The Sword of Fate (42 page)

“Then no harm has been done, but if she has been acting as your secretary she knows too much. You must deal with her, Emilo. We cannot afford to have love-sick young women who are attempting to betray us in our midst, and you can take it that my information is absolutely accurate.”

“Very well,” Mondragora agreed, with a tired sigh. “I’ll see to it the moment that I get back, but I shall drop asleep where I sit if I don’t get some sleep soon.”

There came the sound of footsteps and a door opening. Von Hentzen called out: “
Gute Nacht!
” and the Count called back: “
Auf Wiedersehen!
” Then von Hentzen’s heavy tramp returned to the room.

I caught a glimpse of Mondragora as he passed the kitchen window, and my first impulse was to run after him with the idea of waylaying him and settling my account with him there and then; but I had hardly moved away from the hatch before I realised that now, if ever in my life, everything depended upon my keeping a cool head, and that to murder Mondragora in the streets of Athens would be the very worst way to go to work. The washerwoman was outside and I did not think she would stand
for murder. Within a few moments of his having driven off in his car he would either have outdistanced me or else be back in a crowded thoroughfare where, if I attempted to assassinate him, I should immediately be seized by the crowd; and that would not save my adorable Daphnis.

Count Emilo had stated clearly that he was going to bed, and would not set off up to the Front again until round about three o’clock in the morning, so he would be out of the game for the best part of twelve hours. It was my job to utilise every second of that precious lead. My intense relief at learning that Daphnis was still alive and undetected in her role of British secret agent, and my pride in her cleverness at having picked up work so entirely strange to her quickly enough to get taken on as Mondragora’s secretary, was offset by the awful knowledge that she had now been found out. My job was to discover the whereabouts of German Field Headquarters, then by hook or by crook get there before Mondragora, as, now that von Hentzen had informed him of her intended treachery, her life would not be worth a moment’s purchase once the Portuguese rejoined her.

The only way in which I could get the name of the town or village in which Marshal List and his staff were at present was from either Mondragora or von Hentzen. Neither would tell me willingly, and even if I could catch up with the Portuguese I saw little chance of being able to force him to give away such information in the street, whereas I felt that if I played my cards properly in this quiet little box of a house I might get the German entirely at my mercy.

There was not a moment to lose, as now that Mondragora had gone at any time von Hentzen might come into the kitchen to give his servant some order. Getting out my gun again I walked quietly over to the door and eased it open. It gave on to a short passage, and I crept silently along it until I reached the sitting-room. Luck was with me as the door was standing ajar, and, peering in with my gun held ready before me, I saw the Baron was sitting working at a desk in the window with his back turned towards me. Covering him with the gun, I opened the door another few inches and said sharply:

“I’ve got you covered! Drop your hands beside you or I’ll blow your head in.”

Von Hentzen was no coward. If we had been face to face I little doubt that in that small room he would have chanced being shot and attempted to rush me; but he must have known that since he would have had to jump up and fling the chair back
before he could even turn round to face me, he would have no chance at all of getting to grips before I could shoot him.

“In case you don’t recognise my voice, I’m Julian Day,” I went on; “so you know that I’m not bluffing when I say that I’ll make you dead as mutton if you attempt to lift a finger.”

From the moment I had first spoken he had gone stiff and rigid in his chair. Now with a rumbling curse he slowly let his hands fall beside him.

I knew that my own life would hang in the balance for the next few moments. It is no easy matter to keep a strong man covered and tie him up at the same time. If I made a single slip the great hulking brute would turn the tables in a second, and I knew that I should be as good as dead if I once allowed him to get his hands on me.

Swiftly I looked round for the means of trussing him and my eye fell upon a standard lamp which had a long electric flex attached to it. Keeping a wary eye upon the German, I jerked the plug out of the socket and made a running noose. As his back was towards me he could not see that, while making the knot, I had at times to point the gun a little away from him; but while I was doing it I kept on talking to him so as to occupy his mind.

