Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 06

by Codeword-Golden Fleece

  ‘Good work,’ murmured Rex. ‘I was wondering where the double bluff came in.’

  ‘Then I should have said triple bluff,’ the Duke replied. ‘In a minute we shall come to a cross-roads. To reach the hut we should turn to the right, but I want you to turn left. When we are some way along the side road we will turn back across country at an angle of forty-five degrees. That will bring us back to the main road again about half a mile beyond the crossroads.’

  ‘Make a sort of triangle, eh? But how in heck am I to do that through these woods?’

  ‘The forest ends just before the cross-roads. Beyond it is open pastureland, so you should be able to drive us over it without getting stuck. When we reach the main road we shall cross it, turn half-right again and cut off another triangle, so that we strike the right-hand side-road in due course. We shall cross that, too, and re-enter the wood at a place that cannot be much more than a mile from the forester’s hut. Having hidden the car, we shall do the last mile or two on foot.’

  ‘I get you,’ laughed Rex. ‘But it sounds like a quintuple bluff!’

  ‘No, when they see the tracks going into the ride they’ll think at first that we’ve taken to the woods, but Ignac will go one better and deduce that we’ve gone right through it to get on to the road to the south. But there is so little traffic in these parts that someone is sure to spot the tyremarks when we came back on to this road. They’ll realise then that we’ve tried to bluff them. When they reach the cross-roads they’ll see the tracks going south again, and when they find that they turn on to the grass they’ll jump to it that we’ve laid a second false trail. After that I hope they’ll decide to waste no more time poking about, but go all out along the Warsaw road in the belief that we really are making for the capital.’

  While they had been talking they had reached the cross-roads, and Rex carefully followed the Duke’s directions. In that part of Poland most land is still held in common by the village communities or forms part of great estates, so there are few hedges, and the pasture often runs unbroken except by belts of woodland for many miles. Once off the road the going was in places extremely rough, and the big car lurched heavily from side to side as they bumped their way along; but they reached the main road without accident and, having crossed it, bumped on again until they struck the side-road to the north.

  On its far side the forest loomed up black and mysterious in the moonlight; but, having entered it, they found that the bare tree-trunks would give little cover to the car when daylight came. Rex edged it in as far as he could through the ever narrowing gaps until he was finally compelled to stop some three hundred yards from the road.

  ‘Not too bad,’ muttered the Duke. ‘We are quite a way from the village here, and the odds are all against the car being found for some days unless a gamekeeper happens to come this way.’

  ‘They’ll be even better if we cover her up with branches,’ added Rex and, getting out, he set about breaking off the lower branches here and there among the trees.

  All this while their captive had remained a silent and gloomy spectator. The Duke now made him leave the car and put Marie Lou in charge of him with instructions to shoot him if he showed the first sign of making a bolt for it. He then turned his attention to the baggage.

  It was impossible for them to carry all the cases, so the Duke undid them and, after frequent consultations with the others repacked two with the more valuable items and things which were likely to prove of the most immediate use.

  By the time he had done Rex had screened the car with foliage so that from the distance it would look like a big patch of undergrowth. As he picked up one of the suitcases de Richleau handed the other to their prisoner, remarking pleasantly:

  ‘As you are a considerably younger man than I, Excellency, I will not deny you the privilege of relieving me of this small burden.’

  For a moment Mack hesitated, then he took the case, growling: ‘By God, you’ll pay for this!’

  ‘Perhaps,’ smiled the Duke, ‘but I rather doubt if you will be there to receipt the bill.’

  They then set off in single file, de Richleau leading, Marie Lou next, the prisoner third and Rex bringing up the rear. Having never before approached the forester’s hut from this direction, the Duke was a little uneasy as to whether he could find it; but he said nothing of this to the others, putting his trust in the fact that at one time or another he had shot on dozens of estates, and in nearly every country in Europe, so he was no mean woodsman. His only anxiety was that the moon might be down before he could definitely locate their destination. In consequence, he set a quicker pace than he would otherwise have done, the only sufferer as a result being his conscript porter, who sweated, cursed and stumbled, not being accustomed to carrying heavy luggage.

