Curtain Of Fear Part 14

"When the Western Powers have completed their rearmament programme they could demand the withdrawal of Russian control over Eastern Germany. The Kremlin would give way on that, rather than fight. I am convinced, too, that they would give up Czechoslovakia, and all the other satellite countries in turn, rather than face a show-down."

"What leads you to suppose that?"

"The fact that they did not fight to retain Yugoslavia, although they were relatively very much stronger when it broke away than they are now. Marshal t.i.to was the one fellow-traveller who in due course openly declared himself, but had the sense to get out from under before his country was properly in the bag. He must have known much more about the minds of the men in the Kremlin than any of the Western Powers, and at that time they were in no state to give him effective military support, even if they had been willingto do so. But he took the gamble and he won."

"Yet their military might compared to his is overwhelming. Why do you think they refrained from marching in?"

"Because they cannot trust their troops. In the initial stages of Hitler's invasion, the Russians surrendered by whole divisions and hailed the Germans as liberators. Communism would have been finished then, had it not been for the incredible stupidity of the n.a.z.is. They shot their Soviet officer prisoners, devastated the countryside as they advanced, slaughtered half the population, and destroyed the towns. Naturally, once the Russians realised what they were up against they began to fight back."

"Do you think the Soviet troops would betray the Kremlin now?"

"Yes; given the chance. The trouble is that since t.i.to's secession the whole situation has been changed by the Soviet's success in developing the atomic bomb. Atomic warfare could be launched by a handful of picked men whose interests are bound up with the survival of the Party. That is why it would be dangerous to challenge the Kremlin direct. But their censors.h.i.+p is so complete, and their internal propaganda so all-pervading, that they would find no more difficulty in saving face if they were forced, bit by bit, out of central Europe than they did when they were forced out of Yugoslavia."

"Such withdrawals would have very serious economic effects on Russia."

"Yes, they would undoubtedly aggravate the pernicious anmia to which Communism is inevitably subject. But the process would naturally have to be a gradual one, as the Kremlin might be maddened into throwing down the gauntlet if too much were asked from it at any one time. It may well be twenty-five years before all the subject territories have been liberated and Russia herself is freed from the tyranny under which her people now groan. The only thing we can say with certainty is that Communism is a dying faith, and that everyone of us has it in our power to contribute something towards hastening its death."

Fedora and Nicholas had finished their meal, and their host now got up to bring them coffee. As he set the tray down on the table the telephone rang. Going into the next room, he answered it, and they heard him say: "Yes" three times at intervals; then, setting it down, he returned to them and said: "That was Lutonsk. He has seen Jirka and he thinks that to-morrow he will be able to get you both on the one o'clock 'plane for Frankfurt. Lutonsk agrees that it would be all to the good if you could be got out of Prague while darkness lasts, and if I can take you to him he will put you up for the rest of the night. That depends on whether I can borrow a car; and I know of only one place where I might do so at this hour. If I fail we must get you to him not later than midday; but that should not be difficult. I will go out now, and if the car is available I will be back in it to collect you in about half an hour."

When they had thanked him he left them, and they drank their coffee. As Nicholas finished his, he said: "Owing to that long sleep I had this afternoon I don't feel at all tired; but you must be. Why don't you s.n.a.t.c.h a nap, while I wash up?"

"I don't feel particularly tired either," she replied. "I'm still too wrought up. I'll just stay quietly in the sitting-room."

He carried the things they had used for supper into the well-equipped little kitchen, and washed and dried them carefully. As he put the last plate in the rack he glanced at the clock. It was ten past one, and Mr. s.m.u.tn had been gone about a quarter of an hour.

It was at that moment that the alarm bell shrilled.

CHAPTER XVI.

TRAPPED.

For a moment Nicholas stood rigid, the blood slowly draining from his face. Then he ran towards the sitting-room. Fedora had already thrown open the door and was standing in the doorway. The bell continued to ring with a shrill, high note. They stared at one another in dismay.

