Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (41 page)

The result was
electrifying. Militchevitch
did
know the whole plot, and evidently nobody had thought to tell him that De
Richleau was to be kept in the dark until the mine was sprung. In a moment the
cat was out of the bag. Heaving a deep sigh, he said:

“It saddens me greatly to
think that it should have been decided to do the thing in this way. The whole
idea of playing on the patriotism of those students—drugging them and
hypnotizing them, and all the rest of it—to make them murder the Archduke is
revolting. Of course, it’s clever in a way, as the Austrians are certain to put
it down to the Bosnian Serbs and take reprisals on them, which will give us
just the excuse we need to champion them by force of arms. Still, although I
dare not say so to my uncle, I consider that to open our campaign with an
assassination is to rob it at the outset of much of the glory we hope to gain.
When the facts leak out, as they are bound to do sooner or later, I fear that the
events of Sunday the 28th of June in Sarajevo are going to bring dishonour on
Serbia in the eyes of the whole world.”

So there it was! The ‘boys’
were fanatical students to whom Tankosić had supplied arms. The ‘old man’
was the Emperor and, in view of Franz Ferdinand’s unpopularity in Vienna,
Austrian reactions would have been much more spontaneous and furious if their
time-honoured sovereign had been murdered instead. But the assassination of the
Heir Apparent would be quite enough. On principle, Austria could not ignore it;
so thousands of Bosnian political suspects would be thrown into gaol and all
sorts of new reprisive measures against the Bosnian Serbs would be initiated.
As long as Dimitriyevitch could keep the fact concealed that Serbia had
instigated the murder, Russia and the democracies would support Serbian demands
that Austria should cease her persecution of the innocent Bosnian masses; and
he obviously counted on being able to do that long enough for his purpose.

Once war had started, if
the truth then became known it could make no difference. When the great powers
had got to death-grips the rights and wrongs of the initial quarrel would be
smothered in the smoke of a hundred thousand cannon, and the flash of fifteen
million rifles. To emerge victorious would be the only thing that counted. It
had been publicly announced that at the conclusion of the Austrian manœvres
Franz Ferdinand would pay a state visit to the provincial capital of Bosnia
and, despite Militchevitch’s repugnance to the plot, De Richleau saw in a flash
that no more perfect opportunity could have been offered to Dimitriyevitch for
the initiation of his terrible design.

The Duke was now more
than anxious to get rid of his young guest; but, having fully agreed with what
Militchevitch had said, he forced himself to continue talking normally and
pleasantly for another quarter of an hour, before indicating by a smothered
yawn that he would be glad to get to bed. His A.D.C. promptly took the hint and,
having thanked him effusively for a most pleasant evening, set off on his way
home.

Immediately he had gone,
De Richleau borrowed a railway time-table from the office, took it upstairs,
got out a map, and, his brain working at a furious speed, began to plan.

He could not do anything
by telephone as, at that date, the only telephones in Belgrade were in
Government offices and the palace, connecting them on a slender network with
the military headquarters in the various provinces and the outside world. He would
have given ten years of his life to be able to walk round to the British
Legation and see the Minister, Mr. Charles Des Graz, but he knew him to be on
leave, and greatly doubted if his subordinates would have sufficient authority
to take any drastic action in his absence. Moreover, Dimitriyevitch had
informed him quite casually only a few days before that all the Serbian
servants in the foreign Legations were in his employ. A midnight visit would be
certain to be reported, and might arouse such acute suspicion as to lead to
arrest in the morning. And, as the only unauthorized possessor of this terrible
secret, De Richleau felt that he must on no account risk his freedom.

But he could write to the
Chargé d’affaires, and this he did, giving full particulars of the plot, with
the request that they should be sent to London by most secret cypher on the
highest priority. Next, he wrote a similar letter to Sir Maurice de Bunsen in
Vienna, adding the almost superfluous line that the Austrian Government should
be warned without a moment’s delay. Then he set about drafting a telegram for
Sir Pellinore, which would give him the gist of the matter without conveying
anything to the Serbian telegraphists when they came to transmit it.

This was no easy matter,
but after considerable thought he composed the following:

Wightfoot’s company
arriving in Sarajevo on Sunday
28
th
stop He will open season by putting on own play quote the Ides of March unquote
with Fran
ç
ois
Aragon in leading r
ô
le.

As an English name,
Wightfoot sounded quite plausible, yet Sir Pellinore could hardly fail to
interpret it as Black Hand. The
Ides of March
could be connected only with the assassination of Julius Caesar, and Franz
Ferdinand was virtually one of the two Caesars of Austria. Finally the name
Fran
ç
ois
Aragon definitely identified the victim. Fran
ç
ois was simply French for
Franz,
and no educated man could think of Aragon without
Castille and the uniting of these two great Spanish kingdoms by the marriage of
Isabella of Castille with
Ferdinand
of
Aragon.

The Duke’s only qualm
about it was that it might be too clear, and that somebody in the Belgrade post
office, who knew what was planned to take place on Sunday the 28th in Sarajevo,
might spot its meaning and suppress it. But the text had all the appearance of
a straightforward business wire from a theatrical producer to his associates in
London, and it seemed unlikely that any telegraph clerk would be in
Dimitriyevitch’s confidence. Anyhow, the date and place could not possibly be
left out and any attempt to disguise them might lead to a fatal
misunderstanding, so he decided that he must send it as it stood.

It was now half an hour
after midnight. Going downstairs, he walked to the main post office and posted
his two letters, but found that he could not send the telegram as there was no
night service. On getting back to his room, he spread out his map and consulted
the time-table.

