Eye For A Tooth (23 page)

Three times he made Boll repeat it, until he made no mistake.

“You will say nothing else – not another word. If they question you, you will not reply: but the moment you have said your piece, you will turn on your heel and come back. You will not go alone. This servant of mine will go with you. In one hand he will have a pistol: in the other, the end of a cord which is fastened about your waist. If you try to escape or if you say anything else than the words you have learned, he will shoot you dead. And now repeat them again.”

Boll did as he said.

“Perform this task faithfully, and I will spare your life. This you do not deserve, for by unlocking the floor you sent Herr Cain to his death. But of that I shall say nothing so long as you hold your tongue.”

We had no cord, but I cut a length of wire which ran from the drive and this we tied round his waist beneath his blouse. Then we cut a hole in his blouse and passed the end through. Then Carson untied his hands and we gave him the note. And then the two set off for the mouth of the drive – with ten feet of wire between them; and since the night was so dark, I could not see Boll when Carson began to move.

I must confess I was glad to see them return, but Carson reported that all had gone very well. Boll had delivered his message and said nothing else, and the sentries had taken the note and had left at once.

“All the same,” said Mansel, “I’m not too easy about him. We cannot bump the man off and, once Saul is dead, there will be no one to make him hold his tongue. Of course, Saul may not turn up; in which case it doesn’t matter, for Saul will see to it that he doesn’t talk. But if Saul does turn up and we put him where he belongs, an inquiry into his – er – disappearance, is simply bound to be held. And that is where Boll will come in.”

“Except for him,” I said, “there’s no one at all.”

“I know – all thanks to you. You’ve done a wonderful job. Let nothing worry you, William. You had your back to the wall. And all you did was to get them before they got you.” Here he glanced at his watch and got to his feet. “It’s now nearly half-past two. Those sentries won’t reach the castle before half-past three. Probably not before four – but say half-past three. And if Saul turns out at once, he won’t be here before four. If he comes at all, I should say he’d arrive about six. Any way, we’ve plenty of time, and so I think I might have a talk with Boll. You have a look at Cain – just to see he’s all right.”

With that, he walked into the guardroom, while Carson stayed on the steps, and I went off to the bedroom where Cain was lying bound.

About Cain I felt uneasy. I knew that I should not shoot him – that Carson or Mansel would play executioner. But, though he was worthy of death, I did not like the idea of killing him in cold blood. Five hours ago I could have torn his throat out, and so I would have done if I could have got to his side. But now that the others were saved, my rage was gone. I knew that he had to die – if for no other reason, because we could not afford to let him live. But I did not like the business, and that is the truth.

Looking back, I think that my trouble was that I had saved him alive. I would not have minded shooting him while he was down in the pit; but to spare him only to kill him savoured to me of the way of a cat with a mouse. And as I walked up the staircase, the bedroom for which I was making seemed to take on the horrid atmosphere of a condemned hold.

I remember bracing myself before I laid hold of the door-handle…

The handle turned, but the door itself did not yield.

I set my shoulder against it and burst the rotten woodwork apart. Then I used my torch, which showed me that Cain was gone.

I let out a yell for Carson and smashed my way into the room.

Its window was wide open, and flinders of glass on the floor showed me how the prisoner had managed to sever his bonds.

At once I leapt for the window – to see Cain clinging to the gutter some ten feet away.

The light of my torch revealed his terrified face.

“Help me,” he whimpered. “I can’t move either way and I’m nearly done.”

His plight was hopeless. He was hanging some forty-two feet above the stableyard. The gutter which he had been using had given way and was hanging and swaying between myself and him. Above him one piece remained – I know not why – but the down-pipe for which he had been making, had left the wall and now leaned drunkenly outward, only prevented from falling by some staple I could not see. Upon the remains of a staple Cain had his foot, and this and the gutter above him were holding him up, but unless he could gain the next window, only a ladder could save him from breaking his neck.

The man had been mad, of course, to try to escape this way. He had seen the lodge by daylight, and so had I. And nothing on earth would have made me essay its gutters or put my weight on a down-pipe, whilst there was another way. He could have taken a passage, watched from a peep-hole and made a dash for the door. He could have gained the ground floor and opened a window there. But only a fool in his folly would have put his faith in a structure which had been so plainly neglected for God knows how many years.

