shattered the centre panel of a cabinet displaying a beautiful Sevres dinner service.
The tinkle of glass and china merged into the thunder of
feet charging across the parquet. As John and Christina stood together Upson was coming at them from behind
with a chair raised above his head. They swung round to
face him. For a second it seemed certain that it must fell one, or both, of them.
There was no time to step aside; no time even for Christina to bring up her pistol. John gave her a push that sent her reeling back on to a chaise longue. Lowering his head he went right in under the chair and butted the airman in the stomach. Upson lost his grip on the chair; it crashed to the floor behind John's back. He managed to keep his feet, but Upson went over backwards, the breath driven from his body, and lay writhing in agony.
From the time Christina had fired her fires shot, not one of these violent, kaleidoscopic actions had occupied more than ten seconds; yet in this bare minute or two the crack of the shots and the clanging of the bell had roused the house. The sound of running feet could be heard pounding along a corridor somewhere beyond the door through which the valet had poked his head.
As Christina pushed herself up from the chaise longue on to which John had thrust her, he grasped her arm, turned her towards the double doors by which they had been brought in, and cried
`Quick! The servants are coming! This way, or they'll catch us!'
Still clutching the pistol, she ran through into the hall. He darted after her, but as he slammed the door behind him he had the presence of mind to swing round and turn the big ornate key that protruded from the lock. In three strides he reached the head of the short flight of stone stairs. Christina was halfway down them. Suddenly she lurched sideways, let out a yell, and fell sprawling the last few steps to bring up against the terminal post at the bottom of their curved wrought iron balustrade.
`You hurt?' he panted, helping her to her feet.
She took a couple of steps and screwed up her face with pain. `It's my ankle. It twisted under me.'
The little automatic had been dashed from her hand, but had not exploded. John stooped, grabbed it up, put on the safety catch and slipped it into his pocket as he cried anxiously, `Will it bear you? Can you possibly manage to run?'
`It has got to,' she gasped, her eyes flashing with determination.
`Well done! Here, lean on my shoulder.'
She flung an arm round his neck, and together they trotted across the stone flags to the outer door. On emerging from it they could hear loud banging on the doors of the salon, and excited shouts. Jules was yelling for the servants `Marcel ! Henri ! Frederick ! Where the devil are you?'
As the fugitives ran out into the garden, by contrast with the brightly lit interior of the chateau it seemed pitch black. The moon had, now set and the stars gave only a pale light in the open spaces between the trees. Their instinct was to take the way they had come and head down the broad walk for the harbour. But no help was to be expected there, and, after a second, John realised that they would stand a better chance of getting away if they could find a side entrance to the grounds. Swerving to the right, he ran Christina along under the terrace till they got to the end of the building. A wall continued from it, in which there was a tall arch with a wrought iron gate leading to a stable yard.
By the time they reached the arch, the windows of the salon had been flung open and several people had run out on to the terrace. Jules was shouting to the servants, `Get out into the garden. Quick now! Quick!'
John pushed open the iron gate. As he did so a furious barking started and a big wolfhound came bounding from a kennel towards him. Christina screamed and he swiftly pulled the gate shut. At that instant two men ran out from the main door of the house. Hearing the barking and the scream, they swerved to the right and came racing towards the stables.
The second John had the gate shut, he and Christina made a dash for a path that led down the side wall of the garden. It was screened from the chateau by a belt of trees and thick shrubs which hid it in almost total darkness. Fifty feet along it he came upon the thing he had been hoping so desperately to find a postern gate. As his hand grasped the latch he prayed frantically that it would not be locked. His prayer was answered : at the first pull it flew open. With Christina still leaning on him, he stepped through it.
One glance in each direction, and his heart sank with dismay. It gave on to the road leading up from the harbour to the carriage entrance of the chateau, and on, inland. On its far side was a steep bank topped by another wall, which ran unbroken both ways as far as he could see. Behind them they could hear the flying feet of their pursuers nearing the stables. Christina was moaning with pain, and the tears were running down her face. The road between the two walls was like a long, curved corridor, and in it there was no scrap of cover. Once, out on it, the stars would give enough light for them to be seen. However game Christina's effort, within two hundred yards they must be run down and caught.
Pulling her back, John whispered, `we must hide: it's our only chance.'
Leaving the postern door wide open, he drew her swiftly with him down the path. Fifty feet farther on he pushed her in among the bushes and they stood there with their hearts pounding, trying to still the rasping of their breath.
It was none too soon. Jules' men had found the iron gate to the stable yard still shut and the hound baying on its far side. Realising that the fugitives could not have gone that way, they darted towards the path. Fifty feet along it they came upon the open postern. As John had hoped, they ran through it. He gave them a minute, fearing that, seeing no one up or down the road, they might come back. Then, after a mutter of voices, he heard their running steps again as they headed towards the nearest bend, which lay up the slope.
Coming out from their cover, John and Christina continued to follow the path, but now at a quick walk and making as little noise as possible. Temporarily they had escaped from the likelihood of immediate capture; but people calling to one another from the centre of the garden told them that Jules, Upson, and perhaps some of the other servants had come out to join in the hunt; and where the shrubbery was thinnest John twice caught the flash of torches.
He knew that now there was little chance of slipping unseen out of the gate down by the port, and was desperately casting about for some place where they might hope to lie concealed when the hunt moved in their direction. By this time they were nearly at the bottom of the garden and could see part of the wall that ran parallel with the shore. Above it showed the starry sky, but at the corner where the two walls met a patch of blackness reared up to double their height, its faint outline having the appearance of a square, topped by a triangle. After a second John realised what it was, and whispered
`That's a gazebo just ahead of us. With luck they will think we got away along the road. They may not look in there. Anyhow, it's our best bet. We must chance it.'
`A what?' murmured Christina.
`A gazebo a raised summer house built on the corner of the wall, to give a view of the bay.'
Swiftly but cautiously, they covered the short distance to the end of the path and made their way up the curving wooden stair they found there. The door of the gazebo was not locked, but it squeaked a little and, fearful of being heard; when they had crept inside they closed it gently behind them. For a moment they could see nothing, then panels of greyness showed the position of the windows and they realised that the place was sexagonal with a window in each of its sides except that occupied by the door. By groping about they found that it held basket chairs with cushions in them, a table and a low cupboard. Lowering themselves into two of the chairs, they subconsciously stilled their breathing while listening anxiously for sounds outside.
Muffled now by the wooden walls of the garden house, they could still hear the calls of the searchers. Once they caught the quick tread of heavy feet nearby, and the reflected glow from a torch lighted one of the windows on the garden side; but after a quarter of an hour of agonising apprehension no sound had reached them for several minutes, so it seemed that the search had been abandoned.
Till then neither of them had dared to speak from fear that one of Jules' people might be hunting about in the shrubbery beneath them: but now John thought it safe to ask in a whisper
`How is your ankle?'
`Not too bad,' Christina whispered back. `It gave me hell while we were running; but since I've had it up on a chair the pain has eased a lot. I don't think it's sprained only twisted.'
`It ought to have a cold compress on, but there's no hope of that. Still, I could bind it up tightly, and that may help when we have to move again. Shall I try what I can do?'
