Mediterranean Nights

by Dennis Wheatley

  With a sudden lurch he threw her face downwards on the floor at the back of the car and jumped in. Before I even had a chance to run forward the car was screaming up the hill towards Biarritz.

  V

  I didn’t waste a second on Toby, but fairly leapt into his car. I had the brakes off like a flash, and put the Bentley into action. A moment later I was roaring up the hill after De Sejac at breakneck speed.

  At the top I was just in time to see him turn to the northward and I swung the car hard on his heels. Then we settled down to a really thrilling chase.

  As I drove I couldn’t help wondering what the devil had possessed the man. Had he gone mad—or what? Of course the girl had asked for trouble coming out alone with a chap like that, but if he wanted to be tiresome why not wait until she was safely in the car? It seemed such a stupid thing to go and attack her in the road like that. He must have known that I couldn’t help seeing the struggle. The whole thing was so unlike a Frenchman’s methods with a woman—it was more like an undergraduate who had got tight and lost his head—no finesse about the thing at all!

  De Sejac’s chauffeur evidently knew his business, and he knew the country too. They fairly hurtled round the bends, and despite the fact that I had the better car I found myself dropping behind after a mile or two. I dared not take too many chances on the corners although I made it up a bit on a long straight stretch, and catching a glimpse of the sea with the moon sinking into it miles away on my left, I knew that we were still heading northward.

  When the car ahead entered the woods again I was still a good half mile behind. We raced round another succession of hairpin bends, at one of which I near as nothing wrecked the car and broke my neck. It was a nightmare journey, and when I came out on to the other side of the wooded spur I knew that I had lost him.

  There had been no fork or turning in the woods I felt certain, but I could see the country for miles in the half-light, with the road winding away below me, and not a sign of his lights were to be seen. I pulled the car in to the side of the road and switched off the engine, hoping that I might hear him—but not a sound broke the stillness.

  I knew that he must have slipped me in those beastly woods somewhere, and I was furious. It seemed that the only thing to do was to drive slowly bade, and see if I could spot any turning which I had missed before. It was no easy job to reverse the Bentley on that hill road, but I did it, and set off again into the darkness of the woods. I hadn’t gone more than half a mile before I found a likely spot. It was hardly more than an opening in the trees leading towards the sea, but when I switched Toby’s spotlight on to it there were fresh car-tracks on the mould.

  That was the way he’d gone all right, so I turned the Bentley into the woods and drove slowly along on his trail.

  After a few hundred yards the track ended at a pair of wrought-iron gates set in a high wall, so I switched off my engine and got out. The gates were secured by a rusty chain and padlock, but I could tell that the latter had been used quite recently from the dark stains of oil, and the mess that came off on my fingers. It was no use trying to get in that way, so I turned off the lights of the car and started to follow the right-hand side of the wall. The coping was badly broken in places and I soon found a gap where a big lump of stone-work had fallen down, so I scrambled up into it and slid down the other side.

  I don’t mind telling you, I was pretty worried by then as to what might be happening to that lovely girl—but I was stupid enough to grin, as the thought flashed into my mind how strange it was that Fate should have chosen me for the part of heroic rescuer, instead of Toby. Ten minutes later I wasn’t so almighty pleased with myself, but I’ll tell you about that in due course.

  The garden was overgrown and thick with weeds. The house, too, when I reached it a few minutes later, seemed to be completely deserted. It was a good-sized villa and the proper entrance was on the other side, where there must have been a fine view of the sea in the daytime. I could just make out the drive, which was sprouting every kind of vegetation. All the windows of the villa were closely shuttered, and it was obvious that the place had not been lived in for some years. I began to wonder if I’d gone off the track again, but the car marks in the wood had been so plain I felt pretty certain that the villa was De Sejac’s secret hang-out.

  I prowled round the place looking for some sign of life, and on the far side I found it; little chinks of light coming from the jalousies of one of the lower rooms at the south-west corner.

  The window was about six feet above my head, and I noticed that one of the slats was broken, so that if only I could reach it I could see straight into the room.

  Not being Douglas Fairbanks I had to look round for something to put against the wall, but I was lucky enough to find an old garden table on the terrace and a couple of garden chairs.

  It was a bit of a job getting them along without giving the alarm to the people in the villa, but I managed it, and formed a precarious sort of pyramid. It rocked a little beneath my weight, but I balanced myself carefully, and hung on by the iron hooks in the wall that kept the shutters back when they were open.

  I found that I could see most of the room—it was only half-furnished and there was no carpet on the floor—but the girl was there. Her face was turned away from me and she was sitting quietly in an arm-chair. De Sejac did not seem to be anywhere about and I was just going to tap on the window to attract her attention when the chauffeur came in. He said something to her—what, of course, I couldn’t hear—but he leaned against the mantelpiece in a casual sort of way, and for all the animation she showed they might have been talking about the weather.

  I had hoped that I might get her out through the window, but I suddenly realised that there were heavy iron bars behind the shutters. If I was going to do any good I should have to find some way of getting in, so I climbed down again and began a thorough inspection of all the ground-floor entrances, testing each door and window as I went.

