Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07

by The Second Seal

  “He couldn’t have,” cried the doctor. “We’ve just come from there.”

  “As you came round from the back of the Town Hall you must have taken a short cut through the town,” replied the policeman laconically. “He’s gone to it along the quay.”

  “Drive on!” the Duke urged his companion. “Quickly! Quickly! He can’t have gone far. We may catch him.”

  The street was full of the gaily clad crowd which had left the pavements after the passing of the procession, and was now milling about in it; so it was impossible to see far ahead. But the auto banged again and jerked forward, scattering the people.

  De Richleau sat rigid, his face drained of blood, sweating with pain, and gripped by the fear that now Franz Ferdinand had left the Town Hall he might yet fall a victim to Dimitriyevitch’s plot. Every attempt made to warn him had either been blocked or gone unheeded. But if they could only overtake him, his staff and such police as were close at hand could form a rampart round his body, then get him into a building where he would be safe until troops could be brought to escort him out of the town. It was not his own life only, but the peace of Europe, that still hung in the balance.

  As they reached the first bridge, they saw the end of the short procession. It consisted of four cars and the last three had halted. They were slightly zig-zagged where they had stopped just opposite the second bridge. The first car, which should have gone straight on for the hospital, was half way round a corner leading to the centre of the town. Its driver had evidently taken the wrong turning and was now backing it out. The quay ahead was almost clear of people, the side turning that the car had entered full of them, showing it to be the route the Archduke had been expected to take.

  The doctor honked his horn and put his foot on the accelerator. The little auto spurted for a moment at thirty miles an hour, with cursing people jumping from its path. He braked violently, and it skidded to a standstill just behind the last car in the line. The squeal it made in pulling up was followed almost instantly by the sound of two shots.

  De Richleau grabbed the windscreen and hauled himself to his feet. From his elevation in the car he could see over the others and the heads of the swirling crowd. In the open yellow and black Mercedes, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie von Hohenberg were still seated upright, side by side.

  For an instant the Duke’s heart leapt with hope. It seemed that the second assassin had made his attempt and failed: that once again a Divine Providence had enabled someone in the crowd to deflect the killer’s aim. If either of them had been hit, surely they could not remain sitting there unmoved.

  Suddenly the Duchess lurched sideways. Her head fell on her husband’s shoulder. The Archduke raised a hand as if to clap it to his neck. The gesture was never completed. Slowly, as though he were bowing to the crowd, his head sagged on to his chest. Then, together they slumped forward, disappearing from De Richleau’s sight into the bottom of the car.

  There was a mist before the Duke’s eyes. The pain in his leg had become intolerable, unbearable. Desperately he fought against it, hanging on to his consciousness with every ounce of his resolution. He did not faint until fourteen minutes later—-just after he had learned that both of them were dead.

  CHAPTER XVIII - THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

  On the evening of Tuesday, 30th of June, De Richleau found himself back in Vienna. That was not due to any determined last moment effort on his part to keep his promise to Ilona. He was certainly in no condition to have made the journey by himself, and had he shown any intention of attempting it the hospital authorities would have forcibly restrained him. The fact was that he had suddenly become a person of great interest to the Austrian Government. It had not been remotely suggested that he was under arrest but, all the same, his own wishes were not even consulted. They required his presence in Vienna urgently. Several telegrams about him had sped back and forth between Vienna and Sarajevo on the Monday; and, when it was reported that he was in no danger of death, an order sent that he should be brought to the capital with minimum delay and maximum precautions against worsening his condition. A military ambulance car had been attached to the train, his doctor and nurse had accompanied him, and he was now installed in one of the best rooms of a private nursing home that overlooked the Prater.

  After his collapse, following the double assassination, he had become delirious and continued so for a good part of Sunday evening. Only by inference and the somewhat garbled statements of the nurse and doctor had he since been able to get some idea of what he had said in his ravings; but it had certainly been far more than he ever would have, had he remained in control of his faculties.

