The key rattled in the lock and the door swung open. Hans moved forward into the room, his great hands clenched, and Chavasse said from behind him, “Here I am.”
As Hans turned, Chavasse swung the truncheon with all his strength, catching the man full across the throat. Hans made no sound. His eyes retracted and he fell backward as if poleaxed. His beard was flecked with foam, and for a little while his fingers scrabbled uselessly at the floorboards as he fought for air, and then he was still.
Chavasse dropped onto one knee and searched him quickly, but he was out of luck. Hans had not been carrying a gun. Chavasse went out into the gallery and listened, but all was quiet. He quickly locked the door and pocketed the key, and then, as he turned to move down toward the room in which Hardt was imprisoned, a woman screamed somewhere close at hand.
He moved along the corridor quickly and then she screamed again, the sound coming clearly through an oak door at the end of the gallery. He turned the handle and opened the door.
ANNA was crouched in the corner by the fireplace, her dress torn down the front and a livid weal glowing angrily across one bare shoulder. Kruger stood in the center of the room, a small whip twitching nervously in his right hand.
“You won’t get away from me, my dear,” he said, “but please continue to resist. It adds a certain spice.”
Chavasse slipped in through the door and closed it quietly behind him. As he started to move forward, Anna saw him and her eyes widened. Kruger turned, an expression of alarm on his ravaged face, and Chavasse slashed him across the back of the hand that held the whip.
An expression of agony flooded Kruger’s face. He fell to his knees and started to whimper like a child, and Chavasse lashed him across the head with the truncheon.
Kruger bowed his head like a man in prayer and keeled over slowly. Chavasse raised the truncheon again, and Anna flung herself forward and caught hold of his arm, “That’s enough, Paul!” she said, fiercely holding him with a grip of surprising strength.
He lowered his arm reluctantly. “Has he harmed you?”
She shook her head. “He’s only been with me for ten minutes. Most of the time he spent talking the most unutterable filth.”
“We must thank God for the fact he’s only half a man,” Chavasse said, and pulled her toward the door. “We haven’t got much time to waste. We must release Hardt and then find a way out of this place.”
“What about Muller?” she said.
“Muller won’t be going anywhere ever again,” he told her.
They paused outside the door of the room in which Hardt was imprisoned, and Chavasse tried the key that he had taken from Hans. The door opened noiselessly to reveal Hardt sitting on the edge of the bed, head in hands.
He looked up slowly and an expression of amazement appeared on his face. “How the hell have you managed this?”
“I had to get a little violent,” Chavasse told him. “How do you feel? Well enough to make a move?”
“I’d walk to China to get out of this place.”
“No need to go to extremes,” Chavasse said. “If we can successfully negotiate the main hall and reach the cellars, our troubles are over. They keep a launch down there in an underground cavern with direct access to the lake.”
“And what about Muller?”
“I’ve just spent the last hour with him,” Chavasse said. “Steiner and Hans laid it on a bit too thick during the last beating. I was alone with him when he died.”
“Did he tell you anything?” Hardt asked.
Chavasse nodded. “Apparently, Bormann died some months ago. Muller was just trying to make himself a little cash on the side.”
“And the manuscript?”
“That’s genuine enough,” Chavasse said. “His sister’s looking after it. She’s the one we’ve got to find now.”
He took Anna’s hand and led the way out of the room and along the gallery. The hall was completely deserted, the only sound the peaceful crackle of the logs in the great fireplace. He smiled reassuringly to the other two and they began a cautious descent.
When they were halfway down the staircase, one of the doors was flung open and Steiner entered the hall. He was lighting a cigarette, the match in his cupped hands, so that for a moment he did not see them, and then he looked up and an expression of astonishment appeared on his face.
As Chavasse turned and started to push Anna back up the staircase, Steiner pulled out a Luger and fired. The bullet chipped one of the marble pillars at the head of the stairs and Chavasse pushed Anna forward and followed her, half-crouching.
They ran along the gallery, Hardt at their heels, and Steiner fired again. They plunged down a narrow flight of stairs and entered a lower corridor with a door at the end of it. When Chavasse tried to open it, he found that it was locked.
“We passed a door on the left,” Hardt said, and he turned and went back the way they had come.
The door opened to his touch and they entered into what looked like a servant’s bedroom. At that moment, Steiner paused at the top of the flight of stairs and fired along the corridor. Chavasse slammed the door shut and pushed the bolts into place, securing it for the moment.
“Now what do we do?” Hardt demanded.
Chavasse moved across to the window and opened it. The waters of the lake splashed against the stone wall of the castle twenty feet below them. He turned to Hardt. “It’s only about a hundred yards to the shore. Do you think you could swim that far?”
“Sink or swim – what does it matter in a situation like this?” Hardt said simply.
“And you, Anna?” Chavasse said.
She smiled. “I’ve been swimming all my life.”
At that moment, Steiner kicked on the door. “You’d better come out of there,” he bellowed angrily.
Chavasse made a quick gesture toward the window, “After you two,” he said, “and good luck.”
Hardt went first and then Anna. As Chavasse pulled himself up onto the sill, Steiner fired several times through the door. Chavasse took a deep breath and jumped.
He hit the water with a solid, forceful smack and surfaced almost immediately. It was bitterly cold and he was aware of Anna floating beside him. “Are you all right?” he gasped.
She nodded and gulped. “Fine.”
Hardt was already disappearing into the mist as they struck out after him. As the castle disappeared from view, Chavasse heard a sudden, impotent cry of rage and a bullet sang over the water, and then they were alone in a dark world that seemed to enclose them completely.
They swam together in a triangle, with Hardt leading. He looked very white and strained, and Chavasse gasped, “You managing all right?”
Hardt spit out a stream of brown lake water and managed a tired grin. “My arm doesn’t feel too good, but don’t worry. I’ll reach the shore.”
Chavasse turned to look at Anna, and heard the engine of the launch shatter the silence with a roar as it emerged from beneath the castle. They kept on swimming, increasing the stroke as the launch passed them nearby, and then returned again.
They moved together and stopped swimming, treading water as they listened, and then the launch seemed to be right on top of them and its roaring filled their ears.
“Down!” Chavasse gasped desperately, and they ducked under the water.
He felt himself thrash about helplessly like a fish in a net, and then he erupted to the surface, lungs bursting.
Anna appeared first and Hardt a little later and they huddled together, tossed about by the turbulence, and listened as the sound of the launch died away in the distance. After a while, Chavasse nodded and they started to swim again.
The boathouse loomed out of the mist five minutes later, and they waded through the shallows and mounted
