Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (77 page)

The two Germans had been
taken entirely by surprise. Neither of them had even had time to thrust out a
hand for the pistol lying only two feet in front of them on the table. The eyes
of both flickered towards it for a second, then met the Duke’s steely glance
again. Glaring with hate and fury at having been caught napping, they raised
their hands shoulder high.

“Higher!” snarled the
Duke. “As high as you can stretch. And quick about it! I’ve no time to waste!
Our friends on the train must be wondering what the devil has become of me. Or
do they know about this?”

Colonel Nicolai’s face
relaxed for a moment into a malicious smile. “No. But you needn’t think you’re
going to get away on it. I didn’t want that old Austrian Baron coming back to
find you, and have to waste time giving him an explanation. I told the engine
driver that he would have only two officers travelling, with their servants,
and that as soon as they were aboard he was to move off. The train has gone
without you.”

Those sneering words were
a nasty blow for the Duke. He had felt certain that old Lanzi would have given
the show away if he had known that anything of this sort was in the wind, and
there was no reason why Nicolai should have informed Major Tauber of the trap he
intended to spring. So he had counted on getting away on the train, anyhow as
far as Berlin. That was now out of the question, but, all the same, he intended
to ensure himself a good start.

“About turn, both of you!”
he said abruptly. “Go on! Keep your hands up and walk over to the wall. Press
your noses to it. Quick now! Remember I am desperate and we are at war. If you
move a muscle without my orders, I shall treat you as I would prisoners on a
battlefield who attempted to attack me—I’ll blow your brains out!”

Cowed by the menacing
light in his steely grey eyes, they did as he had ordered. When their backs
were turned, he transferred the little automatic to his left hand. Then he
stepped after them. As he passed the table, he picked up his pistol by the barrel.
Slipping on the safety catch of the bigger weapon, he lifted it and brought its
butt crashing down on the back of Nicolai’s skull.

The Colonel gave a long,
agonized groan, buckled at the knees, and fell senseless to the floor.

At the sound, Steinhauer
started back from the wall, half lowering his hands and turning a little, a
look of petrified horror on his now ashen face. But the Duke had him covered
with the little automatic.

“Get back,” he snapped. “It’s
a bullet or a rap on the head. You won’t live after the one, but you will after
the other. Take your choice.”

With shoulders hunched
and head bent, Steinhauer turned his terrified face away. A sob broke from him
just before the blow fell; then he too doubled up and dropped senseless at De
Richleau’s feet.

Returning his weapons to
their holsters, the Duke stooped down and dragged his two victims into a
position where they were lying on their sides back to back. Undoing the Colonel’s
belt, he used it to strap their legs together. Wrenching away the cord of the
window blind, he tied their wrists with it. Pulling off Steinhauer’s gaudy
necktie, he knotted it round both throats, so that the backs of their bleeding
heads were held firmly to one another. Then he took a few sheets of foolscap
from the table, crumpled them up, and forced them into the unconscious men’s
mouths, to prevent their crying out when they regained consciousness.

Turning back to the
table, he lit a match and burnt the thin file of papers from which Nicolai had
been reading. Having made certain that there were no other documents there
which incriminated him, he walked to the door, unlocked it, and put out the
light.

Opening the door
cautiously, he peered out, and listened intently for a moment. All was quiet,
so he removed the key from the lock, stepped out into the passage, re-locked
the door from the outside and put the key in his pocket.

Like some great grey cat,
he tiptoed down the short length of corridor to the hall. No one was about, so
he slipped unobserved out of the back door. There, he paused for a moment,
considering his next move. Nicolai had been telling the truth about the train
leaving without him. There was a stationary train some distance down the line,
but that must be the
C. in C.
’s
special: the siding to the west of the house stood empty. The choice now lay
between making off on foot or attempting to steal a vehicle. The latter project
meant a risk of being spotted and questioned, which ultimately might lead to
the most dire consequences. On the other hand, the greater distance he could
put between Wartenburg and himself during the night, the better his chance of
getting away altogether. He decided to risk it.

Walking as quietly as
possible, but naturally now in case he should be noticed from one of the
windows of the house, he went round its east end and paused on the corner of
its south front. Eight or ten cars and a dozen motor-cycles were garaged in a
long tin-roofed shed, which had recently been erected for that purpose on the
opposite side of the drive. During the day they were constantly coming and
going, but at night there were much longer intervals unbroken by their roar and
clatter, and the hour was past when the drivers washed down their vehicles.
There was no special guard on the long shed, as it stood in full view of the
sentry who was posted on the front door of the Headquarters. Wartenburg was
still fifty miles from the nearest battle zone and not even within sound of its
guns, so the sentry was there only as a usual appurtenance to the presence of a
senior Commander. He would challenge any civilian who approached either the
house or the shed, but De Richleau thought it very unlikely that he would halt
anyone in uniform, as soldiers of all ranks were moving about in the vicinity
of the house at all hours of the day and night.

Nevertheless, as he stood
there, he found himself trembling. If he slipped up in the next few moments,
the matter might be referred to some senior officer who would want to know, not
only what he had been up to, trying to make off with Headquarters’ transport,
but why he had not caught the train. To provide a plausible explanation would
be extremely difficult, and once he fell under suspicion copies of the
telegrams that had come in about him from von Hötzendorf’s Headquarters and
Major Ronge might be produced. Once again, he had nightmare visions of a
shooting party at dawn, with himself as the target.

He knew that his
shivering fit was caused by reaction from the bad ten minutes through which he
had just been. Lighting a cigarette to steady his nerves, he debated whether he
should take a car or a motorcycle. Whichever he took, as soon as its loss was
discovered the military police would be notified. As a car would be more easily
identifiable, he decided on a bicycle.

