The Red Signal (Grace Livingston Hill Book) (22 page)

He was shouldering his way through the shopping crowd, toward Thirteenth Street. He walked with a peculiar, gliding motion that carried him along very fast without seeming at all to be rapid. At times he slid between people in a way that reminded her of a serpent. Three times he disappeared for several minutes and she thought she had lost him, but just as he turned another corner he would square around and flash a glance back of him. Although he was so far away that his features were scarcely discernible, there was something so characteristic in his face as he turned it her way that she had an impression of cold, steely eyes piercing back half a block through the crowd after her. She wondered if he had really seen her in Wanamaker's and if he were uneasy about her following him. When she came to the corner where he had turned she stood close to the buildings and looked around cautiously until he had gone a long distance ahead. Then she sped along behind three ladies and kept herself well hidden for a time.

So she pursued him block after block, corner after corner, breathlessly, with no further thought for anything but her quarry. Her heart was beating so wildly that it seemed as if the people she passed on the street must hear it, and she noticed that some of them looked at her curiously. But on she sped, noting the names of the streets as well as she could, and keeping in mind the general direction in which she was going. It must be toward the river. Was he then going out at once to a boat that would perhaps take him to a submarine?

Hilda knew the general lay-out of the city well, for when they had first come she and Karl had spent much time over a great map of it hanging on the wall of the Stevens library. Mr. Stevens had suggested that it would be a good thing for them both to memorize the names of the principal streets, so that they could easily find their way about. Hilda, always thorough in everything she did, accepted this advice literally, and quickly saw the use of it to them both. She kept Karl at it, working with him until they had mastered long lists of streets and made a sort of game of reciting them. So at night when they would all come home the mother and children would describe to one another the streets they had travelled that day, until at last it had come to be an old story, and the small map they had pinned up in their dining-room was only referred to when one or another of them went on some errand out of the usual beaten path.

So, as she hurried along, turning this way and that, she was able to keep a pretty definite idea of where she was going.

But the man she was pursuing was gaining on her. He had turned down toward the lower part of the city and was walking more and more rapidly now. He had ceased altogether to look behind him, although she had a strange, instinctive feeling that he knew she was there. She told herself again and again that she was foolish, that he could not know she was there, that he had shown no indication of any uneasiness. But still her impression lingered. He was more than a block away. If it had not been for his soldierly bearing and noticeable manner of walking she would not have been sure he was the same man she started out to follow.

As she strained her eyes ahead not to lose any new move he might make she was aware of a great weariness coming over her. The way ahead looked long and her heart seemed pumping painfully. If only there would be a policeman around to whom she might appeal! At this distance the airman would hardly be able to recognize her and take alarm. But there was no policeman, and the people who passed were few and far between -- nobody to whom she could turn for help. She had come a long way. Would the man never get to his destination and end this chase? She had half a thought of turning off to some side street and trying to telephone from a grocery store to Mr. Stevens, but just as she decided on this the man in the distance made an abrupt dash up some steps leading into one of the houses and disappeared from her view.

With all her nerves alert, once more Hilda quickened her pace, keeping her eye fixed carefully upon the house into which he had disappeared. At the corner she dashed across the street and walked more slowly down the block, trying to look like any lady out on business in the afternoon. The street seemed strangely empty. There was no one in sight in either direction. Did she fancy it, or was that a white face against the dark of the room, moving back from the window over there? That surely was the house into which he had gone. She hadn't taken her eyes from the steps for an instant. What was the number? 2217 ----!

It was a dingy street of old red bricks built solidly, with little arched doorways between and with narrow brick tunnels to the back doors. Just in front of one of these Hilda paused and raised her eyes once more, as if casually to make sure and fix the number in her mind before going on down the block. The white face seemed to move across her vision back in the room again, 2217 burned in upon her brain, followed by a sharp breathless blank of utter darkness as a great hand reached out behind her and drew her into the passage and something dark and thick dropped about her face and enveloped her completely. She felt herself carried swiftly through a door into the passage, up stairs and stairs to the top of a house, and thrown heavily upon a hard bed. She tried to struggle, but it was all so sudden and her enveloping was so complete that she was helpless from the start. When her Voice came back to her from some uncomprehending silences to which it had retreated in her first horror she tried to make sounds, but found them completely muffled and entirely inadequate.

