Bill for the Use of a Body (26 page)

Silently berating himself for his stupidity and needless fit of the jitters, he moved cautiously on. When he reached the south end of the house and looked up, his heart gave another bound; but this time from joy. A pale light showed through the window of the room that Rinzai had said was Merri's. She was there and, as it was only about half past eight, probably reading or sewing to while away yet another lonely and anxious evening. How overjoyed she would be if she knew that he was standing only twenty feet below her and, unless things went radically wrong, would have her out of her prison within the next quarter of an hour.

For a moment he thought of throwing some little pebbles up against the window to attract her attention. But quickly he abandoned the idea. As she was locked in, he would have to go up there to free her; and for them to hold a whispered conversation while he stood outside would be only a waste of time.

Tiptoeing along the side of the house, he came on a door, but it was locked and looked too stout to force; so he turned his attention to the windows. They were, as was usual in old Japanese houses, flimsy affairs that could be slid to and fro. At his first strong sideways pull on a casement the catch gave and the window slid open.

One of the most irritating things he had found in Japan was that whenever he entered a temple, a shrine, a non-European restaurant or a private house, he had had to take off his shoes and, while slopping awkwardly round in the felt slippers provided, get chilly feet. But now he sat down and took off his shoes; not out of consideration for Hayashi's polished floors but as a precaution against making more noise than was inescapable. There was, however, still the unpleasant possibility that while in the house he might be surprised, and it would prove a serious handicap if he were forced to run for it through the garden
in his stockinged feet. So he also took off his socks, put his shoes on again and drew the socks over them.

Climbing in through the window, he stepped down on to the floor. It immediately gave a loud squeak. Muttering a curse, he took a step forward and the floor squeaked again. To his consternation he realised that it was another of those ‘nightingale' floors, with thousands of small rings underneath it, such as the one it had amused him to walk along in the Shogun's Palace.

For a moment he stood still. No sound broke the silence, so he got out his torch and flashed it about. He had entered the house at the south-west corner and saw that a broad corridor ran in both directions. The rooms enclosed by the corridor would, he guessed, be almost bare of furniture, having nothing in them but a few cushions and mats, a low table and, probably, one or two extremely artistic flower decorations placed so as not to spoil the effect of the paintings on silk of temples, pine trees, dragons, birds, deer and tortoises hung on the walls. But here, in the broad corridor, Hayashi had arrayed his fabulous collection of antiques. Gods and goddesses, beautiful lacquer cabinets and priceless jade carvings lined both sides of the corridor.

After a swift glance round, Julian put out his torch and went forward. The alarming squeaking of the floor continued each time he advanced a foot and put his weight on it, until his forehead was damp with perspiration from fear that if any servants were in the building his presence in it must be heard; and the faint starlight coming through the windows was just enough to have the eerie effect of making the life-size figures of the idols seem to be alive and menacing.

A glimmer of light led him to the main hall. Two oil lamps were burning there in front of ten-foot-high gilded Buddhas seated cross-legged on either side of a broad staircase. He put a foot on the lowest step and found to his relief that it did not creak. Quickly now, he ran up them.
On the landing he turned left and, treading cautiously, advanced down a corridor that was in almost complete darkness. Then, half-way down it, he caught sight of a thin line of light that he felt sure must be coming from under Merri's door.

Hastening now, he ran to it, then flashed his torch down the sides of the panel. There was no lock to be seen, so he swiftly assumed that Hayashi had not troubled to have one fitted; because, without money or friends to aid her, Merri could not have escaped from the house, let alone have got out of Japan, before he had traced and concerted some means to recapture her.

Smiling to himself, Julian slid back the door and stepped into the room, confidently expecting to find Merri there and rejoicing in advance at the thought of how overjoyed she would be to see him. Next moment the smile froze on his lips. By the light of the single electric bulb he saw that, instead of Merri, three knobbly faced Japanese men were sitting in utter silence, cross-legged on the floor. As though set in motion by the pressing of a switch, they came simultaneously to their feet and rushed at him.