  When they had been walking for the best part of an hour the Duke came to the conclusion that they had overshot the mark, so, after a short rest, they turned back, inclining somewhat to the east. The moon was sinking now, but, after a further quarter of an hour, they came to a big tree that had been struck by lightning. Recognising it, the Duke altered course again, and ten minutes later brought them safely to the small clearing in which lay the abandoned hut.

  It was a ramshackle affair, consisting of two rooms only, in one of which the starlit sky could be seen through a gap where the roof had caved in; but the floor of beaten earth was dry, the front room still housed a rough wooden table, and a fixed bench ran down one of its walls.

  Mack was put in the inner room, and his hands were tied firmly behind him to prevent his climbing out through the hole in the ceiling, then the others unpacked and made themselves as comfortable as they could in the small living-room. They had brought all their rugs, and the night was not cold, but it was now getting on for three o’clock in the morning, and they all felt very tired after the hours of acute tension through which they had passed; so, in spite of the roughness of their quarters, they had hardly settled down before they fell sound asleep.

  When-they woke the sun was shining. The clean forest air scented with pine was good to drink in for a few moments, but they soon decided that it was a poor substitute for coffee, and they were all ravenously hungry.

  The night before, just as they were leaving Lubieszow, the thought that they ought to take food with them had flashed through de Richleau’s mind, as also the idea that it would be a good thing to disconnect the telephones and smash the receivers. But he had done neither. As Ignac’s escape had forced their departure, it had seemed to the Duke imperative that every moment should be used to get as good as lead as possible before the pursuit started. Mack’s friends could benefit by the telephone only to let the police know what they would learn for themselves within half an hour of their arrival at Lubieszow, and, fond as the Duke was of good food, nothing short of sheer necessity would have induced him to prejudice their safety for it. Yet, he thought a little sadly now of the excellent breakfast trays, bearing cold ham or snipe, as well as eggs, fruit and jam, which had always been sent up to him during his holiday in Poland.

  At the time of the previous night’s crisis the practical Marie Lou had also thought of food and, not being as fully occupied as the Duke, had seized the opportunity while Rex was carrying out the bags to snatch up a napkin and tip into it a trayful of little pastries. She now produced them, much broken and with the sardines, caviare, smoked salmon and so on, with which they had been covered, crushed together; but they were still edible.

  Rex contributed a half-pound slab of chocolate, but knowing that it would be many hours before they saw another square meal they decided to put it by for the time being.

  They found their sullen prisoner sitting uncomfortably in a corner of the inner room and, untying him, gave him a share of their strange breakfast; after which there seemed nothing to do but to wait and hope that Richard, Simon and Lucretia would succeed in rejoining them.

  For a little they whiled away the time by discussing the events of the previous night, and the Duke enquired
of Rex what had happened to von Geisenheim.

  ‘He had locked himself into the comfort-station before the rumpus started,’ Rex grinned. ‘I did as you said and put three lollipops through the door. Whether they got him good and proper I just can’t say, but I heard a sort of grunt as I turned and beat it across the landing.’

  ‘Then we left one dead for certain—poor old Anna—and four injured, of which two at least are probably dead by now. A horrible business, but quite like old times, I must confess.’

  ‘Anna’s death was not our fault,’ remarked Marie Lou. ‘One of the others hit her in the dark when they were firing at Jan.’

  ‘True,’ the Duke nodded, ‘and I’m very glad that at least we have not got that nice old lady’s death on our consciences. I do hope too, that the young Pole I shot while he was putting out the lights pulls through. I didn’t dare to shoot only to wound, and I got him in the head, but the bullet didn’t go through his brain. It furrowed his cheek and tore his left ear; that’s where all the blood came from, so with luck he will be all right.’

