The woman dropped her hand on the banisters, heavily, set foot on the first stair, then slowly mounted as though her little feet in their dainty evening slippers were weighted with ball and chain.
Ilse Dumont followed her, opened a door in the passage, motioned her to enter. It was a bedroom that the electric light revealed. The woman entered and stood by the bed as though stupefied.
“I’ll keep my word to you,” said Ilse Dumont. “When it becomes too late for you to do us any mischief, I’ll return and let you go.”
And she stepped back across the threshold and locked the door on the outside.
As she did so, Neeland and Sengoun came swiftly up the stairs, and she beckoned them to follow, gathered the skirts of her evening gown into one hand, and ran up the stairs ahead of them to the fifth floor.
In the dim light Neeland saw that the top floor was merely a vast attic full of débris from the café on the ground floor — iron tables which required mending or repainting, iron chairs, great jars of artificial stone with dead baytrees standing in them, parts of rusty stoves and kitchen ranges, broken cutlery in boxes, cracked table china and heavier kitchen crockery in tubs which once had held flowers.
The only windows gave on a court. Through their dirty panes already the grey light of that early Sunday morning glimmered, revealing the contents of the shadowy place, and the position of an iron ladder hooked to two rings under the scuttle overhead.
Ilse Dumont laid her finger on her lips, conjuring silence, then, clutching her silken skirts, she started up the iron ladder, reached the top, and, exerting all her strength, lifted the hinged scuttle leading to the leads outside.
Instantly somebody challenged her in a guttural voice. She stood there a few moments in whispered conversation, then, from outside, somebody lowered the scuttle cover; the girl locked it, descended the iron ladder backwards, and came swiftly across to where Neeland and Sengoun were standing, pistols lifted.
“They’re guarding the roof,” she whispered, “ — two men. It is hopeless, that way.”
“The proper way,” said Sengoun calmly, “is for us to shoot our way out of this!”
The girl turned on him in a passion:
“Do you suppose I care what happens to you?” she said. “If there were no one else to consider you might do as you pleased, for all it concerns me!”
Sengoun reddened:
“Be silent, you treacherous little cat!” he retorted. “Do you imagine your riffraff are going to hold me here when I’m ready to depart! Me! A free Cossack! Bah!”
“Don’t talk that way, Sengoun,” said Neeland sharply. “We owe these pistols to her.”
“Oh,” muttered Sengoun, shooting a menacing glance at her. “I didn’t understand that.” Then his scowl softened and a sudden laugh cleared his face.
“I’m sorry, mademoiselle,” he said. “You’re quite welcome to your low opinion of me. But if anyone should ask me, I’d say that I don’t understand what is happening to us. And after a while I’ll become angry and go downstairs for information.”
“They know nothing about you in the salle de jeu,” she said, “but on the floor below they’re waiting to kill you.”
Neeland, astonished, asked her whether the American gamblers in the salon where Sengoun had been playing were ignorant of what was going on in the house.
“What Americans?” she demanded, incredulously. “Do you mean Weishelm?”
“Didn’t you know there were Americans employed in the salle de jeu?” asked Neeland, surprised.
“No. I have not been in this house for a year until I came tonight. This place is maintained by the Turkish Government—” She flashed a glance at Sengoun— “you’re welcome to the information now,” she added contemptuously. And then, to Neeland: “There was, I believe, some talk in New York about adding one or two Americans to the personnel, but I opposed it.”
“They’re here,” said Neeland drily.
“Do you know who they are?”
“Yes. There’s a man called Doc Curfoot — —”
“Who!!”
And suddenly, for the first time, Neeland remembered that she had been the wife of one of the men below.
“Brandes and Stull are the others,” he said mechanically.
The girl stared at him as though she did not comprehend, and she passed one hand slowly across her forehead and eyes.
“Eddie Brandes? Here? And Stull? Curfoot? Here in this house!”
“In the salon below.”
