Thomas Ochiltree (23 page)

“Parlons français, mon vieux,”
von Falkenburg said.

“Français
…
?”
If there was anything more incredible than the sight in front of Rubinstein it was von Falkenburg’s insistence that they speak French.

“Cet homme a besoin des soins immédiats,”
von Falkenburg said. It was precisely sentences such as “this man needs immediate attention” which the criminal must not be allowed to understand, for they would undermine von Falkenburg’s pose of utter ruthlessness.

“Oui, je vois.”
Yes, I see, Rubinstein replied.

Briefly, while Rubinstein got out his equipment and washed his hands, von Falkenburg explained the outlines of the situation.

“I wouldn’t want for a moment to stand in the way of your professional ethics, Rubinstein,” von Falkenburg said in French. “I just want you to play a part.”

“This man should be in hospital,” Rubinstein replied in the same language.

“I think he’d rather not be,” von Falkenburg countered. Then switching to German he said to the man, “the doctor wants to send you to hospital, which of course means informing the police.” He used exactly the same tone with which a brutal father might say to a child, “Governess believes you should be whipped.”

“No…please…I’ll give you the address,” the man begged. The use of the incomprehensible foreign language, the presence of this second person who was clearly a friend of his enemy – everything conspired to drain him of whatever nerve he had left.

“He’d rather die than be asked by any official the circumstances under which he got that cut,” von Falkenburg said in French to Rubinstein.

Rubinstein opened a bottle of disinfectant, and its sinister hospital aroma filled the room. Rubinstein had lit only one lamp, and the unlit chandelier cast a fantastic and grim shadow on the ceiling.

Nor did the sight of Rubinstein threading a needle with intense deliberation as he held his face over the light do anything to give the criminal courage. Von Falkenburg realized that Rubinstein was not savoring the impending infliction of pain, but simply performing a task in his usual, methodical way.

“Rubinstein,” von Falkenburg said in German, “my friend here is going to give me an address. What will happen to him if the address turns out to be the wrong one?”

“Well, Rubinstein said, shrugging his shoulders, “we doctors can always use blood for our experiments.”

Rubinstein’s tone of scientific detachment from pain and death was perfect, von Falkenburg decided. But then he knew that Rubinstein was a leading member of an excellent amateur theatrical group.

Rubinstein had a fine sense of irony, as von Falkenburg well knew, and he could not resist adding, “and of course, people of my faith have certain ritual needs….”

The thug shrank in abject terror from the doctor. It was precisely riffraff like him, von Falkenburg realized, which was likely to believe such grotesque anti-Semitic legends.

Von Falkenburg, who had been holding back from asking the address until the right psychological moment, decided that moment had now come.

“Where is the princess being held?” he asked.

“A villa in the Schonenfeldallee…number 5…that’s near the….”

“Shut up. I know exactly where that is,” von Falkenburg interrupted. In fact, he would have to look on a city map to find the street, but he felt it was best to admit ignorance of nothing to this man, who was now so desperate to please.

Even though he had not specialized in surgery, Rubinstein sewed up the man’s wound with consummate skill. The patient cringed in terror as he did so, unaware that Rubinstein was one of the kindest and gentlest men in all Vienna.

“By the way,” he asked von Falkenburg in French, “what on earth am I supposed to do with this fellow if you don’t come back from that villa?”

“Let him go or send him to hospital. I trust your ethical sense implicitly, Rubinstein.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked after von Falkenburg explained to him what he planned to do, and why he could not count on the help of the police.

“I think not. You had better stay here and watch over this character. Keep him from escaping and keep him from dying.”

Von Falkenburg knew that the real reason he did not want Rubinstein to come with him was twofold. Firstly, he was utterly determined not to endanger any more friends of his. Secondly, this was a fight to the finish, and he wanted it to be his alone.

One…two…three…four…five…six.

Snap!

By God, it was satisfying to feel the two well-machined halves of his revolver snap together, to know that the cylinder contained six shiny bullets intended not for himself, but for those who dared to threaten his woman.