Then she was still with fright. There were two men standing over her, and a woman's voice came puffing up the stairs.

“You petter stoof sorneding in her mouth. She vill yell und pring beeble! Here, take dis!”

The voice was unmistakable, and Hilda's heart stood still with fright. Her enemies were upon her! She was in their hands! She was helpless and she would never be able to get word to Mr. Stevens where to find the airman! What a fool she had been to go on past the house! How easy it would have been to run down a side street, call a policeman and make him watch the house! Oh, if she had only not been so careless and foolhardy! Here she had risked all, and now the knowledge she had gained was worthless, because the Schwarzes would make sure she would never get away alive to tell it. Perhaps they would even go so far as to kill her! It was possible that they might do worse than kill! Cold horror froze her into stillness. She lay like one dead.

“You sure you' ain't kilt her?” Mrs. Schwarz's voice hissed cautiously above her now. “You dasent kill her, you know! The Captain, he vants her!”

“Oh, she ain't dead yet!” said a gruff voice that Hilda did not know, with a decidedly American accent. She'll wish she was I bet before he gets through with her. She's only scared silly. She'll come round and yell like a loon. You better gag her now 'fore she gets a chance. When she comes to she'll make a lot of fuss. Where is the Cap, anyhow? He'll get us all in a mess if he sticks around.” Because a second sense told her to lie motionless with her eyes closed, Hilda forced herself to keep still as they threw the heavy blanket from her, disclosing her apparently unconscious form.

“He's ofer in his home, across! He just telephoned. That's how ve knowed she vas coming. He vill stay in the cellar till nide, und then he vill go to meed the submarine. He iss going to dake her mit him. There vill be nothing left pehind to make drubble, so you don't need to vorry.”

“He hadn't ought to have stuck around this long! I told him so yesterday, but, of course, being captain, he know what he wants! Here! Give me that rag! Now you hold it so, in her mouth, while I tie it. Naw! That' won't choke her. You don't suppose I want to kill the kid, do you? I never expected anything like this when I hitched up with this bunch! Now, give me that there string and I'll bind her hands behind her, and then we can lock her in and she can't do no harm!”

They forced an ill-smelling rag into her mouth and tied it around her head to hold it firmly. Then they rolled her over, bound her hands, and left her lying half on her face across the old straw mattress. The dusty breath of it smote upon her distress with a smothering sense and reminded her of the hour she lay in the old barn loft at Platt's Crossing. Strange! Here she was snatched as it were from the beautiful dream in which she had been living for several months and plunged back into the horror from which she had fled! Her work was all undone, and she was undone! There was nothing left for her but to pray to die! Her heart went up with a cry, “Oh, God! Oh, God!”

The choking of the gag was fearful, and the string around her wrists was cutting deep into her soft flesh. This was to go on for several hours, according to the plan Mrs. Schwarz had outlined. And the end was to be—a submarine! A submarine for her with the airman as her master! Her heart almost stopped at the thought. She had read the tales of women whose awful fate had been to be prisoners on a submarine. She knew that death in comparison would be as nothing. The cold terror of it almost took her senses away. Then they came back with reeling revulsion as she heard footsteps again approaching and the key turning in the lock.

She knew by the hoarse apoplectic breathing that it was Mrs. Schwarz bending over her and listening. The woman lifted up one of her eyelids and looked at her keenly. Then she spoke in low, vindictive tones:

“Ach, you pad girl! You dried to ged us all in drubble, bud you didund make oud You are in our hands now! You vill ged your medicine! My Sylvester und the cabdain they vill do vatefer they blease vith you. Your fine millionaire vrends vill hund for you bud they vill not pe able to find you. You vill pe under the sea! Do you hear that? You vill pe under the sea! Dake thad! Und thad!”

She hissed the words out into Hilda's stricken ears, and then struck her across her eyes and quivering cheek. The pain was keen, but the girl could only lie still and bear it. A great fear came over her that the tears would come and show the woman her triumph, and she prayed in her heart: “Oh, God! Don't let me cry!” It seemed a talisman that she kept saying over and over, till the woman closed the door and locked it, tramping off down the stairs with heavy tread, “Oh, God! Don't let me cry!”