There was no point in his
going to Vienna as his letter to Sir Maurice de Bunsen would now get there
sooner than he could, and there was nothing he could do there that the British
Ambassador was not in a position to do better. It was now very early on Friday,
and it seemed a fair assumption that, if he sent the telegram to Sir Pellinore
as soon as the post office opened it would arrive by Saturday morning. By that
time the Chargé d’affaires in Belgrade should also have communicated with
London, and Sir Maurice have received his letter in Vienna. Both London and
Vienna, should, therefore, have twenty-four hours or so to work in, and, at
first sight, that appeared to be ample to stop the Archduke from going to
Sarajevo. But no one knew better than the cautious Duke that there could be
many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, and such a matter of life and death
was not one on which to take chances.

As Franz Ferdinand was on
manœvres with the Austrian army, he would probably be moving almost hourly from
place to place in the desolate Bosnian hill country, where telegraph offices
were few and far between. Unless he could be located and warned on Saturday
night, there was still a horrible possibility that he would turn up in Sarajevo
on Sunday; so De Richleau considered it imperative that he should go to
Sarajevo himself, in order to take measures to prevent the outrage should other
means have failed.

A glance at the map
showed that Sarajevo lay some 120 miles to the south-west of Belgrade, as the
crow flies. That was no great distance but, unfortunately, no railway connected
the two. The main Vienna-Orient line ran south-east from Belgrade, through Nish
to Salonika and Constantinople. From it, branch lines twisted through the hill
country in a westerly direction, but they ended some distance from the Drina
river or Tara mountains, and only on the far side of these other branch lines
wound down to Sarajevo.
Užice
on the east, and Yardiste on the west of the divide, were the terminal stations
of the two branches, and about thirty miles lay between them, via Mladenovac,
on the main line, to Užice was about 150 miles, and from Yardiste to Sarajevo
about 70. So altogether it meant a journey of 250 miles, mainly in slow local
trains and with 30 miles of it on horseback.

He wondered for a moment
if it would not be quicker to save a hundred miles by going by road; but
automobiles were very liable to break down, particularly on the rough going he
would be certain to encounter, while a ride of 150 miles or more would be a
gruelling experience and, with essential halts for rest and sleep, could hardly
be accomplished under thirty-six hours. Having consulted the time-tables, he
found that was just about the time it would take him by rail, and if he could
catch a train that left Mladenovac at mid-day he should be in Sarajevo by
Saturday night. So he decided on the less exhausting method of travel, then
went to bed.

Owing to the long break
in the middle of the day for siesta, the Serbian War Office opened early, and
work began at half past eight. De Richleau was quick to realize that if he did
not appear in his office at the usual hour Militchevitch would come round to
the hotel to find out what had happened to him, and his disappearance would be
discovered almost at once; so he decided to go there as usual and make some
excuse to leave again, which would give him a longer start.

He thought it wise to
abandon most of his belongings, but made up a parcel of his shaving tackle and
night things, went downstairs, ordered a dinner for four that night, then went
out. The parcel he left at a tobacco kiosk round the corner, where he usually
bought his cigarettes, and on the way to the War Office sent off his telegram
to Sir Pellinore. In his office he spent half an hour with Militchevitch going
through some papers; then he said that he had arranged to spend the morning
going over the Arsenal, so he would not be back until after the siesta.

That morning it had
occurred to him that in a small place like Belgrade he might quite possibly be
recognized at the station by some officer of his acquaintance. If he were seen
leaving by train the hue and cry after him might be raised precipitately; so,
on leaving his office, he went to the better of the only two garages in the
town. He told the proprietor that he wanted to hire a car to drive himself for
the day, and after a little haggling, was fixed up with a Renault. While the
man prepared it for the road, the Duke collected his parcel from the kiosk,
then went into a clothing store, where he bought a cheap ready-made suit,
flashy tie, celluloid collar, and a flat, round hat like a toque, of the type
most frequently worn by the Balkan trading classes. At the same store he also
bought a portmanteau made of basket work. Into it he packed all his purchases
and the parcel, then he returned to the garage and drove off in the car.

By twenty past eleven he
had covered thirty miles and was approaching Mladenovac. Half a mile outside
the market town he drove the car off the road in among a group of trees, got
out and changed into the clothes he had bought. Having packed his own in the
basket, he abandoned the car and walked into the town. As Mladenovac was the
junction from which the branch line train started, it was already in the
station. He had decided against the more complete disguise that would have been
afforded by a peasant costume, because he would then have had to travel with
real peasants. They would at once have tumbled to it that he was not what he
appeared to be, and, suspecting him to be an escaped criminal, might have drawn
the attention of the railway officials to him. But dressed as he was, he could
pass himself off among second class passengers as a Greek travelling salesman,
The train consisted of only four coaches, one of which was divided into an
equal number of first and second class compartments. Having bought some food at
the buffet, he made himself comfortable in one of the latter, which had in it
only an elderly couple.

They proved to be a
retired pig merchant and his wife. The old man had become almost stone deaf,
and the old woman was not of a garrulous type: so, after exchanging the few
remarks required by courtesy on first meeting, they fell into silence. No one
else entered their carriage, and a quarter of an hour later the train moved
out.

It was very hot, and as
the little train chugged its way across the Serbian plain its speed was barely
sufficient for any appreciable breeze to be felt through the window. Every
quarter of an hour or so it halted at wayside stations for at least ten
minutes, while livestock and farm produce were unhurriedly unloaded and loaded
into it. During these halts the heat was positively grilling, and De Richleau,
who had been attempting to doze, was kept wakeful and irritated by hordes of
flies.