The Sword of Fate (28 page)

The same jerk which had freed my collar from von Hentzen’s grip sent me plunging forward. My outstretched hand grasped the knob of the door. Praise be to all the Gods! It was not locked. In one wrench I had it open, and with a choking gasp I flung myself through it into the room beyond.

I should have been caught again even then, if it had not been that von Hentzen was doubled up with agony and momentarily unable to see or hear. He got in Mondragora’s way, which gave me just time to slam the door and fling my weight against it.

The room was in darkness, and I could see nothing. My fingers fumbled wildly down the door-edge. Suddenly they came in contact with the key. Once more, at the eleventh hour, the gods seemed to be on my side. Just as someone in the bathroom hurled themselves against the door I turned the key and heard the lock click home.

I drew a deep sobbing breath of relief, but even as I did so I was conscious that I must not let up for a single second if I was to get out of that place alive. The safety of four strong, resolute, unscrupulous men hung upon my dying there, so they would leave nothing untried to get me yet, however much explaining they might have to do afterwards.

My fingers fumbled again, and found the light switch. I clicked it on. The room was a comfortable bedroom. In fact, it was furnished so luxuriously that it was more suited to a woman than a man, although I felt sure that it was Mondragora’s because a wardrobe stood partly open, and in it hung several suits of men’s
clothing. I wasted no time in examining the room, but took these details in as I was racing across it to another door which evidently led direct on to the hallway of the flat.

I reached it only just in time. One of them had already run round there with the intention of taking me in the rear, and I saw the handle turn as I sprang forward to lock it.

From both doors there now came the sound of hammering, and from moment to moment a heavy crash followed by the creaking of the locks, as one or other of my would-be assassins strove to force an entrance. The door out into the passage seemed the stouter so I gave my attention to the bathroom door first. Exerting all my strength I dragged a heavy chest of drawers across it so as to form a barricade and keep the door in position even if the lock were forced.

When I had done, I turned panting to the other door. The top inner corner of it now showed beyond the frame with every thud as someone outside flung their weight against it. Fortunately the dressing-table, although elaborate, was a fairly heavy piece. Sweeping all the pots, bottles and brushes from its top on to the floor, I dragged that over to form a second barricade. My next concern was the windows. These might serve yet for my triumph or undoing as Fate decreed.

If I could get out of one of them before any of my enemies thought of coming along the balcony, I might get clean away through the landing window and down the hall stairs before they knew what had happened to me. On the other hand, if they reached the windows first they could just as easily climb in through them as I could climb out, and they were armed, whereas I was not.

The curtains were all drawn, so while I had been busy barricading the doors it had been impossible to tell if any of them were open. I had been casting swift glances at the long line of curtains in an agony of apprehension, anticipating that at any moment I should see one of them bulge as Mondragora or von Hentzen came tumbling into the room. Now I dashed across, and thrusting two of the curtains apart peered behind them along the line of low windows. Only one was open and that was on the far side of the bed.

Racing round to it, I thrust out my head. To leave my cover for the balcony was a big risk, as my pursuers were so desperate that they were not concerning themselves in the least about the noise that they made in trying to break down the doors. If they saw me out on the balcony they would certainly shoot me. Yet,
as there seemed no other way of escape, I made up my mind to risk it. At that moment from further along the balcony there was a shout. The Grand Mufti’s voice came clearly:

“Come quickly! He is getting out on to the balcony.” Evidently it was below the dignity of his holy office to enter into this fracas, so he had taken on the job of keeping watch from the bathroom window, and had seen my head sticking out.

Instantly I drew in my head, slammed the window to and latched it. As I did so I noticed with a sigh of thankfulness that they were Crittall windows—steel frames enclosing small panes of not more than eighteen inches in width and a foot in depth. Had they been larger, the killers could easily have smashed one of them and got into the room, but even a child would have had difficulty in squeezing his way through one of these many small steel rectangles, a number of which made up each window.

