“Certain,” said Leon emphatically. “There is nothing on earth that will stop Oberzohn. You will force the house to find a man who has died by his own hand, and—” He shuddered at the thought. “The only thing to be done is to wait for the night. If Washington arrives on time, I think we can save Miss Leicester.”
From the roof Dr. Oberzohn saw that the soldiers were digging a line of trenches, and sent a spatter of machine-gun bullets in their direction. They stopped their work for a moment to look round, and then went on digging, as though nothing had happened.
The supply of ammunition was not inexhaustible, and he determined to reserve any further fire until the attack grew more active. Looking over the top of the parapet to examine the ground immediately below, something hot and vicious snicked his ear. He saw the brickwork of the chimney behind him crumble and scatter, and, putting up his hand, felt blood.
“You’d better keep down, Oberzohn,” said Cuccini, crouching in the shelter of the parapet. “They nearly got you then. They’re firing from that railway embankment. Have you had a talk with the boss of these birds?”
“They are weakening,” said Oberzohn promptly. “Always they are asking me if I will surrender the men; always I reply, ‘Never will I do anything so dishonourable.’ ”
Cuccini grunted, having his own views of the doctor’s altruism.
Late in the afternoon, a flight of aeroplanes appeared in the west: five machines flying in V formation. None of the men on the roof recognized the danger, standing rather in the attitude and spirit of sightseers. The machines were flying low; with the naked eye Cuccini could read their numbers long before they came within a hundred yards of the house. Suddenly the roof began to spout little fountains of asphalt. Oberzohn screamed a warning and darted to the stairway, and three men followed him out. Cuccini lay spreadeagled where he fell, two machine-gun bullets through his head.
The fighting machines mounted, turned and came back. Standing on the floor below, Oberzohn heard the roar of their engines as they passed, and went incautiously to the roof, to discover that the guns of flying machines fire equally well from the tail. He was nearer to death then than he had ever been. One bullet hit the tip of his finger and sliced it off neatly. With a scream of pain he half fell, half staggered to safety, spluttering strange oaths in German.
The aeroplanes did not return. He waited until their noise had died away before he again ventured to the roof, to find the sky clear. Cuccini was dead, and it was characteristic of his three friends that they should make a thorough search of his pockets before they heaved the body over the parapet.
Oberzohn left the three on the roof, with strict instructions that they were to dive to cover at the first glint of white wings, and went down into his study. The death of Cuccini was in some ways a blessing. The man was full of suspicion; his heart was not in the fight, and the aeroplane gunner had merely anticipated the doctor’s own plan.
Cuccini was a Latin, who spoke English well and wrote it badly. He had a characteristic hand, which it amused Oberzohn to copy, for the doctor was skilful with his pen. All through the next three hours he wrote, breaking off his labours at intervals to visit the guard on the roof. At last he had finished, and Cuccini’s sprawling signature was affixed to the bottom of the third page. Oberzohn called down one of the men.
“This is the statement of Cuccini which he left. Will you put your name to his signature?”
“What is it?” asked the man surlily.
“It is a letter which the good Cuccini made—what generosity! In this he says that he alone was to blame for bringing you here, and nobody else. Also that he kept you by threats.”
“And you?” asked the man.
“Also me,” said Oberzohn, unabashed. “What does it matter? Cuccini is dead. May he not in his death save us all? Come, come, my good friend, you are a fool if you do not sign. After that, send down our friends that they may also sign.”
A reluctant signature was fixed, and the other men came one by one, and one by one signed their names, content to stand by the graft which the doctor indicated, exculpating themselves from all responsibility in the defence.
Dusk fell and night came blackly, with clouds sweeping up from the west and a chill rain falling. Gonsalez, moodily apart from his companions, watched the dark bulk of the house fade into the background with an ever-increasing misery. What these men did after did not matter—to them. A policeman had been killed, and they stood equally guilty of murder in the eyes of the law. They could now pile horror upon horror, for the worst had happened. His only hope was that they did not know the inevitability of their punishment.
No orders for attack had been given. The soldiers were standing by, and even the attack by the aeroplanes had been due to a misapprehension of orders. He had seen Cuccini’s body fall, and as soon as night came he determined to approach the house to discover if there was any other way in than the entrance by the front door.
The aeroplanes had done something more than sweep the roof with their guns. Late in the evening there arrived by special messenger telescopic photographs of the building, which the military commander and the police chief examined with interest.
Leon was watching the house when he saw a white beam of light shoot out and begin a circular sweep of the grounds. He expected this; the meaning of the connections in the wall was clear. He knew, too, how long that experiment would last. A quarter of an hour after the searchlight began its erratic survey of the ground, the lamp went out, the police
