Nexdhet smiled. “I had no interest in your possibilities at all when I first met you. A badly wounded man, a woman no longer young—I thought your escape plans hopelessly naïve, as they still are. It was after observing Mrs. Pollifax remove the bullet from your arm that I decided to do what I could for you. You were worth the risk.” Turning to Mrs. Pollifax he said with a smile, “Wherever there is violence there is absurdity, also. And now is there anything else you would like to mention as reminder to me of how dangerous you both are becoming? Certainly it will be to my benefit to see that neither of you is ever questioned by Perdido.”
Mrs. Pollifax shook her head. “I can’t think of anything else, except …” She frowned. “I am wondering if it is quite ethical to let you help us. It feels terribly unpatriotic.”
Farrell grinned. “World politics make strange bedfellows, Duchess. Do try to manage a small sense of expediency, will you?”
“If you think it’s proper,” she said doubtfully. Her eyes fell on the window slit and she jumped to her feet. “It’s already twilight,” she told Farrell in a shocked voice, and was suddenly struck by the meagerness of their preparations. “Is the crutch finished?”
“I’m just padding it,” he told her, and stood up and tested it. “Not bad.”
Mrs. Pollifax opened her purse and brought out the rocks and the gag. She collected the Beretta gun cartridges, the map and the compass from their various hiding places and added the cheese from tonight’s dinner. She was contemplating them with a frown when Farrell said quietly, “Psst, they’re coming for the empty trays, I think.”
The trays.… She wondered what time it was, and at what hour the candle would be brought. To conceal the rocks she sat down on top of them just as Major Vassovic walked in rattling his keys. “Evening,” he said.
Nexdhet grunted; he had brought out a newspaper in which to bury his head. Farrell nodded; he had hidden his crutch under the bed but the tree’s absence was conspicuous, and Mrs. Pollifax decided she must divert the major’s attention. “How is your back?” she asked, and then saw the candle he was carrying and her eyes widened. “But you’re not—not going to light our cell so early?” she faltered.
“Busy tonight,” said Major Vassovic, and stuck the candle in its round metal ring. “No time for it later.”
Farrell looked up, appalled, while Nexdhet put down his paper and regarded Mrs. Pollifax with a sardonic, challenging amusement. Mrs. Pollifax realized with a sinking heart that she was sitting on the rocks that were to knock their guard unconscious; the moment had come and neither of them was prepared. A fretful anger rose in her over changed plans, broken routines, unpredictable guards. It wasn’t dark yet. The candle had never before been brought in so early. It could not be more than eight o’clock but the cell door would not be opened again unless to admit General Perdido, and she was sitting here like a brood hen on the rocks that Farrell ought to have if he was to hit Major Vassovic over the head.
“Farrell has to do it,” she reminded herself. “He’s the only one who knows how.” But Farrell was across the room and without the rocks.
“I can’t,” she told herself fiercely—what on earth would the Garden Club think of her, or the pastor of her church?
Major Vassovic was bringing a match from his shirt pocket, his back turned to the room. In a moment he would strike that match against the wall, light the candle and then turn around. “I can’t,” she repeated to herself stubbornly.
He struck the match against the wall and Mrs. Pollifax watched it flame into life. “I’ve never hit anybody in my life,” she remembered. “Never,” she repeated. “Never never never.”
Quietly, rock in hand, Mrs. Pollifax rose from her cot, walked up to Major Vassovic and hit him on the head. To her utter astonishment he collapsed at once, falling to the ground to lie there like a suit of old clothes. “For heaven’s sake,” she said, staring down at him in fascinated horror.
“Good girl,” said Farrell, and reaching under the cot for his crutch he hobbled over to look at the major. “Out like a light.”
“I do hope I didn’t hurt his back again,” said Mrs. Pollifax anxiously. “It was coming along so well.”
Nexdhet said politely, “Not at all, I’m sure. What next?”
Farrell plucked Vassovic’s huge, comic-opera keys from the floor and dropped them into Mrs. Pollifax’s purse. “What next?” he repeated. “We call the other one in—Stefan—and to spare the Duchess I’ll try my skill with the rock.”
