Two miles outside Aix, the Duke drove the car into a wood, abandoned it there, and, taking only his attache case and the food he had bought, went forward on foot to reconnoitre.
From a piece of high ground, he saw that, extending from the frontier post, on both sides of the road a barbed wire fence had been erected. But about a mile to the south it had not yet been completed. Gangs of men were still working on it, and there was a gap of another mile or more to a distant hillside, on which tiny figures were erecting another section of the fence.
By a circuitous route, he made his way to a coppice opposite the gap and sat down there to wait for nightfall. While the light was still good, he made a prolonged study of the country in front of him through his field glasses, endeavouring to memorize every hedge and ditch within sight. At eight o’clock he ate his picnic meal, but the August evening seemed interminable, and it was not until a little before ten o’clock that he decided to make his bid for freedom.
He had a nasty open space of over a mile to cover, but the night was fairly dark and his long experience as a hunter now stood him in good stead. Once a patrol passed within twenty feet of him as he lay, holding his breath, in the long grass. When it was out of earshot he stealthily went forward again, and wriggled over the low ditch that marked the boundary. For another half-mile he squirmed along, still fearful that if he got to his hands and knees his silhouette might be seen. Then he reached a hedge and was able to move at a crouching run along it. Ten minutes later he got to a wood, so could stand up and proceed at a cautious walk without danger. A hundred yards inside the wood he sat down among some bushes and, carefully shading the spark of his lighter, lit a cigarette. While inside Germany he had striven to keep out of his mind the constant peril in which he stood. But it had never been far from his thoughts, and the knowledge that he had come safely through now filled him with ineffable relief. As soon as he had finished his cigarette he went on again.
Having studied the country so thoroughly through his field glasses in the late afternoon, he had no difficulty in finding his way back to the road about a mile and a half beyond the frontier post. The road was empty, so he advanced along it, keeping a sharp look-out. Ten minutes later he heard a motor-cycle approaching, and hid himself in a ditch until it had passed; but he met nothing further and after a two-mile tramp entered a little village that he knew to be called Gulpham.
It was not on the railway, and even if it had been he would not have attempted to take a train from a small place so near the frontier. As he could not speak Dutch it would have been too great a risk. He was heading for Maastricht, which was only ten miles farther on, knowing that in a city of its size he could ask in French or English for a ticket without arousing suspicion. It was now nearly midnight, so all the houses in the village were in darkness, save one in which a light showed through thin curtains in a pair of downstairs windows. Against its porch a bicycle was leaning. Transferring his attaché case to his left hand, he mounted the bike and rode off on it.
The country was flattish, so an hour and a quarter’s hard pedalling brought him to within sight of Maastricht’s spires, dimly seen against the starry sky. Only a suburb of the town lay on the east bank of the Maas, and he had to cross a bridge over the river to reach its centre. It was now too late for him to catch a train that night, but he hoped to find some small hotel where he could get a bed, then take a train north first thing in the morning.
As he approached the bridge he saw that its eastern end was brightly lit, and that two policemen were standing there on the pavement.
But as there was no barrier it did not seem likely that they would challenge him. Putting on a spurt, he pedalled past them.
Suddenly one of them gave a shout and pointed at the Duke’s feet. Giving a swift glance down, he saw to his consternation that the motion of pedalling had caused his trousers to ride up, exposing his field-boots.
By the time the policemen called on him to halt, and began to run after him, he was half-way across the bridge. To his dismay, he now saw that its western end was also lit and that two more policemen were posted there. Behind him the whistles of the first two shrilled. The two in front sprang into the road to bar his passage. It was too late for him to pull up and jump over the parapet of the bridge into the river. He could only increase his pace and attempt to swerve round the men ahead of him. As he did so, one of them ran at him sideways, and was just in time to jab his truncheon into the back wheel of the bicycle.
With a metallic clang the spokes of the spinning wheel tore the truncheon from the man’s hand. But the bike stopped dead, pitching De Richleau over its handlebars. He hit the road with a frightful thump. The breath was driven from his body and for a moment he lay there half stunned. By the time he got back his wits, and attempted to stagger to his feet, all four policemen were gathered round him. One of them was pointing a revolver at his head.
His attaché case had flown from his hand, burst open and scattered its contents within a few feet of him. He caught sight of Ilona’s photograph, the glass of its frame now cracked across. Then his eye fell on a paper bag that contained the remains of his supper. On it was printed in large letters the name of the chacuterie at which he had bought the ham, and underneath the damning words Aix La Chapelle.
The policemen were gabbling together in Dutch, but it was like enough to German for him to catch the gist of what they were saying. One of them pointed to De Richleau’s field-boots, then to the paper bag, and another said:
“Yes, yes! He is clearly a deserter. To-morrow we will send him back to Germany.”
CHAPTER XXVI - THE FALSE SIR PELLINORE
Two of the Duke’s captors marched him off to the police station, and there he was given first aid. He needed it. He had fallen very heavily on the right side of his body, bruising it badly, sprained his wrist and crushed his ear.
