Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 01

by The Forbidden Territory

  “Useless,” the Duke replied, curtly. “The frontier guards would get us. It’s Richard—or capture!”

  Valeria Petrovna was right. Leshkin himself was in the big ’plane; since the first light of dawn he had been patrolling the frontier, scouring the road for her car, determined that the fugitives should not escape. The sight of the small ’plane coming in from Rumania had roused his suspicions immediately; he knew that his enemies had powerful friends outside Russia.

  “Higher,” he shouted to his pilot, “higher!” He did not want Richard to suspect their presence until he had actually landed.

  Two thousand feet under the big bomber Richard’s ’plane showed like a cardboard toy against the flattened landscape. As it circled, and its wings gave free vision, Leshkin could see the tiny group of figures huddled in the farmhouse doorway through his binoculars. Sharply he gave the order to descend.

  Richard had landed; he waved a greeting to his friends as they ran towards the ’plane. He was a little surprised at the excitement they displayed, gesticulating as they ran. The roar of his own engine downed the noise of the other; he had taken out his cigarette-case and was just about to light up when Rex reached him.

  “Great stuff, Richard,” he shouted. “But it’ll be a mighty near thing. Can you take us all?”

  “Don’t be silly—one at a time.”

  “Holy mike, man, don’t you see the Bolshies are on your tail?” Rex pointed upwards.

  Richard looked up, and saw, for the first time, the air-liner slowly descending in great sweeps above his head.

  “Good God! I had no idea. Look here—the ’plane’s only built for two—she’ll never carry five!”

  “She’s just got to! If one of us stays behind he’ll be bumped off for sure!”

  “I do not come with you,” said Valeria Petrovna.

  “But you must,” exclaimed Simon, seizing her arm.

  The Soviet machine was at less than five hundred feet now.

  “All right, with four we’ll chance it,” shouted Richard. “Take the seat, Rex, you’re heaviest. The Duke must manage, somehow, on your knees.”

  “Please—please,” Simon was urging Valeria Petrovna.

  “No... no... that I cannot do.”

  “Why not?”

  “I would ’ate it in your capitalist country.”

  “Come on, Simon,” cried the Duke.

  He took no notice. “Have you ever thought how I might hate it here?”

  “That is different. I do not belong to myself. My art belong to the ’ole Russian people; after they ’ave seen me act they ’ave new strength for the work they ’ave to do.”

  “Simon!” pleaded De Richleau.

  Still he took no notice. “Work!” he said, angrily. “Destroying all freedom, you mean, and preventing anybody having a chance to get on in the world.”

  “No!” she cried, her eyes lit with a fierce enthusiasm. “For the greedy and selfish we ’ave no place, but we give life and ’appiness to all the thousands that toil in the factory and the mine. We free the women from the children that they should not be forced to bear, we save them from the drudgery of the ’ome. In a hundred years we will ’ave destroyed for ever that any ’uman being should suffer from ’unger and disease. Christ ’imself taught the brother’ood of all men, and that will He realize here, in Russia, two thousand years after ’e is dead.”

  It was the supreme declaration of the Bolshevist ideal, and Simon was almost stunned by her outburst. Long afterwards he wondered how she reconciled her theories with the fact that she lived in the same state of luxury as the daughter of a capitalist multi-millionaire, but at that moment De Richleau seized him from behind and flung him bodily on to the fuselage of the ’plane.

  “Hang on to the back of the seat, and lie flat, with your feet to the tail,” he cried.

  With one pull of his strong arms Rex had hoisted the Duke up beside him. “All set,” he shouted. “Let her go.”

  They ran forward slowly, bumping on the uneven ground. The ’plane lifted slightly, then bumped again, then rose once more, but only a few feet from the earth. Richard was nervous now that he would not be able to clear the bars at the end of the field. He was frightened, too, that with the extra weight on the tail they might stall at any moment. Quite suddenly the ’plane rose sharply—they were over the barns, sailing freely—rising every moment higher in the air.

  Rex looked round to see if the enemy was following; he caught his breath—Simon was no longer there! He hit Richard on the back. “Simon,” he bawled. “We’ve dropped him.”