  Later that night, during a lucid interval, he had found Franz Ferdinand’s A.D.C., Count Harrach, at his bedside. The Count was still overwrought himself, and could hardly restrain his tears as he gave a rather disjointed account of the day’s terrible events.

  The assassin was a nineteen year old student named Gavrilo Prinzip. The two shots he had fired had hit the Archduke in the neck and Sophie von Hohenberg in the stomach. Although the shots had been fired at only three yards range, for a moment no one had realized that either of them had been hit; but after murmuring a few words to one another they had fallen forward in a faint. Neither had recovered consciousness and in less than a quarter of an hour both of them were dead.

  The man who had thrown the bomb was a young printer named Nedjedliko Cabrinovitch. He had been caught and taken off to Police Headquarters. On learning of his arrest the Archduke had exclaimed cynically, “Hang him as quickly as possible, or Vienna will give him a decoration.”

  At the Town Hall an address of welcome had been read. Not unnaturally, Franz Ferdinand had replied to it with some terseness. Rumours, then untraceable owing to the excitement of the moment, were running round that other attempts would be made on his life. Alarmed by the total lack of troops and few police in the streets, Count Harrach had said to General Potiorek, “Has not Your Excellency arranged for a military guard to protect His Imperial Highness?”

  The Governor, evidently furious at the event having shown up his lack of precautions and wishing to justify that lack, had replied impatiently: “Do you think Sarajevo is full of assassins?”

  Nevertheless, the Archduke’s suite had persuaded him to take a different route from that originally intended on leaving the Town Hall. As he had expressed concern for the officers who had been wounded, it was decided to drive first to the hospital, so that he could visit them. When the little procession was about to set off, Count Harrach had attempted to ride on the left foot-board of the car, so as to protect his master with his body. But Franz Ferdinand had exclaimed, “Don’t make a fool of yourself,” and pushed him off.

  Along the quay from the Town Hall, owing to lack of police supervision, the crowd had been all over the road; but it had parted at the entrance of Franz Joseph street to allow the car to take the route expected. The chauffeur, not knowing the way to the hospital, had turned into it. General Potiorek shouted to him that he should have gone straight on. Then, as he slowed down to back out, the car had come within three feet of the pavement. As the engine was put into reverse, the fatal shots had been fired.

  Count Harrach had, however, come to the hospital not to impart, but to seek, information. At the preliminary police inquiry held that evening, a minor official had mentioned a telegram of warning sent in the morning by a Count Königstein from Visegrad. The Mayor, who had evidently meant to conceal the fact that he had received it, had hurriedly excused himself by saying that he thought it had come from a lunatic and, later, in the excitement, forgotten all about it. Someone had then said that Königstein was the name of the man who had diverted the aim of the bomb thrower, been wounded with the two officers when it exploded, and was now in the hospital. When a copy of the telegram was produced, Count Harrach had realized that the Königstein concerned must be the one who had entertained the Archduke and himself at the castle of that name just over a fortnight before. So, immediately the inq
uiry was adjourned, he had postponed his departure by the special train that was waiting to take him to Vienna, and gone round to the hospital to see what more he could learn about the plot, before leaving for the capital.

  The doctor had reported his patient as raving about pistols being lost, crazy boys, scimitars, a black hand, and other matters, through which ran the refrain that he must reach Sarajevo in time to save the Archduke and the peace of Europe. On learning that he was temporarily in his right mind, Count Harrach had insisted on seeing him, told him what had happened, and plied him with a score of questions.

  Weak from loss of blood, exhausted by strain, and still feverish as he was, the Duke had sufficient wits left to realize that he had landed himself in a fine mess. To tell the truth—that he had uncovered the plot while working to that end as a secret agent of the British Government—was out of the question: but somehow he had to account for his knowledge of it. Taking refuge in his parlous state, he declared that he had found the whole thing out by accident, then feigned a return to his delirium.

