CHAPTER XII

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cipher before him, Desmond had hoped to gain a respite of several hours; for he had reckoned that the little-known and out-of-date work which he had requested would not easily be forthcoming.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.