  Marie Lou’s violet eyes opened wider with surprise. ‘I quite thought he was dead. I do hope you’re right. He was the nice boy who had won something for jumping in the Horse Show at Olympia.’

  ‘Anyhow, I’ve no regrets over that old, stone-faced General,’ Rex put in, ‘and even less over that heel Bauer.’

  De Richleau smiled slightly. ‘No, it may mean two less enemies to fight when the real thing starts, and, even if Bauer doesn’t die, he’ll be out of the game for a long time to come. I put two bullets right through his chest.’

  They talked on in a desultory way, but their minds were only half on the conversation. All three of them were anxiously wondering how their friends had fared. Had Ignac’s escape resulted in their being held up by the police long before they reached Warsaw? If they had got to the city safely, had they found Lucretia at Jan’s house or had some ill chance caused her to leave it, even temporarily, which would delay their return? Perhaps Ignac had thrown his net to rope in Lucretia also, and the police would already be there when the others arrived? If they did succeed in collecting her, would they manage to evade capture on the way back? And, if they did, would Richard, who had ridden in this great lonely forest only once, manage to find his way to the hut?

  Anxious as they were, they knew that there was little chance of their friends rejoining them until the following morning. To Warsaw and back non-stop was a sixteen-hour journey, so that even if Richard and Simon succeeded in reaching the Lubieszow district again that evening they would be much too done up on their arrival to undertake a long tramp through the forest, with only a vague idea where the hut lay and night coming on.

  In consequence, Marie Lou and her companions did their best to still their apprehensions and while away as much of the day as possible in sleep.

  Mack did his utmost to annoy them by shouting curses and indulging in long, abusive monologues, until Rex stuffed a handkerchief between his teeth and left him to sit in acute discomfort for the best part of three hours. When the gag was removed he seemed to have learnt his lesson, so they undid his bonds but kept him hobbled with a chain and padlock that the Duke had discovered among the miscellaneous gear brought from the car; and this relieved them of the necessity of either keeping him tightly bound or under constant watch.

  In the evening they divided two-thirds of Rex’s chocolate amongst the four of them and, as darkness fell, relinquished any lingering hopes they had had that Richard, Simon and Lucretia might reach them that night.

  Having dozed a lot during the day they slept ill and were up with the dawn. All of them hoped that the Warsaw party had spent the night in their car somewhere on the edge of the forest, and would find them in the course of the next few hours; but, as a precaution against Marie Lou being disappointed, de Richleau remarked that if their friends once lost their bearings in these almost trackless woods it might easily take half a day to pick them up again. So they breakfasted as cheerfully as they could off the remainder of Rex’s chocolate and settled down to wait with the best patience they could muster.

  During the morning they endeavoured to occupy their thoughts with word games, but as midday approached they became openly restless and nervy. All of them thought hungrily of lunch, but none of them mentioned it. By early afternoon they had fallen silent and were listening with strained ears for the least sound that might herald the approach of their friends.

  About half past two the Duke opened one of the suitcases and produced a box of his famous Hoyo de Monterrey cigars. Offering them to Rex, he remarked laconically: ‘He who smokes dines.’

  ‘I’ve been smoking all morning,’ Rex answered with a wry grin, ‘and I feel empty as a drum, but I guess I’d forgo most meals for one of those beauties.’

  ‘Will you have one, Princess?’ asked the Duke. ‘I’ve known you smoke a cigar for fun before now.’

  ‘No, thank you, Greyeyes,’ she smiled. ‘I’d almost sooner rob Fleur of her sweets than deprive you of one of your cigars.’

  ‘Almost?’ he quizzed her.

  ‘Yes, almost, but not quite,’ she laughed.

  The episode lightened the tension for a time, and they sat there quietly while the blue aromatic smoke from the cigars filled the air and soothed the nerves of the two men; but, as the afternoon advanced, the anxiety they were all feeling began to manifest itself acutely again.

