CHAPTER XV
THE TRAP CLOSES
A STAIR creaked faintly, and then a man's voice only too familiar said, “Where?”
An instant later they halted outside the door, the handle rattled as it was turned and the door swung open with me behind it. Passy came into my line of vision as he stepped into the room and paused with his back to me looking at the two men seated at the table.
I took a pace forward, jabbed my revolver in his back and said, “Don't move or I shall shoot you.”
He started violently and jerked his head round in surprise and I slid my hand quickly into his side pocket; the bulge was very obvious. I pulled out a small automatic and then shut and locked the door, seeing Giselle for the first time as she stood motionless on the other side.
Carnac spoke; I had never heard him use this tone before. “Sit down.”
Passy was recovering from his surprise. He said angrily, “What's all this nonsense? Who are you people?”
Nobody answered. I stepped in front of him towards the table and he saw me for the first time.
“Oh, so you're in it, are you? Broussard, the American, I remember you.”
“We met before that,” I said grimly. “Do you remember the afternoon of May 21st at Abbeville when you murdered that English engineer? I'm the R.A.F. officer you saw on the path —the one you tried to kill.”
That shook him. I think he understood then that he had been tricked, that he was surrounded by his enemies, and that we intended to kill him. His face went very white and he turned on Giselle in fury and spat out a torrent of language. I have never heard anything so venomous as that outburst of a baffled and frightened man, but nobody replied and Giselle looked him coolly in the face. When he had finished she turned to Carnac.
“I think we were followed here,” she said. “I never noticed anything wrong in the café, but as we left two men came out after us and they were just behind us all the way here. I think they are making enquiries downstairs now.”
“Very well,” said Carnac calmly. “We must be quick. Sit down, M. Passy.”
Passy swore at him furiously. The doctor rose quietly, picked up his knife from the table and walked up to him.
“Sit down,” he said ominously. Passy obeyed slowly in a sudden frightened silence. His face was the colour of a fish's belly and great drops of sweat were gathering on his forehead and trickling down his face. He was not a pleasant sight.
The spectacle aroused not the slightest sense of pity in me. I kept thinking of the scene at Abbeville, of a middle-aged Englishman being beaten up brutally by this man and his Nazi thugs in order to extract information and then being murdered in cold blood. I could still see Stephenson dying on the floor with his blood forming a little dark pool under his shoulder.
The doctor sat down next to Passy, knife still in hand, with Carnac on the opposite side of the table and Giselle remaining motionless by the door, silent and still as a marble statue. I stood just behind Carnac, hoping that he was going to get a move on and not do any cat-and-mouse stuff. There were but a few moments left to us.
Carnac spoke again. His voice was calm, polite and somehow very deadly.
“Now, M. Passy, let me explain the position. First of all, I am Captain Carnac and the officer beside you is Captain d'Angelay both of the French Army. We have information that you have been working for the Bache and giving them certain secret information. You are a French citizen and such conduct amounts to treason. The French Government obviously cannot try you under the present circumstances because the Bache would protect you, but I have been given the authority to deal with you in any way that seems suitable. We have decided, my friends and I, that unless you can give some satisfactory explanation you will be shot immediately. What have you to say?”
Passy kept swallowing nervously and his eyes flickered quickly round the room before he replied. I guessed what he was thinking, that it was almost impossible to kill him here under the very nose of his German protectors. Also he'd understood that remark of Giselle's about being followed and the men downstairs. I think he decided to keep it going as long as possible in the hope that the Hun would intervene.
“I deny it,” he muttered. “I've never done anything for the Bache.”
This was too much for me and I forgot Carnac's request to keep out of it.
“What were you doing with those two Germans at Abbeville?” I said hotly. “Why did you torture that Englishman and then shoot him?”
Passy gave me a quick look and then his eyes dropped again to the table and the revolver which rested there just by Carnac's hand. The sight seemed almost to hypnotise him. He never replied to my remark.
After a moment he said to Carnac rather unsteadily, “You’re making a mistake, you and your friends. I have never done anything against France.”
“Do you care to explain your visit to Berlin?”
The reply was too quick, too automatic.
“I have never been to Berlin.”
“Then how did you get the letter we sent you there?”
No reply. I saw the sweat dripping steadily off his face on to the table.
Carnac went on. “We know more about you and your movements than you realise. You were at Abbeville till the Boche captured the place. You had a rendezvous with them to try and stop the destruction of the R.D.F. equipment, but this had already been carried out. You captured an English engineer, tortured him to try and get some information and then either you or the Germans shot him. Sometime after that you came to Laon, because we know you were out at Laon aerodrome on June 12th”—Passy looked up suddenly startled—“and in the Deux Frères around the same date. You left for Berlin ten days ago to work at Telefunken R.D.F. research and you have already given the Bache some details about R.D.F.
“Now, unless you have any explanation to make about your conduct you will be dealt with immediately by your fellow countrymen. We find you guilty of treason and espionage against France.”
Passy said nothing for a moment and remained slumped in his chair. He was a big, powerful man, but now he looked so soft and flabby that he might have been filleted.
Very deliberately Carnac picked up the revolver and turned to me.
“Please take Mlle. Saint Brie outside,” he said quietly. “We will join you in a moment.”
Passy understood what he meant. Suddenly he crashed his fist on the table and shouted in a voice that shook with anger and terror.
“You’ll never dare to kill me! I am working for the Boche —it's quite true—and they'll see that nothing happens to me. They're all round you now and by God you'll pay for it if you even touch me! The Gestapo will get hold of you and your girlfriend as soon as you try to leave and you know what they're like. But if you let me go we'll forget all about this business and I'll say nothing, I promise. You can save your own lives if you want.”
Carnac never moved a muscle. He might not have heard the threat for all the response he made.
I put the revolver in my pocket and walked over to Giselle, touched her on the arm and said in a low voice: “You must leave now. Come away quickly.” She turned round as though in a trance and I opened the door.
Two men were standing outside. I didn't even need the guns they carried to tell me who they were. Just behind them I saw the anxious face of the landlord.
I grabbed Giselle and tried to slam the door again but both the Germans leapt forward and one of them shouldered the door open. Then everything seemed to happen at once, Passy saw his chance, gave a wild shout for help and dived across the table for the gun. But Carnac was too quick; he had already fired past me at the man in the doorway and almost simultaneously out of the corner of my eye I saw the quick flash of steel in the doctor's hand as he struck a tremendous downward blow at Passy. Carnac hit the leading German as he came into the room and he gasped and then fell at my feet, while the other one fired two shots in quick succession and skipped back into the corridor. I slammed the door and jumped round to see what was happening.
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p; Passy was lying sprawled across the table. Driven hard in between his shoulders was the doctor's knife. He was obviously dead. d'Angelay had dropped to the floor and lay there in a curiously twisted and unnatural attitude. Carnac was bending over him and for a moment I couldn't think what had happened.
Suddenly a succession of shots was fired through the door and the wood splintered and cracked. I had my revolver out now and fired back and heard a shout from the other side. I hope I got him.
“Allons!” said Carnac quickly. He grabbed Giselle and pulled her towards the window.
“d'Angelay?” I said, and he snapped “through the head. Quick!”
I understood then. One of the shots fired at random had killed him.
Carnac opened the window and jumped out on the sloping roof below. Giselle wriggled through and dropped lightly beside him. I swung a leg over the window sill and took a last glance into the room. The wounded German by the door was groaning and moving his head slightly. Passy's legs dangled over the edge of the table, almost touching the doctor's body on the floor; I remember clearly the bright mauve socks he was wearing. d'Angelay had fallen towards the window. I could see his face now. He might have been asleep.
From beyond the door came a confused shouting in the corridor. They would be through in a moment. I jumped down on to the roof and then down again into the passage and sprinted after the other two.
Carnac stopped under the arch. “We’ve got to get away from this place somehow,” he said tersely. “It will be surrounded in a few minutes and then we're finished.”
“Let’s get into the street—” I broke off suddenly. Footsteps were coming down the passage behind us. We sprinted along the last few yards, slowed down suddenly and emerged in the little side street that Carnac had described.
