V for Vengeance (49 page)

Suddenly Kuporovitch gripped Gregory's arm, but at the same second Gregory had seen the same thing. A police car was running quietly out of the yard, and in its back they could plainly see Madeleine seated beside an
agent de ville.
They had long since discussed their method of attack in detail, and now, without an instant's hesitation, they put it into operation.

While Kuporovitch remained concealed in the doorway Gregory stepped out on to the pavement and hailed the driver of the car. Just as the man was about to put on speed he turned with a look of surprise. Letting the car run gently on he called: ‘What d'you want?'

Gregory ran swiftly across the road to him, crying as he ran: ‘For God's sake come and help me! Some men have broken into my apartment in that house. They've half-murdered my wife, and I only just managed to get away.'

The police chauffeur stopped the car and leant out of it, as he said quickly: ‘That's bad luck, but we've got a prisoner and can't leave the car. There are scores of our chaps in the yard of the
Sûreté
there. Give a shout to some of them.'

Gregory was now right close up to the man, and he waited
on tenterhooks for the next act in their skilfully staged plot. Suddenly it came—a single shot rang out. Unseen by the driver, Kuporovitch had come up behind the car and fired through its window, shooting through the back the
agent de ville
who was sitting next to Madeleine.

The instant Gregory heard the shot his hand darted forward. Grabbing the police chauffeur by the throat he dragged him from the seat. Then, lifting his fist, he hit the man a hard blow between the eyes, dropping him in the roadway and, scrambling into the car, seized the wheel.

Meanwhile, Kuporovitch had run round the other side of the car. He jumped in beside Gregory, and with his gun still in his hand thrust it in the face of the
agent de ville
; but he had no necessity to shoot again. The man was lying back, either unconscious or dead.

The single report of the Russian's automatic had been enough to raise the alarm in the courtyard of the
Sûreté.
Other policemen were now running from it, shouting at them to halt; but Gregory had the brake off. He let in the clutch and the car shot forward.

A pistol cracked, another and another. The shots echoed through the quiet dawnlit street. A bullet clanged on the metal-work of the car; another hit one of the rear tyres, which went off with a loud plop. The car swerved wildly, but Gregory managed to get it under control. Crouching over the wheel he drove on all out, in spite of the bumping rim.

But he knew that he would never be able to get clear away in the car now. The rim must be cutting the flattened tyre to pieces, and the stout rubber-covered canvas might catch in the axle, causing it to jam. In addition, there had been a number of other cars in the courtyard of the
Sûreté.
In them the police would give chase at once, and he could not hope to outdistance the pursuit with one of his back tyres gone.

He took the first corner to the left at full speed, ran on a little way, then turned right, into the entrance of a mews. ‘Come on!' he cried, jumping out. ‘We've got to run for it!'

Kuporovitch had been leaning over the back of the seat examining the
agent de ville.
He found that his victim was still breathing, and he hoped the fellow would live. He had little time for the French police who were now co-operating
with the Germans, but he knew that they were more or less forced to do so, and it had been particularly distasteful to have to shoot the fellow in the back; but Madeleine's safety being involved, he had not hesitated an instant, as it was so obviously the one certain means of putting the man out of action before he could offer any resistance.

There was no time to examine the policeman further, so Kuporovitch extricated his body from the car and, seizing Madeleine's arm, began to run. Gregory had only waited to see that the other two were out before setting off at a pace which he thought Madeleine could manage.

As it was still early the mews was empty, except for one chauffeur who was cleaning a car, which had a red label
Médecin
pasted on its windscreen. At first the man made as though to intercept them, but Gregory cried: ‘Get out of the way! The Germans and the police are after us!'

Immediately the man's expression changed. He pointed to his garage. ‘Get in there! I'll tell them you ran past.'

With a hurried word of thanks they ran into the garage and crouched down behind an empty trailer that occupied the back of it, while the chauffeur went on cleaning his car.

A moment later they heard a police car drive up. Excited questions were flung at the man who had hidden them; but apparently the police were satisfied with his replies, as they drove on, and silence again fell in the mews.

After another few minutes the chauffeur came in to them and said: ‘The coast's clear now, but they may come back later to make a more careful search. You'd better get out while the going's good.'

As they thanked him for his help he shrugged: ‘Oh, that's nothing. It's a treat to be able to put one over on the police, now they've gone in with those filthy Boches.'

Gregory went ahead, telling the other two to follow him at about fifty yards, so that they would have a chance to get away if he ran into trouble on going round a corner. At each corner he paused for a cautious peep into the street ahead before advancing further.

In this manner they gradually worked their way down to the south bank of the river and along it to the Pont de Bercy; but when they reached the bridge they suffered a grievous disappointment.
It was now nearly six o'clock, and the
Sans Souci
with her string of barges was no longer there. The many delays with which they had met during the night had made them miss the boat, and now the one lifeline upon which they had pinned their hopes of reaching freedom was cut.

At the corner of the bridge they held a swift consultation. Apart from Ribaud, who dared help them no further, they now had not a single friend left in Paris, and full daylight had come. People were moving in the streets, and Madeleine's description would soon be circulated to every police station in Paris. To attempt to pass the police posts on the outskirts of the city in daytime would be sheer madness, and it was imperative for them to find some cover until nightfall. It was Gregory who suddenly remembered the deserted warehouse into which they had emerged from the catacombs late the previous night.

The moment he suggested they should go there the others agreed to his idea, and they set off. The warehouse lay only a few hundred yards away, on the far side of the quay. Its door had been left ajar, and slipping inside they pushed home the wooden staple.

As their eyes became accustomed to the dim light in the old building they saw some discarded packing-cases in one corner, and going over to them sat down. Then, for the first time, Madeleine was able to bless her rescuers and tell them in detail what had happened.