“Oh?” said Mrs. Pollifax wistfully. “Actually it was rather interesting.”
“Then you’ll jolly well have to sublimate, I’ll be damned if I’m going to encourage you to hit men over the head. Here, help me arrange Major Vassovic in a more sprawling position. We’ll say he’s fainted. I do beg your pardon, Nexdhet,” he added with a smile. “Damn funny doing all this in front of you.”
“But he’s isn’t helping, he’s just overlooking,” Mrs. Pollifax reminded them both. “Now?” Farrell had taken a position behind the cell door, a rock in his good hand. When he nodded, Mrs. Pollifax gave a squeal, held her breath and followed this with a penetrating scream. “Guard! Guard!” She ran to the door and pounded on it.
Footsteps hurried down the hall and the unlocked cell door was pushed open. Stefan walked in and Farrell stepped forward and hit him. Stefan also sank into a heap. “You’re quite right, it is fun,” Farrell said.
“I’ll go out and look for rope to tie them with,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and hurried up the hall to the guardroom. It was not until she arrived there that she realized it might not have been empty; she made a mental note to develop more cunning, and at once locked the outside door so that no new guards could surprise them. Rummaging through the desk drawers she found a few lengths of rope and carried them back to Farrell.
Nexdhet said, “I really think you had better tie me up now, too, before I am tempted to change my mind or before General Perdido walks in. It surprises me, how alarmed I am beginning to feel.”
“Frankly, I’m a little alarmed myself,” said Farrell with a grin. “It’s the Duchess who gives this such an amateur quality. Delightful but alarming. Lie down, chum.”
Nexdhet gratefully lay down and Farrell began linking him by rope to Major Vassovic and Stefan. “I’ll gag you but not hit you. You’ll have to play dead,” explained Farrell. “Are you a good actor?”
“No, but I’m known as a very good Sigurimi man.”
Farrell gave a bleat of a laugh. “Let’s hope it protects you then. And Nexdhet—thanks.”
The colonel smiled faintly. “Just spare me the trouble of shooting you, that’s all.”
The gag went into his mouth and Farrell knotted it securely. Over his shoulder he asked of Mrs. Pollifax, “Where are you off to now?”
“To look for a Beretta. And it’s nearly dark!” With this Mrs. Pollifax left again, this time with her purse, to return to the guardroom and strip it. With the major’s keys she found a Beretta pistol and a second Nambu, and she double-checked both to be perfectly sure that her stolen gun clips fitted. Then she decided to load up on cartridges for them and reached down to the drawer beneath. This time it did not budge to her fingers. The drawer that for a week had held a key in its lock was now firmly closed and not a one of the major’s keys fitted. “What a pity,” she murmured, and turned back to the hall.
But first she had something else to do, something that had occupied her thoughts quite tantalizingly from time to time. This was her curiosity about their next-door neighbor who had rapped upon the wall. Mrs. Pollifax tiptoed past her own cell and down the hall, not at all sure that Farrell would approve of this side excursion. She inserted keys into the lock and opened the door upon a dark closet of a room. She stood there uncertainly, peering inside.
From the farthest corner there came a rustling sound, and Mrs. Pollifax’s instincts told her that something was moving. Suddenly the darkness expelled a form, a wraith, a gray genie of a man in flowing gray robes
who began a repeated bowing of his head as he chattered to her eagerly in a melodic, singsong voice.
Mrs. Pollifax interrupted him. “Not now, please. We are going to try to escape. Escape,” she told him. “Would you like to come along with us?”
He stopped speaking and regarded her with great interest. His face was surprisingly long and Gothic for an Oriental; the mouth was thin and turned up at the corners into a fixed, sweet smile; his eyes were large and bright and childlike, with only a faint suggestion of an Oriental pouch above the lids. Between the pursed lips and the twinkling eyes he looked—well, not quite responsible, thought Mrs. Pollifax; rather like a happy child in the guise of a man, all twinkles, smiles and curiosity.
“Come,” she said, as if to a child, and pulled him by the sleeve. He followed without protest, his eyes lively and curious. When they reached the cell Mrs. Pollifax said in a voice whose confidence was spurious, “Look what I found.”
