Mediterranean Nights (3 page)

I laughed it off, of course, but I was glad when I felt enough time had elapsed to send for the bill.

Outside on the doorstep I had a quick look round—Harvey had done his job and there was the taxi. The driver's language was a joy as he wangled his cab in front of two others—I recognised him immediately by the cap and muffler.

She didn't notice that we had veered away from the direction of the Ritz until we crossed to the Place de la Concorde. Then she gave me a sharp look and asked where he was taking us. I apologised blandly enough—said I'd forgotten it before, but a friend of mine had asked me to deliver a letter personally in Paris; as I was leaving very early next day I'd thought she wouldn't mind if I dropped it on the way back that night.

She sank back in her corner with a little shrug, and I smothered a sigh of relief at her acquiescence—at least I had escaped the wretched business of holding her down for the rest of the journey. You see, I had the rotten job of getting her to a certain house where we could commit the quite illegal act of having her searched.

A few minutes later the driver gave a sharp toot on his horn and swung the cab through a pair of big gates into the courtyard of a private house.

I got out and ran up the steps, the frost glass door was
opened almost immediately—Harvey stood waiting for me in the hall.

‘Got her?' he asked at once.

I nodded. His lined face lit up with one of those rare smiles. ‘Good boy,' he said, ‘bring her in.'

I waited a moment, then I went out again and spoke to Lisabetta, told her a story about a business deal in which we were all interested—that the chap who owned the house wanted to write a note for me to take south, and pressed her to come in for five minutes while he did it.

She leant forward, and I just caught her smile in the light from the open doorway. ‘Colonel Thornton,' the eyebrows rose, ‘this is Paris—a strange house—and it is late! But I think it would be amusing to trust you!'

A fat, motherly old person showed us into a room on the ground floor. Harvey was standing in front of the fireplace—and he wasted no time in formalities.

He said straight out that he was there to safeguard certain interests of his Government. That he knew she had travelled from Calais with a man named Essenbach, who was in the German Secret Service, and that she must hand over anything with which she had been entrusted by him.

As I watched her face I saw a barely perceptible tightening of the mobile mouth. She knew that she'd been trapped, and she swung round on me.

‘So it was for this that the kind Colonel asked me to dine? What a humiliation, and what foolishness on my part to assume that it was gallantry!'

Harvey had the grace to say that I had been acting under his instructions and that it was a service matter. Then he told her firmly that unless she did what he asked he would have her searched.

‘I know nothing of Essenbach,' she flared. ‘If you detain me here I will complain to my ambassador.'

He explained to her quite patiently that it wouldn't do her any good. The house was taken furnished, and it would be untenanted five minutes after our departure.

Then she threatened to have me arrested by the police, but Harvey had her there again. He'd fixed an alibi for me with half a dozen of his friends—a card-party at a private house.

‘Search, then!' She threw a contemptuous glance at me. ‘Search—but you will find nothing.'

Harvey put his finger on the bell and the fat woman appeared in the doorway. I held the door open for Lisabetta and she left the room without a murmur.

I took out my cigarette-case, but he refused to smoke and stood there drumming on the mantelpiece with his fingernails.

The stout woman came in again—she had a glorious Cockney accent. ‘She ain't got a thing on 'er, Mr. 'Arvey, sir.'

Harvey frowned and asked her if she was dead certain.

‘Sure as my old man's in ‘Eaven,' she piped, as she held out a bundle of silk and lace for his inspection. ‘Look fer yerself, Mr. 'Arvey, sir.'

We waved Lisabetta's garments away impatiently and asked how she had taken it.

‘Like a lamb she did,' said Phoebe. ‘I never 'ad the undressin' of a nicer lady, and 'er undies is that fine they must 'ave cost a fortune—not like some as we've 'ad 'ere!'

‘Better take her back her things,' he told her; ‘we shall have to keep her here a bit.'

Old Phoebe grinned at him. ‘Very good, Mr. 'Arvey, sir—I'll make the pore dear a nice cup o' tea—jest to cheer 'er up like.'

