The Holcroft Covenant (19 page)

Like the face in the picture, he’d seen these words before! But they were meaningless to him; German words that meant nothing … yet he had seen them!

Bewildered, he folded the photograph and stuffed it into his trouser pocket.

He opened a closet door, shoved the silver frame between folded clothes on the shelf, picked up his jacket, and went into the living room. He knew he should get out of the house as fast as he could, but his
curiosity about the man in the photograph consumed him. He had to know
something
about him.

There were two doors, in the near and far walls of the living room. One was open and led to the kitchen; the other was closed. He opened it and walked into the commander’s study. He turned on a light; photographs of ships and men were everywhere, along with citations and military decorations. Commander Beaumont was a career officer of no mean standing. A bitter divorce followed by a questionable marriage might have created messy personal problems for the man, but the Royal Navy had obviously overlooked them. The latest citation was only six weeks old: for outstanding leadership in coastal patrols off the Balearic Islands during a week of gale-force seas.

A cursory look at the papers on the desk and in the drawers added nothing. Two bank books showed accounts in four figures, neither more than three thousand pounds; a letter from his former wife’s solicitor demanded property in Scotland; there were assorted copies of ships’ logs and sailing schedules.

Holcroft wanted to stay in that room a while longer, to look more thoroughly for clues to the strange man with the odd eyebrows, but he knew he dared not. He had already tested the situation beyond reason; he had to get out.

He left the house and looked across the way, up to the windows that only minutes ago had been filled with lights and curious faces. There were no lights now, no faces; sleep had returned to Portsea. He walked rapidly down the path and swung the gate open, annoyed that the hinges squeaked. He opened the door of the rented car, and quickly got behind the wheel. He turned the key in the ignition.

Nothing. He turned it again. And again and again. Nothing!

He released the hood and raced to the front of the car, not worried about the noise; worried about something far more serious. There was no reason for the rented car’s battery to be worn down, but even if it were, there would still be a faint click in the ignition. The light of the street-lamp spread over the exposed engine, showing him what he was afraid he might find.

The wires were cut, severed at their source with a surgeon’s precision. No amount of simple splicing would start the car; it would have to be towed away.

And whoever was responsible knew that an American would be without means of travel in an unfamiliar area in the middle of the night. If there were taxis in this outlying suburb, it was doubtful they’d be available at that hour; it was past three o’clock. Whoever immobilized the car wanted him to stay where he was; it had to follow that others would come after him. He had to run. As far and as fast as he could … reach the highway … hitch a ride north, out of the area.

He closed the hood. The sharp, metallic noise echoed throughout the street. He was grateful it had done so before.

He started up the block toward the traffic light; it was not operating now. Crossing the intersection, he began walking faster, then broke into a run. He tried to pace himself; there was a mile and a half before he reached the highway. He was sweating, and he could feel the knot in his stomach forming again.

He saw the lights before he heard the furious pitch of the engine. Up ahead, directly ahead on the straight road, the glare of headlights came out of the darkness, drawing closer so rapidly that the automobile had to be traveling at tremendous speed.

Noel saw an opening to his right, a space between a line of waist-high privet hedge, an entrance to another path to another doorway. He dived through it and rolled into the dirt beneath the shrubbery, wondering if he’d been seen. It was suddenly very important for him not to be involved with Gretchen Beaumont. She was a dismissable enigma, an unhappy, highly erotic … beautiful woman. But in herself a threat to Geneva, as was her brother.

The approaching car raced by. He had not been seen. Then the sound of the roaring motor was replaced by the screeching of tires. Holcroft crawled halfway through the break in the hedge, his face turned to his left, his eyes focused on the block behind him.

The car had stopped directly in front of the Beaumont house. Two men leaped from the car and raced up the path. Noel could hear the squeaking of the gate hinges. There was no point in remaining where he was; it was the
moment to run. Now he heard the tapping of the door knocker a hundred yards away.

He moved to his right on his hands and knees, along the sidewalk, by a privet hedge, until he was in the shadows between the streetlamps. He got to his feet and ran.

