The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots Read Free Page B

standing and
gaping as dumbly as if she had been watching the whole thing on television.
    The Saint reached the black car just before
Mademoiselle Lambrini could be hauled inside clear of the door. He threw himself
between the open door and the side of the car, so that the door could
not be closed. There were two men immediately visible—one the man in
the chauffeur’s cap and the other the man trying to restrain Mademoiselle
Lambrini. The latter had to give up the hold of one of his hands on the woman in order to aim a
punch at the Saint’s midriff. Simon evaded
the jab, caught the man’s forearm, and yanked
him by his outstretched arm straight out of the door, banging the kidnapper’s head and shoulder against
the door frame in the process.
    Mademoiselle Lambrini swung her purse at the
head of the driver as he started to throw the Mercedes into gear. The
automobile lurched forward with the door still open, the Saint clinging to
the outside, and its comely owner bashing its driver with a large
alligator purse.
    It was a short trip—not more than half a
dozen yards. The driver slammed on the brake, flung open his own door, and jumped out before the car had stopped moving. In the meanwhile, his
comrade had scrambled to his feet and was disappearing past the gaping old woman
with the parcels. The Saint might have
caught the escaping driver if the Mercedes,
in coming to an abrupt halt as its wheels bumped into the curb, had not given
such a jerk that he was thrown momentarily off balance. He half fell, and saw
that Made moiselle Lambrini had been
thrown forward against the dash board.
Clutching her head with one hand, she slumped half out of the still rumbling car, and the Saint had to
catch her in his arms and raise her
back to a sitting position in the
front seat. By the time he could look up both of the men were out of sight.
    Simon gently took Mademoiselle Lambrini’s hand and moved it away from her forehead.
    “Cut?” he asked.
    “No,” she said weakly. “I am
all right.”
    “I thought so,” he continued with
confident good cheer. “Somebody was telling me just a few
minutes ago that you are the sort of girl who doesn’t need
protection, and now it’s perfectly obvious that that’s true.” He
straightened up and nodded. “I’ll be running along then, and…”
    She let out a dismayed gasp and caught his
arm.
    “No! Please. Don’t leave me. I—I thought
you were one of them.”
    “One of them?”
    “I’ll explain if you won’t leave me…”
    From his standing position the Saint saw
something on the floor behind the front seat of the Mercedes. He also noticed
the old woman of the parcels creeping tentatively nearer, one hesitant
step at a time, as several other pedes trians gathered at the end of the
narrow street to look at and discuss the situation.
    “I won’t leave you, then—yet,”
Simon said. “But we’d better leave here. For one thing, there seems
to be a body in the back scat of your car.”
     
    3
    “A body?”
    Mademoiselle Lambrini turned to peer over
into the back of the Mercedes as Simon opened the rear door. A middle- aged man in a black suit lay
unconscious on the floor, face up, his arms
sprawled awkwardly as they had fallen when he was dumped there.
    “Hans!” she cried, in shocked
recognition.
    “One of ours?” Simon asked.
    “My chauffeur,” she answered in a
voice that was genu inely
shaken with concern. “Have they hurt him? What…”
    The Saint could see that the man was breathing deeply. There was a faint smell of chloroform on the air.
    “I think they just doped him. Let’s see
how his pulse is doing.”
    When he had lifted the man up on to the back
seat, he realized that the audience of pedestrians which had started to
collect at a distance a few moments before was gathering closer around the car.
At any minute some alert member of the Parisian police would stumble on the scene and begin
asking questions.
    “Let’s either sell tickets or pull out of