Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07

by The Second Seal

  In the morning every hour that the police could be delayed in learning of the murders would make a difference as, although the servants who reported it might be in ignorance of the murderer’s identity, they would know that he had got away in the Rolls. So he got out, found a heavy spanner, and walked over to the smaller car. Lifting the bonnet, he bashed at both the carburettor and magneto until they were wrecked beyond repair. Then he returned to the Rolls. At twenty past eleven she purred out of the garage on her way to Sarajevo.

  The châlet lay to the south-east of Belgrade, so it was unnecessary for him to go through the capital. By taking a left-hand turn at a crossroads about half way to it he could head south to Ayala. His recent military studies had sufficiently acquainted him with Serbia to know the situation of her principal market towns, and the roads that connected them, without reference to the map. From Ayala he meant to continue south to Soplot. There, he would have to turn off his course, inclining south-east through Medjulužje to Topola. Thence he could swing south-west to Rudnik, and south again to Cacak. Then, at this quite considerable place, he would be able to head almost due west along the valley of the upper Morava for Užice and the frontier.

  For the first forty-five miles, as far as Topola, he thought that the going would be fairly good, as it was the main road to the south. But after that he feared that it was bound to be pretty grim. As an offset against that he had the Rolls and, while it would not do her any good, he felt confident that she would stand up to practically anything without breaking down. From Topola to the frontier was roughly a further eighty-five miles, and the last twenty up into the mountains might well prove impracticable for any car. But with luck he felt that he should be able to cover a hundred miles before the death of Dimitriyevitch and his companions was discovered, so be out of danger in the mountain region by the time the police got on his track.

  The night was fine and the summer sky alight with stars, so he was able to drive at a good pace. The main street of Ayala was deserted and the hum of his engine echoed back to him from the shuttered houses. The inhabitants of Soplot too were all abed, except for a pair of belated lovers who witnessed his swift progress. But five miles beyond the town he became uneasy. The watch that he was keeping on the stars suggested to him with increasing insistence that somehow he had taken a wrong turning. A mile or two farther on he pulled up, got out and looked at the road surface. Its poorness confirmed his impression. Convinced now that he was off his course, he angrily turned the car round and drove back to the town.

  There were no signposts to help him, but, fortunately, the lovers were still lingering by the well in the main square. They showed him an awkward, unexpected twist out of it, which put him on the right road again; but he had covered some fourteen unnecessary miles and wasted twenty-five minutes.

  Shortly after one in the morning he ran through Topola. Allowing for his ill-luck in having taken the wrong turning in Soplot, he felt that he had not done at all badly. But from there on his real troubles began. Except for short stretches here and there, the roads were little better than tracks. Whenever he attempted to put on any speed the Rolls bounded and skidded dangerously over stony humps and into deep ruts of hard-baked mud. To rest his wounded shoulder as much as possible he had made a loose sling for his left arm, and had been taking his hand from it only when it was necessary to change gears; but now he needed both hands on the wheel constantly to keep the car on the road. And, even then, he was compelled to slow down to a maximum speed of twenty miles an hour.

  It took him an hour and a quarter to cover the eighteen miles to Rudnik. As he turned south there matters worsened still further; for at that point he left the plain and entered hilly country, through which the road twisted abominably. It was after four o’clock when he entered Cacak, and the results of the fight for life that he had been through, followed by five hours of exceptionally wearing driving, found him about at the end of his tether.

  Yet, somehow, he had to do another thirty miles to Užice and get clear of that town before he dared pull up for the sort of rest that would be any real good to him. As Užice was the terminal of the branch railway line, it was certain to be also the last telegraph post this side of the mountains. If he did not pass through it before about nine o’clock the odds were that the police would be on the look-out for him. The Rolls was such a complete give-away that he could not possibly hope to slip through without being pulled up, and there was no way round the town. On the. other hand, if he could get through before the warning to hold him was telegraphed all over the country, he would be clear of the police net and stand a good chance of getting away altogether.

  Outside Cacak he pulled up for a few minutes and had a stiff tot of brandy; then he drove on. The road now wound up the Morava valley with steep hills to either side. It was wide enough to take only a single wagon. Sometimes its course ran two hundred feet above the swirling river, and the passage of a car was still so exceptional in those parts that none of the hideously dangerous bends, skirting precipices, had yet had stone walls built to prevent fast vehicles going over. It was still night, so at least he had the road to himself; but as he advanced, the mountain crags closed in about him, and every moment’s driving became an appalling strain.

  The stars dimmed and the first light of day began to outline the desolate skyline. His wound was now aching intolerably, and he felt so tired that only the acute danger of one false move sending the car hurtling over a precipice kept him from falling asleep at the wheel. At last, through strained and bleary eyes, he saw the first houses of Užice, now lit by the golden dawn of the sky behind him. The rural population was already beginning to go about its daily business in the streets of the little town, and a church clock showed him that it was nearly seven. Rallying his fast failing strength, he drove through the place and a few miles beyond it. Then, coming upon a wooded hill-side, he turned the car in among the trees until it was out of sight from the road, shut off the engine and, slumping where he sat, fell into a sleep of exhaustion.