He kept running straight ahead, up the dark, tree-lined street, block after block, corner after corner, hoping to God he would recognize the first turn to the highway when he came to it. He cursed cigarettes as his breath became shorter and turned into pain-filled gasps; sweat poured down his face and the pounding in his chest became intolerable. The rapid cracks of his own footsteps on the pavement frightened him. It was the sound of a man running in panic in the middle of the night, and that man in panic was himself.

Footsteps.
Racing
footsteps. They were his, but
more
than his! Behind him, steady, heavy, gaining on him. There was someone running after him! Someone running in silence, not calling his name, not demanding that he stop!… Or was his hearing playing tricks on him? The hammering in his chest vibrated throughout his entire body; were his footsteps echoing in his ears? He dared not turn,
could
not turn. He was going too fast—into light, into shadow.

He came to the end of yet another block, to another corner, and turned right, knowing it was not the first of the turns that would take him to the highway, but turning anyway. He had to know if there was someone behind him. He raced into the street.

The footsteps
were
there, the rhythm different, not his own, closer, ever closer, shortening the distance between them. He could stand it no longer; and he could run no faster. He twisted his waist, trying to look over his shoulder.

It was there;
he
was there! The figure of a man silhouetted in the light of a streetlamp on the corner. A stocky man, running in silence, shortening the gap, only yards away.

His legs aching, Noel hammered his feet on the surface in a final burst of speed. He turned again, his panic complete.

And his legs gave out, tangled in the chaos and the terror of the chase. He plunged headlong onto the street,
his face scraping the asphalt, his extended hands icelike and stinging. He twisted over on his back, instinctively raising his feet to ward off his assailant—the silent, racing figure that shot out of the darkness and was suddenly over him.

Everything was a blur; only the thrashing outlines of arms and legs silhouetted in the darkness penetrated his sweat-filled eyes. And then he was pinned. An enormous weight was crushing his chest, a forearm—like a heavy iron bar—was across his throat, choking off all sound.

The last thing he saw was a hand raised high, a dark claw in the night sky, a curved hand that held an object in it. And then there was nothing. Only a huge chasm filled with wind. He was falling toward unseen depths in darkness.

He felt the cold first. It made him shiver. Then the dampness; it was everywhere. He opened his eyes to distorted images of grass and dirt. He was surrounded by wet grass and mounds of cold earth. He rolled over, grateful to see the night sky; it was lighter to his left, darker to his right.

His head ached; his face stung; his hands were in pain. Slowly he raised himself and looked around. He was in a field, a long flat stretch of ground that appeared to be a pasture. In the distance he could see the faint outlines of a wire fence—barbed wire strung between thick posts ten or twenty yards apart. It
was
a pasture.

He smelled cheap whiskey or rancid wine.

His clothes were drenched with it, his shirt sopping wet, sending the awful fumes into his nostrils. His
clothes
 … his wallet, his money! He rose unsteadily to his feet and checked his pockets, both hands stinging as he plunged them into the moist cloth.

His wallet, his money clip with the bills in it, his watch—all were there. He had not been robbed, only beaten unconscious and taken away from the area where the Beaumonts lived. It was crazy!

He felt his head. A bump had formed, but the skin was not broken. He had been hit with some kind of padded blackjack or pipe. He took several awkward steps; he could move, and that was all that mattered. And he could see more clearly now; it would be morning soon.

Beyond the fence there was a slight rise in the
ground, forming a ridge that extended as far as he could see in both directions. Along the ridge he saw highway lights. He started across the field, toward the fence and the ridge and the highway, hoping to convince a driver to give him a ride. As he climbed over the fence, a thought suddenly occurred to him. He checked his pockets again.

The photograph was gone!

A milk truck stopped and he climbed in, watching the smile of the driver fade abruptly as the stench filled the cab. Noel tried to make light of it—a predicament brought on by an innocent American’s having been taken in by some very sharp British sailors in Portsmouth—but the driver found nothing amusing. Holcroft got out at the first town.

