IX

The Damsel in Distress

"You need brains in this life of crime," Simon Templar would say sometimes; "but I often think you need luck even more."

He might have added that the luck had to be consistent.

Mr. Giuseppe Rolfieri was lucky up to a point, for he happened to be in Switzerland when the astounding Liverpool Municipal Bond forgery was discovered. It was a simple matter for him to slip over the border into his own native country; and when his four partners in the swindle stumbled down the narrow stairway that leads from the dock of the Old Bailey to the terrible blind years of penal servitude, he was comfortably installed in his villa at San Remo with no vengeance to fear from the Law. For it is a principal of international law that no man can be extradited from his own country, and Mr. Rolfieri was lucky to have retained his Italian citizenship even though he had made himself a power in the City of London.

Simon Templar read about the case — he could hardly have helped it, for it was one of those sensational scandals which rock the financial world once in a lifetime — but it did not strike him as a matter for his intervention. Four out of the five conspirators, including the ringleader, had been convicted and sentenced; and although it is true that there was a certain amount of public indignation at the immunity of Mr. Rolfieri, it was inevitable that the Saint, in his career of shameless lawlessness, sometimes had to pass up one inviting prospect in favour of another nearer to hand. He couldn't be everywhere at once — it was one of the very few human limitations which he was ready to admit.

A certain Domenick Naccaro, however, had other ideas.

He called at the Saint's apartment on Piccadilly one morning — a stout bald-headed man in a dark blue suit and a light blue waistcoat, with an unfashionable stiff collar and a stringy black tie and a luxuriant scroll of black moustache ornamenting his face — and for the first moment of alarm Simon wondered if he had been mistaken for somebody else in the same name but less respectable morals, for Signor Naccaro was accompanied by a pale pretty girl who carried a small infant swathed in a shawl.

"Is this-a Mr. Templar I have-a da honour to spik to?" asked Naccaro, doffing his bowler elaborately.

"This is one Mr. Templar," admitted the Saint cautiously.

"Ha!" said Mr. Naccaro. "It is-a da Saint himself?"

"So I'm told," Simon answered.

"Then you are da man we look-a for," stated Mr. Naccaro, with profound conviction.

As if taking it for granted that all the necessary formalities had therewith been observed, he bowed the girl in, bowed himself in after her, and stalked into the living-room. Simon closed the door and followed the deputation with a certain curious amusement.

"Well, brother," he murmured, taking a cigarette from the box on the table. "Who are you, and what can I do for you?"

The flourishing bowler hat bowed the girl into one chair, bowed its owner into another, and came to rest on its owner's knees.

"Ha!" said the Italian, rather like an acrobat announcing the conclusion of a trick. "I am Domenick Naccaro!"

"That must be rather nice for you," murmured the Saint amiably. He waved his cigarette towards the girl and her bundle. "Did you come here to breed?"

"That," said Mr. Naccaro, "is-a my daughter Maria. And in her arms she hold-as a leedle baby. A baby," said Mr. Nacarro, with his black eyes suddenly swimming, "wis-a no father."

"Careless of her," Simon remarked. "What does the baby think about it?"

"Da father," said Mr. Naccaro, contradicting himself dramatically, "is-a Giuseppe Rolfieri."

Simon's brows came down in a straight line, and some of the bantering amusement fell back below the surface of his blue eyes. He hitched one hip on to the edge of the table and swung his foot thoughtfully.

"How did this happen?" he asked.

"I keep-a da small-a restaurant in-a Soho," explained Mr. Naccaro. "Rolfieri, he come-a there often to eat-a da spaghetti. Maria, she sit at-a da desk and take-a da money. You, signor, you see-a how-a she is beautiful. Rolfieri, he notice her. When-a he pay his bill, he stop-a to talk-a wis her. One day he ask-a her to go out wis him."

Mr. Naccaro took out a large chequered handkerchief and dabbed his eyes. He went on, waving his hands in broken eloquence.

"I do not stop her. I think-a Rolfieri is-a da fine gentleman, and it is nice-a for my Maria to go out wis him. Often, they go out. I tink-a that Maria perhaps she make-a presently da good-a marriage, and I am glad for her. Then, one day, I see she is going to have-a da baby."

"It must have been a big moment," said the Saint gravely.

