V for Vengeance (32 page)

Picking up his small bag, he gently eased the door open and listened intently. Hearing faint footsteps in the distance, he closed the door again, and waited patiently until their owner had passed; then he opened it once more and gave a swift glance either way down the corridor. No one was in sight, so he stepped out, drawing the door to behind him.

As he did not know the geography of the building he had no idea what he would come to, whichever way he turned; but keeping his dirty hands concealed as well as possible, he set off at a brisk walk along the underground passage towards the side of the hotel that overlooks the Place de la Concorde. His luck held good, as before he had encountered anybody he spotted in a side passage the very thing for which he was looking; a lift. Slipping into it, he pressed the top button and was swiftly carried up to the sixth floor.

Knowing that the one thing which might arouse suspicion was if he should be seen tiptoeing around, or looking this way or that as though he did not know his way about, he stepped boldly out and walked along the corridor, as if in a great hurry. A German orderly passed him without a glance, and twenty paces farther on he saw a door marked ‘
Bains
', which, again, was what he was looking for. On trying the handle he found that the room was not occupied, and, going inside, locked the door. Walking over to the fixed basins, he turned on the hot-tap and grinned to himself delightedly. As he had supposed, whoever else went without hot water in Paris, the German General Staff certainly would not. Turning on the bath, he proceeded to undress.

For the next half-hour he thoroughly enjoyed himself as he wallowed in the warm water, which eased the still strained muscles of his middle, and it tickled his sense of humour to think that, all unknown to the Nazis, one of their most inveterate enemies was making use of their quarters with impunity.

Having dried himself on his hand-towels, he shaved and dressed again, but this time put on the white barber's coat, packing his own in the bottom of his bag under the towels and hairdressing implements. He then left the bathroom as boldly as he had entered it, feeling greatly invigorated and refreshed.

His next problem was to find Major Schaub's room. He dared not go downstairs to the main hall and ask for it at the chief hall-porter's desk, as it was almost certain that a German would have been installed there, who would realise at once that he was not a member of the hotel staff; and as he could not produce any form of special pass he would promptly be put under arrest. He thought it unlikely that the Major's room would be up on the sixth floor, as that would be devoted mainly to orderlies, while junior officers would be accommodated on the fifth, and the real big shots of the German General Staff would have their rooms on the first and second. The probability was that an officer of the Major's rank would have a room on the third or fourth, and he decided to try the fourth floor first.

Going down to it in the lift, he knocked on the first door
he came to, opened it and smiled blandly at an officer who was sitting half-dressed on the bed, as he said: ‘Pardon,
monsieur
, I thought this was Major Schaub's room. I have come to cut his hair.'

The officer flung a curse at him, but in a surly voice added the information that Major Schaub didn't live along that corridor.

Bowing himself out, Kuporovitch tried another room, round the corner and some distance from the first. It was locked. He tried another. That was locked too. In the next a blue-eyed lieutenant was lying reading on his bed. He said quite pleasantly that he didn't know Major Schaub and asked what regiment he was in.

‘He's a Major of the
Schwartz Korps
,' replied Kuporovitch quickly.

The young man grinned. ‘You can bet he's got a good room, then. The S.S. people get the pickings everywhere. You'll probably find him down on the second floor.'

Thanking him politely, Kuporovitch went down two floors and tried again. In the first unlocked room that he came to a shaven-headed Colonel was working on a large chart, spread out in front of him on a table.

‘Major Schaub?' he said vaguely, with his mind evidently still on his work. ‘Let's see. He's not on this wing. I think his room is in the long corridor that runs the whole length of the front of the building—somewhere about two-twenty to two-twenty-six.'

Bowing himself out once more, Kuporovitch tried two-twenty-four. The room was occupied by a soldier-servant who was busily polishing the buttons of an officer's
feldgrau
uniform greatcoat.

‘You got the number wrong, Frenchy,' he said, looking up. ‘Major Schaub's in two-eighteen.'