It was an English village, the Tudor architecture of the square marred by a profusion of delivery trucks in front of a roadside stop.

“There’s a telephone inside,” said the milkman. “And a gents’ room, too. A wash would do you no harm.”

Noel walked into the sight and sounds of the early-morning truckers, the smell of hot coffee somehow reassuring. The world went on; deliveries were made and small comforts accepted without particular notice. He found the washroom, and did what he could to minimize the effects of the night. Then he sat in a booth next to the pay telephone on the wall and had black coffee, waiting for an angry trucker to conclude an argument with an angrier dispatcher on the other end of the line. When the call was finished, Noel got out of the booth and went to the phone, Gretchen Beaumont’s telephone number in his hand. There was nothing to do but try to find out what happened, try to reason with her, if, indeed, she had returned.

He dialed.

“Beaumont residence.” A male voice was on the line.

“Mrs. Beaumont, please.”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“A friend of the commander. I heard Mrs. Beaumont was leaving today to join him. I’d like her to take a message to him.”

“Who is this, please?”

Noel replaced the receiver. He did not know who had answered the phone; he knew only that he needed
help. Professional help. It was possibly dangerous for Geneva to seek it, but it was necessary. He would be cautious—very cautious—and learn what he could.

He rummaged through his jacket pockets for the card given him by the MI-Five man at the Belgravia Arms. There was only a name—Harold Payton-Jones—and a telephone number. The clock on the wall read ten minutes to seven; Noel wondered if anyone would answer the phone. He placed the call to London.

“Yes?”

“This is Holcroft.”

“Oh, yes. We wondered if you’d ring up.”

Noel recognized the voice. It was the gray-haired intelligence agent from the hotel. “What are you talking about?” Noel said.

“You’ve had a difficult night,” the voice said.

“You
expected
me to call! You were there. You were watching!”

Payton-Jones did not respond directly. “The rented car’s at a garage in Aldershot. It should be repaired by noon. The name’s easily remembered; it’s Boot’s. Boot’s Garage, Aldershot. There’ll be no charge, no bill, no receipt.”

“Wait a minute! What the hell is this? You had me followed! You had no right to do that.”

“I’d say it was a damned good thing we did.”

“You were in that car at three o’clock this morning! You went into Beaumont’s house!”

“I’m afraid we weren’t and we didn’t.” The MI-Five man paused briefly. “And if you believe that, then you didn’t get a very good look at them, did you?”

“No. Who were they?”

“I wish we knew. Our man got there closer to five.”

“Who ran after me? Who bashed my head in and left me in that goddamned field?”

Again the agent paused. “We don’t know anything about that. We knew only that you had left. In a hurry, obviously, your car immobilized.”

“It was a setup! I was the pigeon!”

“Quite so. I’d advise you to be more cautious. It’s both tasteless and dangerous to take advantage of the wife of a commander in the Royal Navy while her husband’s at sea.”

“Bullshit! The commander’s no more at sea than I
am! He was on a plane to Rio less than two weeks ago. I saw him! He’s got something to do with the Von Tiebolts.”

“Most assuredly,” replied Payton-Jones. “He married the oldest daughter. As to his being on an aircraft two weeks ago, it’s preposterous. He’s been in the Mediterranean for the past three months.”

“No! I
saw
him! Listen to me. There was a photograph in the bedroom. I took it. It was him! And something else. There was writing on the back. In German.”

“What did it say?”

“I don’t know. I don’t speak German. But it’s goddamned unusual, don’t you think?” Holcroft stopped. He had not meant to go this far. In his anger, he had lost his control!
Goddamn it!

“What’s unusual?” asked the agent. “German is Mrs. Beaumont’s native tongue; the family’s spoken it for years. An endearing phrase, words of devotion to or from her new husband? Not unusual at all.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Noel, backing off. Then he realized he had retreated too quickly. The MI-Five man was suspicious; Noel could sense it in his next words.