The Prisoner in the Mask Page 21

  De Quesnoy’s instinct for battle told him instantly that the next few moments would prove critical. If his protégé could not get away very swiftly, more police would arrive on the scene and they would both be caught. As it was the collapse of Moreau-Sala had freed another gendarme; so they were already two against three.

  Snatching up a small potted palm from a marble console table, the Count hurled it at the man in the doorway. It caught him in the midriff, doubling him up winded and helpless for a few precious moments. De Vendôme meanwhile had smashed his fist repeatedly into the face of the man with whom he was struggling on the floor. Gasping and howling the man writhed under him, then lay still. Springing to his feet the Prince dashed out on to the landing.

  With a shout of triumph de Quesnoy made to follow him, but the policeman who had been endeavouring to handcuff Moreau-Sala struck out a foot. The Count took a header over it and crashed full length on the floor. The breath was driven from his body. Before he could recover it the two remaining policemen flung themselves at him.

  A terrible tussle ensued. Both the representatives of the law were strong men well versed in tackling tough customers; but de Quesnoy’s early training stood him in good stead. Wrestling was the Russian national sport and while in his ’teens he had had many a bout with the stable-hands and servitors at Jvanets.

  For a moment he lay flat on his face and let himself go limp. One of his antagonists descended like half a ton of coals on his back, the other seized one of his wrists to handcuff it. Snatching his wrist away he suddenly tensed his muscles and drew up his knees. The man above him shot over his head, but before he could get to his feet the other fellow had grappled with him, and they went down together.

  While a referee could have counted ten they rolled back and forth, first one on top then the other. Meanwhile the policeman he had shaken off was up again, and striving to kick him first on the head then in the ribs. Only two kicks got home, and they were not hard ones as the man had not dared to put any great force behind them lest they should strike his comrade.

  In such a conflict there were no holds barred. Thrusting out his hand de Quesnoy suddenly seized the ear of the man with whom he was wrestling and gave it a violent wrench. His antagonist let out a howl of pain and instantly loosed his grip.

  To put him out of the game for good the Count, levering himself up by his hands, half rose above him, then kneed him hard in the groin. Giving an ear-piercing cry he passed out. But the other man, seeing the extremity of his comrade, had pulled his gun and was pointing it at de Quesnoy.

  Faced with death in a flash he threw up his hands, and came to his feet. But the policeman did not back away, keeping him covered, quickly enough. As the Count got up he pretended to lurch sideways, and brought the hard edge of his right palm down on the man’s wrist. The stroke might have cost him his life, but in spite of what he had told de Vendôme he knew that this night’s work might cost him his life anyway, so he took the chance.

  It came off. With a blasphemous oath the man dropped his gun and with his good hand gripped the injured wrist. Swift to seize any opening that offered de Quesnoy resorted to the rudiments of British boxing, which he had also picked up in his ’teens. Clenching his right fist, he drove it with all his force at the policeman’s jaw. The man’s eyeballs flickered upwards, he sagged at the knees and gently collapsed upon the floor.

  Victor of the field, the Count took a swift glance round. Two policemen lay still, the other two and Moreau-Sala were groaning feebly. But there was a violent hammering on the doors to the dining-room, and police whistles summoning assistance now shrilled above the din that continued to come from behind them. Gasping in a deep breath, the Count dashed out on to the landing.

  His appearance there was met by a shout. In response to the shrilling of the whistles three more policemen were running up from the ground floor. Before they could draw their revolvers de Quesnoy pulled a fine old Venetian mirror from the landing wall and flung it down among them.

  It shattered on the head of their leader. Stunned, he stopped dead in his tracks, fragments of glass flying in all directions about him; then, like the tall trunk of an axed tree, he fell gracefully backwards on to the two men in his rear, bringing them down with him. The Count did not wait to see the full effect of his missile. Taking the stairs three at a time he was already bounding up the flight that led to the floor above.

  On the landing there he glanced swiftly to right and left. He had secured for de Vendôme a good two minutes’ start; but, all the same, he did not want to lead the police on his track, as he might have found difficulty in getting out of the hotel unseen, and so still be lurking somewhere below in the kitchen quarters.

  Turning left the Count ran towards the front of the hotel. As he came level with each door he quickly tried its handle. The first two were locked; the third swung open revealing an elderly couple sitting up in bed. Their faces told that they were listening in apprehension to the sounds of the riot below. Leaving the door wide open de Quesnoy sped on. His only object in opening it had been to let his pursuers know the direction he had taken, so as to keep them away from the back of the premises. The couple would do that, as the sight of the Count’s bruised and bleeding face had already set the man off shouting: ‘Help! Murder!’

  Before turning in that direction de Quesnoy’s quick glance had shown him that the corridor led into another at right angles to it. All the same, he had taken a big risk; for the other might prove a dead end. As he swung round the corner into it he saw that it extended for about sixty feet and was then closed off by a red velvet curtain. Fearful now that the curtain might conceal only a cul-de-sac, he raced on, wrenched it aside and peered into the darkness beyond it.