  Richard banked steeply; they peered anxiously downwards, fearing to see a little crumpled heap in one of the fields below. The Soviet ’plane was circling slowly over the farmstead, apparently uncertain whether to land or give chase.

  Leshkin scowled from his seat beside the pilot. In his anxiety that Richard should not see him before landing, he had misjudged the time it would take him to descend. His pilot obstinately refused to be hurried; the Kommissar cursed furiously as he saw Richard take off and glide, hesitatingly, towards the barn. Then he saw Simon fall.

  “Descend!” he cried. “Make your landing at once.” But the pilot had already begun to follow the other ’plane, now he banked steeply away from the field.

  “Descend!” yelled Leshkin again, his small eyes black with anger.

  “Have patience, Comrade,” the man answered, sullenly. “I must circle now, to come again into the wind. I have no wish to break my neck.”

  Valeria Petrovna had seen Simon slip off. In a second she was beside him, helping him to his feet. “Run, Simon—run,” she urged. “Your frien’ will come back and it will be less far for ’im to come.”

  “Say, there he is!” cried Rex, suddenly, pointing from the other ’plane. “Good old Simon—run, boysie —run!” Almost at the same moment Richard and the Duke saw him too, a small dark figure running hard in their direction—a field away already from the meadow, with Valeria Petrovna urging him on some hundred yards behind.

  “What bravery!” exclaimed the Duke. “He must have dropped off purposely when it seemed that we should crash into the barn.”

  Richard wheeled again, and headed for the frontier, his mouth set tight. It was useless now to try and land again to pick Simon up. He must unload the others first.

  A rifle cracked below them, then another. It was the frontier guards. They had realized that something must be amiss; they fired again, the flash of their rifles could be seen distinctly, but the bullets went wide.

  Richard did not attempt to reach the field where he had left Marie Lou, he came down in the first he could find on the Rumanian side—that was a decent distance from the frontier guards. His landing was sheltered from their view by a small wood.

  “Out you get,” he said, sharply. “Marie Lou’s in a field about half a mile away over there.” He pointed as he spoke. “I’ll join you, if I can.”

  “Okay,” Rex sang out, “all the luck,” but Richard was already mounting into the air again.

  The big troop-carrier bumped and bounded over the uneven ground of the meadow. The pilot brought it to rest with a jerk, only thirty feet from the barn that had so nearly proved the end of Richard. Leshkin sprang out —a sharp order and his men followed.

  Valeria Petrovna turned her head and saw them coming round the corner of the barn as she ran through the farther field. She could see Simon, too; a field ahead of her. Her heart ached for him; how could little Simon, with his recent wound, hope to out-distance those hardbitten soldiers. They would hunt him like a hare, and remorselessly shoot him down in some ditch or coppice. Dashing the tears from her eyes, she stumbled on.

  Simon jumped a ditch; he groaned from the pain as a sharp stab went through his leg like a red-hot needle. Panting and breathless he ran on, looking from time to time over his shoulder. He could no longer see the Soviet ’plane—they must have landed now. Richard had disappeared from view. If only he could get back in time after landing the ot
hers. Good job he had dropped off or they would never have cleared that barn. He must be half-way to the wood by now... if only he could stick it... but the frontier guards might open fire on him at any moment. God, how his leg hurt! His head was dizzy and his chest bursting.

  Simon stumbled and fell; he picked himself up again, white and shaken. His hands were torn and bleeding from the hedges he had forced his way through. He cursed his folly in having taken the straight line across a ploughed field. His boots were heavy as lead with the soil that clung to them. If only he had gone round he would have reached the opposite side in half the time. A shot rang out. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Valeria Petrovna was stumbling along about two hundred yards behind him. His pursuers had crossed the last hedge and were streaming across the field in open order with Leshkin waving them on. Another shot sounded sharply on the still morning air—the bullet sent up a little spurt of earth some way to his right. A sharp order came—there was no more firing; Leshkin did not want to kill Valeria Petrovna! Simon reached the farther hedge; he burst his way through it regardless of fresh tears and pain, and stumbled into a meadow on the far side... there—glorious sight—was Richard in his ’plane, waving encouragement, and steadily coming down.