"It ... it may be only burglars," he faltered.

"Or a rat. One may have jumped against a trip wire."

On a simultaneous impulse they ran along the hall-way. Mr. s.m.u.tn had left the trap-door open and the ladder was hanging from it. They peered down into the darkness below. Beyond the circle of faint light that lit the ladder from above, the stacks of cases made a well of blackness. Both of them strained their ears; but the shrilling of the alarm made it almost impossible to catch any sounds that might have been coming up from the warehouse, and Fedora exlaimed: "For G.o.d's sake find that bell and stop it!"

Nicholas had already noticed it, up near the low ceiling, just outside the kitchen door. Running back there, he pushed the door open, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a table mat and stuffed it between the gong and its clapper. When he rejoined Fedora she was kneeling down, still listening; but now the clangour of the bell was stilled, the flat and the depths below it were as silent as the grave.

"I had better go down and investigate." Instinctively Nicholas spoke in a whisper.

She gave him a doubtful look, and whispered back, "You would never be able to find your way in the darkness. And if it is the Coms you might run right into them. It would be wiser to pull up the ladder and lie doggo here. Pan s.m.u.tn said that only a few of his most trusted workmen know about this penthouse, so the police might search the building all night without finding the trap-door that leads to it."

"It was of Mr. s.m.u.tn I was thinking. If it were a false alarm, well and good; but if the place is being raided we ought to try to warn him, otherwise on his return he may walk straight into the arms of the Coms."

"You are right about that. But I don't see how you can manage to warn him before he enters the building, and by then it will be too late."

"I can fire some shots through a window. The neighbourhood appears to be deserted, but it's extraordinary how a crowd collects from nowhere at the first sign of any excitement. He will see it as he comes back along the street, realise what is happening, and sheer off."

"All right, then. But will you be able to find your way back here?"

"There is a spare torch in the kitchen, I'll take that."

She got to her feet and laid a hand on his arm. "Nicky, do be careful. If it is the Coms, and they see a light approaching before you spot them, they will shoot first."

"I'll be as careful as I can." He gave her a rea.s.suring smile, and pulled from his pocket the small automatic he had taken from Kmoch.

As her glance fell on it she said, "That's all right for close work, but you would be better off with something bigger for a job like this. Beside, Kmoch fired it three times and you did once, so it can have only half a load left in it. Pan s.m.u.tn must have some weapons up here. While you get the torch I'll see if I can find a man-sized gun."

He collected the torch and rejoined her in the sitting-room. She was rummaging in Mr. s.m.u.tn's bureau, and when she got to its bottom drawer they saw there three pistols and a store of ammunition. Selecting a big Luger, she loaded it and two spare clips with bullets for him. As she handed them over she said: "Give me the little gun. I may need one before we're through, and it will easily go into my bag."

Having exchanged weapons, they hurried out into the hall and knelt down to listen by the trap again. There was still no sound from below, so he said, "Here goes," and slid his legs over the edge.

"Good luck, Nicky!" she whispered. "I pray to G.o.d it was a false alarm. Good luck, my dear."

"Thanks," he murmured, and slid down the ladder. After a final wave from the floor, he tiptoed round the end of the stack of boxes. Beyond them it was pitch dark, so he had to switch on the torch; but he held it so that its beam shone downwards about a yard in front of his feet, and used his pistol hand to screen the bulb from direct sight.

With his ears c.o.c.ked to catch any sound he advanced on tiptoe down the narrow alley formed by two walls of crates, until he reached the first staircase. There he paused to listen, but he could hear nothing except the steady gnawing of a mouse. Gingerly he made his way down the flight, then through a maze of turnings, trying to memorise the merchandise stacked on each corner, so that he would be able to find his way back.