“They can’t be!” she protested in an odd, colourless voice. “They were bought soul and body by the British Secret Service!”
All three stood staring at one another; the girl flushed, clenched her hand, then let it fall by her side as though utterly overcome.
“All this espionage!” cried Sengoun, furiously. “ — It makes me sick, I tell you! Where everybody betrays everybody is no place for a free Cossack! — —”
The terrible expression on the girl’s face checked him; she said, slowly:
“It is we others who have been betrayed, it seems. It is we who are trapped here. They’ve got us all — every one of us. Oh, my God! — every one of us — at last!”
She lifted her haggard face and stared at the increasing light which was turning the window panes a sickly yellow.
“With sunrise comes war,” she said in a stunned voice, as though to convince herself. “We are caught here in this house. And Kestner and Weishelm and Breslau and I — —” she trembled, framing her burning face in slim hands that were like ice. “Do you understand that Brandes and Curfoot, bought by England, have contracted to deliver us to a French court martial?”
The men looked at her in silence.
“Kestner and Breslau knew they had been bought. One of our own people witnessed that treachery. But we never dreamed that these traitors would venture into this house tonight. We should have come here ourselves instead of going to the Turkish Embassy. That was Mahmud Damat’s meddling! His messenger insisted. God! What a mistake! What a deathly mistake for all of us!”
She leaned for a moment against one of the iron pillars which supported the attic roof, and covered her face with her hands.
After a moment, Neeland said:
“I don’t understand why you can’t leave this house if you are in danger. You say that there are men downstairs who are waiting to kill us — waiting only for Kestner and Breslau and Mahmud Damat to arrive.”
She said faintly:
“I did not before understand Mahmud’s delay. Now, I understand. He has been warned. Breslau and Kestner will not come. Otherwise, you now would be barricaded behind that breastwork of rubbish, fighting for your lives.”
“But you say there are men on the stairs below who are ready to kill us if we try to leave the house.”
“They, too, are trapped without knowing it. War will come with sunrise. This house has been under surveillance since yesterday afternoon. They have not closed in on us yet, because they are leaving the trap open in hopes of catching us all. They are waiting for Breslau and Kestner and Mahmud Damat.... But they’ll never come, now.... They are out of the city by this time.... I know them. They are running for their lives at this hour.... And we — we lesser ones — caught here — trapped — reserved for a French court martial and a firing squad in a barrack square!”
She shuddered and pressed her hands over her temples.
Neeland said:
“I am going to stand by you. Captain Sengoun will do the same.”
She shook her head:
“No use,” she said with a shiver. “I am too well known. They have my dossier almost complete. My procès will be a brief one.”
“Can’t you get away by the roof? There are two of your men up there.”
“They themselves are caught, and do not even know it. They too will face a squad of execution before the sun rises tomorrow. And they never dream of it up there — —”
She made a hopeless gesture:
“What is the use! When I came here from the Turkish Embassy, hearing that you were here but believing the information false, I discovered you conversing with a Russian spy — overheard her warn you to leave this house.
“And there, all the while, unknown to me, in the salle de jeu were Curfoot and that unspeakable scoundrel Brandes! Why, the place was swarming with enemies — and I never dreamed it!... Yet — I might have feared some such thing — I might have feared that the man, Brandes, who had betrayed me once, would do it again if he ever had the chance.... And he’s done it.”
There was a long silence. Ilse stood staring at the melancholy greyish light on the window panes.
She said as though to herself:
“I shall never see another daybreak.”... After a moment she turned and began to pace the attic, a strange, terrible figure of haggard youth in the shadowy light. “How horribly still it is at daybreak!” she breathed, halting before Neeland. “How deathly quiet — —”
The dry crack of a pistol cut her short. Then, instantly, in the dim depths of the house, shot followed shot in bewildering succession, faster, faster, filling the place with a distracting tumult.
Neeland jerked up his pistol as a nearer volley rattled out on the landing directly underneath.