  Three frontier guards had come out of the wood and were blazing away at Richard, but they ceased firing as he landed, fearful of hitting Leshkin’s men. Simon thought his head would burst as he made a last desperate effort to reach the ’plane. The soldiers had crossed the plough now—they were shouting as they struggled through the hedge. Richard stood up in the ’plane and yelled wildly.

  “Run, Simon... run!” He saw the soldiers were rapidly gaining ground, and climbed out of the ’plane to go to Simon’s assistance.

  Leshkin was through the hedge and bellowing like a bull—his face purple with the unaccustomed exercise. The foremost soldier was running level with Valeria Petrovna. Suddenly she struck out with her crop—a fierce back-hander, that caught the man in the face; he stumbled and stopped with a yelp of pain. Simon had reached the ’plane, white, exhausted, almost fainting. Richard had him by the arm and leg, half-lifting him towards the passenger seat. He grabbed at the rim and hoisted himself over the edge. Valeria Petrovna had stopped and turned—facing the soldiers. With all her remaining force she was lashing at them with her whip, driving off the nearest with her fierce, cutting lash. Richard was in the cockpit again—the ’plane ran forward —one of the men made a futile grab at the wing, and was flung to the earth.

  “Shoot!” roared Leshkin, “shoot!” But the soldiers were panting and breathless. By the time they had fumbled with their rifles and taken unsteady aim, the ’plane was sailing high into the air.

  Simon looked down into the green field below. A bullet whizzed past his head—another hit the tail with a loud “phut”. The soldiers stood in a little group mopping their perspiring faces; Valeria Petrovna was standing a little apart with Leshkin—she waved her crop in farewell. Simon waved back, and then he saw a curious thing.

  She turned suddenly and struck Leshkin with her whip; the lash took him full in the face. For a moment he was blinded by the pain; he sprang back, holding up his hand to protect his head; the swift lash came down again.

  “You fool,” Valeria Petrovna was shrieking, “you fool. I ’ave trick you. I pay you now for what you make me suffer—that you ’ave been to Stalin and make me lose ’im I love.” She struck again and again with her swift, cutting lash, until Leshkin’s face was a mass of blood; at last she was hauled off by the soldiers.

  The ’plane had vanished into the distance, when he was once more able to see her out of feverish, bloodshot eyes. “It is you who are a fool,” he said, harshly. “You have forgotten that these men have done murder—and that there is a law of extradition.”

  XXVIII - The Last Round

  I

  Marie Lou gave a little wriggle of her shoulders and her new dress settled gracefully round her slender figure. She looked at herself gravely in the long mirror. It was a pretty frock—in fact the prettiest frock that Marie Lou had ever seen. She wondered if Richard would like it as much as she did.

  Tonight there was to be a party. It was just forty-eight hours since their arrival in Vienna, and so they were to celebrate their freedom.

  On the morning after their escape out of Russia the Duke had taken the train to Bucharest. He went to secure, through the Embassy, a temporary legalization of their position for the satisfaction of the Rumanian police, and also to get passports for them to travel to Vienna.

  With a humorous look De Richleau had suggested, before his departure, that Richard should proceed to Vienna alone. Someone must make the necessary arrangements for their arrival, and send off telegrams for clothes to be sent to them by air from London. Richard had not seemed pleased at the idea; Simon’s wound had been badly inflamed by his race for life, and Marie Lou must stay and nurse him. Richard thought he ought to stay too. “Just in case,” he explained, with a vague wave of his hand. No one was indiscreet enough to press for an explanation of this hypothetical emergency, and he seemed quite ready for Rex to take his ’plane and do the job, so it was arranged thus. They had had to stay three nights in the little Rumanian village near the frontier. By that time Simon was recovered, and the Duke returned. They reached Vienna the following evening.

  There was a knock on the bedroom door; Marie Lou knew that knock by now. “Come in,” she called, gaily.

  “You are comfy here?” Richard remarked, looking round the well-equipped room.

