The Price of Hannah Blake (32 page)

One tossed the walrus a rifle; he caught it in one hand, his other patting his waist to confirm the Webley. He already was through the door. Now, he moved cautiously; he had leaped aboard many enemy ships and fought across the deck, only to see his comrades die as they tried to clear the narrow, turning passages and ladders below deck.

The duke, entering the library, followed by the countess, had turned to the guard. “Out! Stand out there!”

“Your Grace! We are under attack!”

“Out!” the duke seized the man’s shoulder and gave him a mighty shove across the room. The man turned once, shrugged, and stepped out, pulling closed the door.

The duke turned to the countess. “I didn’t finish in that damn wench! I’m still randy!”

She said, “You’ve got to take command of your men! Something is happening!” He glanced down at her naked body. The countess was a woman whose cold, pale, perfect body incited in him a lust to break her reserve, make her cry out!

“Yes,” he said. “But get over there. He pointed to the wall. It won’t take long.”

“No, darling! Don’t be…”

He gave her a push and she backed into the wall, facing him, angry. There were two loops fastened into the wall just above her head. Looking around him, the duke muttered, “Damn!”

Then, he saw a long red cord hung from the ceiling. It was a bell-pull to summon servants. His big fist seized it and jerked hard. It snapped and the cord dropped.

He was back before the countess. He took her wrist.

“No!” she said, incredulous. “You’re insane…”

His furious red face stared into hers. She quickly said, “All right, then, hurry, and then let’s get out of here.”

He was quick, tying each wrist to a ring, pulling the knots tight until she cried out in protest. And then, he had dropped his trousers, put his hands under her thighs and lifted her. He stepped forward, his dark red prick at a 60 degree angle, bobbing.

There was a shot outside the door. The duke’s head turned; the countess cried out in fear and struggled against the rings. The door opened with a resounding slam and a giant frame filled the entire entrance, a man with a face so ferocious that the countess gasped in terror and breathed, “God! No!”

The duke bellowed, “Get out of here or die! I’ll flog you myself!”

The walrus seemed to cross the room in two strides; the duke turned to confront him, but giant hands seized the duke’s neck and were lifting him. He weighed fully two hundred pounds, but he rose from the floor as if levitated. His hands flew up to grab those that held him. He was able to gasp, “Damn!” while he still had breath.

The man lifted him and brought his face very close to his. The duke felt that he gazed into the blazing red, savage eyes of a tiger. But it was worse than that. The walrus held him a moment, staring at him, then brought his knee up into the duke’s testicles. The blow jolted the duke a foot higher, as though he were a jack-in-the-box. A few seconds passed before the duke could even scream. And, with the hands around his neck, when the scream did come it was a wheeze that brought saliva to his lips. His face turned deep, deep red. His body jiggled in agony.

The feral eyes examined the duke’s face judiciously. The knee came up again into the crotch again and all 200 pounds of the duke popped up.

Then, the giant’s whole body twisted, coiling as though to swing a sledge hammer; but his hands held the duke’s neck, so that when his body uncoiled and the mighty shoulders and arms swung in an arc, the duke’s body lifted and swung almost sideways. It slammed against the wall, and the room vibrated.

The walrus’s body coiled again, winding up, gathering energy and force; then it uncoiled and the duke’s body hurled through the air again and thudded into the wall. But this time there was a subdued, rending “crack!” The walrus dropped the naked body and it lay on its back, head at an anatomically impossible angle. The lifeless eyes stared out of the dark purple face. And the duke had lost his erection.

The walrus turned, glancing around the room as though curious. His gaze stopped on the countess’s nude body bound to the wall. He frowned, shaking his head. She looked back, eyes starting from the beautiful face, lips parted; as she met his eyes, she shook her head slowly. The walrus shrugged.

