Reaching it, he saw beyond the open door a large cool hal . There was no one in it. The only furniture was a form and one or two chairs against the wal s, and a coat and hat rack on which hung several white jackets and other garments, presumably the property of the staff. Al this was quite usual for a French country hospital.
Ginger rang the bel . After a brief delay an old grey-bearded man came slowly, yawning, out of a side room, where apparently he had been resting.
His jacket was unfastened, as was the col ar of his shirt. Spectacles were balanced on his nose. On slippered feet he shuffled to where Ginger was waiting.
‘Pardon, monsieur, but are you the janitor?’ asked Ginger.
‘Yes. What do you want at this time of day? Is a man to have no rest?’
‘Having business this way, I have cal ed to make inquiries on behalf of Madame Ducoste,’ said Ginger. ‘She has been informed that her son Henri is here.’
The janitor came nearer. ‘Yes, there is a patient here of that name,’ he admitted. ‘Who are you? You speak with a queer accent.’
‘I am a friend of the family, monsieur. I have been away for some years, in Spain.’
‘Ah!’
‘How is Monsieur Ducoste to-day?’
‘Better. They are coming to fetch him away.’
‘So we heard. Can I see him?’
‘No.’
‘But why not? I may never have another opportunity.’
‘Because, my young friend, he is in the charge of the police.’
‘Yes, we heard that too,’ answered Ginger in a melancholy voice. ‘Is he in a public ward?’
‘No, in a private room.’
Ginger nodded. This was useful information.
‘Perhaps the police wil let me see him?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘I can but ask. Where can I find them?’
The janitor yawned. ‘The sergeant is not yet back from his siesta. Monsieur André, the gendarme of Peil e, guards the prisoner in his absence. If you are going to do anything you had better be quick.
Ducoste is being taken to Nice. I expect the van here at any moment.’
Ginger caught his breath. ‘Where can I find the sergeant?’
‘I wouldn’t disturb him.’
‘Then, with your permission, I wil see Monsieur André.’
‘No, I can’t let you do that, but I wil tel him you are here. There is a chance that he may let you see the unfortunate Ducoste, but by order of the prefect al visitors are forbidden.’
‘You speak as though you are sorry for Ducoste, monsieur?’ Ginger spoke as meaningful y as he dared.
The Frenchman threw him a curious glance. ‘He would be a brave man, or a foolish one, to say what he thinks, in this country, to-day.’
‘Wel , wil you go and ask Monsieur André if I can
‘Wel , wil you go and ask Monsieur André if I can see Henri just for a minute?’
‘Wait.’ The janitor walked off along the main corridor.
Ginger watched him, for he realised that here was an opportunity for discovering where Henri was confined. To his great satisfaction the janitor did not turn up the stairs, but went along to the end door on the right hand side of the corridor. From this Ginger gathered Henri was on the ground floor.
The janitor was absent for about a minute, and then came back. ‘No use,’ said he. ‘Ducoste is not al owed visitors. Police orders.’
‘Then I have wasted my time,’ muttered Ginger gloomily.
The janitor did not answer at once. He was looking past Ginger’s shoulder along the winding road to La Turbie. ‘This looks like the police van coming now,’
he observed.
Turning, Ginger saw a dark-coloured van creeping round the lip of the gorge. He had no doubt that the janitor was right, and his heart sank, for although his brain was racing he could not think of a plan that promised the slightest chance of success.
‘You’d better be getting along,’ advised the janitor.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ agreed Ginger disconsolately.
But he did not move. He was not yet ready to abandon hope.
As the van drew near the janitor walked forward to the top of the steps, and as it stopped on the road, about twenty paces distant, he went forward to meet the occupants who now emerged. There were three men, not counting the chauffeur. The first was a short, thick-set man in a dark suit. He carried a pair of handcuffs in his left hand. Of the two with him, one was a policeman; the other wore the uniform of the Italian medical service. Talking quietly they moved forward together towards the steps of the sanitorium.