  “Why, yes,” she replied, as she thought how terribly attractive he looked in his evening clothes. “It is so lovely that I almost regret to leave it for the restaurant or the shops. But are you not comfortable at your hotel?”

  “Oh, I’m all right, but something’s gone wrong with the central heating since the afternoon. It was as cold as Siberia when I changed just now.” He held out a spray of catlias with a smile.

  “Richard—how lovely.” She took the orchids. “You spoil me terribly. Look at all the lovely flowers you sent me this morning.” She waved her hand towards the roses and lilies that stood about making the room a perfect bower.

  “I’m so glad you like them,” he said, softly.

  She felt herself blushing under his gaze, and moving quickly over to the dressing-table, pinned on the orchids.

  “I am so sorry you are miserable at your hotel,” she said, not looking at him.

  “They’ll put it right,” he remarked, casually. “It’ll be on again by the time I get back tonight.”

  “Richard,” she said, after a moment. “Would you mind if I came down to you in the lounge? I have one little matter that I would like to see to.”

  “Of course,” he agreed. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  When he had gone Marie Lou picked up the house telephone; all their party, with the exception of Richard, were staying at the same hotel; she tried De Richleau’s room, but could get no reply, then she tried Rex—he was still dressing.

  A wicked little smile lurked round the corners of her mouth while she was talking to him—his laughter came clearly over the line. “Sure,” he said, chuckling. “Sure, I’ll fix it!”

  “And you won’t tell?” she begged.

  “Not on your life. You leave it all to me.”

  Marie Lou’s little face was grave as she hung up the receiver.

  II

  The Duke was in his dressing-gown, the brilliantly coloured robe of honour of a Chinese mandarin. The house telephone tinkled, and he picked it up. He thought that he had heard it ring a few moments before, when he was in his bath.

  “Yes,” he answered. “This is the Duke de Richleau ... who? Herr Murenberg?... I don’t think that I ... what?... he says that I shall remember him as Fritz of the Baumgarten?... ah, yes, of course, let him come up.”

  A few minutes later an official in a handsome uniform was shown into the Duke’s room.

  De Richleau extended his hand. “My dear Fritz, thi
s is an unexpected pleasure.”

  Herr Murenberg took the Duke’s hand with marked deference, he clicked his heels and bowed low over it. “For me also, Altesse.”

  “How many years is it since I have last seen you? Fifteen—no, twenty it must be—dear me, but you have prospered, my dear Fritz.” De Richleau patted the Austrian on the shoulder. “What a fine uniform you have got, to be sure.”

  Herr Murenberg bowed and smiled again. “I hope, Altesse, you will be kind enough to forget the little restaurant where you so often gave me your patronage in the old days, many things are changed since then, although I remember your kindness with much gratitude.”

  “That would be impossible, my dear fellow; many of my most cherished memories have an association with the dear old Baumgarten which you used to run so well. Nevertheless I am delighted to think that the upheaval of the War has brought good fortune to one of my friends at least. What splendid position has Fate decreed for you?”

  “I am deputy chief of the police, Altesse; that I knew many languages has stood me in good stead.”

  “Dear me,” the Duke made a grimace. “I—er—trust that this is not an official visit?”

  “I fear, yes, Altesse,” he bowed again. “It is a serious matter that I come upon.”

  “Sit down, my friend. Let us hear how I have broken the laws of your delightful city.”

  The Chief of Police sat gingerly on the extreme edge of an arm-chair. “Unfortunately, Altesse, it is not here that you have offended—if that were so...” he spread out his hands, “it would be my pleasure to put the matter right; it seems that you have come from Russia?”

  De Richleau’s eyes narrowed. “Yes,” he admitted, “that is so.”

  Murenberg was obviously troubled. “Altesse, in the old days you were a gentleman who liked his amusements; the cabmen of Vienna, they knew you well—and if you smashed up their cabs with reckless driving after a party—what matter. If you broke a few heads even— you paid handsomely in the morning, and all was well, but now it seems that you have taken to killing men for your amusement—Bolsheviks, it is true, but even so it is a serious thing.”