“That’s right,” I purred. “I’m so glad to see that you’re prepared to be sensible. It’s just as well for you that you didn’t take a chance on looking round, otherwise one glimpse of me would be the last thing that you would ever have seen on earth. As you probably know, it would be a great pleasure to me to kill you where you sit, and I certainly hope to kill you some time. In fact I shall be terribly distressed if I hear that you have been killed by a stray British bullet or bomb if you go up to the Front for the triumphant entry into Athens, as you told Mondragora that you meant to just now; but unfortunately I must deny myself the pleasure of killing you this evening. The Fates ordain that I can do no more than have a little talk with you. However, as you may be angry at what I have to say, I think it would be wisest if I tie you up first. Then there won’t be any risk of your being tempted to act rashly and compelling me to kill you prematurely after all. Remain quite still, please, while I throw this wire over your head. You can take my word for it that I have no intention of strangling you.”

As I finished speaking I advanced to within two feet of him and threw the wide noose of electric flex over his bald head. The moment I had done so I had an awful thought: I was still wearing Mondragora’s raincoat.

If he missed it when he reached his car he might come back for it; then I should be caught between the two of them. As I had acted immediately upon Mondragora’s leaving the house barely two minutes could have elapsed since he went out of it; but even that was time for him to have reached his car. Fortunately the raincoat had been lying on the back seat, so there seemed a good chance that he might not notice that it was gone.

The possibility that he might reappear at any moment was damnably unnerving, but if he once drove off in his car, owing to his extreme tiredness, I doubted very much if he would trouble to come back again; so I tried to put the matter out of my mind by assuring myself that two or three minutes having elapsed the worst risk of his returning was already over.

With a none-too-gentle jerk I drew the noose of wire tight about von Hentzen’s neck, and once that was done I felt a little more certain of myself. No man can fight his best with a heavy standard lamp attached by a piece of wire to a tight noose round his neck.

Carrying the lamp several feet nearer to him, I transferred the gun to my left hand and made a loop out of the slack of the wire with my right. I then ordered von Hentzen to hold his right hand behind him.

As he demurred I thrust the cold steel of the gun-barrel into the soft puffy ridge of fat at the back of his head, and that caused him to comply at once. Slipping the loop over his wrist, I pulled the slack up again, made him put his other hand behind the chair and looped that also, so that his two hands were now caught behind his back and attached to the loop of wire that went round his neck. Placing my foot on the base of the standard lamp, I gave the wire a sudden pull and wrenched it from its terminal. Then, as von Hentzen could still not see what I was up to, I felt that I now might risk putting the gun down for a minute.

Having placed it on the floor within easy reach, I secured his hands more thoroughly, and by reaching between the chair-legs took the wire first round one ankle, then round the other, so that as the result of a little hard work and twenty feet of electric flex I had him securely tied to his own chair.

As he was sitting opposite the window, I had had to work fast in case anyone came into the garden, but the job was done under two minutes. With a sigh of relief I picked up my gun, drew the curtains, switched on the light and went round in front of him.

“Well,” he said calmly, “this is quite clearly your round. What do you want to know?”

“The present whereabouts of the German Field Headquarters,” I replied.

His large mouth twisted into a grin. “So you are anxious to save that young woman of yours? Well, she’s no good to us, and if you care to risk your own neck by trying to get through the German lines to reach her, good luck to you! As far as I know, Marshal List is at present at Koziani.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m very glad that you appear to be behaving so sensibly; but I shall want a little proof of that. Have you some document which will bear out what you say?”

“
Gott in Himmel, nein!
” he exclaimed. “Is it likely that I should have a list of the places provisionally selected as German Field Headquarters?”

“Yes,” I replied, “it is. Otherwise you would not be able to get such information as you can collect through to them with any rapidity.” I let an ominous note creep into my voice as I went on: “There seems good reason to suppose that you’ve been established here ever since you escaped from Egypt; so I expect you’ve got quite a lot of interesting documents hidden in this place somewhere. Are you going to talk or must I make things uncomfortable for you?”