There were two gaslights in the room, two wall torches, and candles lit on the mantelpiece. The giant walked to the windows; his arm swept out and the heavy drapes were torn off the rod. He threw them in the center of the room, then he seized in his arm a dozen books from the shelves and threw them down, their pages fanning open. He threw more. Then more. He seized a wall torch, tearing it from its holder, the oil dripping and flaring, and threw it amid the books. He seized the other and did the same. The blaze began quickly. He looked around, saw two large wicker chairs, the wood long dried and brittle, and smashed them. He tossed the remnants on the fire. The blaze was now two feet high and gaining fast.

He started for the door, but from the wall, the countess shrieked: “No! Free me! Please! I’ll burn alive. Oh God, please!”

The walrus studied her just a moment, shrugged, and stepped from the room, bending to grab his rifle. As he ran through the duke’s bed chambers, he saw that the girl who had been lying face down on the floor was gone. He shrugged and ran from the room.

When he caught up with the others, they were in the guardroom. He had been away from them less then 10 minutes. When the walrus ran into the room, David looked at his watch and said, “Seven forty-five. The prime minister already could be outside. Let’s hope he isn’t; we have 15 minutes to push off!”

He turned. Edward Blake held his daughter in his arms, covered with a blanket, her head lolling back and her chest slowly rise and falling. David asked, “Are you still all right?”

“I never want to put her down again.”

The walrus saw Miranda standing beside one of the sailors and supported by him. She had been dressed in the same two garments, but now blood had seeped through both of them. Her head hung. David came and stood close and asked quietly, “Can you find Dr. MacLeod’s office?” Miranda looked up at him and whispered, “Yes. His window. I can knock.” After a moment, she murmured, “Thank you.”

David called to the others, “Let’s go!”

“Hey!” called a guard, sitting at the table.

“They’ll saw them off,” David called. He was already out the door, the others close behind. Through the door in the wall, a glance around. In the distance, he saw the lights of two large carriages coming toward them out of the night.

“That would be them,” he said, running toward the woods. At the jolly boat, David sat in the stern and Edward Blake put Hannah in his arms. The others jumped over the gunwales and picked up the oars. The giant was untying the line. Then, he put his hands against the bow of the boat, now entirely on sand, and pushed. The boat, with the seven men in it, slid backward. It gained speed and when it slid into the water, the walrus gave it a mighty heave, ran a few steps, and leaped in. He pulled the line after him.

They pulled hard on the oars and the boat shot past the end of the wall. David looked over to the beach, the woods, and, in the distance, the roof of the mansion. He wondered if Hannah would have wanted to be awake to see it one last time, the beach where they talked, swam, began to fall in love.

Suddenly he jerked his head, staring. He half-rose in his seat, still holding Hannah. “There’s a fire!” he said. “Not the mansion. It looks like the duke’s residence!” The smoke was heavy and through it he saw the light-yellow glow of the first high flames.

He turned and looked at the men. His eyes stopped on the walrus.

The walrus shrugged. “Better the duke died in a fire, ain’t it? Most blokes don’t break their necks humping their girlfriends.”

“What?” demanded David.

The walrus nodded. “He was fucking the other one, the girlfriend. He was one sick bugger! Tied her wrists right to the wall.”

“But did you…?”

The walrus looked indignant. His chin jutted still more. “I don’t kill the ladies, mate. I left her be—right where she was.”

The men looked at each other. Then the rowers pulled hard again. David looked down at Hannah, the tortured face still full of pain. He turned to Blake, eyebrows raised. And Blake grinned, and said, “You’re a card, walrus!”

Now David, in the stern, could discern the ship ahead. It was a 70-foot Brixham Trawler, a boat built earlier in the century for fishing. A few modifications and it had become one of the fastest such boats ever built. He could see its lines, long and true, with the moon behind them. They were near it, now, and a face peered from the deck and hailed, softly, “You in the jolly boat?”

“Yes,” David called back, and before they even reached the side, sails were running up. They were beautiful, long and slender against the moonlit sky, strong. He bent slowly and pressed his lips to Hannah’s, holding them there a long moment. Her eyes flickered open. They were very still, inward-looking, as though unable to stop seeing something. But she smiled up at him and sighed, and it seemed to David a contented sigh.