"I say to her, 'Maria, what have-a you done?' " recounted Mr. Naccaro, flinging out his arms. "She will-a not tell-a me." Mr. Naccaro shut his mouth firmly. "But presently she confess it is-a Rolfieri. I beat-a my breast." Mr. Naccaro beat his breast. "I say, 'I will keell-a heem; but first-a he shall marry you.' "

Mr. Naccaro jumped up with native theatrical effect.

"Rolfieri does-a not come any more to eat-a da spaghetti. I go to his office, and they tell me he is-a not there. I go to his house, and they tell me he is-a not there. I write-a letters, and he does-a not answer. Da time is going so quick. Presently I write-a da letter and say: 'If you do not-a see me soon, I go to da police.' He answer that one. He say he come soon. But he does-a not come. Then he is-a go abroad. He write again, and say he come-a to see me when he get back. But he does not-a come back. One day I read in da paper that he is-a da criminal, and da police are already look-a for him. So Maria she have-a da baby — and Rolfieri will-a never come back!"

Simon nodded.

"That's very sad," he said sympathetically. "But what can I do about it?"

Mr. Naccaro mopped his brow, put away his large chequered handkerchief, and sat down again.

"You are-a da man who help-a da poor people, no?" he said pleadingly. "You are-a da Saint, who always work-a to make justice?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then it is settled. You help-a me. Listen, signor, everyting, everyting is-a arrange. I have-a da good friends in England and in-a San Remo, and we put-a da money together to make-a this right. We kidnap-a Rolfieri. We bring him here in da aeroplane. But we do not-a know anyone who can fly. You, signor, you can fly-a da aeroplane." Mr. Naccaro suddenly fell on his knees and flung out his arms. "See, signor — I humble myself. I kiss-a your feet. I beg-a you to help us and not let Maria have-a da baby wis-a no father!"

Simon allowed the operatic atmosphere to play itself out, and thereafter listened with a seriousness from which his natural superficial amusement did not detract at all. It was an appeal of the kind which he heard sometimes, for the name of the Saint was known to people who dreamed of his assistance as well as to those who lived in terror of his attentions, and he was never entirely deaf to the pleadings of those troubled souls who came to his home with a pathetic faith in miracles.

Mr. Naccaro's proposition was more practical than most.

He and his friends, apparently, had gone into the problem of avenging the wickedness of Giuseppe Rolfieri with the conspiratorial instinct of professional vendettists. One of them had become Mr. Rolfieri's butler in the villa at San Remo. Others, outside, had arranged the abduction down to a precise time-table. Mr. Naccaro himself had acquired an old farmhouse in Kent at which Rolfieri was to be held prisoner, with a large field adjoining it at which an aeroplane could land. The aeroplane itself had been bought, and was ready for use at Brooklands Aerodrome. The only unit lacking was a man qualified to fly it.

Once Rolfieri had been taken to the farmhouse, how would they force him through the necessary marriage?

"We make-a him," was all that Naccaro would say, but he said it with grim conviction.

When the Saint finally agreed to take the job, there was another scene of operatic gratitude which surpassed all previous demonstrations. Money was offered; but Simon had already decided that in this case the entertainment was its own reward. He felt pardonably exhausted when at last Domenick Naccaro, bowing and scraping and yammering incoherently, shepherded his daughter, his illegitimate grandchild, and his own curling whiskers out of the apartment.

The preparations for his share in the abduction occupied Simon Templar's time for most of the following week. He drove down to Brooklands and tested the aeroplane which the syndicate had purchased — it was an ancient Avro which must have secured its certificate of airworthiness by the skin of its ailerons, but he thought it would complete the double journey, given luck and good weather. Then there was a halfway refuelling base to be established somewhere in France — a practical necessity which had not occurred to the elemental Mr. Naccaro. Friday had arrived before he was able to report that he was ready to make the trip; and there was another scene of embarrassing gratitude.

"I send-a da telegram to take Rolfieri on Sunday night," was the essence of Mr. Naccaro's share in the conversation; but his blessings upon the Saint, the bones of his ancestors, and the heads of his unborn descendants for generations, took up much more time.