At the sight of them it flashed into his mind that as no-one other than Rinzai had known of his intention to break into the house, and Rinzai had said that it was in this particular room that Merri was being kept prisoner, the detective must have double-crossed him.

The rush of the three men upon him was so swift that he had no time to slide the door to before beating a retreat. Tensing himself, he struck out at the middle one of the three and landed a blow on his chin that sent him sprawling. As he jumped back the other two collided in the narrow doorway and, for a moment, were jammed together there. Before they could get through it he had whipped out his sword stick, turned and was running down the passage. Temporarily blinded by having just faced a light, he covered a few paces then pulled up short. A huge, gorilla-like man had crept up behind him and was
barring his retreat. It was Udo Nagi, who had been lying in wait for him in a nearby room.

Without hesitation Julian lunged at the big man's stomach. At the same moment Nagi raised a blackjack and brought it down hard, partially knocking aside Julian's blade. But his parry was not quite quick enough. The steel ripped through his side. With a yell of pain and fury, he lurched sideways and, clawing at his wound, fell against the wall. Julian dashed past him, heading for the stairs. But the other men were hard on his heels.

On reaching the broad staircase he pelted down it four steps at a time. He was only half-way down when one of his pursuers, regardless of consequences, leapt on his back. The impact shot him forward, dragging his feet from under him. The two of them crashed on to the stairs and, still clutching one another, rolled to the bottom.

It was Julian's luck that as they rolled to a standstill in the hall he was uppermost and the Japanese, having hit his head on the newel post of the banisters, had been temporarily rendered muzzy. Disengaging himself, Julian scrambled to his feet and made for the front door, with a sudden surge of new hope; for it now seemed certain that if he could get through it he would escape. But a fifth man, attracted by the shouting, had suddenly arrived on the scene from the direction in which lay the servants' quarters. He was old, skinny and grey-haired but, running sideways at Julian, he stuck out his leg and managed to trip him.

As Julian measured his length on the highly polished floor the other two men who had chased him from upstairs flung themselves down upon him, seizing his arms. He struggled to his knees but the old man who had tripped him now kicked him in the stomach. The man who had been momentarily rendered
hors de combat
by hitting his head on the newel post had recovered and came to the aid of the others. Between them they again forced him to the floor, turned him on his back, then stamped on
his middle until his eyes were starting from his head and the breath was driven out of his body.

Pulling him to his feet, his three original attackers dragged him towards the stairs. He glimpsed the old man who had prevented him from escaping leering at him with a toothless grin, then turning away to return to his own quarters. Almost exhausted, but fighting still, he was hauled up the stairs. Nagi, still clutching his wound but leaning against the banisters, was shouting curses and encouragement to his henchmen.

On reaching the landing, the three wiry Japanese pulled and kicked Julian back along the corridor until they reached the room outside which, ten minutes earlier, he had felt such elation at the thought that he would find Merri. Groaning, Nagi had limped along after them. As they entered the room, he wheezed out in Japanese of which Julian understood just enough to make out his meaning:

‘Out of the window with him! Out of the window! Then help me down to the garden so that I can break his neck.'

Shouting, cursing, kicking, Julian was dragged across the room. His captors thrust him towards the window, then lifted him and pushed his head and shoulders out of it. In the faint light he saw below him a sheer drop of eighteen feet. To fall from such a height on to the path of flat stones meant that he would at best break a leg, or splinter bones that would start an internal haemorrhage, if not land on his head. In vain he strove to cling to the window-sill. They prised free his grip of it, heaved up his legs and threw him out.

Just as when he had been thrown overboard from the launch on the night that Merri had been kidnapped at Aberdeen, by all the laws of the Medes and Persians he should have been dead or dying within the next ten minutes. But as he fell he glimpsed the figure of a man walking quickly round from the front of the house. Hearing the noise above, the man looked up. As he
realised that Julian was about to fall on him his mouth opened in a gasp. He made a quick step back. But too late. Julian crashed sideways on him across his face and chest. He went over like a ninepin flat on his back, his head striking the stones of the path hard as he fell.