The chauffeur lit a cigarette and fol owed leisurely.
Ginger saw that if he was going to attempt a rescue he had about one minute in which to accomplish it. Once Henri was handcuffed, and in the car, there would be no hope at al , and the realisation of it made him desperate.
The janitor, who had evidently forgotten him, had gone on down the steps and was talking to the newcomers. The whole group halted to hear what he had to say.
If Ginger actual y thought he was unaware of it. He acted on impulse. Crossing swiftly to the hat rack he unhooked a white jacket and then sped on down the corridor, putting on the jacket as he went. At the end door he stopped and knocked sharply. A voice invited him to enter. He went in, to find himself in a smal whitewashed cubicle. There was an iron bed, and on it a man, his head swathed in bandages.
Ginger barely glanced at him. He was looking at a French gendarme who, with his tunic unbuttoned, lol ed, somewhat uncomfortably, in a wooden chair.
To this man Ginger addressed himself.
‘We have arrived to take the prisoner to Nice,’ he said crisply.
‘I thought I heard the car pul up,’ announced the gendarme, rising.
‘The doctor is in the hal —he wants to see you,’
went on Ginger, trying to keep his voice natural. ‘I’l take charge of the prisoner while you have gone.’
T h e gendarme obeyed the order without the slightest hesitation. To al appearance it did not occur to him to question it. Buttoning his tunic he went out.
The moment the door was closed behind him Ginger locked it on the inside and then went straight to the open window. As he had supposed, the room was at the end of the building, and did not overlook the front, but the side. A short distance away the lines of washing stil hung limply in the stagnant air.
Just beyond was the ravine in which Lucil e rested in the shade. Satisfied with his inspection Ginger turned to Henri and spoke to him tensely.
‘We’ve got about thirty seconds,’ he said. ‘Are you able to walk?’
Henri, who had been staring hard at Ginger, gave a gasp as he recognised his voice. ‘ Mon Dieu!
What have you done to yourself? Yes, I’m not as bad as they think.’
‘Good. Listen. Get cracking. Get out of the window. Go to the ravine. You’l find a donkey there.
Make for Castil on. Wait there.’
‘But I have no clothes—they have taken them!’
cried Henri.
‘Then go in your pyjamas—no, there is washing on the line, grab a suit of overal s as you go past. Take your slippers, you wil need them. Hurry.’
Henri hastened to the window. Over his shoulder he said, ‘What about you?’
he said, ‘What about you?’
‘Never mind me. I’l join you at Castil on. I’m going to take the police off your trail to give you a start.’
By this time the handle of the door was being rattled with violence. Henri climbed through the window and disappeared from sight.
To those in the corridor Ginger shouted, ‘Just a minute, the door won’t open.’ Which was perfectly true. It would not open because it was locked. Then he climbed out of the window and ran round to the front of the building.
As he reckoned, the police van was stil there, standing where it had been stopped. No one was with it. He sprinted across the front of the hospital and jumped into the driving
seat. From the time he had gone down the corridor to Henri’s room not more than two minutes had elapsed, and so far everything had worked with the precision of a wel -
oiled sewing machine. Would the luck hold? It would not, thought Ginger. Nor did it. As he started the engine a shout warned him that he had been seen.
The chauffeur came leaping down the steps. But the car was moving now. There was no time to turn, so treading on the accelerator Ginger went straight on.
Direction was of no consequence.
There was a fusil ade of shots. Two or three bul ets hit the van, but without effect. It raced on into the vil age. The vil age street, like most streets in the South of France built narrow to give shade during the heat of the day, was only just wide enough to take it.
Cats, dogs and chickens, looking up to see death bearing down on them, leapt for their lives as the vehicle shot through, honking to clear the way.
At the far end the road forked. The right fork went up; the left, down. Concerned only with speed Ginger took the one that went down. There was a signpost.
