Saint and the Templar Treasure (3 page)

“That’s how the stunt men do it in the movies,” he informed his ashen-faced passengers as he negotiated the next bend without slackening speed.

Pascal said nothing but continued to clutch at the door, his knees braced to absorb the impact he felt must come at any second. In the rear-view mirror, Jules looked as if he was about to be sick.

The lane had climbed enough by then to give them a sight of several buildings rising picturesquely beyond the screen of cypress. The smoke was thicker now, with the original light grey spiral streaked with ominous black.

“The track to the barn is beyond those posts,” Pascal said breathlessly, pointing to a narrow opening ahead.

The Saint nodded and heeled the car around between the white painted posts with an inch to spare on either wing.

The track ran diagonally across the sloping hillside to the copse where it was hidden by the trees before continuing towards the complex of other buildings. The surface was sun-cracked mud thinly covered by gravel-sized fragments of crushed boulders. It had been designed for horses and tractors rather than low-slung sports cars, and their progress was accompanied by the rattle of stones flung against the chassis like hail against a window. At any moment he expected to hear a roar as the exhaust was ripped away, but their luck held and they reached the trees without apparent harm.

What had looked like a thick copse from a distance turned out to be simply a double row of cypress planted close together to act as a windbreak to the north of the vineyard, and also to provide some shade for the workers between their spells of labour. Beyond the trees was a long low-roofed barn, its walls made from the hillside rocks and looking capable of withstanding a broadside of twenty-five-pounders. But the timbers of the roof were clearly more vulnerable. Already the far end was well alight, and the flames were licking greedily along the ridge and eaves. It could only be a matter of minutes before the whole roof would be ablaze.

A black Citroen was parked in front of the barn facing back down the track. Simon pulled the Hirondel to a protesting halt beside it. He vaulted out of the car and was sprinting towards the building even before the last piston had come to rest.

Two massive double doors comprised most of the end of the barn nearest to him, but he ignored them and ran towards the small service door that stood open halfway along the side.

As he approached two men ran out. The first was tall in a wide-lapelled pin-stripe suit with shoulders padded almost to the width of the doorway he had just emerged from. The second was a head shorter but huskier and wore a black leather zipper jacket and baggy black corduroys. They looked so much like the classical double act of a Hollywood B picture that the Saint felt the laughter rising within him. But he paid them the compliment of lengthening his stride, well aware that even cliche crooks can carry guns.

At the sight of the Saint racing towards them the two men looked uncertainly at each other, their expressions showing that they had not anticipated any trouble. As Simon reached them the big man lashed out at the place where the Saint’s head should have been. But the target was no longer there. The Saint ducked low, his left hand catching the man’s wrist as his right arm flashed between his legs. The man yelled in pain as the Saint’s arm jarred up into his crotch, and in the same fluid movement Simon rose out of his crouch and the man felt his feet lose contact with the ground as he was held in an excruciating parody of a fireman’s lift, before the Saint stepped out from under him and left the force of gravity to help the unlucky arsonist return to earth.

The Saint looked inquiringly at his leather-clad side-kick, but the latter turned and scooted towards the Citroen. Out of the corner of his eye, Simon saw Pascal make a grab for him and shouted: “Leave him. There’s an extinguisher in my car, get it.”

He pointed to a standpipe at the corner of the barn.

“And you should know where to find a hose. Tell Jules!”

Without waiting to watch his orders carried out, he plunged into the barn.

The open door had created an updraught that had pushed the eddying billows of smoke back up into the roof and the Saint was able to see the general layout and take stock of the situation. It was worse than he had feared.

The flames he had seen from the outside were nothing compared to those rapidly engulfing the triangles of beams supporting the roof. The far end of the barn where the fire had clearly been started was already an inferno, and an open loft stacked with wickerwork hoppers was beyond saving. Even as he watched he saw the plank floor sag and heard the timbers crack under the strain. Sparks from the beams had kindled half a dozen smaller fires among heaps of baskets by the walls, which in turn were igniting a line of wooden hand-carts.