  His heart sank. The faint light that percolated from a gas bracket twenty feet behind him was just enough to show that the last twelve feet of the corridor had been made into a small room. In it he saw that there were a gas stove, a sink, plate-racks, and a table on which were several trays already laid for petit déjeuner. Evidently it was the domain of the floor waiter, in which he prepared the breakfasts and cooked up light meals for anyone in his corridor who was taken ill.

  With an oath de Quesnoy stared about him. There was nowhere there where he could hide, and if he turned back he could not now hope to recross the landing before the men at whom he had thrown the mirror reached it. They should have got there already. Striving to control his breathing he listened for a moment. The elderly couple were still shouting, but he could not hear the pounding footsteps he expected. That made it possible that instead of giving chase to him the police had thought it more urgent to answer the call for help being shrilled out by the whistles, so turned into the ante-room. If so, the couple’s shouts were now an added danger, as they would soon bring other police up to the second floor.

  All this went through de Quesnoy’s brain in a few seconds, and he was still grasping the red curtain while weighing two alternatives. He could turn back in the hope of recrossing the landing unseen, or slip into a bathroom that he had passed, get through its window, and risk his neck attempting to shin down its drainpipe. The latter would not only be dangerous but futile if there were police on the watch nearby the spot where the drainpipe reached the ground; but he should be able to find that out from the window. Deciding to reconnoitre, he was just about to let the curtain drop when he chanced to glance up. His eyes, now better accustomed to the dim light, discerned a square recess in the ceiling. It was a trap-door.

  There was a kitchen chair beside the gas stove. By standing it on the table he could reach the trap-door. If it led only to an attic containing a cistern he could not hope to escape capture by hiding up there because the chair would give away the way he had gone. But it might lead to the roof. To find out would take a few precious moments, but he decided that it would be worth the gamble.

  Grasping the edge of the table he tipped it up. With a clatter and crash all the trays slid from it to the floor. Swinging the chair up he clambered
on to it and thrust hard at the trap-door. One side of it opened a few inches, and a blast of chill air came through. Another minute and he had it wide open, had hoisted himself through and was out on the roof. His gamble had come off.

  But his tribulations were far from over, and that he survived the next ten minutes was due only to his iron nerve. It was almost pitch dark, the roof was steep and dangerous, and the icy cold numbed his fingers as he slowly made his way forward, testing every foothold cautiously and clinging at times to the most precarious holds.

  At last, having crossed a deep gulley, he found another trapdoor in the roof of an adjacent building and lowered himself through it. He had had to leave his cloak behind so he was shivering as though he had the ague. Flailing his arms he tried to warm himself up a little, then when his teeth stopped chattering he struck a wax vesta and looked about him.

  Before the flame died he had time to see that he was in a loft, in which awnings, garden chairs and sun umbrellas were stored. Striking several more vestas, he found it to be a large place, and he had to use half a dozen before he came upon a steep wooden staircase leading below. At its bottom another vesta revealed a short passage at the end of which there was a faint glimmer. Proceeding to it de Quesnoy reached a wide landing. Two sides of it consisted of panes of clear glass and a proper staircase leading down from it. It was through the panes that the faint light, originating in the street lamps, penetrated. Beyond them was a great room with at least a hundred tables in it on which chairs were piled, and a row of tall windows.

  De Quesnoy then knew for certain where he was. It was the annex to the hotel, where in summer thousands of tourists ate a fixed-price lunch before being shepherded by their guides across the Place to visit the Palace. It would remain closed and deserted until the tourist season started, as would the big café below it on the ground floor; so he had no hesitation in walking boldly downstairs.

  After reconnoitring the back quarters of the annex with the aid of further vestas, he let himself out by a side door which gave on to a dark alley-way. Quickly he made his way down it in a direction away from the Place. It ended in a garden that had a low wall on one side of the path along which he was walking. Scrambling over it he found himself in another. He repeated the process three times, then dropped into a street.

  Still moving away from the centre of the town he proceeded along it. The quarter before midnight chimed, but the noise of the shooting and rioting must have been audible for some distance as, although it had now ceased, there were quite a number of upstairs windows still lit, and here and there people were looking out of them.

  A man perched on a bicycle was describing the scene in the square with graphic detail to a woman standing at an open doorway. As de Quesnoy passed the woman invited the man inside to warm himself up with a café-cognac. He got off his machine, propped it up against the side of the house and went in. The Count would cheerfully have paid five pounds for that café-cognac; but he would have given twenty times that sum for the bicycle. To have shown himself and tried to buy it would have proved disastrous. Having walked on a few paces, until the front door was shut, he turned back and took it.

  The bicycle was an absolute godsend as, by pedalling hard, it enabled him to get back to St. Cyr just before midnight. Had he not done so he would have had to summon the sergeant of the guard in order to get in, and it was possible that the police had already telephoned to the Commandant asking that if he returned he should be arrested.

  As it was he hid the bicycle some fifty yards from the main gate then went through it at a run. The lofty arch was lit only by a solitary lantern and, as there were several hundred cadets and instructors at the college, the odds were all against the sentry recognising him. By running he aimed at giving the poilu the impression that he was a student who feared himself late and, although it was none of the man’s business, one who had left his kepi and cloak behind rather than be shut out.