  The following day he had been visited and questioned by General Potiorek and the Sarajevo Chief of Police, but they had got little more out of him. He said that on leaving Vienna he had gone down to Constantinople on business, and that having completed it he had decided to break his return journey for a few days in Belgrade. There, in a night-haunt called Le Can-Can, he had learned of the plot, and at once taken such steps as he could to thwart it. Then, to give himself further time to think matters out, he had insisted that talking tired him too much for him to say any more at the moment. Next morning he had been transferred from his bed to a stretcher and spent most of the day travelling to Vienna.

  As he lay, in a bed that seemed absurdly small for the fine square room, and gazed at the tree-tops of the park out of the broad bay-window, for the fiftieth time he reviewed his difficult situation. Somehow he had to give a satisfactory explanation of not only how he had obtained foreknowledge of the plot, but of the bullet—since extracted —which had been in his shoulder on his first arrival at the hospital in Sarajevo; and why he had, apparently, sent no warning of the plot to Vienna, or attempted to go there, but, instead, relied entirely on his own ability to make the frightful cross-country journey to the Bosnian capital in time to stop the outrage.

  On the previous day he had seen no alternative but to admit that he had learned of the plot in Belgrade; and he now doubted his ability to persuade the Austrians that it had not been hatched there. If he substantiated that, it would cut the ground from under the Serbians’ feet. They were counting on gaining the sympathy of Europe for the Bosnian Serbs in connection with such repressive measures as the Austrians might take against them as a result of the assassination. But if it became known that members of the Serbian General Staff had plotted the murders, Serbia would get no sympathy from anybody. On the other hand, if the Austrians were given the true story bout the Black Hand they might make demands for reparation from Serbia that she would refuse; in which case the outcome would still be war.

  It was a horrible dilemma, and to his great distress De Richleau realized that he was in the unhappy position of a man who knew too much. Whichever course he took now might tip the scales and result in helping to ferment a lesser or greater war. But on three counts he finally decided that he would refrain from attempting to shield the Serbs.

  Firstly, he had been in the State prison in Belgrade on Friday night and Tankosić and Ciganović had taken him from it. Therefore, the Serbian police could hardly fail to associate their deaths and that of their Chief with him. The Serbian secret service would almost certainly have learned and reported his activities on arriving in Sarajevo, so it would be known that he was in Austria. Therefore, although it seemed unlikely, it was, nevertheless, possible that the Serbian government would demand his extradition to face a charge of murder. If they did, his only protection would lie in having told the Austrians at least a part of the truth about the killings.

  Secondly, given that the chances of war resulting from the assassinations were more or less even whatever he said, justice demanded that the Serbians should not escape responsibility for the initial cause that led to it.

  Thirdly, the odium attaching to this foul deed should go a long way to deprive Serbia of the support of Russia and the great democracies, thus rendering it much less likely that they would take up the cudgels on her behalf and a general war result.

  On Wednesday morning a small committee of the highest importance came to see him. It consisted of the Foreign Minister, Count von Berchtold, his right-hand man, Count Hoyos, the Emperor’s aged aide-de-camp, Count Paar, General Conrad von Hötzendorf, Count Harrach and General Urbanski von Ostromiecz, the Director of the Imperial Secret Service.

  Evidently the meagre report received from General Potiorek had already given them the impression that De Richleau was reluctant to tell all he knew: so to encourage him to speak frankly they opened the proceedings by disclosing what they had so far found out for themselves.

  The examination of the two assassins, and other inquiries, had elicited the information that on the fatal Sunday there had been at least seven young fanatics in Sarajevo, all armed and all prepared to make an attempt on the Archduke’s life. All except one were of Serbian blood and had been living in Belgrade for some time. They had recently re-crossed the frontier in secret and the weapons they carried bore the marks of the Serbian State Arsenal. It was, therefore, clear beyond dispute that the murders were not nihilistic in character, but had been deliberately planned and stage-managed by Belgrade. The existence of the Black Hand had long been known to the Austrian Government, and they had no doubt that responsibility for the crime lay with it.

