As the door swished open Gregory was just on the point of raising his pistol. At that instant he saw Helga lurch up into a sitting position, shake her head dazedly, and stretch out a hand for the telephone that stood beside her bed.
It was a horrible moment. The Gestapo man had to cover only a dozen feet to cross the room. Yet if Helga succeeded in ringing through to give the alarm, Grauber, his boy-friend and two or more of the road patrol men would come dashing down to the dungeons within the next few minutes. Such odds, Gregory knew, would be utterly beyond his powers to combat. There was only one thing for it.
Lowering his pistol, he leant over and with his left hand snatched the telephone receiver from Helga. Throwing himself back, he tore at it with all his strength. It was a house line with only a single wire and the jerk ripped the instrument from its connections, breaking the wire with a snap.
Before he could turn round the Gestapo man was upon him. The thug caught him a terrific punch behind the ear, and he went down with a crash. For a moment he saw stars and circles flashing in a black void before his eyes, but instinctively he rolled over, and strove to protect his head.
As his sight came back he glimpsed a heavy boot coming straight at his face. Twisting sideways, he grabbed at the ankle above it with his left hand and thrust it aside. The Gestapo man lost his balance and went sprawling to the floor.
Gasping for breath, Gregory stumbled to his feet. The German was up almost as quickly, but now the corner of the bed was between them, and Gregory had somehow managed to retain a hold upon his gun. Helga had slid off the bed on the far side, and, without waiting to pull a coat over her nightdress, was running towards the door
Once more, if she were allowed to contact Grauber, complete and final disaster threatened. Jerking up his pistol, Gregory shot her through the back.
With a scream, she flung up her arms and collapsed.
But the vital instants needed to stop her dashing upstairs had again lost Gregory his temporary advantage. Before he could turn his weapon on his assailant the big tough had jumped round the corner of the bed and struck at him a second time.
He had no chance to guard his face and this time the blow caught him squarely between the eyes. He staggered back, felt his head swim and his knees grow weak, then sank down as though a ton weight had suddenly descended on his shoulders.
For a moment he was out, and with a roar of triumph the German came at him again. His heavy boot thudded into Gregory’s side The kick drove the breath out of Gregory’s body but the agonising pain brought back his senses. As his assailant drew back his foot to deliver another kick he hunched up his knees and thrust his head under the bed.
Instead of landing on his ribs a second time the kick caught him on the thigh. It hurt as much as a blow from a road-hammer, but with the instinct of getting away from further punishment he forced his body under the bed, wriggled sideways, and drew his feet in after it.
A temporary stalemate ensued. Gregory lay on his face under the bed striving to get his wits and his breath back; the German stood beside it panting heavily and “wondering how to get him out.
“Teufel nochmal!” exclaimed the thug suddenly. “Come out of that—damn you!”
Gregory made no reply. From where he lay his head was only about thirty inches from the German’s feet. Drawing up his gun hand he took careful aim at the man’s right ankle and pulled the trigger.
The cough of the weapon was followed instantly by a roar of agony. As his enemy jerked up his shattered leg Gregory fired again, at the other ankle.
With a howl of rage the German, both his feet shot from under him, collapsed like a pricked balloon. A second after his head hit the floor, Gregory fired a third time, putting a bullet right through it. The Gestapo man jerked once and was dead.
Still sobbing for breath, Gregory crawled out from under the far side of the bed. His ribs were paining him terribly and he felt certain that one or more of them were broken. As he came to his feet his eyes fell on Helga She was lying on her back, moaning faintly.
Her eyes were open and her arms were twitching, but the lower part of her body lay quite still.
“I can’t move my legs,” she moaned, as she stared up at him, “I can’t move my legs.”
He knew at once what had happened. His bullet must have broken her spine. As gently as he could he turned her over. He no longer felt any animus against her for having purloined Erika’s things. In all other ways she seemed to have treated her prisoner decently enough. As for the Gräfin Bertha, Erika had told him long ago what a tyrant the old woman could be. Helga was no more than an over-sexed young animal, and an underdog who had taken the chance to get her own back, without deliberate malice.
