V for Vengeance (30 page)

Now and again a bomb crumped in the distance; then one fell much nearer which shook the whole house. He heard the next one coming. It made a long whistling sound, and the whole place rocked, as it exploded with a roar. Like all old soldiers, Gregory loathed being bombed and never sought to
disguise from himself that he was slightly frightened, but reason always came to his aid at such moments. He invariably kept telling himself that with the millions who were still in London, and the few hundred casualties which occurred, even in the worst raids, the odds were extraordinarily big against his being hit.

As he lay there his cynical sense of humour was tickled by a sudden thought of how ironical it would be if, having in the past months survived so many dangers, he should be killed by a bomb in his own comfortable bed, now that he had at last succeeded in getting safely back to London.

Even as the thought crossed his mind another bomb whistled down. As it exploded with a terrific crack he clenched his hands instinctively; then he caught the rumble of masses of bricks, as a nearby house collapsed like a landslide into the street.

Another moment passed, then he suddenly saw the ceiling above him crack. It gaped wide open. The two halves parted and started to swing down as though they were on hinges. Then the whole thing seemed to dissolve in clouds of dust and smoke as a bomb burst above his head. Next second he was whirled midst flying bricks, plaster and fragments of smashed furniture into an awful soul-destroying darkness.

Stefan Kuporovitch hung like a sack over the branch of a tree. With a painful effort he opened his eyes, but he was in complete darkness and for a moment he had no idea where he was or what had happened to him. Then, all that had occurred before he had lost consciousness slowly filtered back into his bemused brain.

The nursing-home had been raided while he and Gregory were in conference with Lacroix. The little Colonel had been smuggled out of his coffin. Just as the mutes were getting it into the hearse Major Schaub had appeared on the scene and demanded that it should be opened. Gregory had done what was undoubtedly the right thing in precipitating a gun-fight rather than allow their chief to be arrested. There had been a wild
mêlée
, in which a score of shots had been exchanged, and Kuporovitch himself had shot one of the Nazis through the head. Then he had dragged Madeleine back through the door of the nursing-home, slammed it to and bolted it.

Someone had said that the house was surrounded by the police, so, instead of making for the courtyard at its back, he had rushed Madeleine and Nurse Yolanda upstairs, with the idea of getting them away over the neighbouring roofs. Just as they reached the attic the trap-door in its ceiling had opened and a French policeman came plunging down the ladder.

Kuporovitch had shot him, but a volley of shots had then come spattering down from the man's companions who were still out on the roof; so Kuporovitch had rushed the two girls out of the room again, locking its door behind him. As they hurried downstairs they heard the sounds of fighting below,
which told them that the police had already broken in through either the front or back of the house and were in combat with some of Lacroix's agents, who had been caught down in the dining-room. Kuporovitch had then pushed his two charges into a back bedroom on the second floor.

On looking out of the window he had seen no movement in the courtyard, and judged it possible that the police who had been detailed to approach the house from behind were now inside. It immediately occurred to him that if they were engaged in the fight that was raging below, and his own party could only get down to the courtyard, they might escape by way of it.

Dragging the sheets and blankets from the bed, with the aid of the two girls he had knotted the ends of the bedclothes together so that they formed a stout rope. Within three minutes of their entering the room they had one end of the knotted bedclothes tied firmly to the bed and the other dangling through the window within a few feet of the courtyard.

Madeleine had insisted that Nurse Yolanda should go first, and the pretty little nurse had swarmed down hand over hand, reaching the ground in safety. Madeleine followed, but was not so lucky. In their haste to make their improvised rope one of the knots had not been sufficiently tightly tied. When she was half-way to the ground the rope parted just below the window-sill, and she fell the last six feet.

It was already semi-dark, and as Kuporovitch stared down he had not been able to see very clearly; but enough to relieve his apprehensions for the moment, as through the grey murk of the winter evening he saw Madeleine pick herself up, and knew that she could not have hurt herself very badly.

Next second his heart had leapt to his mouth again. Dark forms had suddenly come running from the back of the house and with excited shouts seized upon the two young women. For a few seconds the Russian had remained there, leaning right out of the window. He dared not fire, as in the scrimmage it was just as likely that he would have shot one of the girls as either of their attackers; yet he knew that his only hope of rescuing them now lay in getting down to the courtyard. As the rope had parted just below the window-sill there was only one thing for it: the nearest branches of a big elm
tree which grew in the courtyard were no more than ten feet distant from the window out of which he was leaning. Climbing up on to the sill, he launched himself with clutching hands into the now scanty autumn foliage, hoping that he would be able either to grab a branch or that some of them would at least break his fall before he reached the ground.

As he plunged forward he had felt the twigs scratching at his hands and face; then a terrific blow on the head as his forehead came into violent contact with the upper part of the tree-trunk. Stars and whirling circles had flamed for a second before his eyes, as he crashed downwards through the darkness, then he had been brought up with a terrific jolt that had driven the breath out of his body, and passed clean out.

When he came to he realised that he had fallen on to one of the main branches of the big tree and was still hanging there. Owing to their struggle with the girls, and the semi-darkness, the police had evidently not seen him when he had been leaning out of the window, or witnessed his jump from it into the tree. As they could not have known how many people there were inside the home to start with, there was no reason at all for them to search for him, and they had evidently gone off with their prisoners, imagining that they had netted the whole bag, while he was suspended in the tree unconscious.

He had the grandfather of all headaches from the blow against the tree-trunk which had knocked him out, and his middle was terribly bruised and sore from its violent contact with the big branch over which he was dangling. Very gently he raised himself up until he was spread at full length along it, wriggled back to the tree-trunk and cautiously lowered himself to the ground.

Sitting down there, with his back propped up against the tree while he recovered a little, he began to consider what he had better do.