  When he awoke, for a moment he could not think where he was. But as he moved, an acute stab of pain from his wound, which had stiffened while he slept, brought everything rushing back to him. A glance at the wrist watch that he had taken from Dimitriyevitch showed that it was twenty past two. Horrified, he realized that he had slept for seven hours. He had hoped to be in Sarajevo that night: now, he would never do it. But he might still get there early on Sunday morning.

  His eyes were gummy and his mouth tasted foul, but his sleep had renewed his strength. Quickly he got the car going, backed it out of the wood on to the road, and turned its bonnet westward. He had not gone far before it struck him that he was still on the north side of the river, when he should now have been on its south. But possibly the narrow swirling torrent he could see below him on his left was a tributary of the Morava. Pulling up as soon as he reached the top of the next rise, from which he could get a good view of the surrounding country, he got out the pack of maps, found the one delineating that district, and studied it carefully.

  After a moment he swore, and put the map back. There was no doubt that he was on the road to Bisoka, and not that to Kremna as he ought to be. When he had reached Užice early that morning his brain had been so numbed by fatigue after his hundred and thirty miles’ night drive that it had rejected all thought, except the imperative one that he must get through the town and out of it, so that he could find a place to pull up and sleep. lie had forgotten that he should have turned left in its centre and crossed the bridge.

  He dared not go back, as by now the police in every town in Serbia would be on the look-out for the Rolls. The only thing for it was to go on until he could find a bridge by which he could cross the river further up. But in that he was disappointed, as the road soon turned away from the river, winding north-west between some low hills.

  Three quarters of an hour’s driving over the most vile track he had yet struck brought him to within sight of Bisoka. It was the last market town
that side of the frontier, and not much further from it than Kremna. But the latter was considerably nearer to Yardiste, the railhead on the Bosnian side. From either, the roads up into the mountains would be little better than goat tracks and quite impassable for a car. So the time had come to abandon the Rolls.

  On his right a pine wood sloped down towards the town. Bumping the car across a shallow ditch, he drove it in among the trees as far as he could. Then, getting out the suitcase, he set off at a brisk walk down the road.

  A quarter of a mile outside the main cluster of buildings he came to the first Zadruga. It was a huddle of hutments and lean-tos in which fifty or sixty peasants were living, apparently all mixed up with their individual live-stock. A group of women was pounding maize in front of it, and a patriarchal figure, with a long grey beard, sat nearby on a rickety chair watching them.

  The old man was well dressed for his class, so De Richleau put him down as the headman of the community and saluted him politely. Even if the news of the murders had got this far in the course of the morning, the Duke thought it unlikely that anyone in the uniform of a Serbian officer would be connected with them, and it was in order not to give the impression that he might be a fugitive that he had chosen the clothes he was wearing. He told the headman that his carriage had broken an axle two miles back in the hills, and that as his duties demanded his presence in Kremna that afternoon, he wished to buy a riding horse on which to get there.

  As the old man spoke only a local patois, the Duke had great difficulty in making himself understood, but with the help of some of the women, who stood round giggling, he eventually succeeded. A younger man was sent for and a string of horses led out. De Richleau chose a strong-looking chestnut and produced some of the gold and silver he had taken from his victims. The price asked was fantastic and he knew that had he cared to spend the afternoon there, haggling over innumerable cups of coffee, he could have got the beast for a quarter of what they asked. But time was more precious to him than gold. He knocked off a third, indicated that they must throw in saddlery, and told them that if they would not accept he would try the next farm.

  That closed the deal to their satisfaction as well as his own. Smiling and bowing they then offered him refreshment. Soon after he had woken he had begun to feel hungry, so he gladly accepted and made a hearty meal off cold pork, goose-liver, fruit and coffee. By four o’clock, with his suitcase strapped to the back of his saddle and the cheerful good-byes of half the big peasant family ringing in his ears, he was on his way again.

  While eating, he had thought of hiring one of the men to act as his guide, but a casual inquiry about the roads to the west showed that they were farmers and knew little more of the mountain country along the frontier than he did; so he decided to put off looking for a guide until he got to Kremna. Although he had found it difficult to understand their speech, he felt confident that from what they had told him, and with the aid of his map, he could find his way there. After riding through the town, he kept straight on in accordance with their information that he would come to the river again in a twenty minutes’ ride, and be able to cross it then.

  In due course he reached the ford they had described but, half an hour after crossing it, he came to another that they had not mentioned. His map now proved of little help as this wild frontier region had never been properly surveyed, and the only thing that seemed clear about it was that the whole countryside was intersected by winding tributaries of the Morava. Assuming the second stream to be one of these, he pressed on, hoping to come in sight of Kremna in the next quarter of an hour or so.

  But now, to his concern, the track left the plain and wound up into the hills, which was contrary to what he had expected. However, in the next five miles no other track intersected it, so he had no option but to go forward. For all he knew, Kremna might be a hill town, or lie in some valley that he had not yet entered, but he felt that by this time he should have reached it.