As I turned, Carson arrived.

“Look out of the window,” I said, and ran for the room next door.

But when I had opened its window, I saw there was no hope there, for the gutter above was drooping and when, standing up on the sill, I stretched out my arm and took hold, a piece two or three feet long came away in my hand.

“For God’s sake be quick,” cried Cain.

“D’you know of a ladder?” I said. “Have you seen one here?”

“The rope,” screamed Cain. “My fingers are giving way.”

For what it was worth, I told Carson to run for the rope.

It was a chance in a thousand – slighter than that. An ape could have caught the rope and shifted his grip and then launched himself into space – and not let go. But I doubt if I could have done it, and I was much younger than Cain and twice or three times as strong.

“For God’s sake be quick,” cried Cain. “D’you want me to die like this?”

“The rope is coming,” I said. “That’s all I can say.”

Here Carson came into the room, with the rope on his arm.

“He’ll never do it, sir.”

“I know,” I said. “Never mind. I’ll hold the torch and you chuck the rope over his arm and under his chin, but make it fast first.”

“I’ve made it fast – to the top of the banisters.”

“My God,” screamed Cain, “I’m going. I can’t hold on.”

“Five seconds more,” I cried. “Here comes the rope.”

Carson threw it deftly: it landed across the man’s arms and under his chin. At once I picked up the slack and bent it over the sill. And Carson laid hold.

Again I leaned out of the window, torch in hand.

“Take hold of the rope,” I cried. “Let go and take hold of the rope.”

And then, before my eyes, Cain took his chance in a thousand – and threw it away.

Reluctant to shift his grip and trust himself to the rope, he made a desperate effort to get his elbow into the gutter first. So he would have one hand free to lay hold on the rope. Somehow, he brought it off: but, as an immediate result, he shifted some weight from the staple on which he had set his toe and added this to the gutter which had already more than enough to bear.

As his elbow sank into the gutter, the gutter began to give way, and Cain in his frenzy, instead of seizing the rope, snatched at the slates above it, as though they would help him up.

“The rope,” I roared. “The rope. It’s your only chance.”

But I think the man was past hearing.

His smile twisted into a grin, he clawed at the slates, while the gutter bent slowly downwards beneath his weight.

And then, at the last, I think he took leave of his senses; for he abandoned his foothold and, with a most frightful contortion, tried to set foot in the gutter, as though he were some urchin, idly amusing himself three feet above the ground.

So the camel’s back was broken.

With a rending sound, what was left of the gutter gave way, and, letting a cry which rang far into the night, Cain fell into the yard with the old iron still in his hands.

That he was instantly killed, there can be no doubt. And though I could not have wished him so disagreeable an end, I was greatly relieved to think he had done the duty which otherwise must have been ours.

At once I ran to meet Mansel, who, I knew, must have heard the cry, and I found him at the foot of the staircase with Boll on his lead.

“All well,” I said. “He tried to escape and a gutter let him down.”

“Just as well,” said Mansel. “I’ll take this fellow back to the guardroom; and then you and Carson had better collect the corpse.” He glanced at the blanketed figures, waiting to be interred. “Yes, Boll,” he said, using German. “Let this be a lesson to you. ‘The wages of sin is death’. And I think you’d be well advised to do as I say.”

“I believe, sir,” said Boll, saucer-eyed, “I believe that your counsel is good.”

By the time we had ‘laid out’ Cain, it was past three o’clock.

Then Mansel called Carson and told him to pinion Boll, “for, though,” he said, “he is going to do as I say, there is, I hope, another scene coming, and I don’t want him on in that.”

Together we walked to the steps, where George and Bell and Rowley were still asleep.

“Boll’s going home,” said Mansel. “We’re going to take him to Villach and put him on board the train. He lives not far from Innsbruck – at least, his people do. He’s very badly frightened, and I think he’ll be glad to get out while the going is good. When he’s asked why he cut and ran, he’s going to say that the setting of all the man-traps got on his nerves. That happens to be perfectly true. He finds them barbarous – as do all the foresters. And when you come to think, that’s natural enough, for nine out of ten of them come of a poaching stock.”