At the second staircase he halted again. There was still no sound from below. Somewhat rea.s.sured, he crept down it, and on the next floor went forward a little more quickly, urged on by the thought that Mr. s.m.u.tn would soon be due back, and that if anything was wrong no time must now be lost in creating a situation which would warn him of what was afoot.

Including its ground level the warehouse had five floors, and he was now half way down them. At the head of the staircase leading from the second to the first floor he again stopped to listen. His heart began to beat more rapidly. For a moment he was not certain; then a raised voice came distinctly to him. There were people moving about and calling to one another somewhere below him in the darkness.

There was still a possibility that they were burglars. If so, to fire off his gun through a window would be to invite real trouble. It would bring the police on the scene, and that was the very last thing that he wanted. With a sharp intake of his breath he realised that there was only one thing for it. He must go down and find out for certain who the intruders were.

Very cautiously now he tiptoed down to the first floor, then put out his torch. Flas.h.i.+ng it only at intervals, when he b.u.mped into bales and boxes, he felt his way along the alleys, until he reached the lowest staircase. The voices were clearly audible now, and a glow of subdued light was coming up from the ground floor.

At the stairhead he knelt down and peered over the edge. He could hear the intruders moving about but could not see anyone. Craning forward, he leaned over further. The light from torches held beyond his view made weird shadows move across the floor. One bright beam cut a circle of light upon a stack of large cardboard cartons near the foot of the stairway. The circle swiftly increased in size. Nicholas could hear the footsteps of the man who held the torch approaching just beneath him. He drew back a little, and held his gun ready in case he had to use it.

Suddenly there was a movement on the far side of the stairway. A man had stepped out from the shadows. He must have caught sight of Nicholas as he moved, or heard the slight noise he made as he drew back. He was staring straight up into Nicholas' face, and he was wearing the uniform of a State policeman. As his hand jumped to the pistol at his belt, Nicholas fired.

The man clawed at his chest. His eyes opened very wide, then his head fell forward and he went down with a crash across the lowest steps of the stairs. As Nicholas sprang to his feet the man with the torch ran out from beneath where he was standing. Again Nicholas fired. His bullet caught the policeman in the left shoulder. He was knocked sideways and stumbled over the body of his dead comrade. His torch was dashed from his left hand and went out; but in his right he still clutched his pistol. Swivelling round, he fired wildly up into the darkness that shrouded the top of the stairway. One bullet smacked into a beam just above Nicholas' head; three more thudded into the ceiling further off to his right at intervals of a few feet.

By now pandemonium had broken loose on the ground floor. Evidently a dozen or more men had been systematically searching it, to make certain that no one was hidden there, before proceeding to the upper floors. At the sound of the shots they had all come running back down the several alleys that converged on the open s.p.a.ce at the foot of the stairway. Above the noisy trampling of their heavy boots came shouted orders and counter orders: "Guard the door against a break out! Get up those stairs! Show a light! Don't s.h.i.+ne a torch where they can see you! Shoot at sight! No, no! Comrade Frek said take them alive if possible. See if there's another staircase, some of you! Get on, d.a.m.n you; rush those stairs!"

As a burst of bullets spattered past Nicholas, he leapt back, sent one last shot blindly down the well of the stairs, then turned and ran. Enough light was coming from below for him to see his way round the first turning, but he had to switch on his torch to find the next. He was hardly round it when he heard feet pounding up the wooden stairs. A third alley led him past an end wall of the building. In it two windows were very faintly outlined by starlight just percolating through gla.s.s encrusted with the dirt of half a century. On pa.s.sing one of them he sent a shot through it. The crack of his pistol and the tinkle of falling gla.s.s brought another chorus of cries.

"They are down that end! Who are they firing at? Quick; after them; they're going to jump out of the window!"

Nicholas had found the second staircase and was up it. His pursuers reached the window. Someone shouted. "There's only one pane smashed. They're still in the building." Then they too found the stairs and charged up them.

