Fire Below Page 12

  There was an uneasy silence.

  I saw the Prince glance at the others and his hand go up to his mouth. Then he took out his case and lighted a cigarette.

  ‘I’ll see you,’ he blurted suddenly. ‘Explain your conduct – if you can. I’ll hear what you’ve got to say.’

  Grieg eyed the youth with supreme contempt.

  ‘Your Royal Highness is rather dense this morning. I have been at some pains to point out that I am dismissed your service.’ He bowed elaborately. ‘I have, therefore, nothing to report.’

  ‘Oh, go to hell,’ said the Prince. ‘I’ve every — reason to think that you’ve let me down. So’s Weber. So’s everyone. You put those swine out of the country. God knows why one came back. But he did, and was pinched at Sallust. And you – you took him away… Say where he is – produce him, and you can go free.’

  ‘You asked for the three,’ said Grieg. ‘You gave me a free hand, and you asked for the three. If you had cared to trust me, you would have had them tonight.’

  ‘Yes, that’s easy,’ sneered the Prince. ‘If you think–’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Grieg. ‘I know you. When I took the job on, I knew it would end like this. But against these men I had a personal grudge. And so, against my judgment, I took it on.’ He flung out a bitter laugh. ‘If I had gone round searching farms and visiting frontier-posts, I shouldn’t be handcuffed now; but because I play the scum at their devil’s own game I am immediately suspect – presumed “a filthy traitor”, and that out of Chandos’ mouth.’ He expired violently. ‘He tells you I sent him to Bariche. Maybe he produces a bill from The Broken Egg. Does he say whom he met at Bariche? Or what he arranged with them? Does he say that he and his fellows were back here by ten o’clock – according to plan, my plan? That again I gave them my car, to try and find the Countess and take her away? Does he tell you the path that they’re going to take tonight? The secret smugglers’ path which nobody knows? Does he say who’s going to be there…waiting by the side of the water…with only one servant with her…and the night too dark to distinguish any man’s face?’

  ‘My God,’ cried the Prince hoarsely. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s very simple,’ said Grieg. ‘Everyone here has been looking from Vigil to the border and back, till they’ve got St Vitus’ dance. I’ve been watching Littai.’

  He stopped there, as though to regard the sensation his words had caused. This was manifest. His audience did not seem to be breathing. Only Weber fingered his chin, with a distant look in his eyes.

  ‘What happens at Littai tells me what’s happening here. The Grand Duchess moved to Bariche three days ago. That meant they were going to communicate. Very well. Their only way of getting a message to Bariche was to go to Bariche themselves. And as I wanted to know what that message was going to be, I took the trouble to send them to Bariche myself. They were bound to come back to get the Countess… Of course the police at Sallust meant well, but they very nearly ruined–’

  ‘But not quite,’ cried the Prince excitedly. ‘Not quite. Where’s the path you speak of? I’ll send–’

  ‘That, sir,’ said Grieg, ‘is my secret. Had I not been arrested, I should have been there tonight – to gather the fruit. But I have already declined to teach any man alive to win my game.’

  There was an electric silence.

  Then the Prince’s forgotten cigarette burned its way to his fingers and he flung it down with an oath.

  ‘It’s all damned fine,’ he said fiercely. ‘You say “Put me back, and I’ll deliver the goods”, but–’

  ‘Pardon me, sir,’ said Grieg. ‘I have said nothing of the kind. I’m through with this job of work. If you went down on your knees, I wouldn’t touch it again. I’ve told you as much as I have, to show you what you’ve missed – to show you the catch I’d have landed, if you hadn’t let me down. And now I’m sick of talking. Where do I go?’

  This master-stroke of bluff had its reward.

  Before two minutes were gone, Grieg was free of his handcuffs and had somewhat stiffly accepted one of his Royal Highness’ cigarettes.

  To round the picture, I heard him arrange with the Prince for three closed cars to be waiting from nine o’clock on, to bring in the prisoners which he was certain to take. These cars were to wait at Vigil until his orders came, and the surly deliberation with which he appointed the hour would, I think, have deceived a far shrewder mind.

  I could not help wondering how long the cars would wait and whether Grieg would be at Salzburg before his royal victim discovered that he had been bluffed. What was so strange was the closeness with which his fiction approached the truth. He had plainly been taught the bypass the smugglers used when taking the bridle-path, and had guessed or learned that we had come by that way. And on that he had built his story – his fairy-tale. He could not possibly know that we were in fact proposing that night to do as he said. The thing was absurd. I did not know it myself. As for his mention of Leonie…

  With a shock I found myself asking whether indeed it was a chance that had brought him so close to the truth, whether he had truly been bluffing – from beginning to end.

  My hair rose at the thought.

  Had Grieg some information which gave him just cause to think that that very night we should take the bridle-path? And that Leonie would be waiting on the farther side of the fall?

  After a little I dismissed this fantastic notion and turned my attention again to the matter in hand.

  To the end of the curious scene I cannot speak, for, fearing that any moment Grieg would return to the house, I determined to try to enter before he came out of the wood. I, therefore, whispered to Rowley to stay where he was and crawled as fast as I could the way we had come.