Sengoun, exasperated, shouted:
“Well, what the devil is all this!” and ran toward the head of the stairs, his pistol lifted for action.
Then, in the garret doorway, Weishelm appeared, his handsome face streaming blood. He staggered, turned mechanically toward the stairs again with wavering revolver; but a shot drove him blindly backward and another hurled him full length across the floor, where he lay with both arms spread out, and the last tremors, running from his feet to his twitching face.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A RAT HUNT
The interior of the entire house was now in an uproar; shots came fast from every landing; the semi-dusk of stair-well and corridor was lighted by incessant pistol flashes and the whole building echoed the deafening racket.
“What do you make of it?” shouted Sengoun furiously, standing like a baited and perplexed bull. “Who’s fighting who in this fool of a place? By Erlik! I’d like to know whom I’m to fire at!”
Ilse Dumont, creeping along the wall, looked fearfully down at Weishelm who no longer moved where he lay on the dusty floor, with eyes and mouth open and his distorted face already half covered by a wet and crawling scarlet mask.
“Brandes and Stull are betraying us,” she whispered. “They are killing my comrades — on the stairs down there — —”
“If that is true,” called out Neeland in a low, cautious voice, “you’d better wait a moment, Sengoun!”
But Sengoun’s rage for combat had already filled him to overflowing, and the last rag of patience left him.
“I don’t care who is fighting!” he bellowed. “It’s all one to me! Now is the time to shoot our way out of this. Come on, Neeland! Hurrah for the Terek Cossacks! Another town taken! Hurrah!”
Neeland caught Ilse by the wrist:
“You’d better get free of this house while you can!” he said, dragging her with him after Sengoun, who had already reached the head of the stairs and was starting down, peering about for a target.
Suddenly, on the landing below, Golden Beard and Ali Baba appeared, caught sight of Sengoun and Neeland above, and opened fire on them instantly, driving them back from the head of the staircase flat against the corridor wall. But Golden Beard, seeming to realise now that the garret landing was held and the way to the roof cut off, began to retreat from the foot of the garret stairs with Ali Baba following, their restless, upward-pointed pistols searching for the slightest movement in the semi-obscurity of the hallway above.
Sengoun, fuming and fretting, had begun to creep toward the head of the stairs again, when there came a rattling hail of shots from below, a rush, the trample of feet, the crash of furniture and startling slam of a door.
Downstairs straight toward the uproar ran Sengoun with Neeland beside him. The halls were swimming in acrid fumes; the floors trembled and shook under the shock as a struggling, fighting knot of men went tumbling down the stairway below, reached the landing and burst into the rooms of the Cercle Extranationale.
Leaning over the banisters, Neeland saw Golden Beard turn on Doc Curfoot, raging, magnificent as a Viking, his blue eyes ablaze. He hurled his empty pistol at the American; seized chairs, bronzes, andirons, the clock from the mantel, and sent a storm of heavy missiles through the doorway among the knot of men who were pressing him and who had already seized Ali Baba.
Then, from the banisters above, Neeland and Sengoun saw Brandes, moving stealthily, swiftly, edge his way to a further door.
Steadying the elbow of his pistol hand in the hollow cup of his left palm, his weapon level, swerving as his quarry moved, he presently fired at Golden Beard and got him through the back. And then he shot him again deliberately, through the body, as the giant turned, made a menacing gesture toward him; took an uncertain step in his direction; another step, wavering, blindly grotesque; then stood swaying there under the glare of the partly shattered chandelier from which hung long shreds of crystal prisms.
And Brandes, aiming once more with methodical and merciless precision, and taking what time he required to make a bull’s-eye on this great, reeling, golden-crowned bull, fired the third shot at his magnificent head.
The bronze Barye lion dropped from Golden Beard’s nerveless fist; the towering figure, stiffening, fell over rather slowly and lay across the velvet carpet as rigid as a great tree.
Brandes went into the room, leaned over the dying man and fired into his body until his pistol was empty. Then he replaced the exhausted clip leisurely, leering down at his victim.