On the opposite side of the road was a café with a large sign “Floria,” and several cars were parked outside. A few yards away two German officers were climbing out of a large open Mercedes. The soldier driver sat at the wheel. Behind us I could hear the hunt approaching.
“Car,” I whispered. Carnac nodded and we walked towards it, quickly but not too quickly. The officers looked round and one of them made some remark. They both laughed. We were nearly up to them now. For God's sake, look the other way, do anything, we can't take on three of you. Just in time they turned round and started to walk across the road towards the Floria.
At this moment there was a loud shout behind us. The pursuit had emerged from the passage and seen us, but now we had reached the car. Fortunately the driver was sitting on the pavement side and as we drew level I stepped suddenly towards him and smashed my fist into his face. He grunted in astonishment and I pulled open the door and dragged the dazed man out. Carnac knocked him on to the ground and I jumped into the seat while the other two piled in behind.
Everybody seemed to close in on us then. The officers were running back, three or four men came streaming out of the passage, all converging on the car. I heard Carnac swearing furiously behind me and then he started firing.
I turned on the switch, pressed two buttons on the dashboard before finding the starter and then got the engine going and rammed in the gear. The car started off with a tremendous jerk and we accelerated down the street like a bullet. The men in front scattered wildly as we tore past and then there were several more shots and the windscreen suddenly starred and splintered. I lowered my head a little and kept my foot hard down. They were the most hectic few moments I have ever known.
At the end of the street I slowed down before emerging into the main road, turned right and accelerated again, and then changed up with a resounding crash of gears and drove fast through the traffic as it thinned out on the outskirts of the town.
Carnac leaned forward and put his hand on my shoulder. “Nice work, Peter,” he said. “Mon Dieu, but they nearly got us then! What do you think now—drive hard for a few kilometres and then abandon the car?”
“We can't get far,” I shouted. “They’ll cordon all the roads. I'll go like hell for a bit and then we'll bale out.”
We were clear of the town now and I started to drive really fast. That Merc. was a beauty and it certainly possessed what the squadron would have called “bags of urge.” We tore along at nearly 90 m.p.h. hooting furiously to get traffic out of the way. The speed intoxicated me; there was going to be absolute hell to pay and at that moment I just didn't give a damn for anything.
After a few miles Carnac leaned forward again. “I think we ought to get out now. If we come against a barricade or lorry across the road we haven't a chance.”
I nodded and looked round. The long stretch of road was deserted. On the left was a large wood. I slowed down and drove off the road down a rough track for a few hundred yards and then stopped. We got out and looked at each other, Giselle pale but composed, her raven hair blown loose across her face, Carnac dishevelled, cool as ever but very serious. My exhilaration vanished suddenly. I realised what a hopeless mess we were in.
Giselle hadn't spoken for a long time. She said now, “Well, what do we do?”
“It's nearly dark,” said Carnac. “Probably they won't find the car till daylight. We'd better get into the wood for the night.”
“Hadn't we better start marching now?” I said. “The further away we can get before dawn the better.”
“We can't walk far across country in the dark, and it's a very short night anyway. There's going to be a tremendous hunt for us. I don't think a few kilometres will make much difference. Also—” he nodded his head slightly towards Giselle—“I think we need a rest.”
It was quite true. We trudged off towards the trees in the gathering darkness.
I began to think of d'Angelay. When events come crowding on top of each other like this you don't have time to think about anything, and I had scarcely realised till now that he was dead, or for that matter that Passy was dead too, and we had succeeded in our mission. It didn't seem very important now when we were probably going to die ourselves within twenty-four hours and our success aroused no satisfaction in my heart. Nothing seemed to matter now.
“Poor d'Angelay,” I said to Carnac. “He would have been alive now if we hadn't dragged him into this business. I feel very unhappy about it.”
“It was nothing to him,” said Carnac. “It was for France.”
Just before we entered the wood several cars went tearing along the road behind us, their headlights shining brilliantly through the trees. The hounds were in full cry.
Pursuit of Passy Page 37