As he flashed past it he read, La Grave de Peille, but even then he did not ful y comprehend what this meant. It was only when he rounded a bend and saw the road plunging down the face of the precipice in a series of incredible zigzags that he remembered the vil age at the bottom of the gorge. He took his foot off the accelerator and stood on the brakes until they screamed, and fil ed the car with the stench of burning rubber. But it did not stop. Ginger held his breath. A hairpin bend rushed to meet him. With his eyes starting from his head he spun the wheel. The car dry-skidded round the edge of the gorge with perhaps two inches to spare. Before he could straighten out he was on another bend. This time there was no hope of getting round, for only those who are born to such roads know how to take them at speed.
Ginger spun the wheel desperately. The car skidded, tearing up a cloud of dust, towards the brink, and the frightful void beyond. Ginger knew that it was going over; that nothing could save it; so he did the only thing left to do. He flung himself clear out of the opposite side. His hands closed over the gnarled root of an olive and he hung on for dear life.
The van, after hanging at a ghastly angle for a moment, toppled over the edge and disappeared from sight. For a few seconds there was silence; then came such a crashing and banging that seemed as if the whole cliff had col apsed.
Gasping, brushing sweat out of his eyes, Ginger walked to the spot where the car had disappeared, and looking down saw the remains of it, in a cloud of boulders, dust and broken branches, wel on its way to the vil age at the bottom of the chasm.
He staggered back to the olive tree, and for a moment stood there, panting, weak at the knees,
completely unnerved by the narrowness of his escape. He looked at his hands curiously, as though they did not belong to him, and saw that they were trembling violently. One had been cut, and was bleeding, but it didn’t hurt.
He was stil standing there, trying to bring his heart and jarred nerves back to normal, when a shout above reminded him that he was only a short distance from the vil age, although overhanging trees prevented him from being seen. Obviously, it was no use going back up the road, for he would be certain to meet the police coming down. If he went down, he would be equal y certain to find a crowd waiting at the bottom, brought out from the vil age by the crashing car. Yet if only he could get back to the top road, beyond the sanitorium, he might be able to overtake Henri. He could see parts of the road far above him—or rather, the scar it made round the cliff. The bank between was steep, but not sheer.
Stunted olives and fig trees, with their roots wel down in the rocks, offered secure handholds.
One thing, he saw, was in his favour. His pursuers would not look up for him; they would look down, assuming that he had gone over with the car. Even if assuming that he had gone over with the car. Even if his body were not found it might be supposed that he lay buried under the debris that the car had taken down with it. The police would also suppose that Henri’s body lay somewhere down in the val ey—at least, he hoped so. They would make a search, and this should give them both a fair start. Drawing a deep breath he began to climb.
The distance to the road, as a bird might fly, was not more than two hundred yards, but as Ginger was compel ed to travel it was nearer half a mile. In the van he had come down in perhaps ten seconds, but it was clear that the return journey would take longer
—an hour of tortuous, heart-bursting effort. It was dark long before he got to the top, and this did not make his task any easier. Once, from a dizzy perch, he could see the police far below him, running down the dreadful road to La Grave.
When he reached his immediate objective, the vil age, which lay a short distance to the left, had settled down. He could hear nothing except the distant murmur of voices. With Indian-like stealth he crossed the road, and soon gained the ravine with its group of olives where he had left Lucil e. The animal had gone, from which it was reasonably certain Henri had succeeded in getting clear. The thing was to overtake him, to compare notes, and find out how he was standing the journey—a stiff one for an invalid—to Castil on.
Ginger went on through a lonely world of rocks and stunted trees. During his mad escapade he had completely forgotten his wounded leg, but now that the excitement had died down it was beginning to throb. After stopping to loosen the bandages, which gave him some relief, he went on. He went on for perhaps half an hour, by which time he was on top of an enormous saddle-back that commanded a view of the mountains around him. It was like being astride the ridge of the world.
