Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (94 page)

At length, with a great
effort, he pulled himself together and sat down again at the small table. In
case—just in case—the worst happened, there were still things that he ought to
do. Forcing himself to concentrate, he wrote his last will and testament; then
started on letters to numerous friends. In each he said that he had had the
misfortune to be caught in Austria, tried and condemned to death for espionage.
He no longer felt any shame at admitting that he had acted as a spy. On the
contrary, he now derived a curious pride in doing so. He added that he was much
consoled by the thought that he had been of some service to the Allied cause;
then sent all good wishes, and endeavoured to end his letters on as light a
note as possible.

It was nearly eleven o’clock
when Count Zelltin entered the cell, accompanied by Major Ronge. The Duke was
still writing. He at once stood up and produced his letter for Ilona, with the
request that it should be sent off by hand immediately.

The Commandant replied
with a shrug: “I see no particular hurry about this. It will be taken care of
with those others you are writing, and duly forwarded to-morrow morning.”

De Richleau’s mouth was
dry. He swallowed, and said:
“Herr Graf,
I
have a particular reason for wishing it to go to-night. As you are aware, I am
an honorary Colonel in Her Imperial Highness’s regiment. She has always been
extremely gracious to me, and has even honoured me with her personal
friendship. Even if she is in no position to alleviate my case, I feel certain
that, if informed of it, she will give me the benefit of her prayers at the
hour of my execution.”

For a moment Count
Zelltin played with one tip of his fluffed-out ginger moustache, then he said: “It
is against regulations in such a case as yours for any letters to be sent till
after execution. But I find it hard to refuse a last request from a man who has
been condemned to death. All right; give it—”

“One moment,
Herr Graf!”
Ronge intervened swiftly, catching
the Commandant’s arm as he extended his hand for the letter. “If you take my
advice, you’ll think again before you allow this fellow to communicate with Her
Imperial Highness. He is a special protégé of hers. If she learns that he is to
be shot, she will create a fine to-do. She will demand that his execution shall
be postponed until further inquiries have been made. And you will be faced with
the choice of letting her have her way or risking the trouble she can make for
you in Vienna.”

Still the Commandant
seemed to hesitate, and for several seconds the three of them stood there in so
tense a silence that one could have heard the ticking of a watch. Then De
Richleau began to plead; but Ronge cut him short, and exclaimed to the
Commandant:

“You must not send it! I
tell you it would be a crazy thing to do! This man has earned death a dozen
times over! He is one of the most dangerous devils I have ever had to deal
with. You can’t possibly wish to give him this chance to prolong his life!”

Count Zelltin turned to
the Secret Service Chief with a sigh, and muttered: “Well, you know more about
these things than I do. Perhaps you’re right.” Then he glanced at De Richleau,
made him a formal bow, and said, “I regret, but I cannot see my way to send
your letter.”

De Richleau felt a sudden
shiver start to run through him, but he suppressed it. Drawing himself up like
a French aristocrat about to be taken to the guillotine, he shrugged, made an
airy gesture with his hand, and replied:

“Very well, then. In that
case I will get a few hours’ sleep. At three o’clock be good enough to send me
a priest.”

* * * * *

It was six o’clock in the
morning. Dawn had already come an hour ago, and Ilona had woken with it. Since
she had been at Hohenembs the doctors had made her spend a great deal of her
time in bed; and even during the periods when her temperature remained normal
they made her lie down for a nap in the afternoons; so she had acquired the
habit of waking early.

During those early
morning hours she rarely read. She allowed her thoughts to drift, and they
ranged over many things. Down there on the Swiss frontier she was far removed
from all the battle fronts; but she thought a lot about them and the misery
they were bringing to the women of her country.

To begin with, like
nearly every young person, she had felt a certain glamour and excitement at the
coming of war. Her conviction that the Serbs were a barbarous race of
murderers, who deserved severe chastisement, was still unshaken. She had not a
shadow of doubt that the Dual Monarchy’s cause was just, and that but for the
unscrupulous ambitions of other countries the war would never have spread. Yet
she had soon been given cause to rue it, for it had robbed her of her lover—
the only lover she had ever had in her life. And she realized now that she was
only one of millions of women to whom the war had brought the agony of
separation.

Only the day before she
had had a letter from her cousin, the Archduke Charles, who had become the Heir
Apparent on Franz Ferdinand’s death. He was a young man of mild and kindly
disposition; and he wrote from his headquarters on the Russian front that every
day the war filled him with greater horror. He said that the troops who had
started out so gaily were now gaunt with fatigue and terror; that often they
had to be driven to the attack by their officers threatening to shoot them from
behind; and that even regiments which had fought with great bravery to begin
with now broke and fled at the dread cry ‘The Cossacks are coming!’ But that
they could not be blamed for that, as of the great host that had marched
against the Czar one man out of every three would never return to his wife or
sweetheart.

Ilona would have given
her life to stop it, but she realized the futility
of
such a thought. She could only be thankful that,
temporarily at least, she had saved one couple from the fate that had already
overtaken so many. At the end of August, although Dr. Bruckner had not actually
told her that her case was hopeless, she had known that he considered it so,
and she had used that as a lever to make Adam Grünne abandon his intention of
leaving for the front. He and Sárolta had then been on their honeymoon, and,
now that they were married, were qualified to become the Master and Mistress of
her Household. With great tact she had persuaded the Aulendorfs to return to
Vienna, so that she could appoint the Count and Countess Grünne in their place,
and thus protect Sárolta for a while from premature widowhood.

