Wallace at Bay (20 page)

‘Down below as quick as you can,’ he heard the voice of Dimitrinhov shout excitedly. ‘They’ll be in the house in a few moments.’

With a muttered imprecation of keen disappointment Wallace slid down the ladder, switched off the light, and sat down. He
picked up the looped cord and began to wriggle his right hand through it, after placing the artificial limb in it. The buzzing sound started which denoted that the trap was opening; there came a glow of light as somebody snatched the mat away. Sir Leonard heard the staccato voice of Ulyanov raised in frenzied anger, the soothing tones of another man endeavouring to calm him. Down the ladder came one man after another, until the little room was packed, the Englishman being crushed against the wall.

‘Shut it! Shut it!’ barked Ulyanov, apparently referring to the trapdoor.

‘There may be still two or three who—’ began Dimitrinhov.

‘Shut it!’ screamed the dwarf.

The humming recommenced, the light disappeared; then came a click and the little apartment was illuminated.

‘Why,’ cried the voice of Grote ‘he is still here.’

Sir Leonard found himself the cynosure of all eyes. A shrill cry of triumph broke from the shrunken leader who was standing surrounded by six men.

‘You seem surprised to see me,’ commented Wallace. ‘Considering you are responsible for my being here, perhaps you will not think it strange if I remark that I do not understand.’

‘Your friends, damn them!’ snarled Dimitrinhov, ‘escaped by some means from the cellar in which they were confined. Not only did they escape, but they disarmed the guard and, we guess, locked them in the cellar. As they took the key away with them, and we have not had time or very much inclination to investigate, we do not know exactly what happened. At all events the two found their way to the wireless chamber above and resisted all attempts to destroy them. In the end we took the drastic course of bombing the door. The place was completely wrecked, but still they escaped.’

‘You seem to have been very determined to catch or kill them,’ observed Sir Leonard.

‘Bah!’ came from the dwarf in his ugly, grating voice. ‘It was you we wanted. We thought they had found out where you were, and had come to rescue you. It is amusing, is it not, that they were above and you below, and they did not know you were here?’ He cackled with that horrible, expressionless laughter of his; then suddenly gripped Wallace by his tattered coat. ‘So!’ he snarled, ‘you are still in my power, and after all, you will be taken to Moscow. It is a great compensation for the destruction of my schemes. How did you arrange for this? Answer me! How did you arrange it?’

‘Arrange what?’ asked Sir Leonard coolly.

‘That these police and soldiers should come. Are you a devil that you can do things like this even though you are in a prison from which you cannot escape?’

A great feeling of triumph surged through Wallace. He understood now why these men had entered the secret chamber, why they were looking anxious and, with the exception of Ulyanov, whose face, as usual, was expressionless, thoroughly frightened. They were seeking refuge from the Austrian authorities. Cousins had done his work perfectly. He laughed aloud in exultation.

‘It is the end, Ulyanov,’ he triumphed; ‘the end of the International Anarchist Society.’

‘It is the end of you,’ screamed the Russian. ‘You swine of an Englishman! You spy from hell! Do you think you will escape? Even now I will take you to Russia and watch you die. What triumph is it to you if you have, for the time, demolished the society? It will rise again like the phoenix, but you cannot rise.’

‘You seem quite confident of reaching Moscow,’ commented Sir Leonard. ‘Personally I think your chances are nil.’

‘Do you? Do you?’ barked the other, threatening to be overcome by one of his extraordinary frenzies again. With a great effort he calmed himself, his hands fell from Sir Leonard’s clothing. ‘We will see,’ he muttered harshly. ‘I swear to take you to Moscow; then perhaps you will regret your temporary success over the society.’

‘Nothing you can do to me will ever make me regret – my permanent and complete success,’ retorted Wallace.

‘It would be safer to kill him now,’ growled Dimitrinhov. ‘We are all armed with knives as well as revolvers. A well-directed stab and, whatever happens, we will know he can no longer do harm to the Soviet.’

‘No! No! No!’ barked Ulyanov. ‘He will go to Moscow. Who will dare dispute with me?’

No one did. He seemed to wield a strange, horrible power over the men he ruled.

‘Let him have his obsession, Dimitrinhov,’ advised Wallace. ‘Can’t you see he’s like a child with a new toy? Although I can’t exactly commend your desire to stick a knife in me, I shall certainly not go to Moscow.’

