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

pointless to try to guess the dark secrets she was hinting at. The episode in the chapel was another mystery: He had great faith in the efficiency of his senses, and whatever the professor might say he knew that he had heard two people talking. And finally there was the sabotage of his car: While Philippe and Pichot had seemed palpably eager to speed him on his way, someone else was trying even harder to keep him there.
    A knock at the door put an end to his reverie and brought Charles into the room.
    “Monsieur Philippe asked me to show you to the dining-room, m’sieu.”
    “Very well,” said the Saint resignedly. “I follow you.”
    The dining-room turned out to be at the rear of the house behind the salon. It was furnished with some of the best examples of Empire furniture the Saint had seen outside the captivity of museums. The wall on the garden side was comprised almost completely of glass doors, firmly closed against the refreshing coolness of the night air. Along the centre of the room was a table capable of seating twenty with space to spare. The seven places set around one end looked almost insignificant.
    Five people turned to greet him. All except one he had already met and the fifth could only be the half-brother of Philippe Florian. Mimette introduced him as her father, Yves.
    At sixty the master of Ingare looked older than Simon had expected, but age had not bowed him even if it had left its mark on his face. He matched the Saint for height, and unlike his brother carried no excess weight. Simon could see where Mimette had inherited her looks, and reckoned that Florian had been more than averagely handsome in his youth. Now his face was deeply lined around tired eyes, and what had once been a lean face had become gaunt, but his handshake was strong and his smile was unquestionably genuine as he welcomed his guest.
    “It is a pleasure to meet you, Monsieur Templar. I have heard everything you did for us. I am very grateful.”
    “It was very little, and the damage to my car was not your fault,” Simon disclaimed.
    Yves Florian offered a drink from the row of bottles on the sideboard, and Mimette told him: “I think Monsieur Templar should stay for a few days. I’m sure he would be interested to watch the start of the wine-making.”
    “I should be delighted,” Yves responded cordially.
    Philippe turned quickly away and poured himself another Scotch from the bottle beside him.
    Yves indicated the others in the room.
    “I understand you have already met Henri Pichot. May I present his uncle, Gaston Pichot. Gaston is our overseer, taster, chief blender, and hardest worker, and without him Ingare would crumble overnight.”
    The old man coloured slightly at his employer’s praise. He stepped forward and shook the Saint’s hand. He seemed as ill at ease in his carefully pressed black suit as he had been comfortable in his working clothes in the fields that afternoon.
    “It’s nice to see you again,” said the Saint. “We met at the barn this afternoon.”
    Over the sideboard hung a full-length portrait of a tall handsome man dressed in the extravagant frippery of the late eighteenth century. There was a quality about the rakish features and insolent hand-on-hilt stance that appealed to the Saint. Still groping for any sort of information, he used it as a cue to remark: “He must be another Florian—I can see a family resemblance.”
    “That was the Baron Robut,” Gaston informed him, with reflected pride.
    “It’s a striking portrait.”
    “And a striking man, though his contemporaries would not have agreed,” Philippe put in. “They thought him a traitor for supporting the Revolution.”
    “And keeping his head when all his friends were losing theirs,” added Mimette cynically. “Not only did he survive the Terror but Napoleon made him a general.”
    “How long has Ingare been in your family?” was the natural question.
    “Since soon after the Templars left,” Yves replied. “I