Background to Danger (25 page)

Mailler raised a heavy Colt revolver until it was level with his chest.

“O.K.”

Saridza went out of the room. Mailler surveyed Kenton and Zaleshoff through narrowed eyes. The journalist saw that he had been recognised.

“Quite a nice little bag,” said Mailler softly. He raised his voice.
“Heinrichs, komm her.”

A tall thin man with a disfiguring birth-mark down one side of his face came into the room. He stumbled over the legs of the dead Serge and kicked them viciously out of the way.

“Keep them covered with your gun and see that they don’t shift too near that mantelpiece,” ordered Mailler in German.

“Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”

The man took up his position and thumbed back the
hammer of his revolver.

Mailler thrust his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and stared at the prisoners for a moment. Kenton noticed that there was a long thin blood-stain down the front of the coat. Suddenly the Captain raised his revolver and walked towards Zaleshoff. A foot from him he stopped.

“So you’re the dirty little Red, are you?”

Zaleshoff looked at him steadily.

“I’m pleased to meet you again, Captain. You see, I’ve found out a little about you. Your real name is Hollinder. What is more, you are wanted in New Orleans for the murder of a coloured woman named Robbins.”

Mailler drew back his gloved fist and drove it straight into the Russian’s face. Zaleshoff staggered back. The other raised the hand holding the revolver and crashed it across the side of the Russian’s head. Zaleshoff pitched forward on his face and lay still.

Mailler turned to Kenton.

“You get yours in a minute, old man.”

He fumbled in his pocket, produced a length of thick copper wire and a pair of pliers and proceeded to lash Zaleshoff’s wrists together behind his back. He tightened the wire with a violent twist of the pliers and snipped off the loose ends.

“Now you. Lower your hands—slowly—and put them behind you.

Kenton obeyed and the wire bit into his flesh. For a second or two he tried to keep his wrists turned so that he would be able to slacken the wire afterwards, but a twist of the pliers promptly defeated this aim. The pain was agonising and he flinched.

Mailler laughed.

“Bit tight, old man? That’s all right; your wrists’ll go numb in a minute. Sit down.”

He pushed Kenton backwards and put out his foot. Kenton
tripped over it and fell heavily. His ankles were lashed together wth the wire and Mailler was giving it a final twist when Saridza came back into the room wearing an overcoat and hat. He glanced at the insensible Zaleshoff.

“What is this, Mailler?”

“The swine got cheeky.”

Saridza frowned and looked down at Kenton.

“I regret,” he said rapidly, “that we must soon part company again.
Partir est mourir un peu;
but I am afraid that it is you and your companions in misfortune who are going to do all the dying. You are going for a little ride. Mailler, get them in the car. We shall take them to the cable works. I don’t think the man in the kitchen will live very long in any case, but he may as well go with them.” He looked thoughtfully at the corpse on the floor. “This prank of yours, Mailler, has made rather a mess on the carpet. That must be put right before Bastaki returns in the morning. The lake at the back of the house and plenty of weights will take care of this offal. Hurry now.”

“Righto, chief.”

He went out of the room and came back a few moments later with a pale-faced, vicious-looking young man whom he addressed as “Berg.” Under Mailler’s direction, Heinrichs and the newcomer carried the body of Serge from the room.

Saridza watched the operation in silence. When they had gone, he walked across the room and looked down at the journalist.

“You, my friend,” he said, “are a fool.”

“For the first time, I find myself agreeing with you,” retorted Kenton.

“And yet,” went on the other, “I am not entirely satisfied to see you die. Within limits you appear to be intelligent. You are a capable journalist. You possess a quality which, as a business man, I value highly—a sense of loyalty.
I find it very rare. Loyalty can be secured by coercion, it can also be bought; but I place very little reliance on loyalties of that calibre. I could use your services, Mr. Kenton.”

“Are you offering me a job?”

“I am. I do not ask you to betray this man Zaleshoff. He no longer counts. I offer you an alternative to death. If you agree to my proposition, you will remain here instead of going with these other two.”

“What is your proposition?”

“A very simple one. You would continue in your work as before, but under my direction. From time to time you would be given special items of news to be reported. That is all. In return I would pay you a retaining fee of fifty thousand French francs a year. Actually you would make more. As my protégé you would find avenues open to you that would remain closed to plain Mr. Kenton.”

“That sounds very attractive.”

“I am glad you think so. But please don’t think that by seeming to agree to my suggestion you could interfere any further in this present affair. Your liberty would not be restored to you for several weeks.”

“Until Codreanu is in control, the German alliance cemented and the oil concessions revised in favour of Pan-Eurasian Petroleum?”

“You are even more intelligent than I had hoped. Yes, until matters have been straightened out in Bucharest.”

“And is that all?”

“Not quite. You see, you might also be thinking that if you agree now you may save your skin and be able to retract later. That would not do. I shall require proof of your intentions.”

“What sort?”

“In the kitchen is the man captured by Mailler. On the floor beside you is his employer, Zaleshoff. By this time to-morrow, both these men will be dead. In an uncertain
world nothing can be more certain than that. Supposing, therefore, that we were to ask you to shoot them for us? It would be very simple. Just two shots with Mailler’s assistants as witnesses and everything would be over. You would merely be anticipating the inevitable. Now, what do you say?”

It is difficult to be dignified when one is lying on the floor trussed like a hen, but Kenton managed it somehow.

“I’d say,” he said deliberately, “that you ought to be in a home for homicidal maniacs.”

Saridza’s lips tightened over his yellow teeth.

“You don’t think, Mr. Kenton, that anything might cause you to change your mind?”

“No, I don’t.”

Saridza sighed.