“Good heavens,” said Farrell, staring at the little man beside her. “Who on earth is this birdlike creature?”
“The man next door. Colonel Nexdhet can tell us who he is, I’m sure.” They both glanced at the colonel and saw that he was straining at his gag and ropes. Farrell bent over and slipped the gag from his mouth.
“No,” said Nexdhet harshly. “No, I will not tell you who he is. No, you must not take him, absolutely not.”
“Take him!” Comprehension was dawning upon Farrell, leaving him inarticulate. “You can’t possibly—you’re not thinking—?”
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.
“But who is he? You don’t know a damn thing about him. For heaven’s sake, Duchess, he may be a Commie worse than General Perdido.”
“Then why would he be in jail?”
“Who knows? He may have seduced somebody’s mistress or tried to organize a coup d’état. He’s Chinese, isn’t he? He had to be somebody to get here.”
“I refuse to listen to you,” Mrs. Pollifax said indignantly.
“Trusting, always trusting,” pointed out Colonel Nexdhet from the floor. “Now you are crazy.”
Farrell’s lips thinned in exasperation. “There’s another point, Duchess. If he doesn’t speak English he doesn’t understand that we’re escaping. When he does realize it he’s likely to let out one long bloody yell at the wrong moment. He may not want to escape.”
“Nonsense, everybody wants to escape,” said Mrs. Pollifax scornfully.
“Have you explained the odds to him? He just may not want to end up in front of a firing squad,” pointed out Farrell.
“Defeatist.”
“Her conscience again,” Farrell explained wearily to Nexdhet.
“You must put him back in his cell at once,” warned Nexdhet. “And remember, I know who he is.”
“You won’t tell us?”
“Absolutely not.” On this matter Nexdhet sounded unequivocal.
Both regarded him thoughtfully until Farrell, rousing, said, “Oh, to hell with it, Duchess, this whole thing is insane, anyway. Bring him along, damn it, we haven’t all the time in the world.”
Mrs. Pollifax wordlessly handed him the two pistols and helped him tie the last knot and stuff the gag in the colonel’s mouth. “Okay, let’s go,” Farrell said crisply, and they moved out into the hall with Mrs. Pollifax hanging on to the sleeve of her genie. Carefully Farrell locked the door of the cell behind them and restored the keys to Mrs. Pollifax’s purse. “Get rid of them later,” he told her, and limped into the guardroom. “What do we call this—this lamentable mistake of yours?”
“Our Genie,” said Mrs. Pollifax at once. “He reminds me of the one in Aladdin. Smaller, of course.”
“Our Genie with the light-brown hair,” quipped Farrell and ignored her cross glance. Leaning on his crutch he unlocked and pulled open the door to the outside. “Only two lights shining in the big building,” he said. “Shall we go?”
With charming gallantry he held open the door for Mrs. Pollifax and her charge, and they walked past him into the sultry night air. “We’re outside, we’re free, we’re no longer prisoners,” thought Mrs. Pollifax, and she drew a long deep breath. She was in the process of expelling it when a voice to her right said unpleasantly, “Well, well, my three prisoners, and no guard in sight! It seems that I have returned from Peking just in time.”
General Perdido had come back.
CHAPTER 17
“Back—into the guardroom!” barked General Perdido, drawing the gun from his belt holster. “I’ll have Vassovic’s head for this. Lulash, see what they’ve done with Vassovic. At once.”
As the general shouted orders, his attention distracted for a second, Mrs. Pollifax lifted her arm and threw the cell keys far into the night. She thought somewhat hysterically, “I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth I know not where,” and she tried not to wince as she heard the sound of metal against rock. But neither her gesture nor the noise appeared to have been noticed by anyone, and Mrs. Pollifax began to feel more confident. She could not have said exactly why her courage revived except that two such unusual occurrences really ought to have been noticed by the general, and somehow this proved that he was not superhuman. A man who barked and shouted and popped up out of the dark could easily acquire such a reputation, she reflected; but these particular keys to the cells he would not get, and if there were duplicate keys they would require time to find.