The small automatic he usually carried under his arm was found and confiscated. Then after his hurts had been attended to, he was taken in front of a police inspector who spoke German. The inspector drew a form towards him and said in a bored voice: “Give me your name, regiment, and the time and place at which you crossed the frontier.”
De Richleau thought it futile to deny that he had come from Germany. There was too much evidence against him. So he replied: “I crossed near Gulpham at about half past ten. But I am not a deserter. I am a British subject, and I was caught in Germany by the outbreak of the war.”
“We’ve heard that one before,” remarked the inspector a little wearily. “Name, please?”
The Duke hesitated only a second: “Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust.”
On receiving the reply the inspector gave a cynical laugh. The muddy bandaged figure in shoddy ready-made clothes who stood before him certainly did not give the impression of being a member of the British aristocracy; but with a shrug he said:
“All right, Sir Cust. Where did you pinch the bike?”
Theft is theft all the world over, and the Duke was most averse to a minor crime being added to his other difficulties, so he replied promptly:
“I did not steal it. I brought it through from Aix with me.”
The inspector nodded to his men. “Put him in a cell for the night. It is a routine case and the magistrate will deal with it in the morning.”
Clearly there was nothing to be gained by further argument at the moment, so De Richleau allowed himself to be led away. One of the men helped him to undress then, lying in a narrow bed, he gave free rein to his acute anxiety about the future.
It was now the early hours of August 26th, so just over two days since he had left Wartenburg. By this time Nicolai and Steinhauer should have recovered from their concussion sufficiently to make statements. The killings on the train would be having repercussions. Main Headquarters would be wondering where Count Königstein had got to, and Ludendorff would soon be wanting to know what had become of Major Tauber. It needed only a single telephone call to link all three things up. Within another day or two at mo
st, every policeman— military, civil and secret—in Germany would be hoping to earn promotion by capturing the elusive Austrian Colonel.
That was why he had not given his own name. If an evil fate decreed that he was to be sent back to Germany, an interval must elapse before his true identity was discovered, and during it he might regain his freedom. But the interval would not be a long one, as his disappearance from Main Headquarters would soon be connected with the Austrian Colonel who had bought a civilian suit in Aix that afternoon, and the deserter who had arrived in Holland via Gulpham that night.
It was as bad a plight as De Richleau had ever been in; and it was not until near dawn that he managed to get a few hours’ sleep.
At ten o’clock he was taken to the Law Courts and spent two hours seated on a hard bench in an ante-room, with a sad-faced collection of men and women charged with minor offences. Just on mid-day his turn came. He was led into the court, and put in the dock in front of an elderly magistrate with a walrus moustache.
As he had feared might prove the case, the issue was complicated by his theft of the bicycle, and he was charged with that in addition to being a German deserter who had crossed the frontier illegally. He pleaded guilty to the latter, but not guilty to the theft, and declared himself to be a British subject.
Unfortunately for him the police had found the owner of the bicycle, who was present in court; so the theft was swiftly proved, and naturally prejudiced the magistrate against him in the other matter. Having asked in a severe voice if the prisoner could name anyone in Holland who knew him to be British, and received a reply in the negative, he inquired if the police inspector could give any evidence of nationality.
The inspector drew attention to the fact that the prisoner spoke perfect German, then produced the contents of his attaché case; among them his Zeiss binoculars, service pattern pistol, the Austrian decoration and the photograph of Ilona.
The sight of these items caused a plump, crop-headed man in the well of the court to jump to his feet and point an accusing finger towards the dock. To De Richleau’s alarm, he learned that this individual was the German Consul, and that it was now part of his duties to secure the repatriation to Germany of all the Germans he could run to earth who had not been granted official permits to remain in Holland.
After a scornful reference to the fact that all deserters pretended to be Belgian, French or British, the Consul insisted that the prisoner’s possessions clearly showed him to be either German or Austrian, and demanded his immediate extradition.
Greatly perturbed by the way matters were going, the Duke countered by saying in English: “I may speak German well, but I speak English better, because it is my native tongue. There are any number of people in London who can identify me, and I demand that the British Minister in the Hague should at once be informed of my predicament.”
On this being translated, the magistrate said gravely: “A man’s possessions cannot be taken as evidence of his nationality. It is quite possible that, like the bicycle, they were stolen.”
De Richleau breathed again. The sight of the decoration, particularly, had filled him with dismay, as, engraved in very small letters on its back, was the name Count Königstein. But, by the grace of God, either the police had not noticed that or, like the magistrate, believing the things to have been stolen, thought it not worth mentioning. The magistrate went on:
“The British Legation is to be informed of the prisoner’s presence here. I adjourn the case till Monday, to give an opportunity for them to communicate with London and verify his statement. If they cannot do so, he will be handed over to the German authorities. In the meantime he will serve three days’ imprisonment for the theft of the bicycle and pay the owner ten gülden compensation for damage done to the machine.”
