V for Vengeance

by Dennis Wheatley

  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.’

  Gregory shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, we’re on the wrong side of Paris, so we’ve either got to go right through the heart of the city or make a long detour round endless streets to the east and south. We’d never be able to do that without somebody recognising us.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Madeleine. ‘Although I’ve been arrested three times now, I don’t suppose that more than twenty Nazis and police have seen me face to face.’

  With a rueful grin Gregory held out the paper. ‘I’m afraid you underrate the enemy. They’ve published your photograph here, so every policeman in Paris will be on the lookout for you.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ she exclaimed. ‘Of course, they took our photographs soon after we reached the Sûreté last night.’

  ‘It’s not a very good one,’ he went on, ‘but it’s quite good enough to identify you by, and the devil of it is that they’re offering fifty thousand francs for your capture, dead or alive, and the same amount for information which will lead to the arrest of the two men who rescued you. They also publish a fairly accurate description of myself, given them, I suppose, by that police chauffeur I knocked out. The Germans don’t like admitting their own mistakes when they make them, which God knows, isn’t often, and, naturally, in this case they’re blaming your getaway on the inefficiency of the French police. Anyhow, the full story is given here, together with an account of Luc Ferrière’s arrest, and a statement that your companion Pierre Ponsardin, committed suicide in his cell at the Sûreté by smoking a poisoned cigarette.’

  ‘Oh, poor Pierre!’ Madeleine sighed.

  Gregory ignored her interruption, as he saw no point in telling her that Ribaud had actually been responsible for Pierre’s death. ‘They blame the French police for that, too, as Pierre should have been searched, and anything he was carrying taken from him, immediately after his arrest. The little party in which you were involved forms the high spot of the night’s doings although there’s a statement in much more guarded language that many other raids were made, and that a conspiracy against the régime has been uncovered—hence the fresh imposition of the curfew. One thing stands out as plain as a pikestaff: fifty thousand francs is a lot of money, and there are still far too many Quislings in Paris for us to run the risk of letting you be seen in the streets.’

  ‘But we can’t stay here,’ Madeleine murmured, casting a glance round their gloomy and uncomfortable retreat.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to,’ Stefan said despondently. ‘But God knows how we’ll ever be able to catch up with that string of barges now.’

  ‘Given a little bit of luck we might,’ Gregory spoke a little more cheerfully. ‘Léon Baras was trying not to depress the others too much when he told them they’d have to remain under the batches for a week. I had no dealings with the captain of the tug or his crew, but I made a few independent enquiries, and I doubt if they’ll reach Le Havre in less than ten days. If the curfew is taken off at the end of the week, and we can find some means of fairly rapid transport once we’re out of Paris, we might even be able to pick them up at Rouen.’

  Kuporovitch nodded. ‘It seems that’s the best we can hope for at the moment. In the meantime, we must make ourselves as comfortable as we can in this dismal hole; or perhaps we ought to move down to the cellar. I expect the police are throwing a net over the whole of Paris, and some of them might quite well pay a visit to a deserted warehouse like this during their search.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Gregory agreed, and getting out his torch he went downstairs to examine the cellar. It was damp and evil-smelling, so pulling up the trap he descended still farther into the catacombs themselves. The air was much fresher there, as it came in from an old disused drain which ran under the street and gave direct onto the Seine. The stone flooring of the tunnel was rough and dry, so he decided that they had better take up their quarters down there and went up to tell the others.

  Madeleine was reluctant to sleep down in the catacombs because she was frightened of the rats which she felt certain must swarm there. Gregory told her that the warehouse was just as likely to be overrun and that rats were not dangerous unless they were attacked or starving. In order to keep out of their way as far as possible, it was decided to carry down the packing-cases and make a high flat stack of them on which to sleep, instead of lying on the floor.

  When they had carted down the empty cases and arranged the straw on top of them their next worry was light, since Gregory’s torch could not be expected to last for more than a few hours. With a view to saving it as much as possible they decided to stay up above as long as daylight lasted, but hold themselves ready to beat a quick retreat to the cellars if they heard anyone approaching the warehouse door.

