The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots

THE SAINT ABROAD

LESLIE CHARTERIS

CHARTER

NEW YORK

A DIVISION OF CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS INC

 
A GROSSET & DUNLAP COMPANY

THE SAINT ABROAD

Copyright
© 1969 by Leslie Charteris
All rights reserved

Published
by arrangement with Doubleday & Com
pany, Inc
.

Charter Books

A Division of
Charter Communications Inc.

A Grosset & Dunlap Company

360 Park Avenue South

New York, New York 10010

Manufactured in the United States of America

FOREWORD

Our first three experiments in turning the tables on the
television producers
(The
Saint on TV, The Saint Returns,
and
The
Saint & the Fiction Makers)
having been tolerably
well received,
we have been encouraged to bring out yet
another
of these hybrid books—that is, Saint stories which
were originally created expressly for television,
not by me,
adapted for reading as
ordinary fiction by yet another writer,
and indebted to me only for the parentage of the Saint
himself, for sundry suggestions along the way,
and for a final
revision of the
manuscript in which I did my best to see
that the style was as close to my own as possible, short
of a complete personal rewrite. In the
construction of these
adaptations, I
have not hesitated to call for quite drastic
changes from what you may have seen on the mini-screen,
exactly as a film producer does not hesitate to
take liberties with any story he has bought, whenever I thought I could
improve on the material. In this case, reversing
the traditional sequence of events, I am the character who has had
the last word.

Nor do I feel that I owe any apology to old
and faithful
readers of the Saint Saga. The television stories which I
have selected for this treatment are only those which I
thought
had genuine possibilities—which by no means qual
ifies everything
that has gone out on the TV networks. Nor would I have published these
adaptations if they dissatisfied
me. Whether this kind of composite authorship
is kosher
may be
debatable on a rarified intellectual plane, but if it
satisfies enough aficionados of the Saint who want more
books to read than I can supply, it can’t be all
bad.

LC

CONTENTS

I. THE ART
COLLECTORS

II.
THE
PERSISTENT PATRIOTS

THE ART COLLECTORS

ORIGINAL
 
TELEPLAY
 
BY
 
MICHAEL
 
PERTWEE

ADAPTED
 
BY
 
FLEMING
 
LEE

1

“In these devaluable days,” Simon Templar said, “you
don’t just take your money and stash it away in some nice sturdy
bank, or
you may very well find yourself with a nice sturdy
bank full of waste
paper.”

“Knowing your reputation, Monsieur
Templar, I can well believe that you have several bank vaults full of such
waste
paper,” said Marcel LeGrand.

LeGrand’s smile, which appeared through the
thicket of his
black mustache and beard like the moon seen rising
through
a forest,
was the smile of a salesman certain that however
much money his customer has at the moment, he is going
to have considerably less before he leaves. The
bushy-faced
art dealer’s hand caressed
the gilded frame of one of his
salon’s
more expensive offerings as he spoke. All around him,
on walls and easels, were the colors and forms of
the paint
ings that were his
stock-in-trade. The displays were arranged
so that direct sunlight could never touch the works of art,
but flashes of light thrown by the passing traffic
through
the blue-tinted windows from
the Paris street outside gave a
kind
of psychedelic motion to the whole interior.

“You underestimate me,” Simon
Templar replied with a
perfect gravity. “I support the
Rothschilds almost single-handed. Without my deposits, the gnomes of Z
ü
rich would
have to crawl back into their caves and
collect mushrooms
for a living.”

The Saint—the name by which the world most
generally
knew
Simon Templar—saw no more reason to try to spike
the rumors which circulated about his wealth than he saw
to try to quash the legends which flourished
around his
reputation as a modern
buccaneer, a Robin Hood whose
Sherwood
Forest was the world of crime in an age of industry
and international finance, and whose victims were
the crim
inals themselves. In the
first place, the stories were mostly
true.
In the second place, efforts to refute myths tended
only to have the effect of increasing belief in
their validity. Thirdly, the Saint enjoyed the exaggerations, and they were
useful to him. They increased the awe of
potential enemies
and pushed them
toward elaborate precautions and nervous countermeasures which could only
increase their chances of
error. The same tables enhanced his powers of
bluff where the police were concerned and his naturally considerable
powers of attraction where women were concerned.
All in all, folklore had its uses.

“I hope, then, more sincerely than ever,
that you will
find something here which pleases you,” LeGrand
said. “You
will find no better selection in France—I can promise
you
that. And I do not think I flatter myself when I say that
my
judgment as to the investment value of paintings is as
sound as that of any
man in the world.”

“No, you don’t flatter yourself,”
the Saint said. “That is
exactly why I’m here and not talking to some other dealer.”

He moved slowly through the large room, whose
space
for hanging paintings was increased by a number of partitions
jutting
out across the richly carpeted floor and reaching al
most to the ceiling.
LeGrand followed with calculated casual-
ness, his hands
clasped behind his back. He was a head
shorter than the
Saint’s lean-muscled six feet two, but he
made up for it on the
horizontal, without actually being
fat.

“Perhaps you could suggest some amount
you would like
to invest,” LeGrand said. “I realize that taste,
too, is involved, but we may as well be practical.”

“We
may as well,”
Simon said with a smile, “and therefore
I’m not showing you
my wallet until after you’ve shown me
the price tags.”

LeGrand laughed and shrugged to acknowledge
his ap
preciation of the Saint’s acumen as a bargainer. Simon no
ticed,
looking over the art dealer’s shoulder, that a tall, dark-
haired man
had started to step into the shop from the street, had seen through the windows
that LeGrand was occupied,
and had stayed outside without leaving the
doorway.

“This,” Simon said. “What is
it?”

He had turned back to one of the framed
paintings
hanging
on one of the partitions. Most of LeGrand’s col
lection was pre-nineteenth century. Along this partition were
some of the exceptions—contemporary productions,
non-rep
resentational.

“That is chicken feathers on lacquered
axle grease,” Le
Grand said impassively. “Interesting, no?”

“No,” said the Saint. “How much
do you calculate it
will be worth in ten years?”

“About two francs,” said LeGrand,
still impassively. “Let
me show you something more suitable.
Something from the
Renaissance—Italian, or Flemish. There is a Van Eyck…”

The dealer and Simon turned, and the
dark-haired man
who had been outside the doorway was standing not ten
feet
from them. He had entered so soundlessly that even the
Saint had
not heard his footsteps on the carpet.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” he
said to LeGrand in French,
“but I must speak with you as soon as
possible.”

“As you see, I have a customer,”
LeGrand said with polite
deference. “But as soon as …”

“This is very urgent,” the
stranger said, “and I have other
duties. If you could spare just a
moment … alone.”

“Very well,” LeGrand answered.
“If you can excuse
me …”

He was looking at the Saint, who nodded.

“As a matter of fact,” he said,
“I may as well be going.
 
I
haven’t
really seen anything that …”

LeGrand held up his hand and put on a
confidential ex
pression.