Fire Below (5 page)

We had, I think, good reason to be content. Our presence was unsuspected, and we had been granted the respite we so much desired. When it was dark, we had but to turn out the car, and we should be five miles off before its departure was reported by the spy in the street: and, before it was gathered that we were not going to Elsa, we should be over the border and nearing the Rolls. The thing was child’s play.

Such is the bliss of ignorance. Could we have seen the cards outrageous Fortune was about to draw from her sleeve, our faith would have turned to consternation and there would have been no health in us.

To this day I have not learned at what time the Prince arrived, but I know it was nearly five when I saw him walk on to the terrace and down the steps.

Marya Dresden was behind him, with a hand to her mouth.
And by his side was a wolf-hound with its eyes on its master’s face
.

As I gazed, the man peered about him. Then he looked down at the dog and nodded his head.

Now, had the dog made for the bushes, we must have been discovered before we had time to think, but, though it sprang forward, it first dived into a border which it began to search.

‘The trees,’ breathed George. ‘Isn’t there one we can try?’

The trees were well-grown and stately, but, though I stand over six feet, the lowest branch I could see was far out of my reach. More. What branches there were were not splayed, like those of an oak, but rose with the trunks, so that only by reaching some fork could a man get any lodgement for hand or foot.

I laid hold of the trunk of the tree beneath which I stood.

‘Up on my shoulders,’ I said, addressing Bell.

George hoisted him up in a twinkling, and almost before I had felt it his weight was gone.

‘Next,’ said I. ‘That’s the style.’

But George did not move. And when I looked round, there was the wolf-hound standing, three paces away.

The dog was young and nervous, but he had an inkling of what he was meant to do, for though he did not give tongue, he let out a growl at my movement and laid back his ears.

‘Still as death,’ breathed George. ‘It’s our only chance.’

I heard the Prince raise his voice.

‘What is it, Aster?’ he cried.

There was no mistaking the nervous suspicion of his tone. He had brought the dog, in case we were in the garden, to find us out.

As the dog bayed in answer, something sprawled through the air from above my head, landed among the bushes and fled for the lawn. At the critical moment Bell had dislodged a cat.

With a whimper of excitement, the dog was gone in a flash…

I had George up in an instant, but when he leaned down to help me, I could not reach his hand.

I whipped to another tree whose branches were not so high, but the cat, which had doubled, ran up the trunk as I got there, and I found the dog leaping beside me and barking as though possessed.

Before I could turn, I heard footsteps and Marya’s voice. ‘No, if you please, sir – I beg you. I do not want the cat killed.’

‘Rot,’ said his Royal Highness. ‘I hate the brutes. Good dog, Aster. Wait till I find a stone.’

I slipped behind a tree-trunk and hoped for the best.

‘Sir, I beseech you,’ cried the Countess. ‘This is my garden, and I cannot permit even you, sir, to use it so.’

The Prince took no notice at all, and an instant later he was before the tree, panting, and I flat against it, behind.

‘Where is she?’ he cried to the wolf-hound. ‘Where’s the — gone?’

Then he side-stepped and saw me, and started back with an oath.

At once I stepped forward.

‘Sir,’ said I, ‘I don’t think you heard Madame Dresden. She wishes the cat let alone.’

The man was white as a sheet.

‘I knew you were here,’ he said thickly. He struck at the leaping dog and pointed to me. ‘Seize him,’ he cried. ‘Seize him.’

The dog, perplexed and bewildered, slunk to my feet. When I put down a hand, he licked me and wagged his tail.

The Prince was trembling with rage.

‘This is treason,’ he said. ‘If you touch me–’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said shortly. ‘You know why I’m here. To take Madame Dresden to Littai.’

‘Then why didn’t you come openly?’

‘How d’you know I didn’t?’ I said.

His Royal Highness stamped his foot.

‘Don’t talk to me,’ he raved, and added a filthy oath. ‘You’ve the damned insolence to come here–’

‘You brought me,’ said I, ‘by a lie. You suppressed Madame Dresden’s wire and sent another instead. Your service is so putrid that you didn’t even know I’d arrived, but you knew I would come – if not today, tomorrow, provided only that you kept Madame Dresden here. So you did her the dishonour of inviting yourself to tea.’