  While they had been talking and making their arrangements they had divided up the meagre fare that Gregory had obtained from the station buffet and made a scratch meal of it; but they were still hungry and greatly depressed by the uncertainty of being able to secure further supplies of food and light. The evening hours of the long summer twilight seemed unending, but at last, when full darkness had fallen, Gregory produced the ancient philosophical tag ‘He who sleeps dines,’ and suggested that they should go below and turn in.

  As they stood up Kuporovitch suddenly announced that he was going out. Without even asking him why he wished to do so the others immediately protested that he would be absolutely crazy to risk himself in the streets now that it was after curfew; but he insisted, simply saying that he had a little job to do which would not take him very far or very long.

  Gregory knew the Russian too well to argue with him. To quiet Madeleine’s fears Stefan swore that he would do nothing rash, exercise the greatest caution and be back within a couple of hours at most. Then he kissed her gently and slipped out of the door on to the quay.

  He more than fulfilled his promise by returning in just over an hour, and with him he brought two heavy sacks slung over his shoulder. He had remembered that the office of the black market racketeer Lavinsky was only a stone’s throw from the Gare d’Austerlitz, and he had carried out a second successful raid on it for the benefit of himself and his friends.

  As the sacks were emptied by the light of Gregory’s torch their contents gave rise to cries of amazement and delight. There were tins of all sorts of luxuries that Madeleine had not seen for many months; not only such things as tinned ham, pineapple, and foie gras, but, most precious of all, and only procurable now in Paris at the price of a millionaire’s ransom, there were four big bundles of nine-inch candles and two packets of matches.

  They carried this almost fabulous treasure down into the catacombs, and the very sight of it had banished their previous despondency from their minds. With candles to light them Madeleine no longer had any dread of the rats, and sorting out the good things again they opened some of them at once to enjoy a first-class picnic supper.

  On the following day they decided that, since Gregory’s description had been circulated as well as Madeleine’s, Kuporovitch was the only one of them who would be reasonably safe out in the streets in daylight, and that even he should only leave the hideout for a short time once a day to get news.

  When he brought in the paper there was
nothing more in it about the conspiracy which had been revealed the previous day, so they now felt happier in their minds with the thought that Léon Baras and his party in the barge must have succeeded in getting clear of the capital without arousing suspicion. There were, however, banner headlines in the paper. At dawn the previous day, Sunday. June the 8th, British and Free French Forces had invaded Syria, and their armoured units were already reported pressing forward towards Damascus.

  Gregory was immensely cheered to know that we had at last taken the bull by the horns and openly thrown overboard all the absurd nonsense about the so-called rights of neutrals in a territory where the administration had definitely shown themselves unfriendly to us and was rendering every possible assistance to our enemies. He felt, too, that a successful campaign in Syria would make an immense difference to the Grand Strategy of the War, since, if Syria could be brought under British control, Turkey would no longer be isolated, and the road would again be open to give her swift assistance if she became the next victim of Axis aggression.

  The days that followed proved dreary in the extreme. There was nowhere in either the warehouse or the tunnel below in which they could sit or lie in real comfort. Thanks to Kuporovitch they were quite well off for candles, but, as they found it necessary to keep a couple alight all night, in order to scare away the rats, they did not feel justified in using any during the day; and the warehouse was in a perpetual twilight which made it impossible to read the books and periodicals, which Kuporovitch brought in, for any length of time. He made a trip to the station each morning and evening to get the latest paper, and it cheered them a bit to see that the Syrian campaign was going well; but there was no news as to when the curfew would be lifted, and until that happened they had no option but to continue in their voluntary captivity.

  At last, on Saturday, June the 14th, an announcement appeared that, after having been imposed for a week, the curfew would be lifted on the following night, but would be enforced again at the first manifestation of further activities against the régime.