As the door closed I chuckled to myself. The comic relief afforded by that old woman had been a godsend in such a trying situation, but Harvey turned on me with an angry stare.

‘For God's sake don't laugh—it's a damned sight too serious,' he snapped.

He'd been on the ‘phone to London an hour before, and they were in a flat spin. It seems their first man had reported Essenbach's arrival at the Ritz and been told to go off duty at eight o'clock. You see it is very essential to change the shadow, otherwise you arouse the suspicions of the bird you're after. The second man should have been there to take over, but he'd been forced down by engine trouble near Folkestone and he wouldn't be in Paris till next day. In the meantime Essenbach wasn't even under observation.

That sort of breakdown doesn't happen often, but it is one of the snags in our system that no agent is supposed to know
another by sight. If number two had had to report to number one, the first chap would never have gone off duty till the second turned up—still, accidents will happen, and the moment I understood I was looking every bit as worried as Harvey.

‘There's only one thing for it,' I told Harvey at last, ‘the old direct method. Telephone your porter to leave a pass-key to Essenbach's room on my writing-table. I may have to wring his neck, but I'll get those tracings somehow.'

We arranged that I was to take half an hour's start. I reckoned that would be ample time to do my business, then Lisabetta was to be blindfolded, put in the taxi with Phoebe, and dropped at a quiet spot at the top end of the Tuileries Gardens. She couldn't come to any harm there, and could either take another taxi or walk back to the Ritz.

When I got to my room at the Ritz I found the pass-key on the table, so I changed into my bedroom slippers at once and tip-toed out into the corridor.

Essenbach's room was on the opposite side and about six doors down. The lights in the passage were at half-cock and not a sound broke the stillness. I passed Lisabetta's empty room and slid the key gently into the lock on Essenbach's door, it turned without a sound—then I pressed, and the door gave a trifle.

With a final shove I slipped inside—then crash! something hit me on the head, and I was sent spinning to the floor. The thing was on top of me—a great weighty object, pinning me down. I tried to struggle out from underneath it, but before I could get to my knees I got another crack on my skull.

The second blow knocked me silly for a moment, and I just wriggled feebly on the floor while a pair of quick hands ran over me. I was still half stunned, but I tried to grab my adversary's throat. Then, with a sudden sickening jab, he thrust his knee into my stomach.

That finished me and by the time the pain was easing a little he had lashed my arms firmly to my sides.

The light clicked on, and there was Essenbach peering down at me—fully dressed. He had shut the door, and I saw what had knocked me endways the first time. It was a giant booby-trap—a Heath Robinson affair, but efficient. Half the
furniture in the room had been used to balance a heavy steamer trunk which was bound to crash on the head of anyone who opened the door more than a foot.

Essenbach took up a hefty automatic, complete with Silencer, from the table by his bed and pointed it at me. Then he said that he had been expecting my visit for the last two hours. Like a fool it had never occurred to me that his memory for faces might be as good as mine!

I struggled into a sitting position with my back against the wall, but he tapped his automatic and his eyes bored down into mine, so I had to leave it at that.

Then he began to talk in fierce soft whispers about the old days of the war and afterwards. His eyes never left my face as he told me quite calmly that he meant to do me in. He meant to ensure that I should never interfere with his future activities by recognising him again.

Well, as you can imagine, I had the wind up pretty badly, and I felt my only chance was to scare him into clearing out at once. So I told him he could do what he damned well liked with me if he chose to risk his neck—but he'd be far wiser to get out while the going was good—the French were after him and I'd only beaten them by a short head. Of course he didn't believe me, but it was the best card I had. Some of the old hands at the Sûreté knew him as well as I did, and if they had the least suspicion that he was in Paris with anything worth pinching on him, they would have arrested him on some trumped-up charge and searched him.