Simon had to admit, however, that the practical contribution of the Naccaro clan was performed with an efficiency which he himself could scarcely have improved upon. He stood beside the museum Avro on the aerodrome of San Remo at dusk on the Sunday evening, and watched the kidnapping cortege coming towards him across the field with genuine admiration. The principal character was an apparently mummified figure rolled in blankets, which occupied an invalid chair wheeled by the unfortunate Maria in the uniform of a nurse. Her pale lovely face was set in an expression of beatific solicitude at which Simon, having some idea of the fate which awaited Signor Rolfieri in England, could have hooted aloud. Beside the invalid chair stalked a sedate spectacled man whose role was obviously that of the devoted physician. The airport officials, who had already checked the papers of pilot and passengers, lounged boredly in the far background, without a single disturbing suspicion of the classic getaway that was being pulled off under their noses.

Between them, Simon and the "doctor" tenderly lifted the mummified figure into the machine.

"He will not wake before you arrive, signor," whispered the man confidently, stooping to arrange the blankets affectionately round the body of his patient.

The Saint grinned gently, and stepped back to help the "nurse" into her place. He had no idea how the first stage of the abduction had been carried out, and he was not moved to inquire. He had performed similar feats himself, no less slickly, without losing the power to stand back and impersonally admire the technique of others in the same field. With a sigh of satisfaction he swung himself up into his own cockpit, signalled to the mechanic who stood waiting by the propeller of the warmed-up engine, and sent the ship roaring into the wind through the deepening dusk.

The flight north was consistently uneventful. With a south wind following to help him on, he sighted the three red lights which marked his fuelling station at about half-past two, and landed by the three flares that were kindled for him when he blinked his navigating lights. The two men procured from somewhere by Mr. Naccaro replenished his tank while he smoked a cigarette and stretched his legs, and in twenty minutes he was off again. He passed over Folkestone in the early daylight, and hedge-hopped for some miles before he reached his destination so that no inquisitive yokel should see exactly where he landed.

"You have him?" asked Mr. Naccaro, dancing about deliriously as Simon climbed stiffly down.

"I have," said the Saint. "You'd better get him inside quickly — I'm afraid your pals didn't dope him up as well as they thought they had, and from the way he was behaving just now I shouldn't be surprised if he was going to have-a da baby, too."

He stripped off his helmet and goggles, and watched the unloading of his cargo with interest. Signor Giuseppe Rolfieri had recovered considerably from the effects of the drug under whose influence he had been embarked; but the hangover, combined with some bumpy weather on the last part of the journey, restrained him hardly less effectively from much resistance. Simon had never known before that the human skin could really turn green; but the epidermis of Signor Rolfieri had literally achieved that remarkable tint.

The Saint stayed behind to help the other half of the reception committee — introduced as Mr. Naccaro's brother — wheel the faithful Avro into the shelter of a barn; and then he strolled back to the farmhouse. As he reached it the door opened, and Naccaro appeared.

"Ha!" he cried, clasping the Saint's shoulders. "Meester Templar — you have already been-a so kind — I cannot ask it — but you have-a da car — will you go out again?"

Simon raised his eyebrows.

"Can't I watch the wedding?" he protested. "I might be able to help."

"Afterwards, yes," said Naccaro. "But we are not-a ready. Ecco, we are so hurry, so excited, when we come here we forget-a da mos' important tings. We forget-a da soap!"

Simon blinked.

"Soap?" he repeated. "Can't you marry him off without washing him?"

"No, no, no!" spluttered Naccaro. "You don't understand. Da soap, she is not-a to wash. She is to persuade. I show you myself, afterwards. It is my own idea. But-a da soap we mus' have. You will go, please, please, signor, in your car?"

The Saint frowned at him blankly for a moment; and then he shrugged.

"Okay, brother," he murmured. "I'd do more than that to find out how you persuade a bloke to get married with a cake of soap."

He stuffed his helmet and goggles into the pocket of his flying coat, and went round to the barn where he had parked his car before he took off for San Remo. He had heard of several strange instruments of persuasion in his time, but it was the first time he had ever met common or household soap in the guise of an implement of torture or moral coercion. He wondered whether the clan Naccaro had such a prejudiced opinion of Rolfieri's personal cleanliness that they thought the mere threat of washing him would terrify him into meeting his just obligations, or whether the victim was first smeared with ink and then bribed with the soap, or whether he was made to eat it; and he was so fascinated by these provocative speculations that he had driven nearly half a mile before he remembered that he was not provided with the wherewithal to buy it.