A low whistle made him pul up abruptly, staring among the boulders from which the sound had come.
‘Ginger! Is zat you?’ said a voice—Henri’s voice.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ answered Ginger. ‘Have you only got as far as this?’
‘Far enough, for the time,’ replied Henri, coming forward, leading the donkey.
‘Why didn’t you go on?’
‘I wait for you.’
‘But how did you know that I should come this way?’
‘From the bank I see what happens,’ explained Henri. ‘I see you take the car. Name of a dog! It was superbe. Then, zut-alors! I see you take the road to La Grave. It is suicide. I say to myself it is good-bye.
But no. I pray hard. I see you make the quick jump, and in the trees hang like a monkey. The car, she goes zonk! You do not go down the road. You do not come up the road. How do I know? Because I am high up and see down on al the bends. I say to myself he must come back to the top road through the trees, to go to Castil on. So I wait. That is al .
Tout simplement*2. My friend, you have nerves the most audacious. I am a prisoner. In one minute you make me escape. Du courage! Magnifique*3! A thousand thanks, mon ami. I shal not forget this, no.’
‘Neither shal I,’ returned Ginger grimly. ‘Now, what about pushing on to Castil on?’
‘Why, by al the saints, do we go to Castil on, this place of cats?’
‘Because Algy and Bertie should be there.’
‘But why?’
‘We have found a clue and it led to Castil on. I’l tel you about it as we go along. If we can get to the place we shal al be together again.’
‘Entendu*4. We stay in France a long time now, I think,’ said Henri. ‘My engine, she goes conk. The old cow.’
‘Never mind about that. The question is, can you make the journey to Castil on?’
‘But surely. I have the cuts and the bruises, yes, and the head she opens and shuts, but not so bad as I pretend. I think perhaps if I pretend sick I get chance to escape. But no. What I do not understand is how you know I am at Peil e?’
Ginger explained, briefly, the circumstances that had led to his visit to the Rue Marinière, and what had happened there.
Of course, Henri wanted to know al about his mother and sister, and this occupied some minutes while they rested. ‘And now we had better get on,’
concluded Ginger. ‘We must
get under cover by dawn, or we may be seen, so get aboard Lucil e and lead the way. I should like to know what goes on at Castil on.’
Castil on.’
They set off up the narrow path.
Chapter 14
Au Bon Cuisine
Could Ginger only have known what was going on at Castil on he would have been surprised. Events had probably moved far beyond his imagination.
When Bertie had fol owed the princess he had done so with a certain amount of trepidation. He had no idea of what was going to happen; he was prepared for anything—except what did happen.
A narrow lane wound a serpentine path between dilapidated houses, over fal en masonry, to the outskirts of the vil age, where a house, larger than most, overlooked a great gash in the rocks that fel away and away, widening as it fel , until at last it dropped into the distant Mediterranean. The girl who had said she was a princess—Bertie only had her word for it—paid no attention to the view. She opened a door from which al paint had long disappeared, and went down two steps into what had evidently been a semi-basement kitchen of considerable size.
‘Enter, monsieur,’ she invited.
‘Ah! The bon cuisine,’ murmured Bertie.
The princess smiled. ‘Had you mentioned at first that you had seen the writing on the wal it would have saved you trouble. Now I think I understand.’
‘The writing on the wal was not a thing to talk about,’ replied Bertie drily.
‘But you came here on account of it?’
‘Yes.’
‘But not real y to seek a princess, my noble troubadour?’
‘Not entirely,’ admitted Bertie. ‘I was concerned with a knight who had tried to rescue her from the hands of her enemies.’
The princess laughed quietly. ‘Are you by any chance the Honourable Lacey?’
Bertie nearly dropped his guitar in astonishment.
‘Here, I say, that’s a leading question. No, I am not the Honourable Lacey, but he is not far from here.
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