I saw at once, though, that by smashing a central pane one of my enemies would be able to thrust his hand through, and on pulling back the lever catch fling open a window. If I remained on the inner side of the curtains they would be able to do that without even my seeing which window they were attempting to open and so make any effort to prevent them. There was only one thing to do. Black-out regulations must go to the blazes. Only by drawing the curtains could I see the whole row of windows at once.

If I had had even a second to think about it I should have realised that drawing back the curtains was the best move that I could possibly have made. The sudden appearance of a whole row of bright lights shining right across the bay would attract the immediate attention of every policeman who was patrolling the long curve of the waterfront. The arrival of the police was the one thing that my enemies wished to avoid, and now that I was cornered in the bedroom the one hope of my getting out of that flat alive. But the part that showing lights might play never even occurred to me. In my first glance round the room I had seen a telephone beside the bed, and all I had so far lacked was breathing-space to use it.

I was still in the act of pulling back the last pair of curtains when I heard footsteps pounding along the concrete balcony; then Mondragora’s satanic countenance was thrust against one of the panes. Ignoring him for a minute, I grabbed the telephone and rang the exchange.

A sleepy voice answered, and I yelled into the transmitter in
Arabic: “Police! Quick! Flat 42, Ambassador Court! An urgent message for Headquarters …”

I had only got so far when there was a sharp splintering of glass. Mondragora had seen me snatch up the telephone and was firing at me through the window. Three bullets whiszed past my right ear and thudded into a large satin wood wardrobe.

The instant I heard the first shot I flung myself flat on the floor, dragging the telephone with me. Mondragora must have thought that he had hit me, as for the moment he stopped firing.

Immediately he did so I yelled into the telephone again: “Police Headquarters! This is an urgent message for Major Cozelli! I am speaking from Flat 42, Ambassador Court. The Grand Mufti of Jersusalem is here, and if you surround the block at once you should be able to get him.”

I shouted not only through excitement but because I wanted Mondragora to know that I had succeeded in getting through to the police. It was the one thing which might induce him to take to immediate flight instead of firing shot after shot through the window until he succeeded in wounding and finally killing me.

I had already wriggled half under the bed when a bullet thumped into the carpet within an inch of my elbow. A slight cough had preceded the thud, and I knew now why I had not heard any reports when Mondragora had first fired at me. He was using a silencer on the end of his automatic. The sleepy operator had become very much alive and put me through to Police Headquarters, Pulling my head and shoulders under the valance, I repeated my message again in both Arabic and English, then jammed down the receiver and squirmed my way out at the far side of the bed.

Cautiously raising my head I peered over the bed at the window, outside which Mondragora was standing. His hand was just reaching through the smashed pane to undo the catch. Snatching up a bedside lamp made out of a porcelain vase, I jerked the flex from its socket and hurled the lamp at the window. The shot was an oblique one from where I crouched, so with the best aim in the world I could not have sent the vase straight through the broken pane at the Portuguese, but it shattered on the steel frame and he swiftly withdrew his hand.

Suddenly the telephone began to ring, and I felt certain that it must be the police calling me back for further particulars. I could not answer it unless I abandoned keeping an eye on Mondragora and crawled back under the bed; but he had heard my call for help and evidently he thought, as I did, that the
ringing of the telephone was the police trying to get on to the flat. His long hand, with its noticeably crooked first finger, had come in again to fumble for the catch, but he withdrew it and began to call urgently to someone further along the balcony.

Between the short intervals of the insistently ringing telephone I could now hear the shrilling of whistles. Evidently the police on the waterfront were becoming agitated about the long row of brightly-lighted windows which at this height could probably be seen a dozen miles out at sea.

For some moments there was no further sign of Mondragora, but I remained crouching where I was, fearing some trap, and that he might be prepared to risk having to make a last moment escape from the police in order to kill me, and thus make certain of my silence first.

