The Saint in Europe by Leslie Charteris Read Free Book Online Page B

an article on the diamond business. I thought a man of Mr Jonkheer’s standing could give me some valuable information.”
    The young man unfastened the chain and let him in to a bare narrow hall. There were doors on one side and another at the back, and a flight of uncarpeted wooden stairs led upwards. On a hard chair beside the stairs, with a newsнpaper on his lap and one hand under the paper, sat a burly man with blond close-cropped hair who stared at the Saint woodenly.
    “One moment, please,” said the young man.
    He disappeared through the door at the end of the hall. The burly man continued to stare motionlessly at the Saint, as if he were stuffed. In a little while the young man came back.
    “This way, please.”
    The back room was a homely sort of office, the only posнsible sanctum of an individualistic old-world craftsman who needed no front for his skill. It contained an ancient roll-top desk with dusty papers overflowing from its pigeon-holes and littered over its surfaces, a battered swivel chair at the desk, and two overstuffed armchairs whose leather upholstery was dark and shiny with age. There were china figures and family photographs in gilt frames on the marble mantelpiece over a black iron coal fireplace. The safe stood under another barred window; and massive though it was, it would not have offered much more resistance than a matchbox to a modern cracksman.
    Mr Jonkheer was a short bald man in his shirtsleeves, with a wide paunch under a leather apron and a wide multiple-chinned face. It was obvious at a glance that no make-up virtuoso could have duplicated him. His pale blue eyes looked small and bright behind thick gold-rimmed glasses.
    “You are a writer, eh?” he said, with a kind of gruff affability. “Which magazine do you write for?”
    “Any one that’ll buy what I write.”
    “So. And what can I tell you for your article?” The Saint sat in one of the heavy armchairs and opened a pack of cigarettes.
    “Well, anything interesting about your work,” he said.
    “I cut jewels-principally diamonds.”
    “I know. I’m told you’re one of the best cutters in the business.”
    “There are many good ones. I am good.”
    “I suppose you’ve been doing it all your life?”
    “Since I am an apprentice, at sixteen. I have been cutting stones, now, for forty years.”
    “You must have cut some famous jewels in that time.”
    A twin pair of vertical lines began to pucker between the cutter’s bushy brows.
    “Famous?”
    “I mean, well-known jewels, that people would like to read about.”
    “I have cut many good stones.”
    This was manifestly going to make no revelationary progress. Simon said, as offhandedly as he could: “You’re too modest, Mr Jonkheer. For instance, how about the Angel’s Eye?”
    There was no audible sound effect like a sickening thud, but the response was much the same. In a silence that fairly hummed with hollowness, the diamond cutter’s small bright eyes hardened and froze like drops of his own gems.
    The Saint exhaled cigarette smoke and tried to appear as if he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. At last Jonkheer said: “What about the Angel’s Eye?”
    “You know the stone I mean?”
    “Of course. It is a famous diamond.”
    “How are you going to re-cut it?”
    “I am not re-cutting it.”
    Jonkheer’s tone was still gruff, but no longer affable. Simon looked puzzled.
    “But you have it here.”
    “I do not.”
    “I was told-“
    “You are mistaken.”
    “I don’t get it,” said the Saint, with an ingenuous frown. “The fellow who referred me to you said positively that the Angel’s Eye was brought to you for re-cutting only the other day. I don’t mean to pry into your business, but-“
    The other’s steady stare was cold with suspicion.
    “Who was this person?”
    “It was somebody in the trade. I don’t know that I ought to mention his name. But he was very definite.”
    Jonkheer gazed at him for a longer time, with no