’t bother. Just hand over those jewels of Natalie’s. I think I can get as good a price for them as you can, and you’ll get your share eventually, but I’ll do the divvying.”
    He stared at her frozenly.
    “It was nice of you to help me out,” he said, “but I didn’t think you were planning to make a career of it.”
    “I can scarcely believe that you’re so naive, Mr Templar. I’m sure I don’t look like a starry-eyed ingenue who’d do something like this for love. I didn’t even do it for love for Danny Tench.”
    “You mean-the man who-“
    “My husband. Legally, too, though I never used his name-it sounded too frightfully common.”
    “But he had your jewels on him when he fell,” said the Saint slowly. “No, wait a second-I get it. After the yacht job at Ajaccio, and the Métropole at Monte Carlo before that, and God knows how many others before those two, it would have begun to look suspicious if you were always around but never got robbed yourself.”
    She nodded.
    “It’s pretty easy for a gabby middle-aged frump like me to make friends with a lot of stupid women, and in no time at all we’re comparing jewels and telling each other where we hide them. Danny couldn’t have done half as well without me, and he was the first to admit it. But when he slipped last night-and it would never have happened if he hadn’t had that clever idea of planting something in your room-I made up my mind I still wasn’t going to give up on Natalie’s diamonds, and you were the man to swipe them for me.”
    “So you actually did talk her into distrusting me.”
    “And I had to be pretty clever about it, too. And it was even more of a job to set up that date with Bernie Kovar. But she really is quite a babe in the woods, if that does anything for your ego. I never set eyes on her before I found her on the Blue Train a few weeks ago, of course … And now,” Mrs Noversham said coldly, “are you going to hand over those sparklers, or shall I have to tell that police inspector what you did to force me to back up your story?”
    Simon turned rather sadly towards the little vestibule, at the inevitably identical instant when the inspector made his return entrance from it, on the inevitably unmistakable cue.
    He was followed by two agents in uniform, one with a notebook and one carrying a small tape recorder, and both of them trying not to look as if they had strayed out of the Tales of Hoffman.
    Without any need to speak, they all watched Mrs Noversham’s face whiten and sag under the crust of make-up which suddenly did not seem to fit any more.
    “Now don’t jump to any conclusions,” she said at last, with a desperate attempt to keep the old brassy dominance in her voice. “If you had anyone listening in when he phoned me, you know that I asked if you had any evidence, and he said no, it was only suspicion. So I thought that if I pretended to give him an alibi, and made him believe I was as big a crook as he is, I’d get a confession out of him that you could use. And he was just ready for it when you busted in and spoiled it all. But you can’t guillotine me for trying to help you do the job the taxpayers pay you for. If you even had the