  They were all securely fastened on the inside, and I didn’t want to use force if I could avoid it because of the noise I was bound to make. You see, De Sejac and his man would easily have overpowered me between them, and for all I knew there might have been others in the house. My only chance lay in getting the girl away without their knowledge—or taking them by surprise one at a time.

  I had almost made up my mind to take a chance and break in when I came across a partly open window at the back, almost opposite the gates where I had left the car. I eased it open gently, and then I must confess—I paused.

  De Sejac must be a pretty desperate character, and if I ran up against him and his man I might land myself in real trouble. Perhaps it would be better to go back to Biarritz and fetch the police—but then there was the girl! Anything might happen to her in the meantime, so I screwed up my courage and slipped inside.

  It was dark as pitch, and I couldn’t see a single thing, but from the stone flags beneath my feet I guessed that I was in a passage, and with one hand on the outer wall to guide me, I began to creep in the direction of the south-west room, which I reckoned to be somewhere on the floor above at the far end of the house.

  I had hardly taken two steps when I thought I heard the scrape of a boot behind me. Then, even before I had a chance to whip round, I felt my teeth snap together with a click—every nerve in my head leapt into an agony of pain as I was struck from behind. For a second my eyeballs seemed to be starting out of their sockets—I saw red wheels of light whirling at tremendous speed and the floor rocked beneath me. Then I felt myself falling—down—down—into the darkness of a bottomless pit.

  VI

  I have no idea how long I remained unconscious, although I don’t think it can have been very long. When I came to I was lying on a truckle bed with my feet bound, my hands tied behind me, and a gag in my mouth. It was dark but not quite pitch; there was enough light to show me that I was lying with my face to the wall, and when I rolled over I discovered where the faint light came from.

/>   There were tiny lines of brightness across the ceiling. At first I thought they came from the effects of the knock-out I had had, but after a bit I realised that the room above was brightly lighted and the lines were the cracks between the floorboards.

  My head was fairly splitting, and I was almost sick from a beastly pain behind my eyes, so I lay very still for a little, and didn’t even try to think about my wretched situation.

  Very slowly it came to me that there were people in the room above, and they were talking. I could even make out what they were saying when I concentrated my attention. As the pain eased a little I shifted my position and struggled into a sitting posture with my back against the wall.

  There seemed to be three voices, De Sejac’s, another, gruff and surely, and the girl’s.

  ‘No, no,’ the Baron was saying, ‘not yet—I have other plans for you.’

  Then the girl’s voice, but so low I couldn’t catch the words.

  De Sejac laughed softly. ‘Ma chère, you have been marvellous, the most perfect pigeon—you could not have played your part better if I had trained you to it for years—the young fool walked right into the trap—all will be easy now.’

  The girl spoke again, but a gruff voice, which must have been the chauffeur’s, cut her short. He was evidently speaking to the Baron. ‘Have done, mon vieux—I have far to go before the morning—where are the telegrams?’

  ‘Ah, the telegrams,’ repeated De Sejac. ‘Behold, they are here—I have written them in English, but I will translate them for you so that there can be no errors. The first one—that is addressed to Peter Heels, his valet, and it reads: ‘Send light baggage and papers care of Chef de Gare Angoulême also hotel bill stop will wire necessary money stop am returning to England by car stop pack heavy luggage and return London wait my arrival. SINCLAIR.” The other is address “Manager, Hotel du Palais, Biarritz”, and says: “Wire amount of bill and despatch luggage Chef de Gare Poitiers stop instruct Chef release luggage on payment of bill he to remit to you. RICHARDSON, Room 4067.” You will hand them in at Dax just as they are written—that is as far as he could be expected to go tonight. Tomorrow you will go on to Angoulême and collect the bags in which should be his cheque-book—also you will wire the money for the bill—that is essential or his valet would not be allowed to leave. The money which I give you should be ample, and whatever the sum may be we add it to the cheque which he shall sign for us tomorrow night. After, you will return here with all speed. Go now, I will unlock the gates, and see to the safe disposal of his car.’

  ‘Yes—it is good, there is no slip that I can see,’ replied the other man cautiously—‘but what of her baggage, and in the meantime what of him—you are assured that there can be no escape?’

  ‘My careful Frederic,’ purred the Baron, ‘for the luggage of Mademoiselle there is ample time—as for him, in my hands he is quite safe. He will have an unpleasant day tomorrow—no food, no drink—it is always best to make short these operations whenever possible. It is a kindness in reality, and he will be more ready to take a pen in hand without further trouble. We will talk to him together on your return.’

  A door slammed somewhere above my head and after that there was silence; evidently the two men had gone out together.

  Slowly and painfully, for my head hurt like the very devil, I began to try and puzzle things out. The girl was one of the gang, of course, otherwise De Sejac would not have complimented her on her acting, and that explained why she had been talking so calmly with the chauffeur when I watched them through the window. I must confess that rattled me a bit; she was so very lovely and not a bit like the traditional vamp; but then, no really clever crook would be fool enough to choose the sort of woman likely to be suspected. But why, I wondered, that elaborate piece of by-play outside the ‘Florida’ when he flung her in the car? I couldn’t make that out at all, so I had to leave it for the moment.