Madeleine had undoubtedly been arrested, and by now was probably in a cell at the
Sûreté
or some other prison. The thought that she might be shot or sent to a concentration camp was absolute agony to him, and he knew that he must act quickly if he was to have any hope at all of rescuing her.

Having seen the hearse dash off, he felt reasonably confident
that Gregory and Lacroix had got away, so his first thought was to set off for Vichy to secure the Colonel's aid. But he had no papers which would enable him to pass the frontier between Occupied and Unoccupied France, and he realised at once that, lacking these, and with the difficulty of obtaining transport, it would probably take him days to make his way to Vichy; and even when he got there he might find that Lacroix had been captured after all. In any case, time ruled out that idea.

His next thought was to try to get hold of Lieutenant Ribaud. As he was still acting under the Nazis he should be able to find out where Madeleine had been taken and, as Lacroix's principal agent in Paris, would undoubtedly give all the help he could. Perhaps he might even be able so to arrange matters that Madeleine could be rescued with a minimum of risk to herself and her rescuers.

Having decided on his line of action Kuporovitch got to his feet and tiptoed softly towards the house. A considerable sum of Lacroix's money was kept by Madeleine in a secret hiding-place in her room against emergencies, and it seemed foolish to leave it there if there was any chance of getting hold of it.

The back door was not locked, and pushing it gently he crept inside. The passage was in darkness, but a light showed in the front hall, and he caught the sound of voices before he had advanced more than half a dozen paces. Evidently the police had left some of their people there to seize any of the agents who might come to the house, unaware that it had been raided. As he still had his pistol, in other circumstances Kuporovitch would have gone forward; but as Madeleine's only hope now lay in his remaining at liberty he decided that at the moment he had no right to risk being captured, or a fight in which he might get shot. Turning round, he tiptoed cautiously back again, out into the courtyard and through an alley which led from it to a small side street a hundred paces from the back of the house.

It took him some ten minutes to find a telephone-box, but having got on to the
Sûreté
he was put through to the Lieutenant almost at once.

‘I'm afraid my name would not convey anything to you,'
he said, ‘but I have some important information which I should like to give to you personally, if it is possible for you to come out and meet me somewhere.'

Ribaud was too wise a man to ask any embarrassing questions from such a caller, and he replied: ‘I cannot get away from my office for about three-quarters of an hour, and after that I have a dinner appointment at which I must not be late, but I could see you for a few minutes, if you can arrange to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal at a quarter to eight. How about the Café de I'Univers, which is right opposite, and adjoins the Hôtel du Louvre?'

‘That would suit me admirably,' said Kuporovitch, and rang off.

Well before a quarter to eight, he was seated at one of the tables near the door inside the café. Soon afterwards he saw the short, tubby French detective come in, and made an inconspicuous signal to him.

At first Ribaud did not recognise Kuporovitch, as he had only seen him once before for a few moments in Major Schaub's room on the night that he had been arrested; but as he sat down the Russian's startling black eyebrows, which made such a sharp contrast to his grey hair, unlocked a cell in the detective's memory.

‘So you got away,' he said, beckoning to the waiter to take his order.

‘You knew about the raid, then?' Kuporovitch said softly, when the waiter had left them.

‘Yes—I've just come from helping in the examination of some of our friends who were brought in.'

‘I take it Madeleine Lavallière was among them?'

‘Yes.'

‘I thought as much,' nodded Kuporovitch sadly, ‘but how did you guess that I was one of the people who were using the home?'

‘I guessed it,' smiled the detective. ‘The fact of a stranger who gave no name ringing me up at such a time, and then to find that it was you, Madeleine Lavallière's old friend, was quite enough. How did you manage to get away?'

Kuporovitch told him, adding that as the police were still in the house he hoped that some measures could be taken
to warn those of its occupants who had not been caught in the raid.

‘As far as is possible that has already been done, but was it that only about which you wished to see me?'

‘Partly that, but also on Madeleine's account. I hope to God that those brutes are not ill-treating her!'

‘No, she's all right for the moment, as she is still in the hands of our own police. But I wouldn't care to be in the shoes of any of these poor friends of ours when they're handed over to the Gestapo, as they will have to be.'

‘Can you do nothing to prevent that?'

Ribaud shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, no. All of us must stand on our own feet. We know what we're risking when we enter upon the work upon which we are engaged. If we're caught that's just too bad, but no other member of our organisation must jeopardise himself by endeavouring to help friends who have fallen by the way. That is an order. Of course, if I could do anything without endangering my own position—just as I got Madeleine released before when there was no serious charge against her, and yourself put over the frontier—I would willingly do it; but it is necessary that we should place our organisation before sentiment. As our Chief's principal hidden ear in the police service of Occupied France, it would be criminal in my own case to do anything which might cause myself to become suspect.'

Kuporovitch nodded. ‘I quite understand that, but my case is somewhat different. I'm just a foreigner who hates the Nazis and wishes France well. I have been playing my part among the French freedom-fighters with the greatest willingness; but now the safety and the life of the woman that I love are involved, and my first duty is to her. I am prepared to face any risk for the smallest chance of getting her out of the hands of the Gestapo. Can you suggest to me any way in which I might set to work?'

‘I only wish I could'—Ribaud spread out his hands—‘but their police system is virtually watertight. These Germans have an absolute genius for organisation, and, God knows, in the last few years the Nazis have had plenty of practice in seeing to it that their prisoners don't escape. She will undergo preliminary examination here, then in the course of a few
days she will probably be sent to Germany; but night and day she will be under guard. I fear your chances of saving her are extremely slender.'

‘At least you can tell me where she will be imprisoned while she remains in Paris,' said Kuporovitch; ‘or will she be kept at the
Sûreté?
'