Simon Templar was not stingy. He would have stood any necessitous person a cake of soap, any day. In return for a solution of the mystery which was perplexing him at that moment, he would cheerfully have stood Mr. Naccaro a whole truckload of it. But the money was not in his pocket. In a moment of absent-mindedness he had set out on his trip with a very small allowance of ready cash; and all he had left of it then was two Italian lire, the change out of the last meal he had enjoyed in San Remo.

He stopped the car and scowled thoughtfully for a second. There was no place visible ahead where he could turn it, and he had no natural desire to back half a mile down that narrow lane; but the road had led him consistently to the left since he set out, and he stood up to survey the landscape in the hope that the farmhouse might only lie a short distance across the fields as the crow flies or he could walk, And it was by doing this that he saw a curious sight.

Another car, of whose existence nobody had said anything, stood in front of the farmhouse; and into it Mr. Naccaro and his brother were hastily loading the body of the unfortunate Signor Rolfieri, now trussed with several fathoms of rope like an escape artist before demonstrating his art. The girl Maria stood by; and as soon as Rolfieri was in the car she followed him in, covered him with a rug, and settled herself comfortably on the seat. Naccaro and his brother jumped into the front, and the car drove rapidly away in the opposite direction to that which the Saint had been told to take.

Simon Templar sank slowly back behind the wheel and took out his cigarette-case. He deliberately paused to tap out a cigarette, light it, and draw the first two puffs as if he had an hour to spare; and then he pushed the gear lever into reverse and sent the great cream and red Hirondel racing back up the lane at a speed which gave no indication that he had ever hesitated to perform the manoeuvre.

He turned the car round in the farmhouse gates and went on with the cut-out closed and his keen eyes vigilantly scanning the panorama ahead. The other car was a saloon, and half the time he was able to keep the roof in sight over the low hedges which hid the open Hirondel from its quarry. But it is doubtful whether the possibility of pursuit ever entered the heads of the party in front, who must have been firm in their belief that the Saint was at that moment speeding innocently towards the village to which they had directed him. Once, at a fork, he lost them; and then he spotted a tiny curl of smoke rising from the grass bank a little way up one turning, and drove slowly up to it. It was the lighted stub of a cigar which could not have been thrown out at any place more convenient for a landmark, and the Saint smiled and went on.

In a few seconds he had picked up the saloon again; and very shortly afterwards he jammed on his brakes and brought the Hirondel to a sudden halt.

The car in front had stopped before a lonely cottage whose thatched roof was clearly visible. In a flash the Saint was out of his own seat and walking silently up the lane towards it. When the next turn would have brought him within sight of the car, he slipped through a gap in the hedge and sprinted for the back of the house. In broad daylight, there was no chance of further concealment; and it was neck or nothing at that point. But his luck held; and so far as he could tell he gained the lee of his objective unobserved. And once there, an invitingly open kitchen window was merely another link in the chain of chance which had stayed with him so benevolently throughout that adventure.

Rolfieri and the Naccaro team were already inside. He could hear the muffled mutter of their voices as he tiptoed down the dark passage towards the front of the house; and presently he stood outside the door of the room where they were. Through the keyhole he was able to take in the scene. Rolfieri, still safely trussed, was sitting in a chair, and the Naccaro brothers were standing over him. The girl Maria was curled up on the settee, smoking a cigarette and displaying a remarkable length of stocking for a betrayed virgin whose honour was at stake. The conversation was in Italian, which was only one language out of the Saint's comprehensive repertoire; and it was illuminating.

"You cannot make me pay," Rolfieri was saying; but his stubbornness could have been more convincing.

"That is true," Naccaro agreed. "I can only point out the disadvantages of not paying. You are in England, where the police would be very glad to see you. Your confederates have already been tried and sentenced, and it would be a mere formality for you to join them. The lightest sentence that any of them received was five years, and they could hardly give you less. If we left you here, and informed the police where to find you, it would not be long before you were in prison yourself. Surely twenty-five thousand pounds is a very small price to pay to avoid that."

Rolfieri stared sullenly at the floor for a while; and then he said: "I will give you ten thousand."

"It will be twenty-five thousand or nothing," said Naccaro. "Come, now — I see you are prepared to be reasonable. Let us have what we ask, and you will be able to leave England again before dark. We will tell that fool Templar that you agreed to our terms without the persuasion of the soap, and that we hurried you to the church before you changed your mind. He will fly you back to San Remo at once, and you will have nothing more to fear."