It was a darkish night.
The moon had not yet risen. Only a few stars glimmered overhead. But the area
of the drive was lit both by the windows of the house and a few electric bulbs
that had been left burning in the long shed. He could not possibly cross the
sweep of gravel without the sentry seeing him. Checking an impulse to throw
away the cigarette, he walked forward still puffing at it. His heart was
hammering heavily.

When he had covered a
dozen yards the sentry caught sight of him. Recognizing his uniform as that of
an officer, he banged and slapped his rifle, bringing it to the salute. With a
guilty start, De Richleau acknowledged the gesture. He thanked his stars that the
light was insufficient for the man to have seen the expression on his face.
Hoping the sentry would think that he was borrowing a motor-bike simply to run
in to the town, he approached the shed with all the nonchalance he could
muster.

The motor-cycles were all
of the same make, so he grasped the nearest by its handlebars and pushed it off
its stand. Now was the critical instant. Switching on the controls, he kicked
the stand up and ran the bike forward. The engine banged twice, then began to
roar. He jumped into the saddle and was off.

He knew that half a mile
away, at the gate of the manor grounds, there was another sentry post. But the
object of the guard there was to check up on people coming in, not stop those
going out. He passed it unchallenged and a second later was out on the open
road. To the left, it led north towards K
ö
nigsberg
and the Baltic: to the right, south towards Wartenburg. But in the town there
was a cross-roads that would take him to the west. Turning right, he let out
the engine, and four minutes later he was entering the little town.

It seemed hours since he
had said good-bye to General Hoffmann and the other officers in the mess, so he
was surprised to see many lights still on in the windows of the houses, and,
here and there, little groups of soldiers flirting with the local girls in the
streets. As he purred past a small café he caught sight of its clock. The hands
stood at twenty minutes to eleven.

Thinking back, he
realized that, hectic as every moment of his encounter with Nicolai and
Steinhauer had been, it could not have occupied more than seven or eight
minutes, and after leaving them he had wasted only half a minute or so standing
at the corner of the house before stealing the bike, so the whole nerve-racking
episode had taken place in less than a quarter of an hour.

Turning west at the
cross-roads, he ran on for a further quarter of a mile, then he came to a small
hump-backed bridge over a canal, which had a red light showing above and beyond
it. Slowing down on the crest of the bridge, he saw the reason for the warning
signal. On the far side of the bridge lay a level crossing, and its gates were
closed.

Pulling up, he peered
from side to side in the semi-darkness. To his left front he could make out the
outline of a building that was obviously the railway station. To his right
front was what appeared to be a goods yard, as several trains were standing
there, and two of them were shunting.

Cursing the delay, he
remained there on the crest of the bridge, waiting for the gates to open. A
train coming from the direction of the station puffed slowly over the level
crossing. It was a short one of only three coaches. The first and third coaches
were almost in darkness. The centre one was brightly lit. It was a pullman car,
and empty but for two people. At a table framed in one window sat Major Tauber
and Lanzi smoking one of his big torpedo-shaped cigars.

With fury in his heart,
the Duke watched it glide by. He was greatly surprised that it had got no
farther. However, Wartenburg was a small junction: its station was now busier
than it had ever been in all its history, with trains going to and from the
front. And Nicolai had ordered the special to leave some ten minutes before it
was due out, so probably it had been held up on the other side of the station
until a line could be cleared for it. Or perhaps Lanzi had pulled the
communication cord and insisted on waiting for him for a quarter of an hour or
so. In any case, the sight of the train, and the thought that although he had
caught up with it there was no hope of getting on it, was positively maddening.

When the special had
passed the level crossing, the gates swung open, but it halted some sixty yards
beyond them. It stood there, hissing steam, its driver evidently waiting for a
further signal to proceed.

Suddenly De Richleau
decided to take a wild gamble. Jumping from his motor-cycle, he gave a quick
look round. There was nobody in sight. Seizing the machine, he upended it, so
that its front wheel rested on the low parapet of the bridge. Grasping the
saddle, he gave a terrific heave. For a moment the bike balanced on the stone
coping, sideways on, both its wheels in the air. With another mighty thrust, he
pushed it over. There followed a resounding splash as it struck the water in the
middle of the canal. But he caught it only faintly. He was running like a
madman for the train.

By his act he knew that
he had burnt his boats. If he failed to get on the train there was now no hope
of recovering the motor-cycle. But he had been impelled to sacrifice the bird
in the hand by the thought that it would be weeks before the machine was
discovered on the canal bottom. It was certain to be missed within a few hours.
The sentry would report having seen him take it. But nobody would now learn where
he had abandoned the stolen vehicle. Therefore, no link would be left
connecting him with the special train—if he could catch it.

With flying feet he
pelted down the far slope of the bridge. Swerving to the right, he turned away
from the level crossing. Beside the road there was a deep ditch, but owing to
the summer drought there was no water in it. The ditch was too wide to jump, so
he scrambled down and up the lower bank on its far side into a field of
turnips. There was now a steep embankment to his left, above which lay the
railway line. The rear of the train was still forty yards farther on. His eyes
were riveted on it. Every moment he expected it to move and leave him stranded.
He tripped on a turnip, swore, regained his balance, and ran on. Another spurt
and he was level with the end of the train. Turning, he charged the bank, but
it was almost perpendicular. His initial impetus gave out when he was half-way
up it. He nearly fell backwards. For a moment he hovered, his hands wildly
outstretched and clutching in mid-air.