  Marie Lou left the others to walk a little way in the direction from which she hoped that her beloved Richard would appear. De Richleau became irritable and moody from the oppressive thought that, if his friends were now in prison, it would be through his own carelessness; and the sanguine, happy-go-lucky Rex sought to comfort him in vain.

  Afternoon merged with evening, and the shadows of the tall trees lengthened across the clearing, but still no distant snapping of twigs came to announce the approach of friends or enemies. At length dusk had fallen, and it was no longer possible to see more than a hundred yards through the scattered trees that fringed the west side of the enclosure.

  ‘We shan’t see them tonight,’ announced Marie Lou suddenly. ‘Even if they are within a mile of us, it would be too dark for them to find their way here now.’

  ‘Sure,’ Rex agreed, with a cheerfulness he did not feel. ‘But that’s about the size of it. They’ve probably been all afternoon in the woods looking for this Ritz-Carlton of ours and failed to locate it. They’ll have dossed down somewhere by now; but you can trust old Richard to find his way here somehow when they make a fresh start in the morning.’

  As they had no light other than their torches, it seemed that there was nothing for it but to doss down themselves. Their worry about their friends had caused them temporarily to forget their hunger, until Mack reminded them of it by a querulous enquiry about whether it was part of their precious plan to starve him to death.

  He had seemed to accept his captivity with apparent resignation had spoken little during the day; but now, having overheard enough of their conversation to appreciate the cause of their anxiety, he suddenly displayed a malicious delight in aggravating their forebodings.

  On being told politely but firmly for the tenth time that, as they had no food themselves, they could give him none, he gave a cynical little snigger and replied:

  ‘Ah well, I’m not much worse off than those friends of yours. By this time they will be on a diet of bread and skilly in a Polish prison. I find your attempt to persuade yourselves that they are somewhere here in the woods looking for you rather pathetic. Once Count Ignac had told the police about you all and a general order to watch for them was sent out, no two foreigners who could not speak Polish would have stood the faintest chance of covering more than a hundred miles in their car without being questioned.’

  ‘Can it!’ snapped Rex, but their prisoner’s voice continued to mock them through the semi-darkness.

  ‘As a matter of fact, we rather pride ourselves on our police in Poland. Their organisation is good, an
d most of them are excellent shots. Perhaps your friends are not in prison after all. They seem of have been much the same type of audacious brigands as yourselves, so they probably refused to stop when challenged. In that case, of course, it is quite likely that one or both of them is dead.’

  ‘You’ll be dead yourself in another few minutes unless you stop talking!’ de Richleau snarled with sudden fury.

  For a moment Mack was silent, but he could not resist a final turn of the screw. ‘When you yourselves are arrested, as you undoubtedly will be, the police will take you to the mortuary to identify your friends’ bodies.’

  ‘Oh, stop him!’ wailed Marie Lou. ‘For God’s sake, stop him!’ She suddenly burst into a flood of tears.

  Rex had jumped to his feet. Bursting into the inner room, he seized the squatting prisoner by the neck and banged his head violently against the wooden side of the shack until he went limp, then threw him down in his corner.

  But they could not forget his words. Every one of them had been charged with such horrible plausibility that they seemed to be the actual truth, and shattered at a blow the frail illusions, built on wishful thinking, with which Marie Lou and her friends had been striving to comfort themselves through the long hours of the day.

  In a few moments these brutal sentences had done what the long hours had failed to do. Marie Lou’s friends knew well the courageous heart that beat in her beautiful little body; but now she was utterly undone, and she wept unrestrainedly, until, at last, with her head on the Duke’s chest, she sobbed herself to sleep, while he and Rex still lay staring grimly into the darkness.

  Having gone to rest early, they woke next morning with the dawn, again ill refreshed and still dejected. For an hour or so they stood about, clinging desperately to the hope that had braced them the previous day—that their friends had reached the woods, but had become lost in them, and would yet find their way to the rendezvous.