This blunt indictment shook him, as well it might, and when I had done, he was biting his nails like fury, for lack, I suppose, of words.

There was a moment’s silence. Then he broke out.

I will not set down his outburst, which, for abuse and incoherence, would have disgraced a groom that was in his cups, but he offered no sort of denial to what I had said.

When he had done, I spoke.

‘I tell you I have come to take Madame Dresden to Littai. Will you give orders that we are to be suffered to pass? Now – on the telephone, to Elsa.’

‘“Suffered to pass”? We don’t deal like that with traitors. We–’

My temper was getting frayed, and I cut the man short.

‘This talk of traitors and treason is so much trash. I’m not a subject of yours.’

‘No, but
she
is,’ he cried, pointing to Madame Dresden. ‘She’s my subject. And I find you here in her garden, when I visit her unattended and–’

Something moved behind him, and he swung round to see George standing, with fire in his eyes.

‘Do you charge that lady with treason?’ said George, quietly. ‘Because if you do, I’ll give you the best of reasons for charging me with assault.’

The Prince recoiled, as though he had seen a ghost.

‘Steady, George,’ said I. ‘What’s the good? He’ll take it back now and sign a warrant tonight.’

‘Go on,’ said George, sharply. ‘Do you charge her with treason, or no?’

His Royal Highness muttered ‘No’.

‘Then beg her pardon,’ said George. ‘Turn round and beg her pardon for daring to make a suggestion which you knew to be false.’

For a moment the man stood uncertain. The spirit was plainly unwilling, but the flesh was weak.

Then he turned to the Countess and bowed.

‘I – I apologise,’ he said thickly, speaking between his teeth.

White-faced, but very calm, Madame Dresden inclined her head.

‘Lip-service,’ said George. ‘And here’s danger. What do we do?’

As if in answer, the Prince made as though to go by.

‘Not yet,’ said George shortly. He slid a hand into his pocket. ‘Stand where you are.’

‘By God,’ said the Prince hoarsely, and went very grey.

‘Neither move, nor cry out,’ said George coolly. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Bill, I asked you a question. What do we do?’

‘We go,’ said I. ‘In five minutes, with any luck.’

With that, I went to the Countess and spoke in an undertone.

‘There’s no help for it,’ I said. ‘Send Carol to summon his chauffeur and, if he has one with him, the footman as well. Send them down here. Say he’s hurt his foot or something, and he wants them to carry him out. Then yourself get ready to go. Hat and coat and just your things for the night. The instant you’re ready come to the terrace steps.’

‘And he?’

‘We must take his car. He and his men must be held here until we go.’

‘I am desperately afraid, Richard. Is there no other way?’

‘I can see none,’ said I. ‘In the moment he found us here, the fat was burnt. If we cannot get some sort of start, we’re all of us done.’

‘Very well,’ said she, and hastened towards the house.

Now the last thing we wanted was trouble, that is to say, resistance, however slight. To be sure we were all three armed, but while a pistol is always an argument, it loses its force when a man is afraid to fire.

That the Prince would give no trouble, I knew very well, for the man was an arrant coward and would have yielded an empire rather than risk his skin; but though I had little doubt that we could hold up his men, I feared that if they saw his distress, the instinct of bounden duty would compel them to put up a fight.

In vain I looked round for some lodgement, where he could stand at our mercy, yet out of sight.

As I turned to call Bell from his perch, I thought of the tree…

I know his Royal Highness demurred, but, if I ever listened, I cannot recall what he said. We were pressed for time and I fear we were none too gentle, but once George and I had hoisted him up the trunk, he saw the wisdom of taking Bell’s outstretched hand.

An instant later he was lodged in a mighty fork, some twelve feet above the ground, and though with a little discretion he could have scrambled down, I think that he had no stomach for that sort of exercise, for he never moved a muscle, but clung to a branch with his face clapped against the bark, as though in peril of being washed off by some wave, declaring that he was slipping and that we should have his blood upon our heads.

As Bell slithered down to the ground—

‘I advise you,’ said George, looking up, ‘to make no noise.’

With his words, the two servants appeared and, Carol directing them, came clattering down the steps and running across the lawn.