Half stunned, Julian lay across his inert body for a moment; then he realised that, except for an awful pain all round his right shoulder, he was unhurt. His mind had registered Nagi's intention to come down and finish him off. That spurred him into renewed activity. Although he had wounded Nagi, within a few minutes the others would be down there, and if they caught him his life would be forfeit.

Dragging himself to his feet, he staggered round to the front of the house. There, to his surprise, he saw the van that, when he had last seen it, contained the Kuan-yin and was being driven off to the Nest of the Phoenix by Pao Tin-yum. In the pale light coming from the front door there was no mistaking it, for the same Japanese characters and a spray of chrysanthemums were painted on its side.

Although still half bemused by his fall, it impinged on his mind that, somehow, Hayashi must already have succeeded in getting hold of the van and its precious contents. The man he had fallen upon must have driven it there and been going round to the back of the house to secure assistance in unloading it.

To his right Julian saw that the big gates had been left open. The drive up to the house was a semi-circular one. Scrambling unsteadily into the cab of the van, he pressed the self-starter. As the engine purred, he heard the shouts of the men who had attacked him. They had raced downstairs and were now emerging from the front door of the house, only fifteen feet in front of the van.

For a moment they did not realise that Julian was in the driving seat, then one of them saw the white blob of his face behind the windscreen. Letting out a falsetto screech, he pointed at it. Julian switched on the headlamps,
temporarily blinding them; but the other men were directly in his path. Knowing that if he failed to get away they would kill him, he had no scruples about charging them and let in the clutch.

The van began to move. Before it had gained speed one of the men ran at it and flung himself on the bonnet. With a frantic prayer that the engine would not stall Julian pressed on the accelerator. Shooting forward, the van struck one of the men in its path knocking him sideways. The other jumped clear, then as the van ran past him sprang at Julian and grabbed him by the arm.

Meanwhile the man on the bonnet was crouching there, clinging to the windscreen wiper with his left hand and hammering with his right fist on the glass in an attempt to break it. His cropped head, glaring eyes and ferocious yellow face were barely a foot from Julian's. At the same time the other man was clutching Julian's injured arm and had his whole weight on it. Julian was dragged sideways and sickening pain racked his shoulder.

The van had now gathered speed, but he was forced to take his left hand from the wheel. Clenching his fist he drove it sideways and down, with all the force he could muster, into the face of the man who was clinging to his elbow. He felt the bone of the man's nose crunch; the man let out a howl, released his hold and dropped back on to the drive.

At that moment, under the blows of the man on the bonnet, the windscreen shattered. Glass flew into the cab and a piece of it nicked Julian's cheek. Next moment a yellow hand reached in to seise him by the throat. But by then the van was out of control. It left the drive, ploughed through some low bushes, then hit a stone ornament and lurched violently. The eyes and mouth of the man on the bonnet opened wide in terror, then he was thrown off.

Regardless of his injured shoulder, Julian seised the wheel with both hands and applied the brake. The van ran on through another bed of azaleas but, by pulling the
wheel right over, he swerved the vehicle back on to the drive. It had almost stopped, but was within a few yards of the open gates. Releasing the brake, he turned the van again and a moment later it was out on the road.

Without any thought of direction he drove it for a quarter of a mile, then pulled up to mop up the blood that was running down his face from the cut on his cheek. He had saved himself and retrieved the Kuan-yin, but that was poor compensation for having failed to rescue Merri.

For some five minutes he sat there, wondering what next to do. It was obvious that he had fallen into a carefully prepared ambush, and again he realised that only Rinzai could have betrayed him. That there would be plenty of time to stop the handsome cheque, drawn on a bank in Hong Kong, that he had given the little wisen-faced detective was some small satisfaction. But that was not going to help Merri. He thought again of appealing to the police to raid Hayashi's house, now on the grounds that there was a gang of men in it who had tried to murder him, but realised that having entered the place illegally would prove a very poor basis for bringing a charge against its inmates.