observing that everyone’s glass was filled from it, just as the same platters were present ed to all of them to help themselves, except Lo
Zio whose plate was tended by Gina
sitting next to him, Simon was able
to suppress all disturbing memories
of the Borgias and give himself up to un stinting enjoyment of his gastronomic good for tune.
They made a strange quartet around the
massive age-blackened
table, and the medieval gloom around
them and the echoing footsteps of the maid on the bare floor did little to encourage
relaxation and
conviviality, but by concentrating on Gina and the food he was able to maintain some harmless and totally unmemorable conversation, while wondering
all the time why he had been invited to stay and when the reason would be revealed in some probably most
unpleasant and distressing way.
“A most wonderful meal,” he
complimented Donna Maria at
the end of it. “I feel guilty for im posing on you, but I shall always be glad
that I did.”
“You must not rush away. We will have
coffee in the drawing
room, and I will see if there is some brandy, if you would like that.”
She flashed her alligator smile as she rose;
and Simon, steeled
now not to recoil, smiled back.
“Perhaps I should refuse,” he said.
“But that might
suggest that you did not mean it, and I am sure you do.”
As he helped Gina to push the wheel-chair
again, which somehow
seemed to give them a sort of se cret
companionship, she said: “I don’t know how you’ve done it, but nobody ever broke her down like this before. Brandy, now!”
“Brandy, ah!” repeated Lo Zio, his
head lifting like a buzzard’s and swivelling
around.
“You should have given me a chance in
that res taurant,”
said the Saint. “If I could have persuaded you to stay for lunch, we might
have had all the afternoon
together.”
The drawing room had three electric lights
of thrifty wattage which made it very little brighter than the dining room. The furniture was stiff
and formal, a
baroque mixture of uncertain periods, upholstered with brocades as faded as the heavy drapes. Donna Maria came in with a dusty
bottle, followed by the maid with a tray of
coffee.
“Would you be so kind as to open it,
Signor Templar? I am
sure you know how to handle such an
old bottle better than we women.”
Simon
manipulated the corkscrew with expert gentleness, but not without the thought
that he might have been
given the job as yet another move to reassure him. Certainly it enabled him to
verify that this
bottle, with all its incrustations of age, would have been even harder to tamper with
than the gin which he had drunk before dinner. He de ciphered with approval the name of Jules
Robin under the grime on the scarred label, and poured generous doses into the snifters which were
pro duced from some dark recess—not omitting one for Lo Zio, who showed some of his vague signs of human animation as he fastened his
rheumy eyes on the bottle.
“Salute!” Simon said, and watched them all drink before he allowed his own first swallow
to actually pass his lips.
It was a magnificent cognac, which had
probably been lying in
the cellar since the death of Gina’s father, and nothing seemed to have been done to turn it into a lethal or even stupefying
nightcap.
Was all this hospitality, then, nothing but a
stall to create time,
during which Al Destamio might round
up a few commandos and get them out to the mansion to capture the Saint or quietly
mow him down?
Whatever the reason, he felt sure that Gina
was not in on it.
He looked again at her lovely radiant face, alight with the spontaneous pleasure of the kind of company which she could almost never have been permitted, and decided that he could lose nothing by testing just how far this
astounding acceptance could be
stretched.
“I am looking forward to seeing the
local sights tomorrow, even
though I have to do it with a com mercial guide,” he said, and turned to Donna Maria. “Or now that you know me a
little
Zio whose plate was tended by Gina
sitting next to him, Simon was able
to suppress all disturbing memories
of the Borgias and give himself up to un stinting enjoyment of his gastronomic good for tune.
They made a strange quartet around the
massive age-blackened
table, and the medieval gloom around
them and the echoing footsteps of the maid on the bare floor did little to encourage
relaxation and
conviviality, but by concentrating on Gina and the food he was able to maintain some harmless and totally unmemorable conversation, while wondering
all the time why he had been invited to stay and when the reason would be revealed in some probably most
unpleasant and distressing way.
“A most wonderful meal,” he
complimented Donna Maria at
the end of it. “I feel guilty for im posing on you, but I shall always be glad
that I did.”
“You must not rush away. We will have
coffee in the drawing
room, and I will see if there is some brandy, if you would like that.”
She flashed her alligator smile as she rose;
and Simon, steeled
now not to recoil, smiled back.
“Perhaps I should refuse,” he said.
“But that might
suggest that you did not mean it, and I am sure you do.”
As he helped Gina to push the wheel-chair
again, which somehow
seemed to give them a sort of se cret
companionship, she said: “I don’t know how you’ve done it, but nobody ever broke her down like this before. Brandy, now!”
“Brandy, ah!” repeated Lo Zio, his
head lifting like a buzzard’s and swivelling
around.
“You should have given me a chance in
that res taurant,”
said the Saint. “If I could have persuaded you to stay for lunch, we might
have had all the afternoon
together.”
The drawing room had three electric lights
of thrifty wattage which made it very little brighter than the dining room. The furniture was stiff
and formal, a
baroque mixture of uncertain periods, upholstered with brocades as faded as the heavy drapes. Donna Maria came in with a dusty
bottle, followed by the maid with a tray of
coffee.
“Would you be so kind as to open it,
Signor Templar? I am
sure you know how to handle such an
old bottle better than we women.”
Simon
manipulated the corkscrew with expert gentleness, but not without the thought
that he might have been
given the job as yet another move to reassure him. Certainly it enabled him to
verify that this
bottle, with all its incrustations of age, would have been even harder to tamper with
than the gin which he had drunk before dinner. He de ciphered with approval the name of Jules
Robin under the grime on the scarred label, and poured generous doses into the snifters which were
pro duced from some dark recess—not omitting one for Lo Zio, who showed some of his vague signs of human animation as he fastened his
rheumy eyes on the bottle.
“Salute!” Simon said, and watched them all drink before he allowed his own first swallow
to actually pass his lips.
It was a magnificent cognac, which had
probably been lying in
the cellar since the death of Gina’s father, and nothing seemed to have been done to turn it into a lethal or even stupefying
nightcap.
Was all this hospitality, then, nothing but a
stall to create time,
during which Al Destamio might round
up a few commandos and get them out to the mansion to capture the Saint or quietly
mow him down?
Whatever the reason, he felt sure that Gina
was not in on it.
He looked again at her lovely radiant face, alight with the spontaneous pleasure of the kind of company which she could almost never have been permitted, and decided that he could lose nothing by testing just how far this
astounding acceptance could be
stretched.
“I am looking forward to seeing the
local sights tomorrow, even
though I have to do it with a com mercial guide,” he said, and turned to Donna Maria. “Or now that you know me a
little
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