Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (50 page)

When he put the foot of
his wounded leg to the floor and tried his weight on it, the stab of pain made
him break out into a cold sweat. But he knew that mind was the master of matter
and that, providing the bone was not completely severed, even fractured limbs
could be made to fulfil their function in an emergency.

Breathing heavily, he
began to struggle into his clothes. When the nurse came hurrying back with a
rather wooden-faced man of about his own age, he was already half dressed.

“You can’t do this! I
forbid it!” cried the doctor.

“Do you think I am doing
it for fun?” the Duke grimaced with pain. “As I told your nurse, a second
attempt may be made at any moment to kill the Archduke. He must be warned
immediately.”

“My poor fellow, you are
delirious.”

“I am nothing of the kind.”

“I fear you are. If you
refuse to return to bed at once I shall have to send for assistance to make you.”

“On the contrary, you are
going to get your hypodermic and give me an injection in the leg to numb this
damn pain. Then you’ll find me a crutch and get hold of an automobile to take
me to the Archduke. If you refuse I shall charge you with having obstructed me
in my duty as a Colonel of the Austrian Army. What is more, should the Archduke
be assassinated through your preventing me from reaching him, I shall hold you
publicly responsible for his death.”

De Richleau’s grey eyes
were feverish and his face chalk-white; yet his cold, level voice was not that of
a man suffering from delirium. The doctor did not know what to make of him, but
blanched at the idea of assuming such a terrible responsibility.

“You—you really have
reason to think
—
?”
he hazarded.

“Damn it, man! I
know!
Don’t stand there gaping, but do something. You must
have a telephone here. Where is the Archduke?”

“He drove on to the Town
Hall. He is still there, I expect.”

“Then for God’s sake
telephone! Send a message that in no circumstances must he leave the building.
Use my name. Say you are telephoning for Count Königstein, and that I’ll get
round there as soon as I can to inform him of this plot.”

The doctor was convinced
now that his patient was in his right mind. With a nod he turned to the nurse
and said, “Help him to get his clothes on.” Then he ran from the room.

Six minutes later he came
hurrying back. Except for his right boot, the Duke was now fully dressed, and
the nurse was preparing a syringe for the injection.

“I’m sorry, Count,” said
the doctor quickly. “The Town Hall number is engaged. With His Highness there I
expect it’s extra busy. But I’ve left a colleague to give your message as soon
as he can get through. Don’t worry, though. I’ve got an automobile outside. It’s
no distance, and we’ll be round there in five minutes.”

Swift and efficient now,
he gave the injection. The nurse found a slipper for the patient’s foot and a
crutch to go under his arm. The alarming news had already spread and the
doorway of the ward was now filled with an excited group of nurses and
students; but they promptly made way and some of the men helped the doctor get
De Richleau downstairs.

With a bang and a jerk
the auto started. The side streets were almost clear of people, but the doctor
hooted his horn without ceasing, and took the corners regardless of the rules
of the road. Good as his word, he had the Duke at the Town Hall in less than
five minutes.

Among the crowd a
solitary policeman was standing outside it. Bracing himself to leave the car,
De Richleau shouted, “Is the Archduke still in the building?”

The man shook his head. “No.
You’ve just missed him.”

“Which way did he go?”

“To the hospital, to
visit the two officers who were wounded.”

“He couldn’t have,” cried
the doctor. “We’ve just come from there.”

“As you came round from
the back of the Town Hall you must have taken a short cut through the town,” replied
the policeman laconically. “He’s gone to it along the quay.”

“Drive on!” the Duke
urged his companion. “Quickly! Quickly! He can’t have gone far. We may catch
him.”

The street was full of the
gaily clad crowd which had left the pavements after the passing of the
procession, and was now milling about in it; so it was impossible to see far
ahead. But the auto banged again and jerked forward, scattering the people.

De Richleau sat rigid,
his face drained of blood, sweating with pain, and gripped by the fear that now
Franz Ferdinand had left the Town Hall he might yet fall a victim to
Dimitriyevitch’s plot. Every attempt made to warn him had either been blocked
or gone unheeded. But if they could only overtake him, his staff and such
police as were close at hand could form a rampart round his body, then get him
into a building where he would be safe until troops could be brought to escort
him out of the town. It was not his own life only, but the peace of Europe,
that still hung in the balance.

As they reached the first
bridge, they saw the end of the short procession. It consisted of four cars and
the last three had halted. They were slightly zig-zagged where they had stopped
just opposite the second bridge. The first car, which should have gone straight
on for the hospital, was half way round a corner leading to the centre of the
town. Its driver had evidently taken the wrong turning and was now backing it
out. The quay ahead was almost clear of people, the side turning that the car
had entered full of them, showing it to be the route the Archduke had been
expected to take.

The doctor honked his
horn and put his foot on the accelerator. The little auto spurted for a moment
at thirty miles an hour, with cursing people jumping from its path. He braked
violently, and it skidded to a standstill just behind the last car in the line.
The squeal it made in pulling up was followed almost instantly by the sound of
two shots.

De Richleau grabbed the
windscreen and hauled himself to his feet. From his elevation in the car he
could see over the others and the heads of the swirling crowd. In the open
yellow and black Mercedes, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie von Hohenberg were still
seated upright, side by side.

For an instant the Duke’s
heart leapt with hope. It seemed that the second assassin had made his attempt
and failed: that once again a Divine Providence had enabled someone in the
crowd to deflect the killer’s aim. If either of them had been hit, surely they
could not remain sitting there unmoved.

