Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (45 page)

“You’ve forgotten something,”
he said with a drunken leer.

“What!” Dimitriyevitch
shot the word out like a bullet from a gun, but his eyes narrowed cunningly.

“Le’ me have a drink an’
I’ll tell you!” The Duke knew that he was now safe for a moment. His enemy had
been led to suppose that he had slipped up somewhere, and he would not shoot
until he had found out where. There was not much wine in the bottle. De
Richleau put it to his lips and tipped it up. Some of the wine trickled down
his chin as he tilted his head back, but under half-closed lids he kept his
eyes fixed on Dimitriyevitch.

Suddenly his head and
shoulders shot forward. It was as though the upper half of his body was a great
spring that had been coiled and released—or the tongue of a catapult flicking
out after the missile had just been discharged from it. And the missile was the
bottle. As he jerked forward, the hand by which he was holding its neck pitched
it punt first, like a blunt-ended javelin, at Dimitriyevitch’s head.

The movement was so swift
and unexpected that it caught the Serbian napping. With the bottle hurtling
straight at his face, he attempted both to dodge it and shoot De Richleau at
the same time. But the bottle was coming in too low for his sideways swerve to
save him entirely. Instead of striking him on the chin, it thumped into his
right shoulder at the very instant he squeezed the trigger of his automatic.

The pistol flashed twice.
In the comparatively confined space of the room, the reports sounding like the
bangs of a small cannon. A wisp of acrid smoke curled up from its barrel. But
the blow on the shoulder had deflected his aim. The bullets sang past De
Richleau’s head, to thud into the wainscoting.

Dimitriyevitch had no
time to fire a third shot. The instant the bottle had left the Duke’s hand, he
sprang forward. Seizing the table, he forced it violently against his enemy.
Its further edge took the Colonel in the lower part of his stomach, and threw
him off his balance. As he pitched backwards, De Richleau overturned the table
on him. He fell heavily in a smother of china, fruit, silver and glass.

Swerving away, the Duke
dashed for the cellar door. Ciganović had already started up the steps
when the shots were fired. At the sound of them, he bounded up the rest. He was
on the top step, and turning to rush into the room, as De Richleau reached the
open doorway. For the flicker of an eyelid they stood glaring at one another. Ciganović
was carrying his gun in his hand.

At the same second they
acted. The pistol jerked up. The Duke’s foot shot out in a savage kick. Again
there came a flash and a deafening bang. Ciganović had had no time to take
proper aim, but De Richleau was almost thrown off his feet. The bullet got him
in the left shoulder, just below the collar bone, half twisting him round by
the force of its impact. But his vicious kick had landed squarely just below Ciganović’s
left knee-cap. With a howl, the Serbian staggered back, lifting his injured leg
a little, his face contorted by an agony of pain.

De Richleau was the first
to recover. The bullet felt like the kick of a mule, followed by a red hot iron
piercing his shoulder; but almost at once he realized that the wound had not
seriously crippled him. Grabbing the door, he flung it shut while Ciganović
was still striving to regain his balance. But before he could get it properly
latched, the Serbian threw himself against it. The door was forced open a
couple of inches. Sweating with renewed terror, De Richleau struggled to
overcome the pressure so that he could turn the key in the lock. He knew that
Dimitriyevitch must be staggering up from among the debris of the table behind
him. At any second he expected to be shot in the back.

A glance over his
shoulder showed him that his fears were only too well-founded. The half minute
that he had spent in dashing at the door and tackling Ciganović had been
sufficient for the Colonel to struggle out from under the table. He was now on
his feet. But when he pitched backwards his gun had been knocked from his hand,
and he was frantically searching for it among the debris.

In vain, the Duke strove
with all his might to close the door. Ciganović was as strong as he was.
That awful two-inch gap remained, a narrow but fatal chasm, wide enough to
plunge him from life to death. Suddenly he saw it like that, and realized that
he would die there, with his good shoulder pressed against the door, if he
remained where he was a moment longer.

His brain was working so
furiously that to think was to act. In a single movement, he flung himself back
and sideways. The door flew open. As the pressure was released, Ciganović
came flying through it. Losing his balance, he crashed to the floor. His pistol
exploded as it hit the parquet, then jerked from his hand, and slithered away
under a sofa. De Richleau ran forward and kicked him on the head. He gave a
loud groan, twitched, and lay still.

Swivelling round, the
Duke faced Dimitriyevitch. Another twenty seconds had sped since he last had a
chance to look at the Colonel, but he was still hunting for his gun. They saw
it at the same instant. It was just behind him, lying in the fireplace. As he
stooped to grab it, De Richleau ran in and kicked it from beneath his fingers.
Instead, Dimitriyevitch grasped the poker, sprang back a pace, and lifted it to
strike. The Duke leapt forward and seized his upraised wrist. The Serbian
brought up his foot and kicked him on the shin. Next moment they had closed,
and were locked in a fierce embrace.

Dimitriyevitch was the
smaller and, by a few years, the older of the two; but he had a wiry frame and
the toughness of a peasant. By exerting himself to the full, De Richleau could
have got the best of the tussle had they both started from scratch: but he was
already sweating with his exertions and losing blood from his wound. Like a
pair of evenly matched wrestlers, they staggered and swayed together, with the
poker upthrust and jerking above their heads.