With a sigh of relief Kuporovitch closed the door and went along to two-eighteen. He knocked twice, but there was no reply, and on turning the handle he found that the door was locked. Pocketing his gun, he made his way to the nearest lavatory and, locking himself in there, sat down to wait.

At intervals of about twenty minutes thereafter he slipped out and tried the Major's door again, but he had no luck
until his fourth attempt, when in answer to his knock a sharp voice called: ‘Come in!'

Kuporovitch opened the door and stepped inside. The tall, chunky-faced Major was in his shirt-sleeves, standing in front of his dressing table. Turning round, he said with a quick frown: ‘What the devil do you want?'

Transferring his bag to his left hand, Kuporovitch pulled his gun out of his pocket, pointed it at the Major, and replied:

‘You! Put your hands up!'

‘
Gott in Himmel!
' exclaimed the Major suddenly recognising him. ‘If it isn't that damn' Russian! How the hell did you get in here?'

‘That's none of your business,' Kuporovitch snapped. ‘Put your hands up, or I'll fill your stomach full of lead!'

The German went a little pale, but did not do as he was ordered. He even managed to raise a faint smile, as he said: ‘Don't be a fool! If you let that thing off you'll bring a score of people running and be dead as mutton yourself before you know it.'

Kuporovitch shrugged. ‘I
should
be a fool if I
didn't
realise that. It's you who are the fool,
Herr Major
, because
you
do not realise that you're facing a man
who does not mind if he dies
. At the moment I have nothing to live for. However, I'm here to see if we can't alter that. If you're prepared to do as I tell you I shall then have something to live for again. If not, then neither of us will leave this room alive.'

Major Schaub, in fact, was no fool at all, and his swift brain had already put two and two together. Ignoring Kuporovitch's pistol, he sat down on the bed and said: ‘Then you've come here about that pretty little French girl you're interested in, eh? The one you'd been dining with the first time we met, and you know that we pulled her in again last night. Not on suspicion this time, though: she's facing a charge of conspiracy against the Third Reich.'

‘Whatever charge you've made against her—if she ever has to face it, you'll be dead first!' the Russian replied quietly. ‘Have I made myself clear?'

‘Quite clear,' nodded the Major. ‘You've managed to bribe or smuggle your way in here with the idea of threatening me
with death unless I'm willing to give you an order for the release of your girl friend?'

‘Exactly.'

Well, I'll tell you here and now that you're not going to get it. If you set no value on your skin you can shoot me if you like. If you do you'll be shot yourself before you get ten yards down the corridor, and that won't do your girl friend any good. Still, I've no wish to be shot; so if you like I'll make a bargain with you. Go as you came, and I'll give you five minutes' start; but that's all I'm prepared to do. Now take your choice!'

Kuporovitch realised that his bluff had been called, but as he was a completely ruthless person he had by no means exhausted the possibilities of the situation. Flicking over the safety-catch of his pistol, he walked quietly up to the Major and said: ‘It's a pity that you're not prepared to be reasonable.' Then, without warning, he suddenly swung the hand that held his gun so that it struck the Major hard on the side of the face.

As the German's mouth opened to let out a yell Kuporovitch dropped the gun and leapt upon him, burying his thumbs and fingers in the Major's neck and forcing him back upon the bed.

Wolfram Schaub was a strong man, but he was no match for the weighty Russian. In vain he tore frantically at the choking fingers until red circles began to spin in the blackness before his eyes; then his adversary picked him up bodily and banged his head twice against the bedroom wall. Dazed by the blows, and with his cheek bleeding from a nasty cut where the pistol had gashed him, he collapsed in a limp heap.

Three minutes later Kuporovitch had him trussed up with the blind-cords and lightly gagged so that he could mutter, but not shout. Then, propping his enemy up on the bed against the wall, the Russian stood there, grinning with diabolical satisfaction at his handiwork.

‘Now,' he said, ‘must I show you some of the tricks that the Cheka used to practise on their Czarist prisoners, or will you sign the order that I require?'

Schaub shook his head.