Suddenly the Duchess
lurched sideways. Her head fell on her husband’s shoulder. The Archduke raised
a hand as if to clap it to his neck. The gesture was never completed. Slowly,
as though he were bowing to the crowd, his head sagged on to his chest. Then,
together they slumped forward, disappearing from De Richleau’s sight into the
bottom of the car.

There was a mist before
the Duke’s eyes. The pain in his leg had become intolerable, unbearable.
Desperately he fought against it, hanging on to his consciousness with every
ounce of his resolution. He did not faint until fourteen minutes later—-just
after he had learned that both of them were dead.

On
the evening of Tuesday, 30th of June, De Richleau found himself back in Vienna.
That was not due to any determined last moment effort on his part to keep his
promise to Ilona. He was certainly in no condition to have made the journey by
himself, and had he shown any intention of attempting it the hospital
authorities would have forcibly restrained him. The fact was that he had
suddenly become a person of great interest to the Austrian Government. It had
not been remotely suggested that he was under arrest but, all the same, his own
wishes were not even consulted. They required his presence in Vienna urgently.
Several telegrams about him had sped back and forth between Vienna and Sarajevo
on the Monday; and, when it was reported that he was in no danger of death, an
order sent that he should be brought to the capital with minimum delay and
maximum precautions against worsening his condition. A military ambulance car
had been attached to the train, his doctor and nurse had accompanied him, and
he was now installed in one of the best rooms of a private nursing home that
overlooked the Prater.

After his collapse,
following the double assassination, he had become delirious and continued so
for a good part of Sunday evening. Only by inference and the somewhat garbled
statements of the nurse and doctor had he since been able to get some idea of
what he had said in his ravings; but it had certainly been far more than he
ever would have, had he remained in control of his faculties.

Later that night, during
a lucid interval, he had found Franz Ferdinand’s A.D.C., Count Harrach, at his
bedside. The Count was still overwrought himself, and could hardly restrain his
tears as he gave a rather disjointed account of the day’s terrible events.

The assassin was a
nineteen year old student named Gavrilo Prinzip. The two shots he had fired had
hit the Archduke in the neck and Sophie von Hohenberg in the stomach. Although
the shots had been fired at only three yards range, for a moment no one had
realized that either of them had been hit; but after murmuring a few words to
one another they had fallen forward in a faint. Neither had recovered
consciousness and in less than a quarter of an hour both of them were dead.

The man who had thrown
the bomb was a young printer named Nedjedliko Cabrinovitch. He had been caught
and taken off to Police Headquarters. On learning of his arrest the Archduke
had exclaimed cynically, “Hang him as quickly as possible, or Vienna will give
him a decoration.”

At the Town Hall an
address of welcome had been read. Not unnaturally, Franz Ferdinand had replied
to it with some terseness. Rumours, then untraceable owing to the excitement of
the moment, were running round that other attempts would be made on his life.
Alarmed by the total lack of troops and few police in the streets, Count
Harrach had said to General Potiorek, “Has not Your Excellency arranged for a
military guard to protect His Imperial Highness?”

The Governor, evidently
furious at the event having shown up his lack of precautions and wishing to
justify that lack, had replied impatiently: “Do you think Sarajevo is full of
assassins?”

Nevertheless, the
Archduke’s suite had persuaded him to take a different route from that
originally intended on leaving the Town Hall. As he had expressed concern for
the officers who had been wounded, it was decided to drive first to the
hospital, so that he could visit them. When the little procession was about to
set off, Count Harrach had attempted to ride on the left foot-board of the car,
so as to protect his master with his body. But Franz Ferdinand had exclaimed, “Don’t
make a fool of yourself,” and pushed him off.

Along the quay from the
Town Hall, owing to lack of police supervision, the crowd had been all over the
road; but it had parted at the entrance of Franz Joseph street to allow the car
to take the route expected. The chauffeur, not knowing the way to the hospital,
had turned into it. General Potiorek shouted to him that he should have gone
straight on. Then, as he slowed down to back out, the car had come within three
feet of the pavement. As the engine was put into reverse, the fatal shots had
been fired.

Count Harrach had,
however, come to the hospital not to impart, but to seek, information. At the
preliminary police inquiry held that evening, a minor official had mentioned a
telegram of warning sent in the morning by a Count Königstein from Visegrad.
The Mayor, who had evidently meant to conceal the fact that he had received it,
had hurriedly excused himself by saying that he thought it had come from a
lunatic and, later, in the excitement, forgotten all about it. Someone had then
said that Königstein was the name of the man who had diverted the aim of the
bomb thrower, been wounded with the two officers when it exploded, and was now
in the hospital. When a copy of the telegram was produced, Count Harrach had
realized that the Königstein concerned must be the one who had entertained the
Archduke and himself at the castle of that name just over a fortnight before.
So, immediately the inquiry was adjourned, he had postponed his departure by
the special train that was waiting to take him to Vienna, and gone round to the
hospital to see what more he could learn about the plot, before leaving for the
capital.

The doctor had reported
his patient as raving about pistols being lost, crazy boys, scimitars, a black
hand, and other matters, through which ran the refrain that he must reach
Sarajevo in time to save the Archduke and the peace of Europe. On learning that
he was temporarily in his right mind, Count Harrach had insisted on seeing him,
told him what had happened, and plied him with a score of questions.