Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (47 page)

After washing the wound
thoroughly with soap and water, he found an antiseptic ointment among the pots
in the bathroom cupboard, also cotton wool and sticking plaster, so he was able
to make a rough dressing for it. He would have given a lot to lie soaking for a
while in a hot bath but, apart from the fact that time was precious, there was
always the risk that some unforeseen circumstance might bring another messenger
out to the châlet: so he decided not to risk it.

When he had finished
dressing his wound, he went into Dimitriyevitch’s bedroom and opened the
wardrobe. In it, in addition to several sets of uniform, there was a variety of
civilian clothes for use when the Colonel travelled abroad. Selecting an
undress uniform, De Richleau took off the rest of his blood-stained clothes and
got into it. The tunic did not fit him at all badly, but the breeches were a
good bit too short, so he had to put up with the waist-line making a thick flap
round his hips and leaving their two top buttons undone. Then, to his great
annoyance, when he came to try the Colonel’s riding boots, he found that he
could not possibly get into them. However, he decided to get over that by using
Ciganović’s, as they would certainly be large enough. Taking a suitcase
from on top of the wardrobe, he packed some of Dimitriyevitch’s civilian
clothes into it, then went downstairs in his stockinged feet.

Leaving the suitcase in
the hall, he stepped over to the door of the big room. His approach had been
noiseless and, as he reached the door, which was standing ajar, he heard a
sound inside. Getting out his gun, he slipped off the catch, and peered cautiously
through the narrow opening. There, at the far end of the room, his head and
face all bloody, stood Tankosić.

Evidently he had just
recovered consciousness, made his way unaided up the cellar steps, and was now
taking stock of the situation. He was leaning with one hand against the wall,
but his bloody head moved swiftly from side to side as he took in the details
of the awful scene, showing that he was fully
compos mentis.

As De Richleau watched
him his glance fell, and remained fixed for a moment on something on the floor
at the far end of the sofa. Following his glance, the Duke saw it too: a dark
object that was under the sofa end, but protruding a few inches from it. Next
second he realized that it was the butt of the pistol which Ciganović had
dropped as he pitched head foremost through the cellar door.

Tankosić left the
wall and took two firm steps towards it. The Duke pushed the door open,
levelled his pistol, and cried: “Hands up!”

The Serbian halted in his
tracks, let out an oath, and turned to stare at De Richleau. But he made no
move to surrender.

They were thirty-five
feet apart, and the Duke could guess the thoughts that were racing through Tankosić’s
mind. He was thinking of their shooting match and what a much better shot he
was than the man who was trying to hold him up. He had only to duck to get the
full cover of the sofa; then, by thrusting his arm under it, he could reach the
pistol. Once he had that, he would back himself any day to exact vengeance for
his dead Chief and comrade. For him, the all-important question was, in the one
second it would take him to duck behind the sofa, could the Duke shoot him at
thirty-five feet?

De Richleau waited
patiently, a grim little smile twitching the corners of his mouth. Suddenly Tankosić
decided to chance it, and dived for the floor. The Duke’s gun cracked and
spurted flame. Its bullet smacked through the Serbian’s skull while he still
had a foot to drop to reach cover.

A faint wisp of smoke
still trailing from his pistol, De Richleau walked the length of the room to
make quite certain that he had killed the last of his three enemies. He had.
There was no doubt about that. From a rent in Tankosić’s skull, the grey
matter that had been his brains was seeping. The Duke stared down at the body
for a moment, admiring its depth of chest and splendid width of shoulder. It
occurred to him that had he been compelled to grapple with that torso, instead
of with the less powerful one of Dimitriyevitch, he would be dead by now. He
was far from sorry that Tankosić had regained consciousness and, out of
insolent self-confidence, invited a bullet. His death was going to save a lot
of trouble. Turning away, De Richleau secured the two letters that had betrayed
him, then set about his grim task of robbing the dead.

First, with some
difficulty he got off Ciganović’s boots. They were a bit large, but served
their purpose. Next, he deprived Dimitriyevitch of his wrist watch. Lastly, he
went through the pockets of all three and took all the money they had on them.
It was more than enough to get him to Sarajevo.

The room now reeked with
the sickly-sweet stench of human blood, tinged faintly with the forge-like
smell of Dimitriyevitch’s singed hair; and the Duke was extremely glad when he
had finished his ghoulish operations. In the hall he took a torch from the
table and another automatic and several spare clips of bullets from the armoury
chest. Then, from the pantry he collected the ullaged bottle of brandy and
another of Slivowitz, which he packed in the suitcase. The grandfather clock
was chiming eleven when he left the house.

Out in the garage he
tried the engine of the Rolls to make certain that she was in perfect running
order. Then he looked to her tyres, oil and petrol. The tank was nearly full,
but there were a number of spare cans stacked in a corner, so he filled her up
from two and wedged the others in on the floor at the back. To his great
satisfaction he found in one of her pockets a set of large scale military maps,
and he was just about to drive off when he remembered the Peugeot in which he
had been brought out to the châlet that evening.

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.