  Slowing to a walk, he crossed two courtyards and ascended the stone stairs to his own rooms. Until he saw himself in the wardrobe mirror he had not realised quite what a state he was in. His uniform was smothered in filth, his jacket torn in two places, his collar ripped open and his face a sorry sight. Pulling off his jacket he poured some water into the basin. His three-mile dash on the bicycle had warmed him up, but the water was icy. Flinching a little he got the blood off his hands and face, then changed into a suit of civilian clothes.

  Into a small valise he packed his shaving kit, a change of underclothes and a few things he valued. His revolver, and about fifty rounds of ammunition, he slipped into the pockets of his overcoat, then put it on and donned a curly-brimmed Homburg hat. Locking the door behind him he walked quickly downstairs and through a passage that led to another courtyard.

  The upper floors on all four sides of it were students’ quarters. Each student had one of the cells which had once been occupied by the religious inmates of the original establishment. Electric light had not yet been installed and after ten-thirty the pressure of the gas in this part of the college was reduced, giving only enough light by which to undress. But de Quesnoy met no one, as all the students, other than those who had been at the dinner, were already in bed. There were no locks to the cell doors, so he had no difficulty in entering that of de Vendôme’s. Putting a match to the gas mantle, he turned it up as high as it would go, then by its pale blue light he began a hasty search of the tiny bedroom.

  The drawers of the small bureau yielded nothing of interest, but on breaking open a carved box inlaid with ivory he found what he was seeking—a packet of letters in Angela’s writing, tied up with a blue ribbon.

  From what she had said of the Prince’s writing billets-doux to her he felt certain that she would have sent some replies to them, and had it not been for that he would never have risked arrest by returning to the college. The police, he was confident, had no more reason to connect de Vendôme with the Syvetons than with any of a score of other wealthy families that he visited with some regularity; so sending him to hide with them was a move quite justified by the exceptional circumstances. But soon, and probably before the night was out, the authorities would seize and examine the Prince’s belongings. If Angela’s letters had been found among them, that would have led the hunt straight to him and, in de Quesnoy’s view far worse, involved her in the conspiracy.

  Precious as time was, he could not resist the temptation to pull one of the letters from the packet and glance through it. As he did so he smiled, for the phrases, charming and affectionate as they were, conveyed no hint of passion. Thrusting the bundle into his pocket, he picked up his valise and left the cell.

  At the far end of each long corridor a wash-house had been installed. It contained a dozen cold water basins, a single bath and a big boiler, the function of which was to supply shaving water, the bath and a run of pipes that gave meagre heating to the cells. Turning into the wash-house, de Quesnoy opened the fire door of the boiler with his foot and, with a sigh of satisfaction, thrust Angela’s letters into the glowing furnace. If de Vendôme was caught there would now be nothing to give away her association with him.

  His mind passed swiftly to his next move. The gate now being shut he would have to get the sergeant of the guard to unlock it for him. As an instructor he was at liberty to leave the college at any hour of the day or night that he liked; but if the police had telephoned he might be held up and taken by the officer of the guard to the Commandant. For a moment he contemplated leaving the college by some unorthodox means—such as letting himself down from an outside window, or clambering over the stable-yard wall—but he decided against it.

  As he was quite well known at the Roi Soleil, it was certain that, even if none of the police had recognised him, they would have learned from questioning the staff of the hotel that he had been at the dinner. But getting their prisoners away and attending to the wounded must have taken the police some time and in any case they would have thought it hardly likely that he had returned to the colle
ge; so there was still a good chance that they had not yet telephoned. If they had, he thought with a grim little smile as his right hand closed over the butt of the revolver in his pocket, he ought to be able to bluff or threaten his way out past a sergeant.

  To his relief he was not called on to do either. The sergeant, stiff as a ramrod, reacting like an automaton, and speaking only when spoken to, produced his big bunch of keys and let him out of a side entrance. Two minutes later he found the stolen bicycle where he had left it hidden in the bushes, tied his small valise on to the back of its saddle and set off on it towards Paris.

  It was close on three o’clock in the morning by the time he entered the Parc Monceau. Feeling that it would be impossible to hide the bicycle in the Syvetons’ garden, and that its presence might give away to a gardener that someone had arrived there during the night, he had abandoned it in the Bois de Boulogne and walked the last two miles of the fourteen from St. Cyr.

  Having let himself in through the door in the wall, he made straight for the pavilion. No chinks of light were showing at the edges of its curtains, so he thought it probable that de Vendôme had already arranged matters with the Syvetons, been installed there and gone to bed. Running up the stairs he turned the handle of the door that opened into the little kitchen, but found it locked. He knocked several times with increasing force, then called quite loudly, giving his name, but he received no reply; so it was evident that the Prince could not be there.

  He remembered then that he had told him to wait in hiding for at least an hour after the lights in the house were out, before rousing Angela. In the hurry of the moment he had forgotten that by the time de Vendôme got there all the chances were that the lights would already be out; so it was just possible that the young man was strictly obeying the injunction to wait for an hour anyway.