Saint and the Templar Treasure by Leslie Charteris, Charles King, Graham Weaver Read Free Book Online Page B

the number of doors along either side, it appeared to bisect the building, giving access to both front and back rooms.
    The Saint moved swiftly along it, making less noise than a stalking cat. He opened doors at random, but found nothing more exciting than bedrooms and an occasional cupboard or lumber room.
    The end of the passage, by the tall window, proved to be also a landing for a spiral stone staircase leading both upwards and downwards. Judging that the upper floor would be no more exciting than the one he was on, he took the stairs down to the first floor, which turned out to be an equally barren hunting ground. The only room of any interest was a large well-stocked library that would have taken far too long to search.
    The main problem, he conceded, as he found himself looking down another corridor leading to the balcony around the entrance hall, was that he had no idea what he was hoping to find. He was simply gambling on blind luck to produce something.
    He glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that well over an hour had passed since he had left Mimette. He could not delay much longer, or Charles would be coming to look for him, whether summoned or not. He was considering whether to abandon his quest when he heard a door slam and the sound of footsteps coming along the balcony towards the corridor.
    On impulse he stepped back on to the spiral staircase and continued down it. The steps became steeper with every turn, and he expected that they would eventually lead to a basement, perhaps even to the original dungeons of the castle. Instead, they ended on the ground floor, but from the way they twisted towards a blank wall they must have once carried on down to the foundations. A padlocked door set in the wall facing the final step had pointedly been installed to restrict entrance to the cellars.
    It was evident that he had reached the oldest part of the chateau. A bare stone passage with a low ceiling of tiny red bricks ran from the foot of the stairway into what had once been the great hall of the castle. The room was vast compared to the others he had visited, being at least eighty feet long and almost half as many wide. The ceiling was made of planks the width of the trees they had been cut from, and broad shafts of fading light slanted down from a dozen arched windows set high up in the wall. Except for a few faded tapestries and a couple of roughly carpentered trestle tables, it was completely empty. The entrance from the passage was in the centre of the hall, an equal distance from two doors which were the only other breaks in the flat lines of the walls.
    Simon considered each in turn as he weighed his next move. The more imposing of the two was set in the wall which he estimated to be nearest the centre of the chateau, while the one at the east end of the hall was much smaller and half hidden in a recess. Of the two, the smaller looked the more intriguing but he was acutely aware that time was not on his side. Regretfully he turned towards the main door which, he guessed, would take him in the general direction of the reception hall and, very likely, the salon.
    It was then that he heard the voices. They were so faint that had it not been for the complete stillness that surrounded him and his own finely tuned hearing he would never have noticed them. At first he thought they must be coming from a long way off, but then he realised that the walls were too thick to admit any outside noise short of a trumpet call. He walked into the centre of the hall and stood completely motionless as he strained to locate the source of the sound. He tried putting a hand over each ear in turn. The noise was completely blotted out when he covered his right ear. With a smile he turned towards the smaller of the two doors.
    The voices grew slightly stronger as he approached, but they were still far too muffled for him to distinguish any words. In vain he tried pressing his ear against the door. Following the only course