A truck was parked in the centre of the building facing the double doors and he made his way towards it. The deeper he moved into the barn the denser the smoke became, and by the time he reached the lorry his eyes were running with water. He knelt down and sucked the fresher air nearer the floor into his lungs while he considered his next move.

The barn had been stocked with everything needed for the coming harvest. The baskets and hoppers would be used to carry the grapes from the fields to where the truck would transport them back to the chai for pressing. He remembered Pascal’s talk of the recent accidents that had plagued the vineyard and smiled grimly.

It was obvious that the building was doomed, but he refused to admit total defeat so quickly.

“Whatever makes anyone want to be a fireman?” he asked himself as he wiped the water from his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket and stood up.

As he did so the floor of the loft finally gave way and crashed down in an explosion of sparks. Some of the burning spars fell across the open door, cutting off any attempt at retreat in that direction. The entire roof was alight now and the heat scorched his face as he ran to the cab of the truck.

The vehicle was of pre-war lineage, and he cursed as he realised that self-starters had been considered a luxury when it had first been put on the road. He pulled himself up into the cab and gave silent thanks when he saw that at least the key had been left in the ignition. He turned it and jumped out again. The smoke was becoming thicker every second and it was all he could do to see his way to the front of the radiator. Every breath was becoming a painful effort, and he knew that if the starting handle was not already in place there would be no time to search for it. But again the gods were with him, and he took hold of it and began to crank the engine.

At the first turn the engine coughed. At the second it spluttered briefly and died again. Sparks rained down on him and threatened to singe his hair and clothes. His chest felt as if he had swallowed vitriol, but he calmly swung the handle a third time, stubbornly refusing to be beaten. And the old engine, as if realising that this was its last chance, fired and kept running.

The Saint stumbled back into the cab. The beams above him were burning fiercely, and he knew that they could only last for a few minutes. There was no time to unbar the double doors, and he prayed fervently that the engine would not stall. He released the handbrake and gently engaged the gears. The runup was only a few feet, and he opened the throttle wide as the truck moved forward.

He hit the double doors squarely in the centre. For one paralysing moment they seemed to hold before the metal bolts were ripped from their mountings and they flew open under the impact.

Simon kept the truck moving until the building was a safe distance behind him before he stopped. In the same instant the roof of the barn collapsed.

The Saint gulped down the clean air as he used his handkerchief to mop the sweat from his forehead. As he waited for the adrenaline to dissolve and his pulse rate to subside he looked in the driver’s mirror and discovered the ravages to his appearance. Most areas of his face that were not powdered with ash were smeared with soot. His eyes were bloodshot, and the front of what ten minutes before had been a spotless white shirt was sodden and grimy.

“One day I should learn to mind my own business,” he told his reflection disgustedly, and turned to climb out of the cab.

He placed one hand on the open window and quickly drew it away as a searing twinge shot up his arm. He looked at the blackened burn on his palm in amazement. A smouldering ember must have fallen from the roof and lodged on the sill, but he had been so busy with more urgent problems that he had not even noticed it. Now, as the excitement wore off, the penalty of his preoccupation was more exasperating than painful. He twisted his handkerchief angrily over the injury and swung himself down to the ground.

The Citroen and the arsonists had disappeared. Pascal and Jules were running towards him.

“Are you all right?” they shouted.

“As you see,” Simon replied.

“There was nothing we could do,” panted Jules. “No buckets, no hose, nothing.”

“I emptied your extinguisher, but it was not enough,” Pascal said. “When the door was blocked I thought you would never come out.” He noticed the Saint’s handkerchief bandage. “Are you sure you are not hurt?”

“I’ll mend.”

“They got away,” said Jules apologetically.

“You told us to leave them,” Pascal put in quickly.

“But I got the number of their car,” said Jules proudly, and the Saint clapped him on the shoulder.