“You don’t think he’ll talk?” said I.

“He may – later on. But by then we’ll be out of the way. And I don’t think they’ll run him to earth. I don’t think they’ll look for him. I think they’ll assume that he is with Auger and Hans, wherever they are.”

Here Carson arrived, to say he had bound Boll’s hands and had put him into the passage and locked the doors at each end.

“Good,” said Mansel. “And this is where we wait. I think that note should fetch him – Saul, I mean. But I hardly like to wait after half-past six. We mustn’t be caught here, you know. And now let’s think out his reception. I’d like to do him well; but we mustn’t make any mistake.”

Duke Saul of Varvic arrived before the sun was up. It was that cold hour when men can see and be seen, when the rear of darkness is thin. I think perhaps he came early, because, knowing what he had done, he hoped to be back at his castle before the world was awake. Be that as it may, he came – and he came alone. We heard his new two-seater before it had left the road.

We heard it slow down, to enter the mouth of the drive. And we heard it stealing towards us – towards the lodge and the forecourt, where we, and not Cain, were waiting to play out the final scene.

I was standing close to the forecourt, within the wood, near to the path we had taken the night before: and the others were likewise concealed, but ready to enter the moment they had their cue. And the lodge seemed to be deserted; only the lamp was still burning above the stairs.

Then the fine two-seater slid slowly into the forecourt, and we saw that Saul was driving, and driving alone.

He brought the car to a standstill: then he switched her engine off, opened the door by his side and slid to the ground. For a moment he looked at the lodge: then he put his hand back to the wheel and sounded his horn. And then he moved to the steps…

At the foot of the steps he stopped and lighted a cigarette: then he looked up to see Mansel, standing framed in the doorway, with folded arms.

Now, though I knew very well why Mansel looked as he did and though I had been by his side for the last four hours, I must confess that the white figure, standing there in that curious light, made my flesh creep upon my bones. And so I despair of conveying the effect that it had upon Saul.

For a moment he stood, as though he had been turned into stone. Then he clapped his hands to his mouth and he made a noise like that of a man in pain that is not to be borne, a sobbing, wailing sound, that might have been a prelude to something worse. And so it was. With staring eyes, he turned to run for his car; but, whiter even than Mansel, Rowley rose up from behind it, before he had reached its door. With a scream I shall always hear, Saul turned to make for the drive; but there he saw George standing, barring his way. Again he recoiled, and let out that frightful scream – a scream which seemed to echo the laughter of the damned. It was a maniac sound: and, indeed, I think at that moment the man was out of his mind. Be that as it may, he turned to run for the yard. There Bell was waiting for him, but he never got so far; for, as he went, he saw the mouth of the path – the path which we had taken the night before.

As he took the path, a bough twitched his hat from his head.

I turned and ran behind him…

Whether he heard me or not, I do not know. Sometimes I think that he was past all hearing and that his one idea was to leave the hunting-lodge. Sometimes I think he did hear me – and thought that one of his dead was in hot pursuit. All I can vouch for is that, fast as I ran, the man outdistanced me, and so he was out of my sight when he entered the trap.

For a shocking reason I never heard its jaws close; but I knew very well what had happened, for all of a sudden a cry which beggared the others rang out ahead. And not one cry only. Scream upon scream – to make the blood run cold.

I stopped and drew my pistol and braced myself: for I meant to end his torment, by shooting him like a dog.

But Mansel’s hand fell on my arm.

“Come,” he said. “We must leave him. I’d like to have ended it, but, for our own protection, we must not put him out.”

I preceded him – mutinously.

Before we had reached the forecourt, the sounds had stopped.

“I’m sorry,” said Mansel, “but, you see, we’re not dealing with Cain. The death of Duke Saul of Varvic is going to be headline news. I meant to have shot him and chucked him into the pit. But now he’s done very much better, for, as we have reason to know, disappearance is unsatisfactory, but ‘death by misadventure’ is a verdict that none can contest.”