I told him that I'd been talking over his exploit with another of our people half an hour before at the Cercle Etrangère when we thought we were alone. Then, I said that as we left the room I'd spotted Moreau buried in a deep armchair. Moreau is in the Ministry of the Interior and I knew that Essenbach would know his name. I only had to add that as I left the club I'd seen Moreau hurrying to a telephone box, and I had him properly scared.

He didn't waste time talking, but jerked me to my feet and started to search my pockets. A second later he was flourishing the key of my room in my face. ‘Walk,' he snapped at me, ‘to your room,
Herr Oberst
—and no noise!'

The muzzle of his pistol was jammed hard in the small of
my back, and my hands were still tied firmly to my sides, so there didn't seem much option but to obey.

He shoved me inside my own room and shut the door behind him—then he had the cheek to ask me how long I thought it would be before the French turned up. I lied like a trooper, of course—swore they would be there any moment, and urged him to destroy the tracings before he was caught. After all, they would have been more dangerous to Germany in the hands of the French than to any other country, and I thought I might bluff him into destroying his own handiwork.

He considered that for a moment, then he shook his head. ‘No,' he said suddenly, ‘I will keep them—also I will get away, but first I must make you safe—lie down.'

Well, I could quite understand that he didn't want me chasing him down the corridor and I patted myself on the back for having bluffed myself out of a pretty desperate situation.

With as good a grace as possible I sat down on the floor while he secured my feet with a sash from the curtains—after that I thought he would make a bolt for it, but I found I had badly underrated his fear of the French and intense personal hatred of the English.

He seized me by the collar and dragged me across the floor to my bathroom. I didn't even struggle because I thought he was only going to lock me in, but not a bit of it—he took the cord off my dressing-gown and started to make a noose.

Can you imagine what I felt like then? I realised with a horrible suddenness that he really meant to do me in. I sat on the floor there thinking desperately, racking my brains for some idea that would literally save my neck. I began to talk again—quickly, feverishly, of the first thing that came into my head, anything to gain time—although how that would help me I didn't know, for the French were nothing but a myth! I told him about Lisabetta and how I'd wasted the evening leading her into a silly trap.

He stopped his preparations for a moment and stared at me with those cold eyes of his. ‘So,' he said, ‘you were not then at the club?'

I saw that I'd blundered badly, but I faced it out—swore
that I'd gone there after, and that if he doubted my story he had only to wait for Lisabetta to return.

Perhaps I was mistaken, but I thought I saw a sudden flicker of interest in his face, so I babbled on—it was a case of seizing any straw that might serve to turn him from his purpose.

There's a chance for you,' I said. ‘She'll be back in twenty minutes—you can hide from the French in her room—No. 582—it is next to yours, and she wouldn't give you away in a million years—only hurry or you'll be too late.'

His only reply was to stoop down and seize me by the nose—then with his free hand he thrust a sponge into my mouth. That ended the conversation, of course, and I could only flap helplessly about on the floor like a fresh-caught salmon on the bank.

He slid the cord over the hook on the door—fixed the noose round my neck, tested the knot—and then began to hoist!

God, it was a horrible business! I dug my chin down into my chest as hard as I could, but I felt myself being drawn up in steady jerks.

Suddenly I left the ground and the cord tightened round my neck—the hook hit me on the back of the head as he gave a last heave on the cord—and there I was, dangling in the air while he lashed the end of it to the door-knob.

He supported my weight for a moment while he undid the cord that bound my hands to my sides and the curtain sash that tied my feet—then he let me drop.

The second my hands were free I was clawing at my neck, but the noose was tight about it and I couldn't get my fingers in. I couldn't shout because the sponge was in my mouth, and even when I wrenched it out I could only gurgle horribly.

Through a haze of pain and dizziness I could see Essenbach as he stood there studying me with cold determination. Then he tipped the bathroom chair over just out of my reach and I heard him say:

‘Suicide—suicide of Colonel Thornton.' After that he left me.

Well, there's one piece of advice I'd like to give anyone who is thinking of committing suicide:
Don't try hanging yourself
! It's a damn sight too painful.