He hefted the revolver in his hand.

By God…!

He realized for the first time that there was nothing he would not do, no law he would not break, in order to save Helena.

The revolver felt bulky and uncomfortable as he shoved it into the right pocket of his trousers. The handle protruded, but his tunic covered it. Certainly he could not go through the streets of Vienna even at this hour wearing a pistol openly in a field belt and holster.

Dawn, and his time was fast slipping away. But there was no time for self-pity now, for he had his woman to save.

When he stepped out of the barracks onto the street, he saw that in the east, over the Inner City, the sky was gray. It was by such light that Endrödy had shot himself. What was it Endrödy had said of his implacable creditor? “You should have seen the look on his face”?

A round in the belly would have changed that expression quickly, Endrödy.

Schmidt was waiting with Resi, and standing next to him was Helena’s groom with Apollo, her beautiful gray stallion.

“Is Resi’s foot all right, Schmidt?”

“I report most obediently, the foot is perfect. I told the captain last week that she was ready to be ridden again.”

Last week…when money and a sore hoof on the near side hind leg of his mare were all he had to worry about….

Von Falkenburg looked at Apollo as he pawed the cobblestones and tossed his magnificent head in the air, blowing steam through his dilated nostrils.

“The Princess has no other riding horse?” he asked the groom.

“No sir. Her highness says she prefers a spirited mount. She has no trouble riding him, sir.”

Von Falkenburg knew that normally Helena would have no trouble handling any horse or man that lived. But what kind of condition would she be in?

Well, there was nothing for it, he decided. If he drove a carriage himself, that would attract too much attention. And he did not wish to involve a coachman in this risky venture.

“Very good,” he said, and swung himself into the saddle. He patted Resi’s neck, and she gave a contented snort. She had obviously missed him, for he had not even had time to look in on her in her stall since this nightmare began.

Helena’s groom handed him Apollo’s reins, which he took in his free hand. Nothing about an officer going for an early-morning ride leading another horse for exercise would surprise anyone who happened to witness the sight.

The gray in the sky was becoming lighter. There was no time to lose, but there remained one thing to do.

“Schmidt.”

“I report most obediently!”

“Schmidt, there is a good chance that you may never see me again. If you don’t, just remember this: I could not have wished for a better orderly.”

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” And then utterly against Regulations, Schmidt turned his face aside from an officer who was speaking to him. For there are some things that a man does not want another man to see. There had been enough strange comings and goings in the past week for Schmidt’s instinct to tell him that his captain was serious when he said he might never return.

“Good luck, sir,” he said, his face still averted, in a strangely distant voice.

“Thank you, Schmidt. Carry on.”

Von Falkenburg pressed his heels against Resi’s flanks, and she started forward with that wonderful, flowing gait of hers.

The air was cool and clear as von Falkenburg rode up the hill towards the outskirts of town, and some of the fighting madness flowed from him, but none of his determination.

It was an ordinary enough little villa that he stopped in front of, the kind a moderately successful man might rent to give his family a chance to spend the hot summer months away from the noise and dust of the city. There were some similar houses next to it, but they were shuttered and deserted-looking, which was not surprising, given the time of the year.

Von Falkenburg was in a relatively new development, and the city was well behind him. Not too many meters in the other direction, the street petered out and the woods began. He, Helena and her guardians had to be the only persons out here. Which was just what he wanted.

He looked again at the house, with its Italian-style architecture. Its windows were shuttered like those of it neighbors.

Carefully, he stepped towards the house. The gravel path made a slight crunching sound underfoot, so he proceeded on the grass to one side of it.

He reached the door and placed his head against it. He could hear voices from inside, but they were too indistinct for him to tell if one of them might be a woman’s voice.

He pulled a key out of his pocket, the key he had found in searching the thug he had taken to Rubinstein. The man had sworn to him that it was the key of the villa, but perhaps he had been lying.