In spite of the short prison sentence, the Duke smiled with relief. In a carefully worded letter he could easily pass on to the Legation the gist of the tremendously important information he had brought out of Germany, convey the truth about himself, and bring some member of its staff to his rescue well before the five-day adjournment was up. But he had counted his chickens before they were hatched. A moment later the German Consul was on his feet again.
“I desire to draw your Worship’s attention to the neutrality laws,” he said quickly. “Under them it is Holland’s responsibility to do her utmost to prevent leakage of information from one combatant country to another. The prisoner admits that he has come from Germany. If he is a deserter, as I maintain, it is possible that he may have intended to betray his country. His anxiety to communicate with the British Legation suggests that. If he is allowed to write to the Legation his letter might contain much information harmful to Germany. I request that he should be permitted to communicate to the British Legation, or any official from it who may visit him here, only his name and the names of such relatives or friends as he states can prove his identity.”
“Granted!” said the magistrate. “Next case.”
As De Richleau was led from the court he realized that he was in a frightful fix. He could prove that he was British only through the Legation. Had he given his own name, with Sir Pellinore’s as a reference, a telegram to London should have brought a reply that every effort must be made to procure his release at once. But, as an insurance against his immediate extradition, he had concealed his name and given Sir Pellinore’s. He had chosen that of the baronet on an inspiration of the moment; led to it by the urgency of the news he carried, and the thought that while the Legation might leave ‘Tom Brown’ kicking his heels in Maastricht for a week an S O S from anyone so well known as Sir Pellinore would bring a British diplomat hastening to his assistance. But what was the situation now?
He was saddled with a three-day prison sentence, and was not to be allowed to communicate with any member of the Legation staff either verbally or in writing. If he continued to maintain that he was Sir Pellinore, he could obviously not also give that name as a reference for transmission to London. On the other hand, if he recanted and gave his own, by the time he had completed his sentence the Kaiser himself would have heard of his exploits and be screaming for his blood. As Holland was neutral, whether he could prove that he was British or not, she would still observe the extradition laws in cases of murder, and so hand him over to the Germans to be tried and shot. It was, therefore, clear that, whatever else he did, his life now depended more than ever on keeping his real name secret.
In consequence, when he was asked for references by the cynical inspector in an office adjacent to the court, as he had to say something he gave the names of half a dozen of his friends in London. But the procedure was quite senseless as none of them could possibly know that he was posing as Sir Pellinore.
De Richleau was then taken in a Black Maria to the local prison. There, he did not fare too badly as the injuries he had sustained the previous night secured him admission to the sanatorium. But being excused from prison labour proved a mixed blessing, as he had all the more time to brood: and he was not only worried about himself. He had news of the utmost importance regarding the military situation, and the thought of being prevented from getting it to London made him almost crazy with frustration.
The following afternoon he was sent for, and taken down to a room that had two wire screens fixed across it with a space of six feet between them. It was the room in which prisoners were allowed to see such visitors as they were permitted. On the other side of the far screen a tall, dark young man, dressed in clothes that had obviously been cut in Savile Row, was standing. The Duke guessed at once that his assumption of Sir Pellinore’s identity had come off, and brought an attaché from the Legation post-haste to see him. But this was very far from being the private interview on which he had counted.
The young man gave him one quick glance, and said: “I’m afraid there is some mistake. This is not—”
Instantly De Richleau cut him short. “There is no mistake. Tell your Minister that six German Corps are being dispatched—”
Before he could get any further the two warders who had brought him there flung themselves upon him. One clapped a hand to his mouth and between them they hustled him from the room.
Up in the sanatorium again, he cursed his ill luck. Evidently his visitor knew Sir Pellinore, or had been given a description of him, and no one could possibly mistake the slim, dark-haired prisoner for the grizzled, six foot four inches tall baronet. But worse, although the young man had not actually denounced him as an impostor, he had got as near to it as made no difference. Anyway, he would report that to be the case to his Legation, so no help would now be forthcoming from it on Monday.
With fury in his heart, De Richleau realized that in his anxiety to procure a swift release, he had hoist himself on his own petard. Had he given his name as Tom Brown, no one at the Legation would have been in a position to say if he was or was not that person. When his case came up again the British representative would at least have given him the benefit of the doubt and asked for a further adjournment while inquiries were made. That might have provided an opportunity to tip him off about the real facts of the case. But no such heartening prospect could now be hoped for. The German Consul would meet with no opposition, and the wretched prisoner would be hauled off to Germany to meet his fate. And he had not even the consolation of knowing that he had passed on his all-important news.
The forty-eight hours that followed were black ones for the Duke, and they culminated on Friday night in a most appalling nightmare. In it he saw again Major Tauber sprawled over the table in the pullman car: but now the German would not die. He lifted his bloody head, from one side of which a horrible mess of brains and splintered bone protruded. Slowly he stood up. De Richleau fired again. His bullet had no effect. The Major stretched out a pair of claw-like hands. Again and again the Duke fired, until the pistol he held was empty. The shots passed through the living corpse without making it even quiver. The clawing hands stretched out and up, until they closed about his neck. He awoke with a groan and found himself drenched with the sweat of terror.
Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 Page 57