  At half past five he came upon a goat-herd, but the man spoke only some mountain dialect which was quite incomprehensible. Nevertheless, he kept grinning, nodding his head, and pointing up the road; so De Richleau endeavoured to comfort himself with the belief that the fellow meant that Kremna was in that direction, Actually, the man had meant that was the way to the nearest village, and two miles farther on the Duke came to it. But it was no more than a miserable collection of huts, and he could not make head nor tail of anything its few primitive inhabitants said.

  For several miles now the road had been gradually mounting, and soon after leaving the village he came out on to a wild desolate heath. It was the first time for over an hour that he had not been shut in by low hills and belts of forest, so he was at last again able to get a wider view of the surrounding country and attempt to orient its major features with his map.

  The position of the sun had already filled him with foreboding that his general direction was carrying him too far to the west, and now his fears were confirmed. A rugged peak rising well above its neighbours, some five miles distant, could be only Mount Zhoriste. He was some way past and to the north of it, whereas he should have skirted its southern flank. A quick check up with the other features of the landscape showed him that he was now up on the Tara plateau and farther from Kremna than when he had set out from Bisoka. Evidently he had taken the wrong track somewhere between the two fords. The Morava must have formed a wide loop there, and crossing the second had brought him back on to its north bank.

  Cursing and fuming, he wondered what the devil to do. The fact that he was considerably nearer to the frontier than he would have been at Kremna was little consolation, as he was nearly double the distance from the Bosnian railhead, and the mountain now lay between him and it.

  It was nearly two hours since he had left Bisoka, so to go back to the first ford, where he must have taken the wrong track, would mean a total loss of over three, and he would still have ten miles or more to cover before he reached Kremna. That meant he could not now get there much before half past eight. Only an hour and a half of twilight would be left, and he doubted if he would be able to find a guide willing to take him across the mountain barrier in darkness. While, if he set off on his own, he would certainly lose his way again, even if he were lucky enough to escape a broken neck.

  On the other hand, up there on the Tara plateau he was already half way through the mountains, and there were still nearly four hours of daylight to go. The frontier could not be far ahead of him. If he could work his way round to the west of Mount Zhoriste and down to the Drina river, he might yet reach the railhead by nightfall. In these wild regions travellers unaccompanied by guides were still quite frequently set upon and held to ransom by bandits; but he was well mounted and well armed, so he felt that as long as daylight lasted he need have no great fear of being captured should he come upon a band of outlaws.

  In consequence he decided on the latter course and rode on. For a mile on either side of him, and two miles ahead, the heath spread unbroken; a tangle of gorse, heather and rocky outcrop. It looked beautiful in the evening light, but was so full of snags and rabbit holes that he dared not ride his horse across it. As it was unbroken by any cross track, he had to wait until he entered the next belt of pine woods before veering left.

  For some time he rode southward through the trees, over ground made springy from countless generations of fallen pine needles. Then he was brought up short by the plateau ending in a deep gorge. Turning west, he followed the fringe of the wood until the gorge became less precipitous and he could head south once more. But now the ground became more broken and treacherous so, coming on a goat-track that led south-eastward, he felt that he had better take it. The track led to higher ground, then down into another wood, and there it curved again until he had the sinking sun behind him. Leaving it, he tried a new cast to the south, but gradually the trees thickened so that he had difficulty in finding a way for his horse between them. Exasperated by the slowness of his pace, he turned back a little way, then
headed west again; only to find a mile farther on that in that direction the wood ended against a cliff face of unbroken rock.

  It was now nearly nine o’clock and almost dark in the forest. He had left Bisoka at four so, with only infrequent pauses to rest and water his mount, he had been in the saddle for five hours. As a soldier he had often ridden for double that length of time, and normally would not have thought anything of it; but the exertions of the previous night and the constant nagging of his wound had taken a lot out of him. He was very tired and terribly dispirited. Yet he still hoped that he might strike the Drina before night had fallen, so he turned back yet again, then struck out in a new direction.

  This time, when he reached the fringe of the wood, he came out on to coarse grassland which sloped away into a shallow valley. His depression lifting, he put his horse into a canter and followed the valley bottom for a mile. It then merged into further hills, the depression rising to form a pass between two rounded summits. As he rode between them he stared anxiously ahead, but even in the open the light was fast fading, and he could see no more than the faint silhouette of a distant line of hills against the faint after-glow of the long-past sunset.

  Beyond the pass the ground shelved away to another belt of forest. Once in it, he had to ride with renewed caution, as the darkness there made it difficult to see the trunks of the trees. For a further twenty minutes he proceeded cautiously, then came out of the forest to find himself faced by another impassable gorge.

  Wearily, he dismounted, tethered his horse to the nearest tree, and sat down with his back against it. He could have wept at his inability to go farther and the bitterness of his frustration. From Bisoka he had estimated that a three and a half hour ride would carry him across the frontier to Yardiste; so he should have been there by half past seven and, with luck, caught the last train to Sarajevo. Even had he missed it, he could have hired a carriage and, with relays of horses, easily covered the sixty miles to the Bosnian capital before morning. Yet here he was at ten o’clock at night, utterly and completely lost, without even an idea any longer in which direction Yardiste lay, and hemmed in by darkness that menaced himself and his horse with death if they attempted to continue their erratic journey.