  Once out of earshot, I ventured to take to my feet, but I had to fetch a wide compass because of the police with the car, and I fancy ten minutes had passed before I was facing the cloister which, now that I meant to prove it, looked very dark and grim.

  As I gathered myself together to sprint across the girdle of turf, I heard the police car move forward…

  An instant later I was standing upon the flagstones straining my ears.

  The car which had been moving had come to rest, but its engine was none too silent and its stammer was all I could hear. I, therefore, made bold to look round the edge of the house, to see Grieg speaking to the detectives some forty or fifty yards off.

  What he was saying, of course, I could not tell, but the men were listening so intently that I there and then decided that, come what might, we must find some other way out of Riechtenburg. The bridle-path was suspect. As such, from being a pass, the place had become a trap. Tonight the trap would be set – so much I had heard with my ears. But I had not the slightest doubt that now it would be set every night, so long as we were at large.

  Now since the front door of the mansion was full in their view, my chance of using that entrance was plainly dead, but, as I went by, I had seen a door in the cloister and, hoping that this might be open, I hastened back.

  The door was open and led me into a passage, which served three doors. On the walls were glass cases in which hung harness and bits, and two fine old ‘watchman’s’ chairs were standing at either end.

  Leaning against the wall between two of the doors was a handsome peasant-girl – at least, so her habit declared her, but her face was fine and gentle and her figure was slight, and both of them argued some sire that had never set hand to a plough. Her brown legs and feet were bare, and her dress was of fair, white linen such as they wear in those parts. A sleeveless scarlet jacket suited her very well.

  Finger to lip, she regarded me.

  Something touched my knee, and I looked down to see the wolf-hound that had been the Prince’s dog.

  As I gave him my hand to lick—

  ‘You must be Chandos,’ said the girl, with a pleasant smile.

  ‘Yes,’ said I. ‘That’s my name.’

  ‘Ah,’ says she. ‘I was to te
ll you that those you seek have gone on. Tonight they will take the road that is under water. They trust you will join them there.’

  I stared at her dumbly.

  ‘The road that is under water’ could mean but one thing – the way beneath the fall which Ramon the smith had shown us five days ago.

  ‘Where are they?’ I said at length. ‘Which way did they go?’

  The girl shook her lovely head.

  ‘I do not know. I met them down in the greenwood a mile away. I was bringing a telegram. I am waiting now for the tip which they always give.’

  ‘“Always”?’ said I. ‘Do they have many telegrams here?’

  ‘Two a day lately,’ she said. ‘I have waited for nearly an hour.’

  I took out a fifty-crown note.

  ‘There is your tip.’

  The girl’s eyes widened.

  ‘Oh, sir, this is fifty crowns.’

  ‘For your pretty face,’ said I, and opened the door. ‘I’ll tell Major Grieg I paid you. And please tell no one of having seen me or my friends.’

  She shot me a curious look.

  ‘Is that why you gave me the money?’

  ‘No,’ said I. ‘I told you I gave you that for your pretty face. Did the telegram come from Littai?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the girl lightly. ‘They all come from there.’ With a foot on the threshold she paused. ‘Will it please you to kiss me?’ she said.

  As a man in a dream, I kissed her, and watched her move like a deer across the sward.

  Half way over she turned to wave a bare arm.

  I waved back dazedly.

  6: I Keep Fair Company

  For some moments I stood in the passage, staring at a case full of harness which many museums would have been glad to display. Then I pulled myself together and stepped to the door on my left.

  As I had half expected, this opened into the hall we had entered the night before. There was the grand staircase and there the front door of the house, as well as three other doors, admitting, no doubt, to rooms: and, though it was just possible that Grieg would not enter from the drive, the place was so much of a junction that anyone using the house would be certain sooner or later to come by this way.

  I, therefore, took up a position beneath the spring of the staircase, by the side of a tall oak press, and made up my mind to attack, the instant Grieg showed his face.

  Whilst I was waiting, I sought to consult with myself, but, though I did not feel tired, I think that my brain was weary, for I could not digest the matter which I had learned, and my thoughts kept returning to Littai and the horrid peril to which my wife was to come.

  At last I beat out some conclusions, and I think they were more or less just.

  In order to obtain his freedom, Grieg had taken conjecture and dressed it up as a fact. He had reason to think we should take the bridle-path, and take it as soon as we could. If he was well served at Littai, he might have reason to think that my wife was going to move. He had drawn a bow at a venture in all that he said: and tonight he would picket the path, to see whether in fact his shaft would bring anything down: and if it did not, he would himself leave the country by the bypass the smugglers used.

  Now with Grieg’s death – and that I hoped would occur at any moment – the danger would not disappear, for I could not forget the intentness with which the police had been listening to what he said and I had no doubt whatever that, though Grieg himself might fail them, from this night on an ambush was to be laid between the waterfall and the mouth of the bridle-path.

  When, therefore, he was dead, we must somehow find George and the Countess and stay their attempt, and when that was done, I must contrive to cross the water in case by some shocking chance Leonie verily meant to attempt to come in that way.

