The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace Read Free Page B

realised by now that the less you
do know the better it will be for you.”
    “Well, for a start you can tell me if I’m breaking the law by not going to the police. I don’t really care,
but I am inter ested.”
    The other shook his head.
    “No, because the police would never be
able to prove that a crime has been committed.” He shot Simon
a knowing look. “I also am a good judge of men. I have to be in my
business— in fact in order to stay alive. My intuition tells me
that perhaps you too would not want the police making enquiries about you,
Mr er… Taylor?”
    Simon erupted into laughter. He was genuinely
delighted. In his lonely and dangerous life he was seldom able to find such
instant rapport as he had achieved with Max Annellatt They were two of a
kind.
    It remained to be seen whether they were
equal in quality. Simon felt sure he knew the answer to that one. But he was
always pleased to meet a really formidable opponent, espe cially a
likeable one. He rarely got a chance to stretch his own powers to
the full, and even less frequently against someone he admired. Perhaps
one day he would lose to someone like Max Annellatt and like it, just as he
had almost lost to Crown Prince Rudolf in the same country some years
before. It had been a near thing, and the Saint had liked Rudolf even
when they were doing their best to kill each other. He felt the stir rings of
the same sort of appreciation for Max.
    “Anyway,” Max continued, “you
will have the comfort of knowing that you have helped a young woman in
difficulties and perhaps even saved her life. Believe me, matters can
be left safely in my hands.”
    “What sort of difficulties?”
inquired the Saint. “They must be pretty big to involve kidnapping.”
    “I cannot tell you that without your
getting involved; And for your sake, to say nothing of Frankie’s, I
cannot allow that.”
    The Saint shrugged. There was obviously no
point in argu ing or probing further. But what Herr Annellatt did not
know was that the Saint was going to get involved anyway. His dander was up
and he was not going to be fobbed off. The Saint had never in his life settled for
the role of pawn. A knight, or a rook (spelt
with a silent “c”?) perhaps, but never a pawn.
    But he would get involved in his own way and
in his own time. He got up to go.
    “Well, thanks for nothing, but I’ve
enjoyed it.”
    Herr Annellatt clasped Simon’s hand warmly.
    “Goodbye, my friend. I am so sorry you
had all this bother. But do not worry, the girl will be all
right.”
    Simon looked back over his shoulder as he
went through the door. Max was finishing his last brandy. The cat was
back on his shoulders. Its eyes momentarily caught Simon’s.
    The Saint could have sworn that Thai winked
at him.
     
    3
     
    The Hotel Hofer was one of the new
commercial hotels, still blessedly rare, which the burghers of Vienna
considered to be in tune with the times.
    Hotels in Vienna, for the most part, have
always been noted for their old-world charm. Guests in them were
treated as if they were Hapsburgian nobility, which made the Aus trian
aristocrats feel at home and foreigners that they were ex periencing
something of a culture other, and possibly higher, than their own.
    In the new commercial hotels, however,
guests were treated like the travelling salesmen most of them were. The
emphasis was less on politeness than on efficiency. Viennese
efficiency being what it has always been, the guests were the losers
all round and were neither made to feel at home nor welcomed with the
deference due to honoured clients. They were, in fact, as far as
possible ignored by management and staff, who were in the grip of
that most pathetic fallacy of the twentieth century, namely that
efficiency means less work and less cour tesy.
    The night clerk at the Hotel Hofer appeared
to be completely disinterested in his job.and indeed in life itself. But then,
Simon decided, being a night clerk must be rather like being in limbo