The Saint in Europe Read Free Page B

to all the Paris newspapers. Of course, for all I knew, he might have been anywhere else in France, if he was alive at all. But just by a miracle, he saw it. We exchanged letters and snapshots. He’d thought I was probably dead, too. And then, when I won that prize on the radio, it seemed as if everything was set for a real Hollyнwood ending.”
    “I can see why that story would get a play in the papers,” said the Saint thoughtfully. “And the correspondents of the French news agencies would naturally pick it up and send it back here.”
    “They did. Charles’s last letter said he was quite embarнrassed about the publicity he was getting.”
    “So after that, anyone with any interest in the Rosepierre family, whether they read advertisements or not, would know a good deal about both of you.”
    “I suppose so.”
    Simon shamelessly used a piece of bread to mop up the last delectable traces of the ambrosial sauce.
    “Are you reasonably sure that this Charles Rosepierre was your brother?”
    Valerie stared at him.
    “He must have been! … I mean, he seemed to remember the same things that I did. And people here knew him by that name, didn’t they? And there’s quite a resemblance-look!”
    She took out her wallet and extracted a photograph which she passed to him. It showed a dark, rather delicate-featured young man with an engaging smile. Simon dispassionately compared it, detail by detail, with the face of the girl oppoнsite him.
    “There’s a great likeness,” he conceded finally. “It’s probнably true. I was only groping in the dark.”
    “Here’s another thing.” She was fumbling in her purse again, an she came out with a small round piece of silver like a coin. “My father gave it to me just before he sent us away. It’s one of those things that stand out in this disjointed kind of childhood memory. He gave both Charles and me one. And Charles mentioned it in his first letter answering my advertisement. He said he still had his, and he wonнdered if I still had mine.”
    “That’s pretty convincing.”
    Simon took the piece of silver and looked at it, and a slight frown of puzzlement began to wrinkle his forehead.
    “But if he was Jewish,” he said, “why a Saint Christopher medal?”
    She shrugged.
    “Maybe he’d been converted. Or maybe he hoped it would bluff the Gestapo, if they caught us.”
    “Or maybe,” said the Saint, in a faraway voice, “it was just the handiest thing he had in the shop.”
    She gazed at him blankly, while he examined the medal more closely and turned it over, half hoping to find some inscription on the back. But on the back was only a little quarter-inch indented square, much like a hallmark, except that the indentation was filled only with what looked like a cuneiform pattern of microscopic scratches which conveyed nothing to the keenest naked eye, if they had any signifiнcance at all.
    And yet, for the first time, the darkness in which he had been groping did not seem so dark. There were vital pieces missing in the jigsaw which he was trying to put together, but at last he was beginning to perceive the outlines into which they would have to fit.
    He was very silent while they finished the meal and the wine, so that by the time he called for the check the girl was fidgeting with understandable impatience.
    “May I keep this just for a few hours?” he said at last, and dropped the medallion into his pocket without waiting for her permission.
    “Have you thought of anything?” she asked.
    He stood up.
    “A lot of things. I’m not tantalizing you just to be mysнterious, but they’ll take the rest of the afternoon to check on, and I don’t want to raise any false excitement until I’ve got facts to go on.”
    He walked with her to the Boulevard Raspail, the nearest thoroughfare where they would be likely to find taxis, and only his quiet air of being so absolutely certain of what he was doing somehow forced her to control her