Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (83 page)

The country was flattish,
so an hour and a quarter’s hard pedalling brought him to within sight of
Maastricht’s spires, dimly seen against the starry sky. Only a suburb of the
town lay on the east bank of the Maas, and he had to cross a bridge over the
river to reach its centre. It was now too late for him to catch a train that
night, but he hoped to find some small hotel where he could get a bed, then
take a train north first thing in the morning.

As he approached the
bridge he saw that its eastern end was brightly lit, and that two policemen
were standing there on the pavement.

But as there was no
barrier it did not seem likely that they would challenge him. Putting on a
spurt, he pedalled past them.

Suddenly one of them gave
a shout and pointed at the Duke’s feet. Giving a swift glance down, he saw to
his consternation that the motion of pedalling had caused his trousers to ride
up, exposing his field-boots.

By the time the policemen
called on him to halt, and began to run after him, he was half-way across the
bridge. To his dismay, he now saw that its western end was also lit and that
two more policemen were posted there. Behind him the whistles of the first two
shrilled. The two in front sprang into the road to bar his passage. It was too
late for him to pull up and jump over the parapet of the bridge into the river.
He could only increase his pace and attempt to swerve round the men ahead of
him. As he did so, one of them ran at him sideways, and was just in time to jab
his truncheon into the back wheel of the bicycle.

With a metallic clang the
spokes of the spinning wheel tore the truncheon from the man’s hand. But the
bike stopped dead, pitching De Richleau over its handlebars. He hit the road
with a frightful thump. The breath was driven from his body and for a moment he
lay there half stunned. By the time he got back his wits, and attempted to
stagger to his feet, all four policemen were gathered round him. One of them
was pointing a revolver at his head.

His attaché case had
flown from his hand, burst open and scattered its contents within a few feet of
him. He caught sight of Ilona’s photograph, the glass of its frame now cracked
across. Then his eye fell on a paper bag that contained the remains of his supper.
On it was printed in large letters the name of the
chacuterie
at which he had bought the ham, and
underneath the damning words
Aix La Chapelle.

The policemen were
gabbling together in Dutch, but it was like enough to German for him to catch
the gist of what they were saying. One of them pointed to De Richleau’s
field-boots, then to the paper bag, and another said:

“Yes, yes! He is clearly
a deserter. To-morrow we will send him back to Germany.”

Two of the Duke’s captors
marched him off to the police station, and there he was given first aid. He
needed it. He had fallen very heavily on the right side of his body, bruising
it badly, sprained his wrist and crushed his ear.

The small automatic he
usually carried under his arm was found and confiscated. Then after his hurts
had been attended to, he was taken in front of a police inspector who spoke
German. The inspector drew a form towards him and said in a bored voice: “Give
me your name, regiment, and the time and place at which you crossed the
frontier.”

De Richleau thought it
futile to deny that he had come from Germany. There was too much evidence
against him. So he replied: “I crossed near Gulpham at about half past ten. But
I am not a deserter. I am a British subject, and I was caught in Germany by the
outbreak of the war.”

“We’ve heard that one
before,” remarked the inspector a little wearily. “Name, please?”

The Duke hesitated only a
second: “Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust.”

On receiving the reply
the inspector gave a cynical laugh. The muddy bandaged figure in shoddy
ready-made clothes who stood before him certainly did not give the impression
of being a member of the British aristocracy; but with a shrug he said:

“All right,
Sir
Cust. Where did you pinch the bike?”

Theft is theft all the
world over, and the Duke was most averse to a minor crime being added to his
other difficulties, so he replied promptly:

“I did not steal it. I
brought it through from Aix with me.”

The inspector nodded to
his men. “Put him in a cell for the night. It is a routine case and the
magistrate will deal with it in the morning.”

Clearly there was nothing
to be gained by further argument at the moment, so De Richleau allowed himself
to be led away. One of the men helped him to undress then, lying in a narrow
bed, he gave free rein to his acute anxiety about the future.

It was now the early
hours of August 26th, so just over two days since he had left Wartenburg. By
this time Nicolai and Steinhauer should have recovered from their concussion
sufficiently to make statements. The killings on the train would be having
repercussions. Main Headquarters would be wondering where Count Königstein had
got to, and Ludendorff would soon be wanting to know what had become of Major
Tauber. It needed only a single telephone call to link all three things up.
Within another day or two at most, every policeman— military, civil and
secret—in Germany would be hoping to earn promotion by capturing the elusive
Austrian Colonel.

That was why he had not
given his own name. If an evil fate decreed that he was to be sent back to
Germany, an interval must elapse before his true identity was discovered, and
during it he might regain his freedom. But the interval would not be a long
one, as his disappearance from Main Headquarters would soon be connected with
the Austrian Colonel who had bought a civilian suit in Aix that afternoon, and
the deserter who had arrived in Holland via Gulpham that night.

It was as bad a plight as
De Richleau had ever been in; and it was not until near dawn that he managed to
get a few hours’ sleep.

At ten o’clock he was
taken to the Law Courts and spent two hours seated on a hard bench in an
ante-room, with a sad-faced collection of men and women charged with minor
offences. Just on mid-day his turn came. He was led into the court, and put in
the dock in front of an elderly magistrate with a walrus moustache.