Ulyanov and the bearded man were starting to reply violently at the same moment, when one of the others warned them to be silent. Dimitrinhov promptly clapped a great hand over Sir Leonard’s mouth. Above, reaching their ears faintly, but nevertheless quite distinctly, they could hear the sound of many feet and many voices. The Englishman was tempted to fling the Russian’s hand aside; shout out with all the power of his lungs. But what sense would there be in throwing his life away in the hour of triumph, especially when the chances were that he would not be heard. He could not see how Ulyanov and his companions could possibly escape. He refrained from attempting to give the alarm, therefore,
standing quiescent to the brutal pressure of Dimitrinhov’s hand. He noted, with a feeling of quiet amusement, how every man there seemed terror-stricken. Each was fingering the weapon in his hand nervously, as though apprehensive at the thought of having to use it, which would mean discovery. Little beads of perspiration, which were not caused by heat, trickled down Grote’s coarse face. Once or twice he cast appealing glances in Sir Leonard’s direction. Apart from him, Ulyanov and Dimitrinhov, there were present three men whom the Englishman knew to be members of the Council of Ten, but whose names were unknown to him, and another whom he had not seen before. Ilyich and Bresov were conspicuous by their absence.

At length the sounds of footsteps and voices in the room above died away. There were sighs expressive of deep relief, but almost at once a discussion arose concerning the possibility of escape. Dimitrinhov gave it as his opinion that the police and military would patrol the house and grounds for some days. Sooner or later, he thought, the hiding place would be discovered, and, even if it were not, eight men could not last long in a tiny room with only one ventilating shaft. Grote counselled making terms with the authorities. He thought that they would be able to bargain for their own lives and freedom as the price for allowing Sir Leonard Wallace to live. As was to be expected, his suggestion threw Ulyanov into a fiendish rage. He stormed and raved, frothing at the mouth, and hurling at the German a string of the most horrible epithets. But his power was beginning to wane. Wallace had an illustration that there was indeed dissension in the Council and that, after all, there were some who dared dispute with the dwarf. All the members of the committee present, with the exception of Dimitrinhov, appeared to side with Grote; the seventh man remained aloof,
but it was not difficult to judge from the expression on his face where his sympathies were. In a sense Ulyanov stood alone, for while he had the support of his compatriot against making terms with the authorities, he was obstinately bent on conveying Wallace to Moscow, while Dimitrinhov continued to urge that the Englishman should be killed out of hand. The climax came when a tall, villainous-looking Greek, whose name turned out to be Papanasstou, declared that they would open the trap and parley with the Austrian commander without further hesitation unless Ulyanov could think of a better plan.

‘Your idea of conveying this man to Russia, Comrade Ulyanov,’ he proclaimed in very indifferent German, ‘is mad now. It cannot be done. We must look out for ourselves. To recover him alive, they would agree to let us go free without a doubt.’

‘Would you accept their promise?’ sneered Dimitrinhov.

‘What other chance have we? And the Englishman would see that the word was kept.’

‘Let us open the trapdoor at once. We can send Vassallo to put our terms before the commandant.’ The seventh man – apparently he was Vassallo – shrank back. Obviously the task did not appeal to him. ‘If we wait here much longer,’ persisted Papanasstou, ‘they will find us. Where are Psarezelos and Nikeroff and Ilyich? They know of the existence of this secret compartment. Perhaps they are captured. If so how do you know that they will not tell?’

‘Psarezelos and Nikeroff being Greeks,’ sneered Dimitrinhov, ‘might have done so, if they were alive. But as they were killed by those cursed spies when attacking the wireless room, they cannot. I do not know what happened to Ilyich – I fear he was either blown up or is a prisoner. But he will not speak – he is a Russian.’

His sarcastic comparison threatened to lead to trouble, but
Ulyanov broke in in his usual passionate manner. After roundly cursing the lot of them, he added:

‘Do you think I am a fool? Would I have insisted on coming here to die like a rat in a trap? Imbeciles! Idiots! Buffoons! While I was here alone last summer I had constructed a way of escape ready for just such an emergency as this. But I kept it as my own secret. Now, Grote, and you, Mossuth, and you Kharkov, and you above all, Papanasstou, do you not admit that I am your master in all things?’

‘Where is this way of escape, and why have we not used it before this?’ demanded the man addressed as Mossuth.