"I have nothing to fear now," said Rolfieri, as if he was trying to hearten himself. "It would do you no good to hand me over to the police."

"It would punish you for wasting so much of our time and some of our money," put in the girl, in a tone which left no room for doubt that that revenge would be taken in the last resort.

Rolfieri licked his lips and squirmed in the tight ropes which bound him — he was a fat man, and they had a lot to bind. Perhaps the glimpse of his well-fed corporation which that movement gave him made him realise some of the inescapable discomforts of penal servitude to the amateur of good living, for his voice was even more half-hearted when he spoke again.

"I have not so much money in England," he said.

"You have a lot more than that in England," answered the other Naccaro harshly. "It is deposited in the City and Continental Bank under the name of Pierre Fontanne; and we have a cheque on that bank made out ready for you. All we require is your signature and a letter in your own hand instructing the bank to pay cash. Be quick and make up your mind, now — we are losing patience."

It was inevitable that there should be further argument on the subject, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

The cheque was signed and the letter was written; and Domenick Naccaro handed them over to his brother.

"Now you will let me go," said Rolfieri.

"We will let you go when Alessandro returns with the money," said Domenick Naccaro. "Until then, you stay here. Maria will look after you while I go back to the farm and detain Templar."

The Saint did not need to hear any more. He went back to the kitchen with soundless speed, and let himself out of the window by which he had entered. But before he left he picked up a trophy from a shelf over the sink.

Domenick Naccaro reached the farmhouse shortly after him, and found the Saint reading a newspaper.

"Rolfieri has-a marry Maria," he announced triumphantly, and kissed the Saint on both cheeks. "So after all I keep-a da secret of my leedle trick wis-a da soap. But everyting we owe to you, my friend!"

"I guess you do," Simon admitted. "Where are the happy couple?"

"Ha! That is-a da romance. It seems that Signor Rolfieri was always fond of Maria, and when he hear that she have-a da baby, and he see her again — presto! he is in love wis her. So now they go to London to get-a da clothes, queeck, so she can go wis him for da honeymoon. So I tink we drink-a da wine till they come back."

They spent a convivial morning, which Simon Templar would have enjoyed more if caution had not compelled him to tip all his drinks down the back of his chair.

It was half-past one when a car drew up outside, and a somewhat haggard Rolfieri, a jubilant Alessandro Naccaro, and a quietly smiling Maria came in. Domenick jumped up.

"Everything is all right?" he asked.

"Pairfect," beamed Alessandro.

That was as much as the Saint was waiting to hear. He uncoiled himself from his chair and smiled at them all.

"In that case, boys and girls," he drawled, "would you all put up your hands and keep very quiet?"

There was an automatic in his hand; and six eyes stared at it mutely. And then Domenick Naccaro smiled a wavering and watery smile.

"I tink you make-a da joke, no?" he said.

"Sure," murmured the Saint amiably. "I make-a da joke. Just try and get obstreperous, and watch me laugh."

He brought the glowering Alessandro towards him and searched his pockets. There was no real question of anybody getting obstreperous, but the temptation to do so must have been very near when he brought out a sheaf of new banknotes and transferred them one-handed to his own wallet.

"This must seem rather hard-hearted of me," Simon remarked, "but I have to do it. You're a very talented family — if you really are a family — and you must console yourselves with the thought that you fooled me for a whole ten days. When I think how easily you might have fooled me for the rest of the way, it sends cold shivers up and down my spine. Really boys, it was a rather brilliant scheme, and I wish I'd thought of it myself."

"You wait till I see you da next time, you pig," said Domenick churlishly.

"I'll wait," Simon promised him.

He backed discreetly out of the room and out of the house to his car; and they clustered in the doorway to watch him. It was not until he pressed the starter that the fullest realisation dawned upon Signor Rolfieri.

"But what happens to me?" he screamed. "How do I go back to San Remo?"

"I really don't know, Comrade," answered the Saint callously. "Perhaps Domenick will help you again if you give him some more money. Twenty five thousand quid instead of five years' penal servitude was rather a bargain price, anyway."

He let in the clutch gently, and the big car moved forward. But in a yard or two he stopped it again, and felt in one of his pockets. He brought out his souvenir of a certain fortunate kitchen, and lobbed it towards the empurpled Domenick.

"Sorry, brother," he called back over his shoulder. "I for-get-a da soap!"