As he had feared might
prove the case, the issue was complicated by his theft of the bicycle, and he
was charged with that in addition to being a German deserter who had crossed
the frontier illegally. He pleaded guilty to the latter, but not guilty to the
theft, and declared himself to be a British subject.

Unfortunately for him the
police had found the owner of the bicycle, who was present in court; so the
theft was swiftly proved, and naturally prejudiced the magistrate against him
in the other matter. Having asked in a severe voice if the prisoner could name
anyone in Holland who knew him to be British, and received a reply in the
negative, he inquired if the police inspector could give any evidence of
nationality.

The inspector drew
attention to the fact that the prisoner spoke perfect German, then produced the
contents of his attaché case; among them his Zeiss binoculars, service pattern
pistol, the Austrian decoration and the photograph of Ilona.

The sight of these items
caused a plump, crop-headed man in the well of the court to jump to his feet
and point an accusing finger towards the dock. To De Richleau’s alarm, he
learned that this individual was the German Consul, and that it was now part of
his duties to secure the repatriation to Germany of all the Germans he could
run to earth who had not been granted official permits to remain in Holland.

After a scornful
reference to the fact that all deserters pretended to be Belgian, French or
British, the Consul insisted that the prisoner’s possessions clearly showed him
to be either German or Austrian, and demanded his immediate extradition.

Greatly perturbed by the
way matters were going, the Duke countered by saying in English: “I may speak
German well, but I speak English better, because it is my native tongue. There
are any number of people in London who can identify me, and I demand that the
British Minister in the Hague should at once be informed of my predicament.”

On this being translated,
the magistrate said gravely: “A man’s possessions cannot be taken as evidence
of his nationality. It is quite possible that, like the bicycle, they were
stolen.”

De Richleau breathed
again. The sight of the decoration, particularly, had filled him with dismay,
as, engraved in very small letters on its back, was the name Count Königstein.
But, by the grace of God, either the police had not noticed that or, like the
magistrate, believing the things to have been stolen, thought it not worth
mentioning. The magistrate went on:

“The British Legation is
to be informed of the prisoner’s presence here. I adjourn the case till Monday,
to give an opportunity for them to communicate with London and verify his
statement. If they cannot do so, he will be handed over to the German
authorities. In the meantime he will serve three days’ imprisonment for the
theft of the bicycle and pay the owner ten
gülden
compensation for damage done to the machine.”

In spite of the short
prison sentence, the Duke smiled with relief. In a carefully worded letter he
could easily pass on to the Legation the gist of the tremendously important
information he had brought out of Germany, convey the truth about himself, and
bring some member of its staff to his rescue well before the five-day
adjournment was up. But he had counted his chickens before they were hatched. A
moment later the German Consul was on his feet again.

“I desire to draw your
Worship’s attention to the neutrality laws,” he said quickly. “Under them it is
Holland’s responsibility to do her utmost to prevent leakage of information
from one combatant country to another. The prisoner admits that he has come
from Germany. If he is a deserter, as I maintain, it is possible that he may
have intended to betray his country. His anxiety to communicate with the
British Legation suggests that. If he is allowed to write to the Legation his
letter might contain much information harmful to Germany. I request that he
should be permitted to communicate to the British Legation, or any official
from it who may visit him here, only his name and the names of such relatives
or friends as he states can prove his identity.”

“Granted!” said the magistrate.
“Next case.”

As De Richleau was led
from the court he realized that he was in a frightful fix. He could prove that
he was British only through the Legation. Had he given his own name, with Sir
Pellinore’s as a reference, a telegram to London should have brought a reply
that every effort must be made to procure his release at once. But, as an
insurance against his immediate extradition, he had concealed his name and
given Sir Pellinore’s. He had chosen that of the baronet on an inspiration of
the moment; led to it by the urgency of the news he carried, and the thought
that while the Legation might leave ‘Tom Brown’ kicking his heels in Maastricht
for a week an S O S from anyone so well known as Sir Pellinore would bring a
British diplomat hastening to his assistance. But what was the situation now?

He was saddled with a
three-day prison sentence, and was not to be allowed to communicate with any
member of the Legation staff either verbally or in writing. If he continued to
maintain that he was Sir Pellinore, he could obviously not also give that name
as a reference for transmission to London. On the other hand, if he recanted
and gave his own, by the time he had completed his sentence the Kaiser himself
would have heard of his exploits and be screaming for his blood. As Holland was
neutral, whether he could prove that he was British or not, she would still
observe the extradition laws in cases of murder, and so hand him over to the
Germans to be tried and shot. It was, therefore, clear that, whatever else he
did, his life now depended more than ever on keeping his real name secret.

In consequence, when he
was asked for references by the cynical inspector in an office adjacent to the
court, as he had to say something he gave the names of half a dozen of his
friends in London. But the procedure was quite senseless as none of them could
possibly know that he was posing as Sir Pellinore.

De Richleau was then
taken in a Black Maria to the local prison. There, he did not fare too badly as
the injuries he had sustained the previous night secured him admission to the
sanatorium. But being excused from prison labour proved a mixed blessing, as he
had all the more time to brood: and he was not only worried about himself. He
had news of the utmost importance regarding the military situation, and the
thought of being prevented from getting it to London made him almost crazy with
frustration.