It caught for a moment, then the lock opened with only a slight click.

Von Falkenburg pushed open the door. The hinges creaked slightly, but no one inside seemed to notice.

And no wonder, he realized, for loud voices were coming from a room down the corridor and off to the right.

“Oh Please don’t!
Please!
”

Helena’s voice!

“Maybe we shouldn’t. I dunno if the colonel would like it….”

“Please!”

“I couldn’t care less if the colonel likes it or not,” a second male voice replied to the first. “I mean it’s not often you get to see merchandise like this, now do you? White as milk, like they say….”

Von Falkenburg was down the hall in three strides and threw the door of the room open with a bang.

Helena was seated in a chair, bound, her dress pulled open in front fully exposing her breasts. Facing her was a man, his pants unbuttoned, his face alight with alcohol and bestial rut….

Sword, revolver, the other man, all were forgotten by von Falkenburg as he overwhelmed his adversary like an avalanche, seizing his shirt, slamming his head against the wall with a force to crack it like an eggshell.

But perhaps it was still intact, so
again!

And
again!

And
again!

“Ernst!”

Helena’s warning came too late to prevent the empty schnapps bottle wielded by the other man from striking von Falkenburg’s head. It was a glancing blow, but it felled him just the same.

Through the fog in his brain: “Ernst!”

The second man had seized a chair and lifted it above his head. Von Falkenburg rolled to one side as a leg of the chair splintered against the parquet floor where his skull had been a half-second before.

God, but the room was spinning. Yet through the dizziness, that voice, clear as a bell: “Ernst! Look out!”

Von Falkenburg pulled himself to his knees in time to see the knife blade snap open. He reached for his revolver, but a tug on the handle got him nothing. The hammer spur was caught on the inside of his pants pocket.

If only the room would hold still….

He staggered to his feet. The man was closing in on him at the crouch, like a beast sure of its prey. In a second that long blade would be between his ribs, and it would all be over….

His
head
….

“Ernst!”

Somehow Helena’s voice saying his name reminded him. His sword. He pulled it from its scabbard, and held it point out.

The man stopped an inch beyond its reach, still crouching, still ready, his eyes glittering with the desire to kill. Von Falkenburg knew the man could see the sword-point tremble, knew that no one could hold something that heavy at arm’s length for long.

The point trembled more. Von Falkenburg knew that he soon would have to let the sword drop, and then….

And with the sword in his right hand, there was no way he could try to get the revolver untangled from the lining of his right hand pocket.

Defeat, he told himself. It was just a matter of time.

And there were footsteps coming down the stairs. The noise had awakened someone. Perhaps von Lauderstein. Perhaps von Lauderstein was going to witness his final defeat in person.

And with that thought came rage, and new determination, and an idea.

Von Falkenburg swung his sword in a semi-circle away from the crouching man’s chest. Instinctively his adversary lunged, but already von Falkenburg was swinging the sword back in the other direction at legs that were now in range.

The razor edge sliced into the man’s left thigh, and his murderous lunge turned into a screaming, agonized fall that ended with a heavy crash of his head against the floor at von Falkenburg’s feet.

That made two down. Both men now lay unconscious, but there was no time for von Falkenburg to congratulate himself, for the man he had heard on the stairs appeared in the doorway even as von Falkenburg transferred his sword to the other hand and struggled with the caught revolver.

It was not von Lauderstein, but even through his dizziness von Falkenburg could recognize him, recognize him even though he was not wearing his brown derby hat or his loud check suit. All he was wearing was a pair of pants, but in his hand he held a gun.

The shot was earsplitting, and von Falkenburg felt something like a cut from a riding crop across his cheek.

Another earsplitting noise, even louder. And suddenly the man was no longer standing in front of von Falkenburg. Suddenly it was all over.

All over….

For a moment, von Falkenburg did not understand what had happened. All he knew was that the room was full of smoke, his head was ringing, his enemy was lying on the floor, and there was something heavy in his hand.