There was a horrid sound from the stairs, where Curfoot and another man were killing a waiter. Strange, sinister faces appeared everywhere from the smoke-filled club rooms; Stull came out into the hallway below and shouted up through the stair-well:
“Say, Eddie! For Christ’s sake come down here! There’s a mob outside on the street and they’re tearing the iron shutters off the café!”
Curfoot immediately started downstairs; Brandes, pistol in hand, came slowly out of the club rooms, still leering, his slitted, greenish eyes almost phosphorescent in the semi-obscurity.
Suddenly he caught sight of Ilse Dumont standing close behind Sengoun and Neeland on the landing above.
“By God!” he shouted to Curfoot. “Here she is, Doc! Tell your men! Tell them she’s up here on the next floor!”
Sengoun immediately fired at Brandes, who did not return the shot but went plunging downstairs into the smoky obscurity below.
“Come on!” roared Sengoun to Neeland, starting forward with levelled weapon. “They’ve all gone crazy and it’s time we were getting out of this!”
“Quick!” whispered Neeland to Ilse Dumont. “Follow me downstairs! It’s the only chance for you now!”
But the passageway was blocked by a struggling, cursing, panting crowd, and they were obliged to retreat into the club rooms.
In the salle de jeu, Ali Baba, held fast by three men dressed as waiters, suddenly tripped up two of them, turned, and leaped for the doorway. The two men who had been tripped scrambled to their feet and tore after him. When they reached the hallway the Eurasian was gone; but all of a sudden there came the crash of a splintered door from the landing above; and the dim corridor rang with the frightful screaming of a woman.
“It’s — that — that — Russian girl!” stammered Ilse Dumont; “ — The girl I locked in! Oh, my God! — my God! Karl Breslau is killing her!”
Neeland sprang into the hall and leaped up the stairs; but the three men disguised as waiters had arrived before him.
And there, across the threshold of the bedroom, backed up flat against the shattered door, Ali Baba was already fighting for his life; and the frightened Russian girl crept out from the bedroom behind him and ran to Neeland for protecti
on.
Twice Neeland aimed at Ali Baba, but could not bring himself to fire at the bleeding, rabid object which snarled and slavered and bit and kicked, regardless of the blows raining on him. At last one of his assailants broke the half demented creature’s arm with a chair; and the bloody, battered thing squeaked like a crippled rat and darted away amid the storm of blows descending, limping and floundering up the attic stairs, his broken arm flapping with every gasping bound.
After him staggered his sweating and exhausted assailants, reeling past Neeland and Ilse Dumont and the terrified Russian girl who crouched behind them. But, halfway up the stairs all three halted and stood clinging to the banisters as though listening to something on the floor above them.
Neeland heard it, too: from the roof came a ripping, splintering sound, as though people on the slates were prying up the bolted scuttle. The three men on the stairs hesitated a moment longer; then turned to flee, too late; a hail of pistol shots swept the attic stairs; all three men came pitching and tumbling down to the landing.
Two of them lay still; one rose immediately and limped on again down the hallway, calling over the banisters to those below:
“The Germans on the leads ‘ave busted into the garret! Breslau is up ‘ere! Send along those American gunmen, or somebody what can shoot!”
He was a grey-haired Englishman, smooth shaven and grim; and, as he stood there at the head of the further stairs, breathing heavily, awaiting aid from below, he said to Neeland coolly enough:
“You’d better go below, sir. We ‘ad our orders to take this Breslau rat alive, but we can’t do it now, and there’s like to be a ‘orrid mess ‘ere directly.”
“Can we get through below?”
“You can,” said the man significantly, “but they’ll be detaining one o’ them ladies at the door.”
“Do you mean me?” said Ilse Dumont.
“Yes, ma’am, I do — —”
She sprang toward the attic stairway, but the British agent whipped out a pistol and covered her.
“No,” he said grimly. “You’re wanted below. Go down!”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 835