On the previous night she and Pierre had gone upstairs at seven o'clock to get their things on, preparatory to leaving the house. He had walked into her room, locked the door behind him and told her that he had no intention of taking her to the meeting, as he felt certain that she meant to go off with Kuporovitch.

There had been a frightful scene, in which she had used arguments, entreaties and threats, finally telling him that if he really kept her there all night as he proposed to do Kuporovitch would come back in the morning and beat him to a jelly.

Upon that Pierre had let the cat out of the bag. He was so crazy with jealousy that he had given away the meeting-place
to the police solely with the intention of getting his rival out of the way once and for all.

At this horrifying disclosure Madeleine had pleaded with him anew; but he had argued that it was now too late to do anything, even if he wanted to. She had disputed that, but he had pointed out that, although there might still be time to warn the people at the meeting before the police arrived, he would never now be able to conceal the fact that it was he who had given the meeting place away, and the result would be that they'd hunt him down and execute him as a traitor.

When she had asked him about his future plans he had said with all the conceit and stupidity of a weak man who is obsessed by one idea that, since he had put Kuporovitch out of the running, there was no further bar to her coming away with him the following day to his aunt's home in Limoges.

She had been very tempted to claw his face to ribbons with her nails, but she knew that she was not strong enough to overcome him and that the thing which mattered above all else was for her to get a warning to the meeting. Madame Chautemps had gone off that afternoon, as arranged, to her relatives at Rheims, so there was no one else in the house except Luc Ferrière, and Madeleine had felt that she would not get much help from him if she brought him upstairs by shouting. On deciding that her only resort was guile she had then played the part of a weak female and pretended to be entirely overcome.

Pierre had attempted to console her, and after a little she had made a show of accepting her situation philosophically, in the hope that he would go away and leave her; as, even if he locked the door behind him, once she was alone she would have been able to get out of the window by a shed that lay below it, into the backyard. But he had made it clear that he did not trust her and meant to sit up with her all night.

She had then suggested that they might as well have some supper and unpacked the small parcel of things which she had been going to take with her. Among them was a thermos with soup in it, and as she always carried a sleeping draught in her nursing kit in case of emergency, she had managed to put it, while distracting his attention, into Pierre's portion of the soup.

As soon as they had finished their picnic meal she had declared that, even if he was determined to stay there all night, she was not going to allow that to prevent her from getting what sleep she could, and, lying on her bed fully dressed, she had put out the light while he remained seated in an armchair.

Normally the sleeping draught would have done its work in half an hour; but Pierre was in such a state of excited tension that Madeleine began to fear that it was not going to work at all. For what seemed an age she had lain there listening to his breathing, till, at last, the drug and the darkness in which he was sitting made him drop off.

As soon as she heard him snoring gently she had got up, crept out of the room, locked him in and run downstairs to telephone.

To her horror she found that it was already half-past ten, but she had rung up the Professor's as quickly as she could and got on to Kuporovitch, only to be cut off in the middle of their conversation. The line had simply gone dead, so it must have been the exchange, or more probably the police upstairs had switched off the extension to the laboratory by accident, in an attempt to listen-in to the conversation themselves.

She had just heard Kuporovitch say, ‘You are to go …' before the connection had been broken. She did not know where he wished her to go, and she knew that, owing to Pierre's treachery, the Professor's house might by raided at any moment; so that if she went there she would very likely fall into the hands of the police. In consequence, she had decided that she had better stay where she was in the hope of Stefan getting through to her again. Half an hour later Luc Ferrière's had been raided, and all its inmates had been carted off to the
Sûreté.

When Madeleine had finished her account, as they were all terribly tired after their exhausting night, they agreed that the first thing to do was to get some sleep. After they wakened, refreshed a little, it would be time enough to discuss possible ways and means out of the wretched situation in which they found themselves. There was nothing that would serve for bedding except some dirty straw in the bottom of the packing-cases, but having collected that they made themselves as
comfortable as they could. Since it was a warm June day there was no question of their suffering from the cold, so they soon dropped off and did not wake until the late afternoon.

All three of them found that they were now very hungry, so Gregory said he would go out and see if he could raise some food. That pleasant spicy smell which comes from the Paris grocers, and in normal times is so characteristic of the whole city, had now entirely disappeared, as the shops were empty of everything except small stocks of goods which were unobtainable without ration-cards. But he knew that food of sorts could still be obtained from the station buffets, since they were kept supplied as a convenience for the Germans, who in these days formed more than 90 per cent of the travellers on the French railways.

On reaching the Gare d'Austerlitz he obtained one sandwich, two large coarse biscuits, a bag of cherries and a packet of mixed nuts. He also managed to buy a bottle of cheap French red wine, for which he had to pay the exorbitant price of forty francs. Having purchased a paper, he made his way back to the warehouse. When he reached it his face was grave.

‘I'm afraid we're up against it,' he remarked, as he sat down. ‘Last night's affair has given the Germans the jitters, and they've instituted that damn' curfew again; so no one will be allowed out in the streets after eight o'clock without a special pass. That puts the lid on our attempting to get out of Paris tonight.'

‘I wonder how many days they'll keep it up?' speculated Kuporovitch moodily. ‘If only we could have got off tonight we shouldn't have had any great difficulty in catching up with the string of barges; but if we're forced to remain in concealment here for several days we'll miss them altogether, and as far as I can see they're our only hope of getting clean out of the country in safety.'

‘The curfew's certain to last for several days,' said Madeleine, ‘and while it's on to go out in the streets at night without a pass is simply asking to be picked up by one of the patrols. I think we'd better risk making our first move tomorrow in daylight. If we could get as far as the suburbs we'd be able to hide in a garden there until after dark; then cut across the
fields so as to avoid the police posts that they have on all the roads, outside the city.'