Ripping away her nightdress he looked at the wound. As he had thought, the bullet had gone clean through her spine in the region of the kidneys. It was highly probable that she would die from it, and, even if she recovered, the lower part of her body would be paralysed for life. The lower part of her body was her life to Helga, and she wouldn’t be much use to anyone or herself without the use of it. He knew what he would have wished himself had he been her. Putting the point of his gun within a few inches of the base of her skull he blew out her brains. He felt no compunction at all about the act. It was the merciful thing to do.
Having reloaded his pistol to capacity, he picked up the dead girl’s weapon from the floor, pocketed it, got out the great key of Erika’s dungeon, went out into the passage and fitted it into the lock.
As he turned the key his heart was beating fast again; not with fear now but with terrific excitement. They were not out of the wood yet by a long way, but he felt that they were getting on for halfway through it. He had intended to speak to Erika through the door, just calling out, in German, “Are you awake?” or something of that kind, in the hope that his voice would strike a chord in her memory, and thus prepare her for the shock of her release before she actually came face to face with him. But there was no time for anything of that kind now. Pushing the heavy door open, he walked in.
The room was lighted by a single oil lamp, and Erika was sitting up in bed. Her hair was done up in little plaits round her head, making her look very young and girlish. Her blue eyes seemed enormous as she opened them to their fullest extent in surprise, and gasped, “Darling!”
“My precious!” he murmured, and next moment he had her folded tight in his arms.
Yet he broke their first hungry kiss off abruptly, knowing that their lives might hang on a matter of seconds.
“You shouldn’t have risked your life to find me,” she smiled up at him. “But, all the same, I always knew you’d come.”
“Listen,” he said. “Grauber’s upstairs and he’s just sent one of his thugs down to get you. I killed the thug a few moments ago.”
“So that’s what was happening!” she exclaimed. “I went to sleep about ten o’clock, then just now I was awakened by screams and shouts next door. I thought that someone was beating up Helga.
“They were! I was! I had to kill her, so she’s dead too. But when Grauber’s man fails to return with you he’ll send someone else down to find out why; or come himself. So we’ve got to get out of here in double quick time. Come on, jump out of bed and get yourself dressed.”
“I can’t, darling! They took all my clothes away, except my undies and a dressing-gown. I suppose it was part of their plan to make it difficult for me to get away. Then there’s this.”
Thrusting down the bedclothes, she drew up her right toot, and showed him that round the ankle was a handcuff attached to a long steel chain.
“It allows me to move about the room,’ she went on, ‘but not to get within four feet of the door. It was Einholtz’s idea, to prevent me from attempting to rush Helga one day when she brought me my food. That, and having no clothes, is why I have never attempted to escape.”
Gregory’s luck now seemed to be swaying in the balance. He had got himself out of a most desperate situation only a few minutes ago
, yet now his hope of getting Erika clear of the Castle before Grauber sent down to find out what had happened to his thug was menaced by new, unforeseen delays.
“I’ll fix that,” he said quickly. “Get out of bed and put your foot up on to it.”
As she obeyed, he glanced swiftly round and snatched up a small thick diary that was lying on a table beside Erika’s bed. He thrust the diary between Erika’s ankle and the loose steel circlet that girdled it, so that the thick wad of paper should prevent any particles of steel flying into her foot.
“Stand quite still,” he murmured, and, pulling out his pistol, he shot away the end of the chain that was attached to the handcuff; the bullet thudded into the bed.
“Now for clothes,” he went on hurriedly. “Helga has a lot of your things next door. You must use those.”
Together they ran out of the sparsely furnished room, along the passage, and into Helga’s luxurious apartment. The clothes she had used that day were flung heedlessly over a chair-back.
Averting her eyes from the two dead bodies, Erika began to put them on as quickly as she could. Meanwhile, Gregory stood in the doorway, dreading to hear the sound of fresh footfalls. If Grauber was fairly well occupied with talk and wine it might not even cross his mind for twenty minutes or so that the man he had sent down for Erika was a long time returning. In the worst case, assuming her to have been asleep, he would allow ten minutes for her to dress and make herself presentable, and the long walk through the cellars and upstairs to the banqueting hall would occupy another four or five. At best it might be half an hour before he sent someone else down; at worst fourteen from the time his first messenger had come charging into Helga’s room. But a very great deal can happen while anyone counts eight hundred and forty at the slow pace of seconds, and Gregory did not think that his desperate encounter had occupied more than four hundred seconds, or his swift exchanges with Erika more than another two hundred. A further two hundred were needed for her to pull some clothes on, and that left a margin of only forty. It was, in all conscience, narrow enough, but it just might serve to give them a flying start.
As Erika grabbed up the fur coat Gregory turned back into the room, kicked over the oilstoves and sent the two lamps crashing from the table to the floor. For a second the room was plunged in semi-darkness, then the flames began to give out a lurid glow as they ran hungrily across the carpet, caught Helga’s nightdress and licked at the coverings of the bed. Since the chamber had only the one small window, high up in the wall at its far end, he knew that the smoke would soon billow out and fill the passageway. That might gain them the start they so badly needed, as when Grauber’s next messenger arrived on the scene he would not know that Erika was not still locked in her dungeon and, if the smoke had become dense enough, might even have to go back to fetch a gas-mask, before he dared penetrate it, for fear of suffocation.
Erika now had the coat on. Leaving the door open they ran out into the passage, and Gregory thrust Helga’s gun into her hand.
“You know how to use one,” he said tersely. “And if we get really cornered I want you to use it on yourself. I shall take that line. I know too much to fall into their hands alive, so I had to promise to before old Pellinore would let me come.”
As he was speaking he ran along to her door, relocked it and thrust the key in his pocket. If they could get clear of the Castle, before Grauber arrived in the smoke-filled corridor, he would believe Erika to be still locked in her dungeon and, when she failed to answer, imagine her to have been overcome by the fumes of the fire. Then, expecting to save the precious bait in his trap, he would order the heavy door to be broken down; and that was going to keep his people busy for quite a time.
“Don’t run,” he cautioned, taking Erika by the arm, “but there’s no need for us to waste time creeping along now. If they are on their way down here and hear us approaching at a sharp walk they’ll think it is that thug returning with you and Helga.”
In ninety seconds they had reached the foot of the cellar stairs.
“Quietly now!” he muttered. “It’s going to be sticky if we run into them up there; and we don’t want them to hear us on our way out.”
Letting go her arm at the top of the stairs, he listened for a moment, eased open the door, and listened again. The upper passage was still in darkness and no sound reached him from across the hall. There was no fear of an ambush now, so he drew Erika quickly through the door and pulled it gently to after her.
Flashing his torch, he tiptoed with her down the passage to the kitchen, crossed it, and reached the scullery sink. The window was open, as he had left it.
“Up you go!” he whispered. “Wriggle out feet first. It’s only a three-foot drop.”
As she squirmed out over the window-sash he followed her up on to the sink. A moment later they were side by side out in the yard. Quickly but cautiously they crossed it; then, breaking into a run, fled down the drive.
An awful thought suddenly struck Gregory. When he had left the car down there where the track widened out he had completely forgotten the road patrol police who were billeted at the Schloss. He had seen two of their motor-cycles parked near the front entrance of the Castle when Helga had let him out that afternoon, but after that he had never given them another thought. If one of them had passed, either going on or coming off duty during the hour he had spent in the Castle, they could hardly have failed to notice the car. Finding it abandoned, they would have driven it either up to the Schloss or down to the local police-station. If that had happened his line of retreat was cut.
As he ran on he cursed himself for underrating his enemy. That was the way people always came unstuck. One concentrated so much on the big fences in a problem that one was apt to forget the little ditches that might trip one up. Like a fool he had thought only of outwitting Grauber and Helga, and contemptuously ignored their satellites. It would have been so simple to have left the car properly hidden further afield, and cost only a little extra time in getting back to it. Whereas now, one of those dull, middle-aged country policemen might prove his complete undoing.
Hardly able to contain his anxiety, he raced ahead round the last bend before the open space; then stopped dead with a gasp of relief. The car was still there. He could see its outline vaguely, in the half-light.
“What is it? What’s the matter, darling?” panted Erika, as she caught up with him.
“The car!” he laughed, catching her arm and pulling her up. “I was afraid the traffic cops might have found it.”
Then a new thought struck him. Perhaps they had. If so, as road police they would be certain to have the numbers of all stolen cars, and the number of the Stutz would have been circulated that morning at latest. Perhaps one or more of them were posted there in the darkness, behind the car, in among the trees, hoping that the car thief would return, so that they could catch him.
There was no time now to sneak round through the trees and take them in the rear. Besides, if they were there they must already have heard the running feet coming down the track, and now be on the alert. The only thing was to go forward and attempt to bluff it out. As they advanced again, in the hope of putting anyone that might be lurking there off their guard, he called out in a friendly voice:
“Don’t get excited. It’s only us!”
There was no reply, and nothing stirred. He knew then that his fears had been groundless. A moment later they were in the car, speeding round the corkscrew bends down towards the village.
From Wilflingen, Gregory had a choice of ways of getting back to von Lottingen’s Villa. He could either go south-east through the Hauberg to Beuron, then in a curve via Sigmaringen, Herbertingen and Saulgau to Ravensburg, from which a by-road would take him to just the point on the lake he wished to reach; or he could go south to Spaichingen, Tuttlingen and Stockach, then follow the road that ralright along the north shore of the lake.
The former was slightly longer, but the latter had the disadvantage that he would have to pass through
Friedrichshafen, and he thought that the police in the big frontier town were much more likely to be on the qui vive for the stolen car than their colleagues in the small island towns and villages. He hated to have to give the extra time to the additional half-dozen miles, but he felt that as a precaution it was wise to do so. Therefore, on leaving the village he took the road south-east that led up into the higher parts of the Hauberg.
Owing to his inspiration of starting the fire he now felt that they still had a sporting chance of getting clean away from Grauber. When the Gestapo man had first entered Helga’s room it had flashed upon him that, although there was still a chance that he might get Erika out of the Castle, the game was up as far as any hope of crossing the lake in the Villa Offenbach’s launch was concerned. Whatever happened, it seemed that within half an hour at most Grauber must learn either of his enemy’s presence in the Castle or Erika’s escape, and that it was her lover who had rescued her. In that case he would guess at once that Gregory had fooled Einholtz and immediately telephone Friedrichshafen for a squad of men to go out and surround von Lottingen’s boathouse.
Gregory had had little time to realise how very nearly his line of retreat had been cut, but he saw now that it might yet hold long enough for him to get across it. When Grauber learned of the fire there was no reason why he should connect it with either Gregory or Erika. He still supposed the one to be enjoying his last night of freedom in Switzerland and the other to be safely locked in her dungeon. There was no water handy down there, and all Helga’s loot in clothes and furnishings would keep the blaze going merrily, so it would be very difficult to put out.
Even when they had broken down Erika’s door and discovered that she was no longer inside, they would probably assume that the Gestapo man had taken her into Helga’s room to dress and that all three of them had been trapped there by a sudden outbreak of fire, through one of the lamps being knocked over. But by that time the room would be a raging furnace. It would be impossible to get at the bodies before the fire had died down. That might not be for several hours, and only then would they find that the charred remains left one woman unaccounted for.
Come into my Parlour Page 49