‘I waited, as I thought Comrade Ilyich might yet come,’ returned Ulyanov, and, for once in a way, the harsh, metallic note was missing from his voice. ‘It is useless to wait longer now; he is dead I fear. He was my son!’

There seemed something revolting about the fact that a creature like Ulyanov should have a son. What manner of woman, wondered Sir Leonard, could the mother have been? The news seemed to astonish the other men in the room also, none of them appearing to have been aware of the relationship between Ilyich and Ulyanov. The dwarf observed their surprise and resented it.

‘Is it so strange that I should possess a son?’ he rasped. ‘Dolts, all of you! Because I am small and ugly, you think no woman would look at me! Well, you are wrong, wrong, wrong! I choose where I will, and when I will. Do you hear? Nicolai Ilyich Ulyanov is more man than all of you together. Bah! I spurn you!’

He turned from them, and bending down, took hold of the last rung of the ladder and pulled. It worked apparently in the same manner as the top one had done. The interested onlookers heard a similar humming noise to that made by the trapdoor
when opening, but it was not apparent at first what had happened. On Ulyanov commanding his followers to move the cash boxes, documents and books away from the wall, however, they disclosed a small opening about five feet high and three feet wide. Apparently a sliding door had moved aside, revealing the head of a narrow flight of stairs built into the wall itself. Despite Sir Leonard’s careful examination he had failed to observe anything out of the ordinary. It must be confessed that he felt a trifle chagrined at the thought that, if he had only discovered the secret exit, he could have walked out. Greatly impressed by the dwarf’s ingenuity, and once again completely under his sway, Kharkov, Mossuth, Papanasstou, and Vassallo each picked up, at his orders, a share of the articles that were of such great value to the members of the International Anarchist Society and would have been of such inestimable value as evidence against them. Thus loaded, they passed one by one down the narrow steps, and disappeared from view. Ulyanov, Dimitrinhov, Grote, and Sir Leonard were left alone; then the dwarf turned venomously on the German.

‘You would defy me, would you?’ he ground out harshly. ‘You would attempt to befriend one whom I hate beyond all hatred; you would bargain with my enemies; you would seek to become leader, and turn members of the society against me? Well, Hermann Grote, you can remain here – your carcass can rot in this little chamber or be found and bear witness that Nicolai Ulyanov never forgives.’

Grote commenced to protest vehemently, but, with incredible rapidity, the dwarf sprang on him, at the same time drawing a long, thin-bladed knife. Sir Leonard darted forward to the rescue, but Dimitrinhov flung him back violently and he crashed to the floor. As he fell he saw Ulyanov plunge his dagger once, twice,
thrice into the body of the German, who had had no time to draw a weapon or protect himself. A shrill cry that ended in a gurgle, and Hermann Grote pitched headlong to the floor; his body twitched once or twice, then lay still. Ulyanov stood looking down at him, a cackle of that horrible, expressionless laughter left his lips, and he turned to regard the Englishman.

‘So!’ he commented. ‘You have lost your friend, Herr Wallace. It is a pity, you think, is it not so?’

‘You callous cold-blooded fiend!’ whispered Sir Leonard tensely. His grey eyes flashing his utter horror and repugnance. ‘May your filthy, black soul burn in the very depths of hell for all eternity.’

‘Get up!’ snarled the dwarf.

Awkwardly Wallace rose to his feet, still keeping his hands behind him, though the cord had become detached as he had sprung to the assistance of Grote. He would have made his last desperate stand then, unarmed as he was, but he still hoped to prevent, somehow or other, Ulyanov and his companions from escaping with the precious documents that meant so much to them and to him. He kept his hands together behind him, therefore, trusting that the long, loose sleeves of his coat would hide from view the fact that they were unbound. Dimitrinhov pushed him roughly towards the opening in the wall.

‘Go on!’ he ordered.

Another cackle of laughter came from the misshapen monster standing watching him go.

‘The first stage of your journey to Moscow, Mr Englishman,’ he gabbled in a harsh, gloating, altogether evil voice.