  Further, De Richleau’s visitors admitted that numerous warnings had been received, including one from a Serbian diplomat to a minor official in the Austrian Foreign Office. But all of them had been so obscure or seemingly ill-founded that no steps had been taken about them. On the other hand, the Duke’s telegram from Visegrad had been so positive and categorical that he must obviously have been aware of the true facts.

  Count Berchtold, who had so far done most of the talking, looked down his long, sharp nose and added, “I need hardly stress the immense importance we attach to getting to the bottom of this terrible matter; and it is for that reason my friends and myself have come to request you to give us a personal account of the events which led up to your sending that telegram.”

  “I am only too willing to aid you in any way I can, Count,” replied De Richleau amiably. “This, then, is the bald outline of the most unpleasant adventure into which I was quite unexpectedly precipitated owing to my having paid a short visit to Belgrade. On Friday night I went to a night-haunt there called Le Can-Can. The male patrons of the place were mostly young officers, and a party of them invited me to join their table. The liquor was flowing freely and as the hour advanced we all got a little drunk. They then began to toast an event that was to take place on Sunday, which would lead to war with Austria. Through my mother I am half Russian, and I was making myself understood by them in that language, so they undoubtedly took me for one. Naturally I was much alarmed, so to lead them on I pretended hatred of Austria myself. One youngster, drunker than the rest, then gave away the plot in a single sentence before his companions had time to stop him. I could see that a middle-aged Colonel who had joined us was much annoyed, but I gave a drunken grin as though I had not fully taken in the sense of what the young man had said. Some of the officers, including the Colonel, left shortly afterwards, but the party continued for another hour. I did not dare to leave before them, but avoided drinking any more, and had determined at once that as soon as I could get away I would take the first train for Vienna.”

  “But no sooner did I get outside in the dark street than I was set upon, bundled into a big car, and had a pistol pushed into my ribs. Three of the officers who had attacked me, one of who was the Colonel, took me in the car some miles out of Belgrade to a châlet in the for
est. There,” the Duke repressed a cynical smile, “I found myself in the unenviable position of ‘the man who knew too much’. They informed me that they meant to keep me a prisoner in the cellar, and would have to do so for an unspecified period; or at least until their vile plot had brought about the opening of hostilities against Austria that they desired.”

  “I saw at once that the only chance of saving the situation lay in gambling my life in an attempt to escape. Fortunately they had not searched me, and I was carrying a loaded pistol in my hip pocket. As they led me to the cellar, I rounded on them and drew it. Having taken them by surprise gave me an initial advantage. A frightful melee ensued. I was shot in the shoulder, but I succeeded in leaving all three of them either dead or severely wounded, and getting away.”

  “The car in which they had brought me there was still outside, and it was a Rolls. I jumped into it and drove off. While I was at the châlet I had seen no servants, but I feared that the sound of the shots would bring them on the scene at any moment, and the police would soon be warned to hold me up. So I did not dare to drive back through Belgrade and attempt to cross the frontier into Hungary. Neither could I send any warning by telegraph or telephone as long as I was in Serbia. I decided that my best chance lay in heading across country for Sarajevo.”

  “With luck I should have got there late on Saturday night, but unfortunately I twice lost my way; and the second time I was benighted in the mountains near the frontier. As soon as I got to Visegrad, on Sunday morning, I sent the telegram of which you know, and I reached Sarajevo myself at two-thirty in the afternoon. That is the whole story.”

  As De Richleau ceased, his little group of visitors looked at him in unfeigned admiration, and von Hötzendorf grunted: “To have taken on three of those swine single-handed, and afterward made such a journey, although wounded, was a magnificent piece of work. I’ve never heard of one that better deserved a decoration.”