‘All right then. We'll see just how much guts you really have. There was nothing particularly brave in calling my bluff
just now. You knew very well that I should not be such a fool as to shoot you and bring half the Nazis in this huge rabbit warren running with their guns; but I have never believed that the Germans are a courageous people. The Russians, now, are really brave, and so are the British. It is one thing which the two races have in common—both of us are used to losing battles, but we fight on just the same, because we refuse to acknowledge it when we are beaten. That is why neither country has ever been defeated in a major war.'

The Tartar streak in Kuporovitch had now come to the surface. Time had ceased to exist for him, and the fact that he was alone in the citadel of his enemies had passed from his mind as he went on: ‘Even in the First World War you never broke the spirit of us Russians. It took two Revolutions, six months apart, before we were forced out of the game. But you Germans are different; like all other European races, there have been times when your country has been overrun and you have been compelled to sue for peace. You are great fellows—as long as you are victorious and fighting people who are not so well armed or organised as yourselves; but once things begin to go against you it's a very different story. You throw your hands up in the air and yell ‘
Kamerad
!' Now, will you sign the paper that I want from you, or must I give you a little of the medicine that you have been giving to other people?'

Again the Major shook his head.

‘As you wish,' Kuporovitch grinned. ‘Quite honestly, I'm going to enjoy this, because I dislike you Nazis, and I've been waiting to get a crack at one for quite a little time. I wonder if you ever heard of a young woman called Paula von Steinmetz?'

On the Major making no sign Kuporovitch continued: ‘The little Paula was a friend of mine. She made a most delightful mistress, but whenever I think of the life you filthy Nazis forced that poor child to lead it makes me almost physically sick. Honest marriage suits some people, and recently I've come to feel that even in my own case there is much to be said for it. Free love I do not mind. What would we healthy fellows do without it? Prostitution is fair enough in a world that has not yet learnt to organise itself better. But you devils
had Paula's brother in a concentration camp. By a threat of torturing him to death you forced her to give herself to Norwegians and Dutchmen and Belgians—in order that she might recruit Fifth Columnists for you—and that I do not like at all. This comes to you from Paula.'

As he spoke the last word the Russian hit the Major a savage blow in the mouth with his clenched fist, but he did not stop there. He proceeded to lam into him, right, left, and centre, until both his eyes were closed, his face half pulp, and he was writhing in agony from terrific punches in the solar plexus.

Breathing a little heavily, Kuporovitch at length let up, helped himself to a cigarette, lit it and began to look through the drawers of the Major's dressing-table until he found some sheets of official paper and a fountain-pen. Then he turned round and undid the now blood-soaked towel which he had used to gag his victim.

Schaub was still conscious, as, despite the ruthless ferocity of his attack, Kuporovitch had been careful not to strike him any blow that would have knocked him out. Taking him by the shoulder, the Russian dragged him up into a sitting position and shook him roughly, as he said:

‘Do you want a little more, or are you prepared now to do your stuff?'

The Major spat out a loose tooth, mumbled a stream of blasphemies, then murmured: ‘All right, you hell-hound. You win! But as sure as my name's Wolfram I'll get even with you for this—before you're much older.'

‘The future will take care of itself,' replied Kuporovitch, untying the German's hands, and pushing him over to the dressing-table where he had set out the pen and paper. ‘No monkey-tricks now,' he added. ‘I know that Madeleine Lavallière is in the
Cherche-Midi
, so I want an order from you to the Governor of the prison to hand her over without questions to anyone who may present that paper to him. If you try to double-cross me I'll get back here somehow and skin you alive.'

The S.S. man had no more fight left in him. He wrote out the order, signed it, and handed it to his captor. Kuporovitch put it in his pocket and said:

‘I'm not giving you the chance to raise an alarm until I'm out of this place. Get back on the bed now; I mean to tie you up and gag you again.'

Obediently Schaub lay down and rested his aching head on the pillow; but before Kuporovitch inserted the gag in his mouth he managed one malicious twisted smile, as he snarled: