‘And gag him. If he makes one more clever remark I may not be able to control myself.’
I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t stop myself. Gnawing on my knuckles, I followed the proceedings with dry-eyed, unblinking attention. They tied his wrists and ankles and used the handkerchief Max had tossed onto the floor as a gag. There was more than a smear of blood on it when they finished.
Max watched too. His back was turned to me when he said coldly, ‘Take him away. I will stay here and search the room, just to be certain.’
Chapter Ten
MY HEART should have skipped a beat, or maybe my blood should have run cold. I didn’t feel a thing. Except a distant primeval urge to lay violent hands on Max.
After the others had gone out he closed the door. Then he looked at the wardrobe and said quietly, ‘I am sorry you had to see that, Dr Bliss.’
‘I’m sorry too.’ His statement had been so unexpected, not to say inapropos, that I answered without thinking. Why not? He knew I was there. Was he now going to apologize for dragging me out and turning me over to Hans and Rudi? And Mary?
‘Do you have a watch?’
I was thinking about Mary and the look in her eyes when she said she had plans for me. ‘What? Oh. Yes.’
‘Wait fifteen minutes. Most of us will have left the house by then. If you take reasonable precautions – I suggest the balcony – you should be able to leave unseen. I beg you won’t try something brave and foolish. You would only be caught again.’
‘Where are you taking him?’
Max clicked his tongue against his teeth. ‘Now, Dr Bliss, you know better than to ask that.’
‘Max. Please. You said you owed me a favour – ’
‘I am doing you that favour. I would be in great trouble if it were known I had connived at your escape. Catch the first plane to Cairo and leave the country as soon as you are able.’
‘You know I won’t do that.’ A sensible woman wouldn’t have wasted her breath arguing with him. Vicky Bliss went right on talking. ‘You asked me a question once, remember? I didn’t know the answer then. I do now. I love him, Max. Please . . .’
Max took a step towards me. ‘Are you crying?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘I would if I thought it would do any good,’ I said, sniffing.
‘It would not. Honestly, I cannot comprehend why an intelligent woman like you should behave this way. You ought to be thanking me for . . . Stop that!’
‘I can’t,’ I snuffled. The conversation, between a courteous criminal and a weeping wardrobe, might have seemed funny to a detached observer. I was not detached, and Max was clearly uncomfortable. I couldn’t figure him out. I never had been able to figure him out. Only in fiction do you find cold-blooded villains with one soft streak in their flinty hearts. But if he didn’t mean to let me go, why had he sent Rudi and Hans away?
‘Fifteen minutes,’ Max repeated. ‘There is no use trying to follow, they will have left the house by now. She is still here, however, and she would like nothing better than to get her hands on you. You can do him no good by allowing yourself to be recaptured.’
He thought he was being so clever. I said, between gulps, ‘I can’t get out. He locked me in.’
‘But there is no key. How . . .’ He came to the wardrobe. ‘Ah, I see. That is good, it will hold you just long enough. Auf Wiedersehen – or rather, goodbye, Dr Bliss.’
I threw a few more sobs at him as he walked to the door. His shoulders twitched but he didn’t stop or turn around.
I waited a few minutes, just in case. When I tried the door again it opened without difficulty. The bolt was part of the carved ornamentation. It wasn’t concealed, just inconspicuous, unless you were looking for it. I could have forced it if I had thrown myself against the door hard enough. Max had saved me the trouble. It would have been a pity to damage such a beautiful antique.
John had pulled the bedclothes apart before he was interrupted. In case I haven’t mentioned it, the sheets were linen, fine as silk. They knotted nicely. I took them out onto the balcony. My window overlooked the garden. I could hear sounds of activity at the back of the house – my friends the movers, I assumed. On this side there was no one in sight, not even a gardener, but I kept an eye peeled as I tied the end of one of the sheets around the wrought-iron railing. I slung my bag around my neck before I climbed over the balcony and took hold of the makeshift rope.
I have done some rock climbing and had become rather vain about my ability to lower myself smoothly down a chimney or rock face. I soon discovered that a bedsheet is not a good substitute for ropes and pulleys. My thigh muscles wouldn’t work the way they were supposed to, the sheet kept stretching, and the bag kept banging against my chest. I didn’t dare discard it, though. It’s bad enough to be on the run. Being on the run sans money, passport, and other useful items complicates the problem even more.
I had to drop the last ten feet, not because the linen gave out but because my thighs lost the struggle. Scrambling up, I scuttled along the side of the house, ducking under the windows, till I reached the corner.
Two of the gardeners were at work on the flowers that lined the driveway. Kneeling, their backs to me and the house, they appeared to be weeding the beds. Their dusty faded robes blended with the shadowed foliage and their white turbans looked like cauliflower. There were no vehicles in the driveway. The gates at its far end were closed. So was the door next to the gates. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I had anticipated it would be there, for the use of visitors who came and went on foot.
I had two choices. Well, actually, I had quite a few, but turning myself in didn’t appeal to me and neither did trying to get over a wall ten feet high that was topped with barbed wire and broken glass. I could make a run for it or try to bluff my way out. I decided on the second alternative. The gardeners were bound to see me – I intended that they should – and they were more likely to stop a frantic fugitive than a casual stroller.
I stuck to the shrubbery as long as I could, but I was still ten yards from the gate when I had to leave the path and step out into the open. One hand in my pocket, the other in my bag, I strode briskly towards the gate. One of the weeders sat back on his haunches as I passed him and gave me a curious look. I gave him a pleasant nod and managed not to break into a run. My back felt exposed, as if it had been stripped not only of clothing but of skin. My neck muscles ached as I fought the impulse to look over my shoulder.
The pedestrian door was locked. I had expected that, but I had hoped there would be a simple bar or bolt. No such luck. There wasn’t even a visible keyhole. The damned thing was probably electronically controlled, like the main gates. I heard the gardener call out; from the inflection it must have been a question. ‘Don’t you know you’re supposed to check out before you leave, you rude person?’ or ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, lady?’
I strolled on without replying, but the next demonstration of interest was too emphatic to ignore. The bullet hit the steel panel of the big gate with a ringing crack. Obviously it was time I stopped fooling around. I took the gun out of my bag, squatted down, pressed the barrel against the metal box at the base of the nearest column, and squeezed the trigger a few times. The position was unstable and my legs were as unsteady as my shaking hands. The recoil toppled me over onto my back. The next bullet whistled through the empty space where my head would have been if I hadn’t fallen over. The son of a bitch must be using a rifle. No hand weapon could have been so accurate at that distance.
The control box was a mess of smoking, ragged metal and the gate was ajar. So far so good, but I wouldn’t get far unless I could delay pursuit. I looked back. The man with the rifle had stopped shooting and started running. He was still some distance away, but the gardener wasn’t. I could see the whites of his eyes, so I stood up and pointed the gun in his general direction. He was no hero; with a yell he dived into the nearest bush. With an answering yell – I was beginning to lose my famous cool by that tim
e – I dived through the door and ran . . . straight into a pair of grasping arms.
Eyes blurred, ears ringing, on the ragged edge of hysteria, I punched him in the stomach. My fist bounced off a surface as resilient as a beach ball. He staggered back, pulling me with him, and we fell onto the seat of a waiting vehicle which took off with a scream of tyres and a stench of burning rubber. The door flapped wildly until someone slammed it.
He’d fallen on top of me again. I stared up into the face in such intimate proximity to my own and burst into tears. ‘Schmidt! Oh, Schmidt, God bless you, what the hell are you doing here?’
Schmidt’s eyes were overflowing too, but only, as he was careful to explain, because I had hit him in the solar plexus. As soon as we had untangled ourselves he put an arm around me and pressed me to his stomach. ‘Put your head on my shoulder, little darlin’,’ he said tenderly. ‘All will be well. Papa Schmidt is on the case.’
That set me off again and Schmidt had to lend me his handkerchief and tell me to blow my nose like a good girl. The cab took a screeching turn into an alley hardly wider than the one I had traversed earlier that day and went careening along, scraping the walls on both sides.
‘What’s he doing?’ I gasped.
‘Eluding pursuit.’ Schmidt’s happy grin stretched from ear to ear and from moustache to double chin. Leaning forward, he tossed a handful of bills onto the front seat and shouted something in Arabic. The driver let out a whoop and roared across an intersection filled with traffic. I shut my eyes.
‘Schmidt.’ I had to raise my voice to be heard over the roar of the engine and the screams of rage from the other drivers, but I strove to speak calmly. ‘Schmidt, I think he’s eluded it. Wouldn’t we be less conspicuous if he drove at normal speed?’
‘That is probably true,’ Schmidt said reluctantly. Another fistful of money and another longish speech produced the desired effect. ‘I have instructed him to drive us around the city for a while,’ Schmidt said, settling back. ‘Now we can talk, eh? What has happened?’
I told him. When my voice gave out he said gravely, ‘So he is a prisoner.’
‘Or dead.’
Schmidt shook his head so vigorously that all his chins wobbled. ‘They won’t kill him. Not yet. Vicky, you are not thinking clearly. Oh, I understand; your emotions are at war with your intelligence, your heart aches to rush to the rescue of the man you – ’
‘Shut up, Schmidt.’ I bit my lip. ‘I’m sorry, Schmidt. I didn’t mean it.’
‘Ha,’ said Schmidt. ‘Well. I did not know what you told me, about the young woman. It explains the one thing that had confused me, however. Listen to me now, matters are more serious than I had realized, and we must act without delay. Late last night Sir John – ’
‘That’s not his name.’
‘Well, I know that, but I have become accustomed to it. It suits him. Late last night he came to my room. He said that he had sent you away, for your safety, and that I too must remove myself from the house. So, following his advice, I announced this morning that I felt it best to take myself to a hotel. Larry made only token objections. He seemed distracted.’
‘I’m sure he was. Didn’t he comment on my failure to return last night?’
‘Oh, yes, he expressed concern and asked if I knew where you were. I was very clever,’ Schmidt said, puffing himself up. ‘I said that you were a grown-up woman and that this was not the first time you had gone off with a handsome young man.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘The important thing was not that he believed it but that he believed I believed it,’ said Schmidt. He added, smirking, ‘This facade of naivety I assume is very useful. No one tried to prevent me from leaving. Ha, but they will be sorry, when they find how they have underestimated – ’
‘Schmidt,’ I said, trying to articulate through clenched teeth, ‘at some future date I will spend an entire day telling you how brilliant you are. Right now I’m in something of a hurry. Stick to the point. How did you happen to turn up today?’
‘In the nick of time,’ Schmidt pointed out. ‘It was not a coincidence that I was there.’
‘I didn’t think it was.’
My teeth weren’t clenched, they were bared. Schmidt said hurriedly, ‘Yes, I will tell you, if you will stop the interruptions. I went, as I had said I would, to the Winter Palace Hotel and checked myself in. I was eating Mittagessen when a waiter summoned me to the telephone. It was Feisal; he was calling me, he said, at the instruction of a mutual friend. You had foolishly run away from him – Feisal, that is – and he – the friend – feared you would return to the house of Larry Blenkiron. He – the friend – strongly advised that I should adopt evasive measures for my own sake and for your sake I should hover outside the gates and try to intercept you.’
I had a sudden, insane mental image of Schmidt hovering over the house like the Goodyear blimp. Or a very well-fed angel. It won’t be Heaven to Schmidt unless there is an unending flow of fattening food.
‘You were too quick for me,’ Schmidt went on, frowning. ‘I was still hoping to see you come when I heard the guns shooting and knew they must be shooting at you or at Sss . . . at John. So I leaped from the taxi, telling the driver to be ready for instant departure, and was about to break down the gate when you emerged.’
‘Break down the gate,’ I repeated. ‘How did . . . Never mind. You’re a hero, Schmidt. If you hadn’t been there I’d never have made it.’
‘If it had not been for the foresight and noble sacrifice of John you would not have made it,’ Schmidt corrected. ‘So now we must rescue him, eh? Do you know where they have taken him?’
‘They didn’t take him anywhere.’ I stared at my hand. The knuckles were raw. ‘John managed to – to distract the other guys, they aren’t awfully bright, but he didn’t fool Max. Max knew there hadn’t been time for me to get away. He figured I had to be hiding somewhere in the room. The wardrobe was the most obvious place When he told them to tie John up he was trying to mislead me, to suggest that they intended to transport him some distance. Rudi even started to question the order, but Max cut him off. John is still there. So I’ve got to go back.’
‘Aber natürlich,’ Schmidt said.
‘I had to leave him, Schmidt. I had to convince Max I had fallen for his fabrication, and make sure the others knew I was gone. My departure was a little more conspicuous than I meant it to be,’ I admitted. ‘But now they’ll be off guard, they won’t expect me to come back. If I’d hung around – ’
‘Stop it, Vicky.’ Schmidt stifled me with the handkerchief. I blew my nose and mopped my face, while he continued gently, ‘You do not have to convince me. To have acted otherwise would have been folly.’
‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘I get nervous when people shoot at me.’
‘Ha,’ said Schmidt. ‘Now be quiet and I will tell you some things. Did you think I was so stupid I did not know what you were doing? From the first I have known – known more than you, Ms. Know-it-all. I told you I never forget a face. The moment I set eyes on the secretary of Mr Blenkiron I recognized him for the criminous cutter of silhouettes.’
‘How could you?’ I demanded incredulously. ‘You never saw Max. He was in jail.’
‘And that is where I saw him, in the jail. I was curious,’ Schmidt admitted. ‘I am interested in the criminal mentality, and what you had told me of him suggested he was an unusual person. On the boat he kept away from you, but he did not expect I would remember. As soon as I recognized him I knew there was trouble brewing, which I had of course suspected as soon as I saw Sir John. A coincidence, that you and he should both be on that boat? You insult me to think I would believe such a story.’
‘You pretended to believe it.’
‘Well, of course. My feelings were deeply wounded by your lack of faith in me. But I forgave you,’ Schmidt said magnanimously. ‘For the desperateness of the situation became clear to me when I recognized that terrible man. The one thing I did not know was the id
entity of the young woman, but of course I realized that it was only a marriage of convenience and that his heart still belonged to you.’
I started to say something sarcastic but I changed my mind. If his heart didn’t belong to me, he had gone to considerable lengths for the sake of friendship.
‘How’d you figure that out?’ I asked meekly.
‘From the way he did not look at you when he thought others were looking and the way he did look at you when he thought others were not. You,’ said Schmidt judiciously, ‘were more skilled at concealing your feelings. Had I not known better I would have believed you were adversaries instead of – ’
‘Yeah, right. Did John tell you what they’re planning, Schmidt?’
‘No, he did not have to tell me. I knew.’
‘How did . . . Oh, hell, never mind that now.’ I looked out of the window of the cab. Palm trees, flower beds, the rippling river beyond . . . ‘First things first. Did you check out of the Winter Palace?’
‘No. You see – ’
‘For God’s sake, Schmidt! They know you’re there; they’ll be looking for you.’
Schmidt let out a roar. For all his pretended calm, his nerves weren’t in much better shape than mine. ‘Give me some credit for good sense, Vicky! If I had checked out they would only look for me somewhere else. Now they will wait for me to return. I left my luggage, but I have with me all we will need,’ He indicated the briefcase on the seat next to him.
‘You’re right, and I’m a fool,’ I said humbly.
‘No, you are not a fool. You are fearing for the life and safety of the man you – ’
I didn’t want to scream at him but I knew I would if he said it, so I cut in. ‘I have the essentials with me too, but I’ve got to get rid of this gold-and-turquoise bag. It’s too conspicuous”
‘Now you are thinking,’ Schmidt said approvingly. He leaned forward and addressed the driver.
‘I did’t know you spoke Arabic’
‘I speak all languages.’ Schmidt twirled his moustache. ‘My Arabic is not good, however. Only a few phrases.’
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