The Saint Abroad: The Art Collectors/ the Persistent Patriots by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online Page B

blank. Then his face
brightened.
    “Oh, yes! The money.” He reached
into his coat pocket. “I have here a check for the amount you
agreed on with LeGrand . He has already signed it, and I shall
countersign it as soon as you have signed the bill of sale. You will
want to read it, of course. It’s rather long, but it simply says that for the
amount we pay you, you agree to assign us all rights to the paintings.
LeGrand and I have already put our names at the proper place.”
    He handed Annabella a long and closely
printed piece of paper.
    “While I read it I’ll have Hans pack the
paintings for you,” she told him.
    “You have crates?” he asked.
    “I have a large container that holds all
five,” she said.
    “I’ll help Hans,” Simon suggested.
    “Wonderful. He knows where the crate is.
He’ll be in back—through that door—somewhere.”
    Simon carefully picked up one of the
paintings and carried it away toward the back of the house. As
Annabella read the bill of sale he and Hans appeared at intervals until
all five of the paintings had been removed. Then Simon came back once
more into the living room.
    “Would you like to look at the crate
before we put the cover
on, Professor?” he asked.
    Clarneau shrugged as if to say it was not
necessary, but followed the Saint to the rear of the house anyway. The wooden
crate was in a storage room which otherwise con tained only a large
cupboard, and the mysterious assortment of old boxes,
cartons, battered trunks and valises, and all the other aging junk which
irresistibly accumulates in such limbos. The crate was about four feet high,
the same in width, and three feet deep—large enough for what the
Saint had in mind.
    Clarneau looked at it, satisfied himself
that the five paint ings
had been slipped properly into their slots, where they were held by padded channels at the top and bottom, and said he was well pleased.
    “Good,” Simon said as the Professor
went back to the living room. “Let’s get this end nailed on, then,
Hans.”
    “I had a hammer here,” the chauffeur said. “I am
sure I did.”
    “I haven’t seen it,” the Saint
told him, untruthfully, having surreptitiously spirited it into his own hip
pocket.
    “Strange. I have another in the garage.
I come back in a moment.”
    Hans left the room and the Saint immediately
slid every painting out of the packing crate and into the cupboard
by the wall. He worked quickly but efficiently, not making a sound as
he listened for approaching footsteps. The cup board door creaked
slightly as he closed it, but not loudly enough to be heard in the front part
of the house. With the paintings out of sight he dumped books from
one of the dusty
boxes into the crate until it held the approximate equivalent in weight of the paintings.
    When Hans Kraus came back into the storage
room with a hammer, Simon was just fitting the end cover on to the packing
case.
    “I’ll hold,” he said. “You
hammer.”
    Hans began banging away.
    “Not too many nails—and not too
hard,” Simon said. “You don’t want to jar the paint off the
canvases.”
    Hans looked concerned and finished the job
with a nail at
each corner.
    “Gut?” he said with
satisfaction.
    “Sehr gut,” Simon agreed. “Let’s get it into the
station wagon.”
    Hans put down the hammer and took one end of
the crate; Simon picked up the other.
    “Heave,” he said, and they carried
the crate out of a back door, around the house, and to the front
door.
    “Shall we put it in?” Hans asked.
    “By all means. Let’s give the customer
his money’s worth,” the Saint said.
    He opened the back of the station wagon and
helped Hans shove the crate inside.
    “All right,” he said. “You can
tell them it’s ready to go.”
    Hans nodded and went into the house. Simon knew and had counted on the fact that the station wagon was
not visible from the front room
where Annabella and her cus tomer were completing their transaction.
Without a wasted motion