Bending low, Sir Leonard passed through the low doorway. He found that he could descend the steps in an upright attitude, but so narrow were they that his arms brushed the wall on
both sides. He reflected that big men like Papanasstou and Dimitrinhov must be experiencing considerable difficulty in descending. The humming sound recommenced behind him, and he concluded that the door had been closed. A beam of light shot out. Dimitrinhov or Ulyanov was provided with a torch. Down a considerable number of steps, set very nearly perpendicular, he went, coming at last to a passage, broader than the staircase and high enough to enable him to walk upright. He was surprised to find how long this underground gallery was; calculated that he must have walked over half a mile before at last he found himself ascending a slope. Waiting ahead of him were the other four, apparently unable to proceed farther. Ulyanov squeezed by him; went to the front. Again came a low, humming sound, another secret door had opened. Sir Leonard presently stepped into what appeared to be a large shed. A light flared up, and he discovered that it was an aeroplane hangar. Towering over him was a great Junkers machine of the all-metal type, and he felt he had to admit that the dwarf possessed considerable ingenuity. At the same time he began to feel that his chances of escaping were diminishing rapidly. The secret passage was closed, no door now being visible. The hangar was obviously built up against an elevation. The police and military were likely to concentrate on the house itself, and in consequence the chances of his being rescued before he had been forced into the aeroplane and carried out of reach were extremely small.

He was left to himself while his captors busied themselves round the great machine. Believing that his hands were tied and that he was unarmed, they did not trouble about him. They knew he could not escape. But Sir Leonard held different ideas. He not only intended to escape, if he could, but he was not going
to allow them to get away if he could prevent them. He heard Ulyanov giving orders, saw Vassallo tinkering with the engine, and knew then why the latter had been included in the party. He was the pilot. The cash boxes, books, and documents were placed in the saloon; then apparently one of the four, who had left the secret room in the house before the murder, noticed the absence of Grote and enquired where he was. Ulyanov snarled a reply, and immediately a heated altercation took place. Sir Leonard was not near enough to hear all that was being said, but felt that a heaven-sent opportunity for him to act had arisen.

The four men were facing Ulyanov and Dimitrinhov by the doors of the hangar. If only he had possessed a weapon he would know exactly how to act. At that very moment his alert eyes alighted on a long crowbar lying on the ground a few feet behind Dimitrinhov. Promptly, but without any sign of haste, he moved towards it. The angry, excited men took little notice of his approach, probably thinking, if they thought about it at all, that he was merely walking towards them to listen to the quarrel. The distance between them and him gradually decreased. Ten yards remained. Eight! Six! Three! Ulyanov turned momentarily, but he was in one of his frenzies, the vitriolic words pouring from his lips with satanic vehemence, and he immediately looked back at the men he was endeavouring to blast with his scorching verbosity.

A moment to take in a complete picture of his surroundings, and Sir Leonard sprang forward, his right hand flashed from behind his back as he bent and grasped the crowbar. A shout of alarm and Dimitrinhov swung round. But he was far too late to attempt to defend himself. His arm half rose, but, with a flail-like sweep, the Englishman caught him on the temple. He went down as though he had been poleaxed. Then Sir Leonard was on the rest, hitting
left and right with all the force of his powerful arm. Mossuth the Hungarian was beaten to the ground, Papanasstou was sent sprawling, both of them damaged but not rendered unconscious. Their raised arms had saved their heads. Kharkov stumbled over the body of Dimitrinhov in his haste to escape the deadly swing of the crowbar, thus luckily avoiding the fate that threatened him. Vassallo sprang back out of range, endeavouring to draw his revolver, but Sir Leonard was too quick for him. As he pulled the weapon from his pocket and started to raise it the Englishman darted forward, sweeping it out of his hand with a well-directed blow. A momentary feeling of regret that he could not pick up the pistol and retain the crowbar as well, and Wallace flung the latter at the screaming, cursing dwarf, who had hopped out of the way with remarkable celerity when the Englishman attacked. Ulyanov dodged, the crowbar striking the aeroplane with a sharp clang.

Papanasstou and Kharkov were by that time on their feet again; had drawn revolvers, but Sir Leonard now held the weapon dropped by Vassallo, who was leaning against the wall nursing his arm. The Englishman had them covered, and they saw quite clearly that a further movement on their parts would be exceedingly dangerous for them. There was death in those cold, grey eyes staring at them from out of the countenance still streaked with dried blood and bearing testimony to Ulyanov’s brutality. The dwarf continued to shriek out maledictions, but Sir Leonard noticed that he was edging sideways with the view, no doubt, of making a sudden spring on his late captive from behind.