“Well done. That’s something, anyway.”

He was prepared to lay ten to one that the car had been stolen, but it would have been mean to have disparaged the lad’s achievement.

While they had been talking he had been watching a battered jeep coming down the drive from the chateau. It stopped by the barn and its crew of four jumped out. Two of them were obviously outdoor workers on the estate, and leading them was a much older man and a young girl, who had been driving. Even in that situation, the French ritual of handshaking was observed.

Pascal performed the introduction.

“Je vous presente a Mademoiselle Mimette Florian—et Monsieur Gaston.”

“Enchante,” murmured the Saint, with a more than perfunctory intonation.

If three coincidences could seem to betray the machination of fate, then a fourth on top of them could be little short of an order from the gods. At any rate, the Saint was willing to accept it as that. For the last time he had seen the girl she had been driving a very different car, and had narrowly missed meeting him a lot sooner, in a very different atmosphere.

4

As with fine wines, fine food, and fine cars, the Saint’s taste in fine-feathered birds was highly discriminating. This girl satisfied even his demanding standards.

“Lovely” is an overworked adjective. It is used to describe any pleasant experience from a holiday to a movie. Simon had little doubt that Mimette Florian would be an enjoyable experience, and none whatsoever that she lived up to the word’s true definition of beautiful and attractive.

The mental picture he had carried with him since their near miss on the road paled beside the original. Her plain dress of green cotton highlighted the grace of her figure without revealing it. She walked with the litheness of youth, but there was a confidence and authority about her that suggested a maturity beyond her years. Her hair curled as it touched her shoulders and framed a face that needed no cosmetics to enhance its appeal. But it was her eyes that held the Saint’s attention. They were at the same time the wide wondering eyes of a child and the dark secretive eyes of a worldly woman.

The man Gaston looked old enough to be her grandfather, but the way in which he waited for her to speak and stood a respectful half a pace behind immediately stamped the relationship as one of employer and employee. Dressed in homespun breeches of old-fashioned cut, heavy workman’s boots, and a black unbuttoned waistcoat over his striped shirt, he was the perfect prototype of a vanishing tradition of life-long family retainer. Years of working in the open had burned his face to the colour and texture of worn leather, yet the lines that were the legacy of at least half a century of toil were offset by eyes that were as bright and clear as the sky.

The girl asked Pascal: “What happened?”

Her voice was as devoid of emotion as if she had been asking the time. The Saint gave her full marks for self-control.

Pascal rapidly explained how the Saint had only been giving them a lift, and told her the story from the time they had spotted the smoke to how the Saint had rescued the truck. As he spoke of the two arsonists the old man’s eyes glittered and his lips framed words he was too well trained to utter in the presence of a lady. Mimette listened calmly, the only sign of her thoughts being the compression of her lips and a hardening of her eyes. When Pascal had finished she turned to the Saint.

“We are in your debt, monsieur. You must let us repay you for your trouble.”

She spoke as if she were addressing a tradesman who had performed a special favour, but her gaze held on the Saint’s face and she seemed a little disconcerted by what she saw there.

Simon smiled and bowed with an air that was more mocking than obsequious and did more than any words could have done to take him out of the pigeonhole she had allotted to him.

“My mother told me never to accept money from strange women,” he said solemnly. He spread out his hands so that the handkerchief wrapping was visible. “But I’d be grateful for a chance to clean up and put something on this.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the gentleman was hurt, Pascal?” she said sternly.

Before the youth could answer the Saint intervened, his face serious but his voice bantering.

“I’ve always fancied myself as the strong silent type but it is just a little painful.”

In fact it was not hurting too much, but he felt that the circumstances permitted a slight exaggeration. He had no intention of being patted on the head and sent on his way, when he had such a ready-made pretext for developing the acquaintance. And he had an idea that for all her attitude of stoical authority Mimette might prove a very sympathetic nurse.