The telephone rang and rang; the whistles shrilled. Then I caught a fresh noise. Someone was beating loudly upon a door across the hall. I knew the odds were now on its being the police, but having avoided death in the last half-hour only by a hair’s-breadth, I was still taking no chances. I waited where I was while the sounds of splintering wood told me that they were breaking in the front door. Only when they began to bang on the bedroom door, and we had exchanged shouted remarks by which I had ascertained that they really were the police, did I drag aside the ornate dressing-table and open to them.

There was a coffee-coloured sergeant and four
tarbooshed
policemen, ranging in colour from burnt sienna to coal black. They knew nothing of my call to the station for help, but on seeing such a flagrant breach of the black-out regulations they had decided that the occupant of the flat was deliberately guiding enemy aircraft in for an attack on the city, and that bombs might start to fall at any moment, so on getting no reply at the front door they had felt quite justified in breaking in.

While the men quickly drew the curtains again the sergeant answered the telephone. It was Police Headquarters, and they confirmed my story that I had rung them up to report the presence of the Grand Mufti. However, the flat was now empty except for ourselves, and two of the policemen had seen some men run out of the block and drive away in a car just as they had come up, so evidently Mondragora and his friends had escaped.

Five minutes later an inspector arrived from the station with two plain-clothes men and a negro constable. The patrolmen were sent back to their duties and the newcomers from Headquarters took charge. The inspector was a nice-looking, youngish
Levantine with a small black moustache. At first I think he regarded me as either a mental case or a deliberate nuisance-maker, and he obviously did not believe my story that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had been there less than half an hour before; but when he began to question me and ask about all sorts of things which had no bearing on the matter, I told him that I was a friend of Essex Pasha and that I would not answer any more questions, except to one of the British commissioned officers of the Egyptian police.

He replied sourly that I would probably soon have that opportunity, as in my original call for help I had mentioned Major Cozelli’s name. In consequence the report that the Grand Mufti was in Alexandria had been telephoned to the Major, who was expected to put in an appearance shortly, but having been roused in the middle of the night on my account he would be in no mood to be trifled with.

The Major turned up about quarter of an hour later. At first he did not recognise me, which was hardly surprising as I had only seen him on the one occasion, eight months before. Then he said:

“Why, hallo, Day! So it was you who made this extraordinary statement about the Grand Mufti having been in this flat tonight. Are you quite certain that you weren’t mistaken?”

“I’d swear to it, sir,” I replied. “I not only saw him with my own eyes, but the other men who were here addressed him as ‘Your Eminence’.”

“And who were they?”

“One of them was the late chief of the Egyptian General Staff—General Aziz Masry Pasha.”

The Major grunted: “So that would-be Quisling was here, too, eh? All right. Let’s sit down while you tell me the whole story.”

Up to that moment I had hardly given a thought as to what account I should give the police of my night’s adventures. The reaction to my extraordinarily narrow escape from death had set in on their arrival and, the frightful strain which I had been suffering having abruptly ceased, I had done little since but breathe prayers of thanksgiving for my release. Now, for the first time, it really came home to me that, having called in the police, I must tell them not only a coherent story but one which they could not easily disprove, otherwise I might get myself into serious trouble. However, I felt that, as I was so obviously on their side, it was unlikely that they would run me in on a charge
of housebreaking, and I decided to stick as near the truth as I reasonably could.

I told the Major that Mondragora and I had a long-standing quarrel, the particulars of which I had no intention of disclosing at the moment; but if he thought it necessary he could get them at any time from Essex Pasha, who knew the whole story. That night I had seen Mondragora, after an interval of several years, in the lounge of the Hotel Cecil, and I had followed him home, as I was anxious to have a showdown with him. I admitted to having evaded the porter at Ambassador Court and having made an illicit entry through the bathroom window of the flat for the purpose of taking Mondragora by surprise. Of course, I did not confess that I had gone in with the intention of murdering him, but inferred that I had meant to give him a darn’ good hiding.