The Saint in Trouble Read Free Page A

money on the bill which had been placed before him, and stood up.
    “I’m going to work. You can watch if you like, but don’t show that you know me. I’ll see you back at the hotel in an hour.”
    2
    Head bowed, arms protectively cradling the file of papers, the Saint trotted up the steps and in through the main doors of the Palais without earning a second glance from the attendants standing by them. Once inside he stood for a moment to gain his bearings and savour the welcoming coolness of the foyer before following the signs directing him to the hall where the official opening ceremony was taking place.
    The two men standing on either side of the salle entrance wore no uniforms but there was an impressive breadth to their shoulders and an alertness in their eyes that told the Saint they would not be so easily fooled as their colleagues outside. He left the file on a window ledge and pretended to be studying a noticeboard on the opposite side of the foyer.
    Through the glazed doors he could see Riguard standing on the stage at the far end of the auditorium. Those scheduled to be the principal speakers at the conference were ranged on both sides of him with Maclett in the place of honour on his right.
    With no apparent haste the Saint neared the doors. As he did so the chairman’s words became clearer:
    “… And the great event of the week will, of course, be the lecture by our honoured guest, Professor Maclett, on some of the implications of his spectacular breakthrough in the field of solar energy…”
    The cue was too apt for a person with Simon Templar’s sense of the dramatic to miss. It came as he drew level with the double doors, and he moved with the speed of a panther. He took two steps to his right and launched himself into a charge, Mtting the centre of the doors with his shoulder. Before the first steward had begun to react he was standing in the middle of the main aisle, his voice raised in impassioned protest.
    “His breakthrough! It wasn’t his breakthrough, it’s mine! I was his research student at Cambridge. The great Professor Maclett stole it from me. The man’s a thief and a liar!”
    The stewards were quick to recover. Grabbing Simon by the arms, they prepared to drag Mm away. The Saint’s biceps tensed instinctively at the contact, and for an instant the two men paused, surprised by the muscle beneath their fingers. Simon took advantage of the delay to fire his next salvo.
    “He put me off it, told me it was rubbish-now he announces it as his own! He stole it, I tell you!”
    The spectators were torn between watching the antics of the raving protester halfway down the aisle and the spectacle being provided by Maclett. At the Saint’s first words the professor stood up, rage quickly taking the place of astonishment as the allegations registered. His face had turned an interesting shade that was a mixture of dark red and bright purple; his hands clenched into fists, and he began to climb down from the stage.
    The possibility of a physical brawl with the man he was sup posed to be protecting had not figured in Simon’s plan of campaign. His muscles relaxed.
    “OK, boys, take me away,” he whispered to the men trying to do just that, and as they roughly obliged he managed one final shout at the lumbering professor and his goggle-eyed audience.
    “He’s a fraud and a thief!”
    Once away from the auditorium, the stewards made it clear that they planned to conclude their work with an airborne descent of the steps outside the Palais. The Saint had other ideas. He stopped. The stewards, finding their acquiescent charge suddenly as immobile as an oak, had no option but to do the same. They looked at each other and then at the Saint, who by that time should have been picking himself up off the sidewalk. Simon’s ringers closed around the wrists of the hands holding him with the strength of a bear trap snapping shut and removed them from his person.
    He smiled.
    “Don’t bother. I’ll see