His heart hammering wildly, Nicholas raced down a long corridor formed of bales on the second floor. In his haste he missed the turning he should have taken. To his horror, at the end of the alley he found himself in a cul-de-sac. Facing about, he ran back. To find the turning he should have taken he had to flash his torch. Its beam had just fallen on the opening when the darkness ahead was stabbed with a spurt of flame. A bullet whistled past his ear. There was no time to aim, but he pressed the trigger of his gun. As he flung himself round the corner, a cry told him that he had had a lucky shot. His pursuers had been bunched together at the far end of the narrow canyon formed by the bales, so he could hardly have missed; but it did not halt them. As he ran up the third staircase he could hear the relentless pursuit coming after him in full cry.

On the third floor he lost his way completely. In an agony of apprehension, expecting every moment to get a bullet in the back, he stumbled from turning to turning, no longer daring to flash his torch, even for a second. Suddenly, he heard Fedora's voice call softly from somewhere up in the darkness above him: "This way, Nicky! This way."

With a gasp of relief he ran towards it; then tripped and fell on the lowest step of the fourth stairway. As he picked himself up there was a shout behind him. He had dropped his torch but still had his gun. Swinging round, he fired twice in the direction from which the shout had come. A scream rang out; a heavy body thudded on the floor, and near it an automatic exploded. Fedora was standing at the top of the stairs. As the flashes from the guns momentarily lit the darkness she saw Nicholas clearly. He bounded up the stairs and her outstretched hand met his left arm. Sliding her fingers down it till they found his fingers, she clasped them firmly and drew him along behind her.

"Thank G.o.d you came to find me!" he panted. "In another minute I should have run right into them. I dared not show a light, and I was hopelessly lost."

"I was afraid that might happen," she replied quickly. "That is what decided me to come down directly the firing started."

Fedora had had the forethought to count the paces from turning to turning on the top floor; so, without a moment's delay, they were able to hurry through the darkness to the final enclave. In it, the ladder hung bathed in the gentle pool of light from above. Three rungs at a time, they sped up it. As soon as Nicholas had tumbled after Fedora through the trap door, they drew the ladder up, laid it along the hall, and closed the trap. Still kneeling there, struggling to get their breath back, they stared at one another with consternation on their faces.

"How ... how many of them are there?" she asked with a catch in her voice.

He shook his head. "I don't know. Eight, ten, twenty maybe."

"Then it's not just one of the arbitrary searches that the patrols often carry out in the hope of finding arms or an illicit printing press?"

"No. They are after us. I heard one of them say 'Comrade Frek wants them alive'."

Fedora swore. "How the h.e.l.l can they possibly have traced us here?"

"G.o.d knows; I don't!"

"I suppose there is no chance of breaking out? I mean by going down again, and trying to sneak past them in the darkness?"

"I'm afraid not. There are too many of them. They were searching the ground floor systematically. It is certain that they would have left someone to guard the door."

"Did you get any of them-besides the one I saw you shoot just now?"

"Yes!" He was still flushed with excitement, and his voice held a jubilant note. "My opening shot was a bull's-eye, right on the fellow's heart; and I wounded two others."

"Well done!" she smiled, and her green eyes showed a glint of amus.e.m.e.nt, as she went on, "You've soon got over your squeamishness about killing Coms, haven't you? But it's like getting kisses, or olives out of a bottle-the first one's difficult, the rest come easy."

Her mockery caused him an acute twinge of distress. His mind flashed back to his righteous disgust at such killings by the character he had thought of to date as 'that imperialist-capitalist-bandit', and the idea that his recent doings had a quite definite similarity to those of Mr. Gregory Sall.u.s.t momentarily horrified him. Then that hangover from his old beliefs was swept away by his now positive conviction that these police were not the decent representatives of law and order, but licensed gunmen richly rewarded for maintaining a barbarous tyranny.

His reactions to Fedora's grimly humorous comparison occupied only a few seconds; yet, before he had time to reply, the telephone buzzed and, jumping up from her knees, she ran into the sitting-room to answer it.