  Now when ten minutes had passed, but Grieg had not come, I began to wonder what he was doing, for I was almost certain that when the girl was crossing the sward, I heard the sound of a car. If I was right in this, the police had been gone very nearly a quarter of an hour. Yet Grieg had not come.

  It occurred to me suddenly that something might have impelled him to visit his car.

  At once I saw that this explanation was good.

  Grieg had gone to his car, to bring it up to the house, and was trying to start the engine and wasting his time.

  The conclusion did me a world of good, for if it was sound – and of that I had little doubt – Grieg would be playing clean into Rowley’s hands. Any moment now the latter would take Grieg’s life, and I should be spared a business which as like as not I should bungle – although I must confess I did not dread it as I had when I thought the man helpless as any sheep.

  I began to strain my ears for the sound of the shot…

  I have always found inaction the hardest of all things to endure, and when ten minutes more had gone by, my impatience began to obtain the upper hand.

  If Grieg was not coming, I was wasting valuable time. I could hardly believe that he did not mean to return, but since no shot had been fired, his absence began to argue that he was taking some action of which I should know. I was out of touch with Rowley, who would not dare come to fetch me because I had bade him stay. By leaving the house I should not be yielding ground, for I could always return by the cloister door.

  With suchlike rubbish I cheated my common sense and so committed a folly for which I have no excuse.

  I stole to the door which had brought me into the hall and let myself into the passage from which I had come. Thence I passed into the cloister and, after glancing about me, across the girdle of turf.

  As I did so, my heart smote me, for I knew very well that I ought to have stayed in the hall. Rowley was there to watch the outside of the house and would, if he could, stalk Grieg and shoot him down; but if, before he could do so, Grieg should withdraw to the house, he would count upon my being there to deal with the man.

  On the edge of the wood I paused, uncertain whether or no to retrace my steps. And whilst I was hesitating, a shot rang out.

  I listened to the echoes fading with a hammering heart.

  Rowley had done the business and saved my face.

  Now if I had stopped to think, I should have made straight for the point at which the shot had been fired, for now there was no longer any reason for avoiding the girdle of turf; but because I had grown so accustomed to keeping myself out of view, without thinking I held to the woods, alternately running and walking as fast as I could.

  It was therefore ten minutes or so before between the trees I made out the shape of Grieg’s car.

  ‘Rowley, where are you?’ I cried, something out of breath.

  A screech answered me.

  ‘Down for your life, sir!’

  With the words came the roar of a pistol and bullet went by my ear.

  No dead man ever fell flat so quickly as I, or ever lay more still. Indeed, I frankly confess that I feigned myself dead, for for all I knew I was fully exposed to Grieg’s eye, and all my hope of safety was in convincing the man that his shot had gone home. Since Grieg was no simpleton, this hope was excessively thin, and I should have made ready to die had I not been absorbed in remarking the beauty of life.

  I was now in a kind of danger which I had never known.

  It was not so much that I was helpless, as that I dared not run the risk of helping myself. Grieg might be unable to see me: I might be in a position to bring him down. But because I had no means of knowing whether or no I was exposed, my hands and my eyes and my wits were as useless to me as the buttons upon my coat. I knew that the wood was not open, that here and there were patches of undergrowth: and though these were thin and straggling and would have been rejected as cover by any patrol, if I had fallen behind one it would have served my need. But whether I was behind one I did not know: and in case I was not behind one I dared not look.

  That is an account of my condition. My state of mind began and ended with fear. The impression that Grieg could see me was painfully strong, and I am asha
med to say that I solemnly debated my chances of hearing the fatal shot.

  Two things only I knew. The first was that Rowley was a little way off to my right, and the second that Grieg must be somewhere directly ahead, quite close to the car. So much my ears had told me. Whether they were standing or lying I had not the faintest idea.

  I, then, lay as I had fallen, flat on my chest, with my right cheek pressed tight against the earth and my left eye upon a small spider that seemed very much concerned.

  I shall never forget the silence which now prevailed.

  It was not the silence of the night, for now and then a bird piped or fluttered, and the steady hum of insects was lading the soft, warm air; but the imminence of havoc lent it the air of a prelude the end of which might at any instant arrive. As such it was charged with a suspense which had I not borne it, I would have said could not be borne, and to this day I cannot pass without a shudder through any spinney which remembers that deadly scene.

  I afterwards learned that Grieg was lying behind a wheel of the car and Rowley behind a tree-stump, with ten feet of ground around him as bare as his hand.

  As I had expected, Grieg had come for the car, and Rowley had followed him softly, to take his life. To make quite sure of his prey, he had rightly taken his time. By the time he was in position, Grieg had grown sick of trying to start the engine and had opened the bonnet and was cursing and peering within. When he looked up from his business, there was Rowley on the opposite side of the car, pistol in hand. Before he could move, Rowley had fired at his forehead, but to his horror the pistol had failed to go off. To stand still, fumbling, was fatal, and Rowley had leaped for cover with all his might. Had Grieg stood his ground, he could hardly have missed his man: as it was, he fired under the car and the bullet went wide.

  The result was a deadlock.