Finding that he could not
break De Richleau’s hold on his wrist to strike him with the poker,
Dimitriyevitch suddenly kneed him in the groin. With a gasp, De Richleau
released his grip. White-faced, his eyes starting from their sockets with pain,
he staggered back. The poker descended with a swish. Only just in time, he
jerked his head aside. The blow caught him on his wounded shoulder. It was
already aching fiercely from the strain he had put upon it in grasping his
adversary’s wrist. He moaned and stepped back another pace. Following up his
advantage, the Serbian struck at him again.. He took the second blow on his
left forearm. Then, still half doubled up, he lurched forward and drove his
right fist into Dimitriyevitch’s face.

Owing to the punishment
the Duke had received, the blow was not a heavy one; but, temporarily, it was
enough. Dimitriyevitch took it full on the mouth. His head shot back, his eyes
glared wildly for a moment. Then he lost his balance and fell backwards on to
the hearth.

De Richleau flung himself
on top of him, grasped him by the throat, and forced his head back among the
still-smouldering logs of the fire. As the red hot wood-ash scorched the back
of his neck, Dimitriyevitch let out a scream, jerked his head up, and kicked
furiously with both legs. The violence of his movement threw the Duke over on
his side. With a frantic wriggle, the Serbian rolled over and on to his enemy’s
chest. He still grasped the poker in his right hand, and with his left now
grabbed De Richleau’s throat. For a full minute they put all their strength
into their fingers, each trying to throttle the other, and both with their
chins pressed down, endeavouring to protect their necks. Gradually
Dimitriyevitch felt the Duke weaken beneath him. Heaving himself upright, he
raised the poker to administer the
coup de grâce.

But it was a trap. The
poker was no more than shoulder high when De Richleau served his adversary as
he had been served himself. Bringing his knee up sharply, he jabbed it in the
Colonel’s groin. The poker clattered on the hearth, the Serbian’s eyes started
and boggled horribly. In a second the Duke had turned the tables. Wriggling
from under, he grabbed Dimitriyevitch again and flung him down a foot to the
right of where they had been struggling, so that the back of his head was once
more among the smouldering logs. He screamed again, but now De Richleau had
both hands on his throat and, for good measure, kneed him again in the pit of
the stomach. The screaming ceased abruptly,

but a frightful sweat broke out on the Serbian’s face,
and rolled from it to fall hissing into the red-hot ashes.

“Now!” gasped the Duke. “Let
me tell you something. You managed to stop my letters, but not the telegram I
sent to London. It was worded too cunningly for your post office spies to
detect its meaning. But my friends in London will know what it means, and it
will be in their hands by now. They will telegraph to Vienna and, after all,
the Archduke will be warned in time. I want the knowledge that your abominable
plans have been wrecked to be the last thought that you carry with you into
unconsciousness. It is not Franz Ferdinand who is going to die—but you.”

Dimitriyevitch
understood. His eyes showed it, and the last futile effort he made to break
free from the murderous grip on his wind-pipe. The glowing ash was biting like
an army of ants into the back of his head, and he tried to scream again. But
the Duke’s strangle-hold prevented more than awful animal noises issuing from
his throat. His lips drew back, showing his gums in a nightmare grin. His face
turned red, then purple. A foam of bubbles began to froth up from his mouth.
His tongue protruded, becoming thick and leathery. It swelled until it filled
the whole cavity between his wide-stretched upper and lower teeth. His eyes
protruded like marbles. They looked as though they were about to burst. Tears
of blood appeared in their corners, forced their way out, and trickled down
into his ears. His face became black and bloated, horrible, unrecognizable. And
all the time, his body twitched spasmodically. At last the twitching ceased and
he was dead.

With a sigh, De Richleau
relaxed his grip. He felt not the least scruple about what he had done. It had
had to be Dimitriyevitch or himself. Had he left the arch-plotter living, he
would have had little chance of escaping with his life. If he had left his
victim bound and gagged, within an hour of the servants arriving in the
morning, the whole police force of Serbia would have been turned on to hunt him
down. But none of the servants had seen him there that night, so the odds were
they would have no idea who had murdered their master, and he would at least
get a good run for his money. And, if that were not reason enough, the corpse
that still lay warm beneath him was that of a man who, for his own
aggrandizement, had plotted to plunge the whole world in fire and blood.

Although no faintest atom
of remorse troubled the Duke’s mind, he felt sick, ill, and exhausted. Levering
himself off the body, he half rolled, half crawled, towards the nearest
arm-chair, pillowed his head upon its seat, shut his eyes, and lay there,
striving to calm his nerves and get back his strength.

Gradually his breathing
grew normal, the sweat dried on his face, and the searing pain of the bullet
wound, which he had stretched by his exertions, eased to a dull ache. How long
he lay there, he did not know; but he suddenly caught the faint sound of
movement behind him. It was followed almost instantly by a sharp ‘ping’, like
the noise made by the snapping of a wire. Rolling over in swift alarm, he sat
up. To his horror, he saw Ciganović glaring down at him.

T
he
kick on the head that De
Richleau had given the tall albino had rendered him unconscious for nearly a
quarter of an hour. But on coming to, from where he was lying he had seen
Dimitriyevitch sprawled on his back in the fireplace and the Duke crouching,
half asleep, against the chair. He had realized that the one was dead and the
other only comatose. Having lost his pistol, he had got stealthily to his feet,
crept towards the hearth and, stretching out his long arm above the overturned
table, wrenched one of the Turkish scimitars from its place on the wall.