He dragged an old oak chest, that stood in the hall, over the trap-door, so that it could not be forced up from below, then followed her. She was holding the instrument to her ear. After listening for a minute or so she said: "Thank you very much indeed. But I'm sorry to say they are already here."

As she hung up, Nicholas asked, "Was that Mr. s.m.u.tn?"

She shook her head. "No; a woman who works in the office at the Moulin Rouge. I don't know who she is. She rang up to warn us to expect a raid, but she couldn't get away from the club till nearly one, and then had a job to get through. Anyhow, it has solved the riddle of how Frek's boys managed to trace us. That brute of a waiter was found when the staff began to clear up, soon after midnight. You remember he followed me back into the box after I had been out to telephone. He saw me in the booth. When they got him round he gave the police the time I had made my call, and they got the number I had rung from the record kept by the girl on the switchboard. From that it was easy for them to get the address of the warehouse."

Mentally, Nicholas groaned. Fedora had certainly not foreseen this, or they would not have been there, but when she had urged him to kill the old waiter her instinct to take no chances had been right. By refraining from doing so he had again brought her life, as well as his own, into imminent peril. In addition he had been the means of giving away the secret quarters in which Mr. s.m.u.tn had lived comfortably and securely for so long. Nicholas expected her to reproach him, but she generously refrained, and said: "It's no good crying over spilt milk, and we have no time to lose. As soon as they've satisfied themselves that we are not hiding somewhere on the fourth floor they will try to find a way up to the roof. I expect all the old ones are blocked, but they'll break through somehow; so we had better get away across the neighbouring roofs as quickly as possible."

Switching out the lights as they went, they made for a door at the end of the hall-way and unbolted it. As they had supposed, it led on to the open part of the roof, which was much larger than that occupied by the penthouse. It was surrounded by a low parapet, inside which there was a walk-way; its centre consisted of a series of pointed ridges that embodied skylights, but all of these had been covered and sealed down with tarred felt.

As they glanced about them they were filled with dismay. The warehouse formed an isolated oblong block. All the roofs of the other buildings adjacent to it were several feet lower and some distance off. It seemed that there was no means of escape and that they were trapped there.

"Pan s.m.u.tn must have some emergency get-away!" exclaimed Fedora. "But I've got a rotten head for heights. Try to find it, then come back for me."

Leaving her by the doorway of the penthouse, Nicholas hurried round the three open sides of the roof, taking cautious peeps over the parapet as he went. The two longer sides faced on to narrow streets, but the roofs of the buildings opposite were well over thirty feet away. The shorter side, at the extremity of the roof, looked on to the ca.n.a.l that they had twice crossed when trying to find the warehouse. There was no wharf; the wall of the building dropped sheer to the water, so that barges could come alongside and be loaded or unloaded by hoists which projected from each floor level.

For a moment Nicholas peered down at the hoists, wondering if it would be possible to drop from one to another; but the distance between them was much too great, and he decided that even a monkey would not have risked it.

From a steel stanchion near him a thick telegraph cable, encased in some tarred material and having a smaller cable running in long loops below it, stretched in a graceful curve across the ca.n.a.l to a slightly lower building some sixty feet distant. The cable was thick enough to provide a good hand grip, and Nicholas thought that a trained trapeze artist could have crossed by it; but he felt sure that his own muscles were not up to such a strain, and as Fedora suffered from vertigo, that put out of the question even the wild idea of making an attempt. Hurrying back to her, he said glumly: "I've had no luck out there. The streets on both sides are full of police and cars. Even if we could lower ourselves to the top of one of the fire escapes that come up to the fourth floor, we should be spotted coming down. There's no one covering the far end; but they don't have to. The ca.n.a.l is there, and there's no way down at all."