The prime minister’s big shoulders were hunched, as though against cold, although it was an August evening. The first lord stood beside him. Both men watched flames lick the night sky and dark smoke go billowing inland, carried by a breeze off the sea. Even where they stood, heat from the blaze was intense.

Some of the prime minister’s security men were arrayed around them, but a couple others, and the few policemen, were rounding up panicked, confused guests of the duke who rushed out through the gate. Although hastily dressed, or in a state of partial undress, they demanded their carriages be brought immediately. Others even proposed to set out on the road, by night, to walk to the nearest town. Some of the men, accustomed to command, protested and threatened when the police firmly herded them together with the others.

The prime minister turned to the first lord, addressing his profile for the first lord was watching the few small fire brigades—either the duke’s own or from a nearby village—battle to contain the fire. The nearest serious fire brigade was at the Portsmouth naval base, so there had been no chance of fighting the conflagration itself that had gutted and partially collapsed the duke’s residence. To contain it was all they could hope, and now the mansion and other buildings appeared to be safe.

The prime minister was saying, “Do you not agree that it is a scarcely credible coincidence that this attack on the duke’s residence should begin just one hour before we ourselves arrived?” The dark eyes, flashing dangerously in the firelight, scrutinized the first lord’s face. The prime minister added, “And that the attack broke off just minutes before we arrived? Do you find that a believable coincidence, First Lord?”

Now, the first lord turned to him. “Scarcely, and yet how to explain it?”

“Yes, it is what I am
asking
.”

“Well,” said the first lord, “it seems the poor duke and at least one guest, the Countess Wittke, perished in the fire.” The five guards, hands still cuffed behind them, for the moment, had been questioned by the prime minister and first lord, with the police listening. The guards confirmed the attack but could identify none of the attackers. They were certain beyond doubt that the duke had been in his chambers with the countess—though this must not be mentioned in the press, of course—and had not escaped in time. Nor had three of the duke’s personal guard. Beyond that, they could report only that the attackers carried off a young woman who seemed but semi-conscious. She was a member of the residence staff, they believed.

At that point, the first lord had taken aside the prime minister and mentioned that they did not know, as yet, the fate of the physician, MacLeod, who presumably still was a prisoner. Two policemen were detailed to go to the mansion to search for him to tell him he was a free man and the First Lord of the Admiralty requested a word with him.

The prime minister was saying, “And who do you suppose the young woman might be, the one carried off by the attackers? We had hoped to protect the prisoners.”

Again, the first lord vowed that everything would be investigated, everything, in due course, but at this time he had no answer. At that moment, he looked up toward the gate, and said, “I believe this may be Dr. MacLeod.”

It was, but Dr. MacLeod could shed no light on any of the mysteries. As usual, he had been confined to quarters in the mansion, where during curfew he could leave only if summoned for a medical emergency. When asked about the young men and women, the prisoners, and, if, already, they were scattered about the mansion and grounds—some perhaps even endeavoring to leave—he assured them that all would be in their rooms for the curfew. To violate curfew in the duke’s residence was a grave offense.

“All but two,” I believe, said MacLeod. “I have in my surgery a young Spanish girl flogged half-to-death, this evening, by the duke and countess. She reported that another girl had been there, Hannah Blake, who was lashed by the countess and raped by the duke. She says armed attackers carried off that girl. The same attackers dressed her, brought her from the duke’s chambers, and sent her to me.”

The prime minister and first lord had been glancing from MacLeod to each other and to the duke’s fiery pyre. And yet, at the report that occupants of the mansion had not scattered, the prime minister seemed relieved and even became animated. “And do you feel able, Dr. MacLeod, to gather each and every one of the remaining individuals—and what I understand are members of a staff also kept prisoner—in some safe place where I may be permitted to address them?” He looked at his watch. “Would an hour be possible?”