  I considered the two telegrams; why in the world should Toby’s valet act on instructions coming from Dax when his master was still staying at the hotel in Biarritz? Then I got a sudden flash of enlightenment. De Sejac believed that it had been Toby that he had seen coming through the trees—Toby who had followed him in the car, and Toby who had come in through the window only to be knocked on the head! I should have spotted that before if my brain hadn’t been so muzzy—but having got that far, all the bits of the puzzle began to fall into place.

  De Sejac had evidently singled out Toby from the beginning as worthy of a hold-up. If he had got him out to the villa on any ordinary pretext, Toby would have been missed and the police informed. So a carefully thought-out plan had been staged to cover his disappearance. First the girl picks Toby up on the bathing beach and tips the Baron off that she has done her stuff. Then De Sejac gets into conversation with him in the lounge—that was where I got drawn into it—and he quickens the young man’s interest in the girl by threatening to become a rival, although he makes out that he doesn’t even know her. After that it is easy for her to play up, and pretend to prefer the Frenchman until Toby is fairly boiling with jealousy. The critical point in the campaign arrived when De Sejac took her off to the ‘Florida’: would Toby follow them or not? If he hadn’t nothing was lost, it would only have meant another day or two’s work until a similar occasion arose.

  The chauffeur must have arranged the cars one behind the other—then all they had to do was to stand talking for a few minutes until Toby followed them out of the restaurant.

  Directly they saw me approaching through the trees De Sejac did his kidnapping act, believing that Toby would see it and give chase. They probably counted on his missing the track in the woods to give them time to get into the villa. De Sejac and the chauffeur must have waited by the only open window until the would-be rescuer put his stupid head in—then biff!—they had him cold.

  By degrees I began to work out the rest of the plot and it was devilish ingenious. Toby and his car had disappeared—in the morning his valet would get a telegram from Dax, his light luggage and cheque-book would be put on the train for Angoulême—where presumably he would pick them up and continue his journey. Money would be wired, apparently by him, to pay the hotel bill, upon which Heels would pack the heavy luggage and return to England where he would certainly not begin to worry about his master for at least a week. In the meantime De Sejac’s man would collect the bags at Angoulême, bring them back to the villa, and Toby would be starved or beaten into signing a nice fat cheque. They would keep him a prisoner, of course, until they had cleared it and got the cash.

  But why should the girl not have returned to her hotel? I wondered. Then, in a moment I had that too, and it was the cleverest bit of the whole boiling. Miss Richardson’s bill was to be paid by wire as well, and her luggage sent to Poitiers. She had been seen about with Toby a good bit these last few days, and hotel servants talk.

  It would be assumed that they had gone off together on a joy-ride. That was the perfect explanation for Toby’s sudden disappearance. Her luggage being sent to Poitiers instead of Angoulême, was just the sort of transparent subterfuge that anybody like Toby would be expected to employ to protect the lady’s name. And how the servants would chortle about it! Poitiers was only another seventy miles on the road to Paris, and everybody would see through it as an unofficial honeymoon.

  I began to speculate on what was likely to happen in reality; Toby’s man would get the telegram all right, and doubtless pass it on to him. When he found that neither his car nor I had returned in the morning he would probably go to the police, but I didn’t see what they could do. It was extremely unlikely that De Sejac had any right in the villa. He had probably found it deserted and felt that it would serve his purpose admirably, but there would be no connection between him and the real owner.

  De Sejac would be livid when he discovered that he had trapped the wrong man, and I fell to wondering miserably what was in store for me.

  VII

  I never want to spend another day like the
one that followed. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t had that blow on the head, but an injury of that kind means fever—and fever begets thirst. After I had ruminated for a bit on the conversation that I’ve told you about, I dropped into an uneasy sleep. I don’t think it could have lasted more than an hour or so, but my hands being tied behind me I could not get at my watch, and as the room remained in semi-darkness I had no means of judging the passage of time.

  Soon after I woke up, I noticed that the streaks of light which filtered through the floorboards of the ceiling were white instead of golden, so I guessed that it was day—but how far advanced it was I could not tell; and from the brooding silence of the place I feared for the moment that in some way they had learned how their plans had miscarried, and left me there to die.

  That was a pretty bad half-hour, I don’t mind telling you—and it seemed an age to me. Once, I really panicked, and nearly burst a blood vessel in straining to free myself from the cords with which they had bound me, but it was useless—they had trussed me like a Surrey fowl, and I couldn’t free a single limb.

  Then suddenly I stopped struggling. It was the girl’s voice—low but clear, and she was singing somewhere above me, a song out of Noël Coward’s Bitter Sweet. I rolled over into a more comfortable position and lay there listening.

  Her voice struck some chord of memory in my mind, and I puzzled over it for some time, but in the end I came to the conclusion that it was just the tune that was familiar.

  She stopped as suddenly as she had begun, and afterwards not a sound came from above through the whole of that awful day. Every hour of it seemed like a week in my normal existence, and I thought it would never end.