"That's bad, Nicky!" Fedora did not attempt to disguise how worried she felt. "If we had been able to lie doggo they might never have found the flat. Once they had searched the warehouse they would probably have decided that we must have been warned and got away before they arrived, or had never come here at all; but now they know we are here for certain they'll take the building to pieces rather than give up."

Her words were symbolically prophetic. It was at that moment they both smelt smoke. At first unnoticed by them in the dim light, a wisp of it was curling up from a crack in the covering of a skylight only some ten feet from where they were standing.

"Good G.o.d!" Nicholas exclaimed. "Surely they don't mean to burn the place down."

"They may," Fedora replied grimly. "You say there were a dozen or more of them chasing you. That's more than enough to have searched the fourth floor thoroughly in the ten minutes since we got back here. Having failed to find us they probably think we have gone to earth in some crates previously emptied to form a hiding place; so they have set about smoking us out."

Nicholas nodded. "I see. Then by now they are down on the third floor with their torches on the stairway and their guns in their hands, waiting for us to be driven into their arms. Of course, they can call up the fire engines to stop the blaze spreading downwards, or to other buildings, but in half an hour's time the whole of the top here may be a raging furnace."

"You've said it! But I can't believe Pan s.m.u.tn would allow himself to be caught in such a trap. There must be an escape route from the dead end of the penthouse, where it's flush with the fourth side of the building. The gap to the next roof may be narrower there."

Turning, Fedora ran back through the hall-way, switching on the lights as she went. At its far end were two bedrooms. She dived into one and Nicholas dived into the other. The windows of both had been screwed down and painted over. Knowing that it was now futile to maintain the secret of the flat, they both smashed panes of the windows, regardless of lights being seen up there from below. From both rooms the outlook was the same; a sheer drop to an alley, no sign of a ladder, and a yawning gulf of from thirty to forty feet to the much lower roof of the next building.

In the hall they met, their drawn faces reporting without words their failure to find an escape route. Parting again, they ran into the other rooms, seeing frantically for some indication of a way to get out of the flat, other than by the trap-door or on to the open roof. They could not find even a clue to work upon.

Back in the hall, Nicholas dragged aside the chest and was about to open the trap-door, when Fedora came upon him.

"What are you doing?" she asked sharply.

"I thought that if the fire is only at the far end, we might go down again," he muttered. "Then we could anyhow get to one of the fire escapes. It would be better to go down that and be shot than to be burnt alive."

"You can if you like," came the quick reply. "But they wouldn't shoot you. They would wait until you had emptied your gun, then take you alive. I'd rather throw myself off the roof."

As she finished speaking he got the trap open. If he had had any doubts about the soundness of her view, that settled it for him. A great puff of black smoke billowed up into the hall. Choking and spluttering, he slammed the trap to again. No one could now have got more than a dozen paces along the floor below without suffocating.

Half blinded by the smoke, they staggered back, covering their smarting eyes. Then, in desperation, they again ran along the hall to the door that gave on to the open roof. Even in the few minutes since they had left it the evidence of the fire had multiplied tenfold. At intervals along each pointed ridge there was now a glowing patch indicating the position of the skylights. Their wooden frames and tarred felt made them more vulnerable than the slate-covered sections between them. Spirals of smoke were issuing from their tops, bottoms and sides, and in some places little fountains of sparks spurted up into the darkness.

Their hearts numb with fear, they stood staring at the scene, so fraught with awful prospects of an agonising death from which there was no escape. It was then that the telephone rang again.

As though galvanised by an electric shock, Fedora gave a violent start, swung about, and dashed down the hall to answer it. Nicholas was hard on her heels. He saw her pick the receiver up and say into it eagerly, "Yes ... yes ... yes." Then he saw her jaw drop, and her eyes become distended with fright, before she muttered a final "Yes" almost below her breath, and hung up.

"Who was it? Why are you looking so scared?" he asked impatiently.

"It ... it was Pan s.m.u.tny," she stammered.