XENIA
Dictionary codes are familiar in the Secret Service as furnishing a
cipher which, without the key, defies detection. By asking for a
dictionary at random, without reference to the cipher before him,
Desmond had hoped to gain a respite of several hours; for he had
reckoned that the little-known and out-of-date work which he had
requested would not easily be forthcoming. Clubfoot’s glib promise that
the book would be on hand within the hour dashed his hopes considerably,
and he reëntered his prison seriously revolving in his head his chances
of escape.
Of chances, properly speaking, he had none. He had no knowledge of the
geography of the house or its location; he had no arms; he had no
accomplices. But the murder of Paul Bewlay had made him reckless. The
sight of the body of that defenseless man, done to death in his bonds,
filled his soul with rage. He must try to fight his way out. But how?
He heard the door grate. Heinrich was there with a tray.
“I’ve brought your dinner!” he said. His tone was infinitely more genial
than before.
Desmond stared at him blankly. “The mince you served me for lunch was
cold,” he grumbled presently. “What have you got there? Poached eggs?
Hmph! And how am I going to eat eggs without salt or pepper? Good God,
if I’m going to work for you, can’t I be decently served?”
“Herr, Herr,” stammered Heinrich, “the cruet is outside. A little minute
and I bring it!”
Desmond grunted and turned away. But not so that he could not keep the
door under observation. In a moment Heinrich was back with the cruet.
“So, Herr!” he remarked and dumped it down on the table.
But the Herr was still not satisfied. “You’ve brought me tea to drink!”
he protested. “Do you take me for a teetotaller or what? Where’s Grundt?
Send for Grundt . . .”
“Herr, Herr,” wailed Heinrich in an agony of apprehension, “anything he
wished for, the Herr was to have, said the Herr Doktor! What can I get
you, Herr?”
“That’s better!” said Desmond. “You can get me a large whiskey-and-soda.
And not too much soda, d’you hear? . . .”
Obediently Heinrich galloped from the room. The moment his back was
turned Desmond was at the cruet. He whipped out the pepper castor,
rapidly screwed the top off, and tiptoed swiftly to the door.
“A dirty trick!” he murmured to himself. “A dirty Apache trick! Okewood,
I’m ashamed of you!”
Then the door swung back. On the threshold stood Heinrich beaming, a
brimming club tumbler in his hand. Suddenly, with a shrill gasp of
agony, the youth snatched at his eyes and the glass shattered on the
floor. Desmond flung the empty pepper-pot away and dashed through the
door.
Running on the points of his toes he bolted along the corridor making in
the direction of the staircase. Just as he reached it, he heard a heavy
step mounting the stairs and the shining bald pate of Mr. Blund, the
Englishman, appeared on a level with the landing.
The collision was as violent as it was inevitable. By the force of the
impact Mr. Blund was flung back against the stair-rail. But he had
thrown his arms about Desmond and now clung to him like grim death,
screeching in a voice wheezy with fear and excitement: “’Elp! ’Elp! ’E’s
escaping!”
With a savage twist Desmond wrenched himself loose. But there is a
dogged strain in even the worst Englishman, and Mr. Blund came at him
again. With open hand Desmond struck upwards at the other’s double chin
that sagged in heavy folds to the thick neck. The violence of the blow,
half slap, half push, threw the fat man off his balance. He reeled away,
slipped on the polished boards, and, with a hoarse cry, toppled
backwards over the banisters into the well of the staircase, and, with a
horrid, soft thud, landed on the tiles of the hall.
But the other gave him not a thought. From the corridor behind him
resounded the angry bellowing of Heinrich. Without considering where he
was going, Desmond plunged down the staircase and came to the hall
where, loose, like a sack of bottles, the sprawling hulk of what had
once been Mr. Blund was lying.
Somewhere in the distance a door banged. A curtain hung across one side
of the hall. In a flash Desmond parted it. Facing him he found the front
door with an immense lock and no vestige of a key. He tried the door. It
was locked!
Behind him now all the house was in an uproar. A hubbub of angry voices
came from the upper floors and heavy footsteps thundered above him.
Stealthily he peered out from behind the curtain and came face to face
with Mandelstamm.
The Jew was standing there listening, his head half inclined to the
stairway. He was not two feet away, a magnificent mark, and, to simplify
matters, he turned his head precisely at the right moment to bring the
point of his jaw in contact with Desmond’s fist as, without hesitation,
the young man drove at him. Mandelstamm collapsed instantly in a sitting
position, then flopped over, grunted once, and lay still.
Clubfoot’s stentorian voice went booming through the house, shouting
orders. Save for Blund and Mandelstamm, the whole of the party seemed to
have been collected on one of the upper floors. Now they all came
trooping noisily down.
The little hall with the locked door behind him was, Desmond realized, a
cul-de-sac, a veritable death-trap. Three doors faced him across the
hall. With one stride the young man was across the Jew’s body and,
choosing the middle door at random, opened it swiftly and slipped
through.
He found himself in the room where, less than an hour before, he had
confronted Clubfoot and his confederates. Seated at the oval table in
the centre was the girl they had called Mademoiselle Xenia.
Loud exclamations from the hall, showing that the party had discovered
their casualties, warned Desmond of the urgent danger of his position.
There was a key on the inside of the door. He turned it and slipped it
in his pocket.