‘Their coats and hats,’ I breathed. ‘We must take his car.’

‘Good,’ said George. ‘You and Bell get out of sight and leave it to me.’

When the men were close to the bushes, he cried out, ‘This way,’ and once they were under cover, he stepped from behind a tree-trunk and held them up.

Their surprise was ludicrous, and they looked from the pistol to each other as though they were dreaming some dream.

‘Put up your hands,’ said George.

They did so dazedly.

‘Now whether I hurt you,’ said George, ‘will depend upon you. But I want your coats. Bell, take them off. And their hats.’

To strip them took but an instant.

‘Now their boots,’ said George. ‘Cut the laces. They mustn’t be able to run.’

In less than two minutes Bell had their boots in his hands.

‘And now turn round,’ said George, ‘and stand with your face to the wall. March.’

As the men obeyed, I saw a slight figure appear at the head of the steps.

‘And now don’t move,’ said George. ‘I’m going to stand here and watch you, and fire at the first that moves. I mean that, mark you. I’m not going to speak again.’

By now Bell and I were wearing their hats and coats, and I took the dog by the collar and gave the sign to withdraw.

We did so in silence, only pausing to hide the boots in a clump of stocks, and when we were all in the salon, I closed and bolted the shutters and shut the windows behind.

‘Where’s the telephone?’ said George. ‘We must cut the wire.’

‘In the hall,’ said the Countess, and ran before…

As Bell took her dressing-case–

‘I don’t like to leave Carol,’ she said. ‘You see, he’s involved.’

‘Right,’ said I. ‘Let him put on my hat and coat. And follow in ten seconds, please. I’m going to start the car.’

One minute later the Countess and George and Carol were sitting back in the car we had used that morning, Bell and the dog were beside me, and I was driving all out for the Austrian road.

Our going was none too private. I saw no man that I could have sworn was a spy, yet half a dozen that might have been watching the house, but we met with no sort of obstruction, and if we aroused suspicion, I never saw it declared. I would never have believed it so simple to steal a royal car, but I think that those that were there had not noticed the Arms on the doors and, our livery being plain blue, were not expecting the presence which we had so hurriedly left. When we came to the busier streets, our fortune took on another still more convenient shape, for such police as saw the car coming made haste to clear the way, and the zeal they showed was so active and the compliments they paid were so grand that I could have burst with laughter, while Bell, whose reserve was prodigious, was shaking with mirth.

When we were clear of the city, George leaned out of a window and spoke in my ear.

‘Are you going for Elsa?’

‘No,’ said I. ‘I dare not. I believe we’ve an excellent chance, but supposing we fail…’

‘Right,’ said George. ‘Where then?’

‘I’m damned if I know,’ said I. ‘How long before it’s dark?’

‘Nearly three hours,’ said George. ‘It’s not yet a quarter past six.’

‘Get the map off Carol,’ said I. ‘It’s in my coat. We must dodge across country to Vardar and find some place to lie up.’

I was eager to leave the main road and knew we should find a by-road some five miles on that would take us over the railway and into the hills. I, therefore, wasted no time, and the car being very willing and, in view of its heavy body, unusually swift, we had climbed a steep hill and were approaching the by-road before ten minutes were past.

Now, though I slowed up for the turning, I was not expecting traffic upon such a road, and, anxious not to lose time, I certainly cut my corner more fine than I should. And this was very nearly the end of us all, for there was another car coming and taking, as luck would have it, more than its share of the way.

Thanks to our excellent brakes, a smash was avoided with two or three inches to spare, and, from having come to a standstill, the cars were slowly beginning to draw abreast, when a man leaned out of a window to shake his fist in my face.

I shall never forget that moment or the bitterness which it held, for when a poor wretch ‘hath nothing’, it is very hard to surrender ‘even that which he hath’. In that instant our half hour’s start, so hardly won, sank to a few poor moments and what disguise we had was changed to a startling announcement of what we had done.

The man at the window and I had met before.

That scowl, that square jaw, those small eyes – I had reason to remember those features to the day of my death. For they were Grieg’s features – the features of the man who had tried his best to kill me and now had ‘some job in the police.’