And so, quite ignominiously, they were back into the guardroom, the three of them standing like naughty children before the desk at which the general had seated himself. Desperately Mrs. Pollifax tried to think: the electricity was primitive—only one line, the major had told her; it would be marvelous if she could hurl herself at the one power line and plunge the building into darkness. Unfortunately she was again without a knife, and totally without knowledge of power lines.
“What fools you are,” hissed the general. “I would never have believed it of you. I will take great delight, Mr. Farrell, in punishing you for this. As for you, Mrs. Pollifax—yes, what is it, Lulash?”
Lulash appeared in the hall, his eyes anxious as they encountered Mrs. Pollifax’s glance. “I can’t get in,” he said. “The doors to the cells are locked.”
The general muttered an oath and irritably opened one desk drawer after another, “They’re not here, one of these three must have them. Search them!”
Mrs. Pollifax’s heart sank, because a search of their persons would reveal two pistols. She said defiantly, “I was carrying the keys, but I threw them away. Outside, in the dark.”
The general stood up and walked around the desk to Mrs. Pollifax. He slowly lifted one arm and with precision struck her across the cheekbone.
Lulash looked stricken. Farrell cried angrily, “Hey!”
Mrs. Pollifax, reeling and a little faint, heard the general promise that this was only the beginning of what lay in store for them. The Genie spoke then, too, his eyes darting with interest from Mrs. Pollifax to the general. The general answered him in fluent Chinese, the Genie appeared satisfied and nodded.
“Go ahead, Private Lulash—search them,” said General Perdido harshly.
Lulash exchanged a long glance with Mrs. Pollifax, but she could not tell whether she read apology or a plea in that glance. He moved carefully to Farrell and stood before him. “Turn to the wall, please, and place your hands against the wall.”
It took a second before Mrs. Pollifax realized that Lulash stood squarely in front of Farrell, concealing him from General Perdido as well as protecting him from the general’s gun. There was a curious smile on Lulash’s lips as he looked into Farrell’s eyes. “Faster,” he said, “or I will shoot you.”
Farrell understood. One hand moved swiftly to his pocket, the other seized Lulash. Over Lulash’s shoulder he fired his pistol at the general, and then lightly tapped the guard on the head with the butt. The sound of the pistol’s discharge in the small room was deafening. Both Lulash and the general had fallen to the floor.
“Let’s go,” said Farrell, and headed for the door on his crutch. But the Genie reached it first and the three of them fled into the night. Or perhaps fled was not precisely the word, thought Mrs. Pollifax, as Farrell stumbled and tripped over the uneven rocks, muttering a variety of oaths at his clumsiness. She went back and took his arm and they struggled toward the fir trees. “I’m afraid I only winged him,” Farrell said furiously through his teeth. “I meant to kill him, but damn it I think I only got his shoulder or his arm.”
“He fell to the floor,” Mrs. Pollifax reminded him. “He disappeared behind the desk.”
“Pure instinct. Self-preservation. Give him a few minutes to stop the bleeding and catch his breath and he’ll be after us.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Pollifax said grimly, and realized that without Farrell to deter them they would already have reached the sanctuary of the fir trees. She took a long glance at this thought, examined it with brutal honesty, measured the difference this would make in both their small chance of escape and in their lives, and allowed herself one brief pang at being who and what she was. Then she put aside the thought forever. “Here we are,” she said with relief as they reached the thin cover of firs.
“My God, the donkeys,” gasped Farrell. “Look!”
Now that her eyes had adjusted themselves to the darkness Mrs. Pollifax could see at what he pointed: two donkeys were tied to a tree and were nibbling at the slender thread of green that separated the rocks from the forest of boulders beyond. “Luck,” she whispered.
“Plain bloody miracle,” growled Farrell, hobbling toward the animals. “Except of course with the general just arriving the donkeys had to be somewhere.”
“But we don’t have a knife to untie them,” wailed Mrs. Pollifax.
“Feels like a square knot,” murmured Farrell, working at it. “Tackle the center.”
The Genie stood back, not helping. When the donkeys were freed he stepped forward and put out his hand for the two ropes, gesturing to Mrs. Pollifax and Farrell to mount. At the same moment Mrs. Pollifax heard the sound of a gunshot behind them and she froze. “They’re after us!”
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