WHEN she was alone again the significance of all that had been said to her pierced to her heart and brain. Sylvester here, too! Sylvester and the Captain and all of them determined to take their revenge. Ah! Where were her friends, indeed! How could they reach her now! Only God could reach and help her. Surely God was stronger than the Schwarzes, stronger than all the Germans put together! Surely God meant to turn back these enemies of mankind and freedom some day and save His people. Surely! Surely! Wasn't she one of His? Could He, the great God in heaven, with all the universe to look after have time to care that she, little Hilda Lessing, lay in torment upon this old straw tick waiting for a swift unnamable awfulness to come to her?

“Oh, God, my Father in heaven,” she cried with a breath of her soul, “come help me, please, now, and show me what to do if there is anything I can do. Forgive me for being such a fool and come and help me quickly from this terrible predicament!

Then she rolled herself softly over and tried to stand up and look about her. Her head swam, and the gag and the cords about her wrists hurt horribly, but something must be done quickly while yet she was alone and had her senses. If there was no other way she must find means to kill herself. But first she must find a way to send word about the airman. He must be caught, even if she died for it. But now was her time to do anything there was to do before anybody came back to watch her again. She must get those cords off her wrists and untie that gag. It could be done if she tried hard enough. God would help her. Her heart set itself to praying again as she struggled to her feet and looked about the room.

The shades were down at the two windows, showing long, slanting rays of light from the late afternoon sun where it crept through the scratches and pinholes in the old green shades. The room was papered with ugly dark paper and carpeted with a faded old ingrain, accentuating the darkness of the place. Besides the bed there was a bureau, washstand and chair. Several boxes, some open, some nailed shut, stood about the room and between the bed and the door was an old leather trunk with iron straps and rims. She would not have noticed it if it had not caught her dress as she started to move slowly toward the door. One of the iron rims was broken and bent upwards, showing a jagged edge. The girl gave a gasp of eagerness and slipped softly to her knees, backing up to the trunk and struggling to bring her wrists up to the broken place in the iron.

It was hard work, for her hands were tied in such a position that she could scarcely move, and she could not, of course, see what she was doing behind her back. There was also the added problem of rubbing the cords back and forth over the rough iron hard enough to cut them without making any noise that might be heard below. She worked away for some time in a fever of horror and agony. The blood was running down her wrists, and the gag made her sick and dizzy. Once she staggered to her feet, the perspiration dripping from her brow, and crept softly, slowly about the room, trying to find some more effective means of severing her bonds, but finding none returned and went at the task more desperately, stopping every now and then to listen and make sure she had not roused her captors. But at last the cord gave way and she was able to loosen it enough to get one hand out. Even then it was no easy task to untie the hard knot behind her head, and all the time her heart kept praying, praying, her fingers were cold and tense, with the thought of how the minutes were slipping away and she was doing nothing, nothing to save herself or capture the man who was making so much trouble for the Government! This thought would prick her lagging forces into action again, and. she struggled with the knots until at last, with a final effort, she was free!

Her first thought on getting out of her fetters was to place a bar at her prison door that would keep her captors out. There was the trunk. Dared she move it across the door? It was heavy as lead. But it would make a noise and bring someone up to see what was the matter, perhaps. However, she must try, and she must do it quickly. Every second's delay might be fatal. She got down beside the trunk, put her shoulder against the heavy box and was rewarded by feeling it move a little. She dared not move it more than an inch or two at a time. Slowly, painfully lifting one side and then the other, inch by inch it wheeled into place across the door, and Hilda sat down to breathe and think what next. At least she was safe for a few minutes. They could not easily push that trunk away before she had a chance to call out the window. But it wouldn't last for long. She must brace it somehow to the opposite wall. If she could only get a couple of those heavy boxes between the bed and the trunk the thing would be done. Softly she dropped to her task again, endowed with almost superhuman strength it seemed, and with a will that would not let mere weakness of the flesh prevail against her great need.