They had taken over their
new duties on the previous Saturday, and she had awaited their arrival with
hardly bearable impatience; not only because she was naturally eager to see
these dear friends again, but because in her letter to Adam she had asked him
to see Major Ronge on his way through Vienna, and find out anything that was
known about De Richleau since his disappearance.

The K.S. Chief had a grim
tale to tell and had shown Adam all the data on the case that he had received
from Colonel Nicolai. Adam had been greatly worried, and at first considered
suppressing the worst accusations in the account he gave Ilona. But
S
á
rolta
had
said it was better that she should be told the whole truth by a friend, as she
might otherwise learn it bluntly and brutally from someone else later; so
together they had given her as gently as they could the story of her lover’s
desperate acts after leaving Vienna.

Ilona had taken it much
better than Adam expected. She had been quick to seize upon the fact that De
Richleau had committed no crime against Austria, and to point out that, even if
he wore guilty of all the charges laid against him, whatever he had done had been
done in the service of his country. She glowed with pride at the thought of his
daring and resource, and the way that he had fooled the Germans, whom they all
detested. Above all, she was overjoyed to know that he had succeeded in getting
away.

Over the week-end they
had talked of little else; and privately Adam admitted to S
á
rolta
that she had been right in urging him to conceal nothing. It was clear that
Ilona did not care if the Duke had committed every crime in the calendar: she
thought of him only as her man, and was animated by a new gaiety and happiness
from the knowledge that he was safe and free.

Now, as she lay in bed,
she was thinking of him, and wondering what he was doing. Had he become an
officer of the British Army? Even if he had, he might be able to get leave and
come to Switzerland. If so, she could easily cross the frontier and meet him
there. Her doctor was urging her to move there as it was. How marvellous it
would be if they could be together again—even for a few days.

A room on the ground
floor had been turned into a bedroom for her, so that she could go straight out
to sit in the sunshine on the small terrace, without the fatigue of going up
and down stairs. Her curtains had not yet been drawn back and the room was
still in semi-darkness; but outside it was full daylight.

Suddenly the shrilling of
the front door bell cut across her thoughts. She wondered who it could possibly
be at such an early hour in the morning. It shrilled again, and
again—impatiently, urgently. Then there came footsteps in the hall, followed by
the faint sound of voices in hurried argument.

After a few minutes there
was a knock on her door, and at her call to enter, one of the housemaids looked
in. The girl was not yet fully dressed, and said with a flustered air:

“I am sorry to disturb
Your Highness, but there is a priest here. He insists on seeing you, and won’t
take no for an answer.”

“A priest!” exclaimed
Ilona. “What does he want?”

“He has brought a letter.
He says he must give it you personally, and that he promised to deliver it at
once. He says it’s from a Count Königstein.”

In an instant Ilona was
out of bed. Her long, curling chestnut hair was loose and unbrushed, but she
shook it back from her head, hastily pulled a satin dressing-gown over her
nightdress, and cried:

“Show him in! Show him in
at once!”

As the maid disappeared,
Ilona pulled back the curtains of the window, and the early morning sunlight
came streaming in. At the joyous thought of a letter from her lover, her heart
was pounding as though it would burst through her breast. The blood had rushed
to her cheeks; her blue eyes were shining. Turning, she glimpsed the
black-robed figure in the still darkened hall just outside the doorway.
Stretching out her hand, she gasped excitedly:

“Bless you for coming,
Father! Give it me! Please give it me!”

The priest stepped across
the threshold, quickly closed the door behind him, and only then took off his
big shovel-brimmed hat.

She took one pace
forward, staggered and nearly fell. With a little moan of almost unbearable
ecstasy, she held out her arms.

The man in priest’s
clothing caught her to him. It was De Richleau.

* * * * *

Side by side, his arm
about her, they sat upon her crumpled bed. He had told her how he had been
caught, and of his trial, and was just beginning the story of his doings after
he had left Vienna, when she clapped a soft hand over his mouth.

“Enough! Enough! Adam
found out for me from Major Ronge about all the awful things you’ve done, or
that are imputed to you. The truth could not be worse than what they told me.
But I’ve forgotten it already; and I refuse to hear another word about it.”

He kissed her hand and
sighed with relief. “You forgive me then?”

“Of course. Nothing
matters except that you have come back to me.”

“I had to commit another
crime this morning to do so,” he confessed. “To get these clothes I had to lay
hands on a priest.”

“Oh Armand! That was
sacrilege!” Her eyes widened in sudden horror. “You—you did not—”

“No. I put him only to a
slight inconvenience. When Count Zelltin refused to send my letter to you, I
realized that in a priest lay the one chance I had left. I hoped to make him my
messenger, but had also to provide against failing in that. I asked them to
send him to me at three o’clock. That left ample time for him to take a letter
to you; but at that hour, if he refused, everyone except the guard would be
asleep. Although I pleaded with him very hard, he did refuse. He said he could
not break the regulations. I asked him then if he remembered the words ‘Render
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’.”