He saw the helmet of a policeman shoot away from the head of the astonished man, and fired again. This time he was more successful, for a policeman who was directing the course of the tractor crumpled up and fell in a heap.
A shrill whistle blew; the policemen ran to cover, leaving the machine unattended. Again he fired, this time at the driver of the tractor. He saw the man scramble down from his seat and run for the shelter of the fence.
A quarter of an hour passed without any sign of activity on the part of his enemies, and then eight men, armed with rifles, came racing across the ground towards the wire barrier. Oberzohn dropped his rifle, and, taking a grip of the first machine-gun in his hand, sighted it quickly. The staccato patter of the Maxim awakened the echoes. One man dropped; the line wavered. Again the shrill whistle, and they broke for cover, dragging their wounded companion with them.
“I was afraid of that,” said Leon, biting his knuckles—sure evidence of his perturbation.
He had put a ladder against the wall of the factory, and now he climbed up on to the shaky roof and focused his glasses.
“There’s another Maxim on this side,” he shouted down. And then, as he saw a man’s head moving above the parapet, he jerked up his pistol and fired. He saw the stone splinters fly up and knew that it was not bad practice at four hundred yards. The shot had a double effect; it made the defenders cautious and aroused in them the necessary quantity of resentment.
He was hardly down before there was a splutter from the roof, and the whine and snap of machine-gun bullets; one slate tile shivered and its splinters leapt high in the air and dropped beside his hand.
The presence of the girl was the only complication. Without her, the end of Oberzohn and his companions was inevitable. Nobody realized this better than the doctor, eating a huge ham sandwich in the shelter of the parapet—an unusual luxury, for he ate few solids.
“This will be very shocking for our friends of Curzon Street,” he said. “At this moment they bite their hands in despair.” (He was nearly right here.)
He peeped over the parapet. There was no policeman in sight. Even the trains that had roared at regular intervals along the viaduct had ceased to run, traffic being diverted to another route.
At half-past twelve, looking through a peephole, he saw a long yellow line of men coming down Hangman’s Lane, keeping to the shelter of the fence.
“Soldiers,” he said, and for a second his voice quavered.
Soldiers they were. Presently they began to trickle into the grounds, one by one, each man finding his own cover. Simultaneously there came a flash and a crack from the nearest viaduct. A bullet smacked against the parapet and the sound of the ricochet was like the hum of a bee.
Another menace had appeared simultaneously; a great, lumbering, awkward vehicle, that kept to the middle of the lane and turned its ungainly nose into the field. It was a tank, and Oberzohn knew that only the girl’s safety stood between him and the dangling noose.
He went down to see her, unlocked the door, and found her, to his amazement, fast asleep. She got up at the sound of the key in the lock, and accepted the bread and meat and water he brought her without a word.
“What time is it?”
Oberzohn stared at her.
“That you should ask the time at such a moment!” he said.
The room was in darkness but for the light he had switched on.
“It is noon, and our friends have brought soldiers. Ach! how important a woman you are, that the whole army should come out for you!”
Sarcasm was wasted on Mirabelle.
“What is going to happen—now?”
“I do not know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They have brought a diabolical instrument into the grounds. They may use it, to give them cover, so that the door may be blown in. At that moment I place you in the snake-room. This I shall tell our friends very quickly.”
She gazed at him in horror.
“You wouldn’t do anything so wicked, Mr. Oberzohn!”
Up and down went the skin of his forehead.
“That I shall tell them and that I shall do,” he said, and locked her in with this comfortless assurance.
He went into his study and, fastening the door, took two strands of wire from his pocket and repaired the broken telephone connections.
“I wish to speak to Meadows,” he said to the man who answered him—a police officer who had been stationed at the exchange to answer any call from this connection.
“I will put you through to him,” was the reply.
For a moment the doctor was surprised that Meadows was not at the exchange. He did not know then that a field telephone line had been organized, and that the factory headquarters of the directing staff was in communication with the world.
It was not Meadows, but another man who answered him, and by his tone of authority Oberzohn guessed that some higher police official than Meadows was on the spot.
“I am the doctor Oberzohn,” he barked. “You have brought a tank machine to attack me. If this approaches beyond the wire fence, I shall place the woman Leicester in the home of the snakes, and there I will bind her and release my little friends to avenge me.”
“Look here—” began the officer, but Oberzohn hung up on him.
He went out and locked the door, putting the key in his pocket. His one doubt was of the loyalty of his companions. But here, strangely enough, he underrated their faith in him. The very mildness of the attack, the seeming reluctance of the soldiers to fire, had raised their hopes and spirits; and when, a quarter of an hour later, they saw the tank turn about and go out into Hangman’s Lane, they were almost jubilant.
“You’re sure that he will carry out his threat?” asked the police