“Go to hell!” he snapped, and his hard, blue eyes flashed defiantly.

I took another look round the comfortable little sitting-room, and my eye fell on some long wooden spills for cigar- or pipe-lighting, which were stuck in a vase on a small table beside the sofa. Taking one of them, I lit it, and walking up to von Hentzen from behind I placed the lighted spill without warning under the lobe of his left ear.

He let out a bellow of pain and tried to spring out of his chair. Of course he could not because he was lashed to it; but he managed to get on his feet with the chair attached to his back and almost bent double, which gave him something of the appearance of a tortoise endeavouring to walk on its hind legs.

“Now, now! Sit down again or it will be the worse for you,” I threatened, and as he swung round towards me I jabbed the lighted taper under his nose. The instantaneous result was that, with another yowl of pain, he flung his head back, overbalanced and was promptly sitting down again.

“Why waste time?” I asked. “You know well enough that I’ve no cause to love you, and I’m not going to let up if I have to burn your flesh inch by inch off your body. Sooner or later you’ll have to tell me where your papers are, so why not do it now?”

As he maintained his stubbornness I held his nose until he was forced to open his mouth and stuffed his handkerchief into it. I told him that he could nod his head when he was ready to talk, then I set to work on him in earnest.

I don’t think I should make a very good professional torturer as, although I was applying persuasion to one of the men who had done me an irreparable evil and whom I regarded as my most deadly enemies, I did not enjoy the next ten minutes. I was damned nearly sick from the smell of burnt hair and faintly singeing flesh. How the German managed to stick it for so long I cannot think, and I’m certain that I should never have been able to hold out for half that time. At last he nodded, so I removed the gag. He gave a gasp, then whimpered:

“All right damn you! That board on the right-hand side of the bookcase, the second one from the wall—it’s loose. Pull it up and you’ll find some maps there which will give you what you want to know.”

I found the maps with a mass of other papers. Having spread them out I saw that the third I opened had a number of cryptic signs marked on it in ink against which there were certain dates, and one lot of signs, all of the same character, ran in a chain from Sofia through Southern Yugoslavia right down to Athens.

Koziani, although in the centre of Greece and practically on the line, was not one of the places marked; but fifteen miles south-south-west of it Ventsa was, and against it was the date, 23-26.4.41. It was no good asking von Hentzen if my assumption was correct about these markings as there was no guarantee whatever that he would reply truthfully; but I felt pretty confident that I had found out what I wanted to know, and of course he had given me the wrong town in the first instance, because although he had said that Daphnis was no longer of any use to them, he had purposely glossed over the fact that she could be extremely useful to his enemies. If only I could get her back she might have information of the most vital nature which she could pass on to us.

There was a large attaché-case beside the desk, and after a quick glance through its contents I threw most of them out, then proceeded to fill it instead with all the papers that were in the cache under the loose floorboard.

Von Hentzen fumed and swore, but there was nothing that he could do about it. I next went through his pockets. He tried to bite me, but I held his nose with one hand while searching him with the other, and I acquired a fine collection of passes,
among which was one issued by the German General Staff and signed by von Keitel, which I reckoned would get me into most places between Narvik and Tripoli.

When I had done I said to him: “I hope this won’t be our last meeting. In fact I’m sure it won’t, because I mean to get you sooner or later even if I have to swing for it. That goes for Mondragora, too, as you might tell him from me next time you see him.”

He regarded me with a curious stare for a moment and said with considerable bravery, “If you feel like that about it why don’t you kill me now?”

“Because,” I replied, “I told you soon after I first entered this room that I did not mean to kill you tonight. I had to do that otherwise you would never have allowed me to tie you up without a struggle, and I might have had to kill you before I had a chance to get the information that I wanted. Subconsciously, at least, you must have trusted me, though why you should God only knows! Still, you were right about that.”