“I heard the fat Englishman cry out”—the girl was speaking in her dull,
listless voice—“I wondered if you were free. But there is no escape from
_him_. Why, oh, why, did you come here?”
A hand pounded noisily on the door.
“Xenia, Xenia!” came in Tarock’s gruff voice.
Desmond turned swiftly to the girl. “Will you help me?” he said.
With wonder in her mournful black eyes she nodded.
“Is there no way out of this room except by the door?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“The windows?”
“They are shuttered and barred with steel!”
“Then help me to barricade the door!”
Already some one outside was hurling his weight against it. But the
oaken panels were solid and held well. With great difficulty Desmond and
the girl dragged a tall black cupboard across the room and stood it
before the door, subsequently reënforcing the barricade with a steel
filing-cabinet, the heavy mahogany table laid on its side, and an
intricate zareba of chairs.
Something cold was laid in Desmond’s hand. It was a Browning pistol.
“It has seven shots,” said Xenia. “I used to think I might use it one
day, but . . .” She shrugged her shoulders and relapsed into her
habitual mournful silence.
“By George!” exclaimed Desmond. “This puts new heart into the defence.
The name of Tarock, of Cracow, is written on one of these bullets, did
you know that, Mademoiselle Xenia?”
For the first time the girl became animated. A little warmth stole into
her olive cheeks and her dark eyes brightened.
“Kill him!” she said passionately. “Kill him for me! Deliver me from
this man and I will kiss your feet! Kill him slowly, make him suffer as
he has made me and my family suffer! . . .”
“We’ll do what we can!” said Desmond cheerfully. The cold caress of the
automatic had raised his spirits a hundred per cent.
A desperate assault was being delivered on the door. It groaned and
creaked and the barricade before it rocked and swayed.
“This won’t do!” said Desmond, furrowing his forehead. With an anxious
glance at the door, he crossed to the window. The steel bars were
deep-sunk in the face of the shutter and padlocked in the centre.
“A shot would burst that lock!” remarked the young man, fingering his
gun.
“Useless!” replied the girl. “The window is barred outside. There is no
escape!”
And then the light went out.
“Ah!” said Desmond. “Clubfoot would think of that.”
The room was pitch-dark.
“Xenia,” he called softly, “where are you?”
“Here,” said her soft voice in his ear. And her hand was gently laid on
his arm.
“You must try to be brave,” he encouraged her. “I think they’re going to
rush us! The door will go in a minute!”
Already a broad chink of light showed that, though the lock yet held,
the upper part of the door was yielding to the savage battering.
“I am not frightened,” Xenia made answer—and her voice was quite
steady—“I shall be glad to die! You will make it easy for me. It is long
since I knew a man without fear!”
She placed her hand, small and warm and soft, in his.
“My mother, my little sister, my two brothers, they are all in the
prisons of the Tcheka,” she said. “I am hostage for them. Tarock was the
commissary who denounced them. He brought me here as his secretary. For
almost a year now I have been in his power. So you see I am happy to
die . . .”
Then the door gave. There was a crash as the topmost pile of chairs
hurtled to the ground. A broad beam of light clove the darkness about
the barricade.
“Okewood”—the challenge came in Clubfoot’s deep voice—“the game’s up!
Come out quietly before you’re hurt!”
Desmond’s hand squeezed hard the little hand that lay in his palm.
“Courage!” he whispered. “And listen! Do you hear anything outside?”
Above the hubbub in the hall outside there fell upon their ears the
distant throb of a car.
Then he raised his voice. “Grundt,” he cried out distinctly, “Grundt,
you can go to hell!”
A bearded face with dangerous, bloodshot eyes appeared in the chink
between door and jamb. Desmond shot so swiftly that the roar of the
report, Tarock’s sharp exclamation, and the thud of the body sounded
almost as one.
“Herr Gott!” bellowed Clubfoot. There was a loud explosion and a bullet
“whooshed” above the heads of the man and girl. The door was forced
wider and the barricade was split in twain.
Desmond pressed the girl to her knees. “Keep your head down!” he
whispered, and fired again. The yellow flame from his pistol lit up the
darkened room. The odour of burnt powder hung on the stale air. A volley
of shots from without answered him.
But now loud knocking resounded from the outer hall. Instantly the light
beyond the door went out. There was the scuffle of feet and Clubfoot’s
voice crying aloud: “Turn on the light again. The front door is solid.
If we go, we’ll take the Englishman with us. Ah, you miserable hounds!
you . . .!”
For one brief, terrible instant a brilliant orange glare lighted the
dark gap between the barricade and the door. Then there came the
deafening roar of an explosion immediately followed by the sound of
splintering wood and the tinkle of broken glass. The whole house seemed
to shudder and settle down again. Then came a moment of absolute
silence, and in the stillness the girl heard a stealthy clip-clop,
clip-clop across the tiles of the hall.
And then came shouts and the sound of the crunching and smashing of wood
under heavy blows. A voice without cried twice: “Desmond! Desmond!”
In the darkness the girl sought the companion at her side. “Hark!” she
whispered. “We are saved!”
There was no reply. She stretched out her hand, groping in the place
where Desmond Okewood had stood. But he was no longer there. Outside
resounded the trampling of heavy feet, and with a sudden crash the
barricade before the door was flung down. A beam of white light from an
electric torch clove the darkness. In its ray Xenia saw Desmond Okewood
lying motionless at her feet.