‘If you move another step that way, Ulyanov,’ snapped Wallace, ‘I will shoot you down. Go and stand beside those two beauties there!’ He indicated Papanasstou and Kharkov, but Ulyanov stood defiant, hurling curses at him. Sir Leonard stepped back a few
paces in order that he would have a comprehensive view of them all. ‘Do what you are told,’ he ordered the dwarf, ‘or you will die now.’

The position was distinctly perilous. Papanasstou and Kharkov stood together, but Vassallo was some yards from the Bulgarian to the right while Ulyanov was three or four yards away from Papanasstou on Sir Leonard’s left. It was exceedingly difficult, in consequence, to keep a watch on them all. The dwarf continued defiant, and the Chief of the British Secret Service turned his revolver full on him.

‘I will give you half a minute to obey orders,’ he snapped.

Papanasstou misguidedly decided that his opportunity had come; threw up his weapon to fire but the Englishman swung quickly to face him, shooting him through the shoulder before he could pull the trigger. With a mingled cry of pain and anger the Greek dropped his pistol, but Ulyanov, howling like a wild beast threw himself at Wallace, his bloodstained knife glinting in his hand. He had not reckoned on the extraordinary swiftness of the Englishman, however. Perhaps if he had known of the latter’s amazing skill with a revolver he might have hesitated at taking what seemed to him a great opportunity. He was in mid-air, the knife poised for the blow, when his wrist was shattered by a bullet, and he went down screaming horribly, rolling on the ground in agony. Sir Leonard could not face all ways at once, however. As he fired at Ulyanov, Vassallo launched himself on his back grappling him with desperate force. Quickly he bent forward, the unexpected manoeuvre took the pilot by surprise, and he shot over the Englishman’s head to land in a heap on the grovelling dwarf. Immediately Kharkov took advantage of his chance, raised his revolver and fired. It was fortunate for Sir Leonard that the
Bulgarian was not a good shot or, at least, that he had taken aim hastily. At that range he should have had no difficulty in hitting Wallace in a vital spot. The bullet ploughed its way through the lower muscles of his arm rendering the hand nerveless and causing him to drop his revolver.

Kharkov yelled triumphantly and sprang forward, gripping the Englishman in a bear-like hug. Although his one arm was practically useless, Sir Leonard struggled desperately, and the Bulgarian by no means had matters all his own way. Twice Wallace almost got away from him, but then Vassallo, who had risen from the ground, joined in the fight. Mossuth staggered to his feet and added his efforts which, though weak, were effective. Hither and thither the combatants swayed, but, handicapped as he was, the odds were too great for Sir Leonard. Presently he was brought to the ground, the others crashing on top of him. One of them had him by the throat, another round the waist imprisoning his injured arm, the third gripped his legs and, although the Englishman continued to kick out desperately, hung on.

Observing how events were shaping, Ulyanov temporarily forgot his broken wrist. He sprang to his feet, yelling out encouragement to his henchmen, and dancing round like a demented hobgoblin, whenever he could get near enough he kicked at the man he hated with such utter intensity, once or twice even stamped on his face. At length Sir Leonard’s powers of resistance were broken. The rough treatment he was undergoing, the pain in his arm, his tortured chest still aching abominably, proved too much for his spirit. He became quiescent, lay practically unconscious. Even then Kharkov continued to squeeze his throat, bent apparently on strangling him. Death felt very near, his lungs seemed on the point of bursting, a great
thundering was in his ears. With the last remnants of his senses his thoughts were fastened on his wife, Molly, his blue lips strove to whisper her name. Then from afar he thought he heard a harsh, grating voice telling someone not to kill him, and he shrank into unconsciousness as Kharkov released him and rose reluctantly to his feet.

‘Is he dead?’ demanded Ulyanov, looking down at the object of his hatred, his whole demeanour denoting anxiety.

Mossuth pressed his ear against the unconscious man’s heart, listened for a while, then shook his head.

‘It is a pity,’ growled Kharkov.

‘It is well,’ barked Ulyanov. ‘If you had killed him I would have killed you.’

‘Oh!’ sneered the Bulgarian. ‘How would you have done it?’

Ulyanov bent suddenly to pick up his knife with his left hand, but the other kicked it yards away. Immediately the Russian threatened to lapse into one of his frenzied outbursts, but Mossuth succeeded in soothing him.