“That is the first time,” he said, “that I have seen a man commit suicide by saying three words.” He turned as Mailler came back into the room. “Hurry now; we have no time to lose. Get these two into the car.”

Kenton was carried across the hall and put on the floor in the back of a car which was standing in the drive with the engine running. A few minutes later, Zaleshoff, still unconscious, was tumbled on to the floor beside him. Then Mailler and Berg reappeared carrying Grigori. Kenton saw by the light from the hall that the mechanic’s face was covered with blood. The man groaned faintly as he was dumped on the seat. His breathing was stertorous.

A minute later Saridza came out.

“Take Berg with you,” Kenton heard him say. “Heinrichs and I will follow in the other car. I will leave you two to deal with the watchman. He must not be harmed, but remember, there must be no question of his identifying you.”

Mailler grunted acknowledgment, the door on the driving
side slammed and they jerked forward.

The car roared down the pot-holed road along which they had come earlier that evening, at breakneck speed. Bound and helpless, Kenton was buffeted about unmercifully. To make matters worse Grigori’s limp body slid forward on the seat until it was all the journalist could do to prevent it rolling on top of himself and Zaleshoff.

After about twenty minutes of this, the car pulled up and the two men in front got out. Kenton heard their feet crunch away along a road and a murmur of voices ahead. An instant later there was a strangled cry and the sound of a scuffle. It lasted only a moment or two, and there was silence for a while. Then Kenton heard the creak and clang of heavy gates being opened. They must, he decided, be at the cable works. The cry had come from the watchman. Presently Mailler and Berg returned to the car, climbed in and sat in silence. Then another car sounded on the road behind them, they jerked forward once more and turned slowly to the left. A few yards farther on they stopped. There was a slamming of doors and footsteps died away. A few minutes later Berg and Heinrichs came back, lifted him out and carried him down a concrete path to a wooden door set in a brick wall. The door was sprung and Berg held it open while Heinrichs dragged the journalist through.

In spite of the dim light, Kenton could see by the roof that he was in a very long narrow factory building. There was a strong smell of raw rubber and bitumen. He made out the shapes of a long row of curious machines looking in the gloom like huge crouching insects. In the far corner of the shop, light was coming from a small bay partly separated from the main shop by a corrugated iron partition. It was towards this bay that he was carried.

A single lamp in a steel reflector suspended from one of the roof trusses illuminated the bay. Beneath the lamp,
in the centre of a concrete floor covered with chalky dust, stood Saridza and Mailler. Kenton’s bearers dropped him on the concrete.

“Leave him and go back for the other two men,” ordered Saridza in German.

The two retraced their steps. Saridza and Mailler started talking in low tones. Kenton rolled over to his left side and looked round him.

The bay was about eight yards wide and twice as long. It was devoid of machinery. Two narrow-gauge rail tracks sunk into the concrete about three yards apart, ran the length of the shop. At one end they stopped below an overhead travelling crane mounted on a gantry running at right-angles into the main shop. At the other end of the bay they ran right up to two round convex iron doors, each about six feet in diameter and hung on massive hinges. On one of the tracks stood three squat trolleys. Two of them carried large metal drums of cable.

Mailler disappeared into the darkness of the main shop and Saridza walked over to Kenton.

“Puzzled, Mr. Kenton?”

“Very.”

“Let me explain. It is hardly worth while waiting for the other two. You will have plenty of time to tell them all about it. You see, I have decided to change my plans. I did intend to bring you here, shoot you and leave you. But you will be spared that unpleasantness. Do you know what to-day is?”

“No.”

“It is Saturday; or, rather it was Saturday until a short while ago. Nobody will come here again until Monday morning. The watchman lives on the premises, but he will not intrude until someone arrives to release him. By that time I shall be many hundreds of miles away. Convenient as it is for shooting, however, this factory offers other
amenities. Mailler suggests that we make use of them. Instead of shots, which might, I admit, be heard in some workmen’s houses just beyond the railway siding at the back, there will be silence.” He indicated the two iron doors. “Do you know what those are?”

“They look like a pair of safe-deposits.”

“They are vulcanising tanks. The drums of rubber-covered cable are pushed inside on those trucks two at a time, the steam is turned on and an hour or so later the trucks are pulled out with the cable on them all ready for braiding. It is an interesting process.”

“I take it that you intend to roast us to death.”

“Dear me, no. There is no steam available just now. No, you will just be left there to think. The doors seal almost hermetically.”

“You mean you’re going to shut us up to suffocate?”

“Believe me, Mr. Kenton, I regret the necessity for this almost as much as you do. You are a journalist and naturally inquisitive. It is your misfortune that you stumbled on an affair that is not yet ready for the attention of the world at large. Later, perhaps, when Codreanu is strutting at the head of the Rumanian Government, your presence would have been acceptable. But you have heard and seen too much. The journalist must report only what has happened, not what is about to happen. I am, I admit, sorry for you. Men like Zaleshoff know what they are doing and the risks they run. You, so to speak, are a civilian casualty. However, don’t let me depress you unduly. There are worse ways of dying than by asphyxia. You will just drift off to sleep. A little hardship at first, perhaps; but in the later stages, I believe, everything becomes quite peaceful.”

Suddenly Kenton lost his head. He strove madly to release his wrists. His head swam. He knew that he was shouting at the top of his voice at Saridza; but he did not know what he was saying. For a time he was only partly
conscious. He realised dimly that Zaleshoff had been put on the floor beside him and that the Russian’s eyes were open, looking at him. Then his brain cleared and he found that he was shivering violently. Feet grated on the floor beside him and somebody laughed. Then he saw that Mailler had undone the wheel-nut that fastened one of the doors and was opening the tank. The iron door was obviously very heavy and it opened slowly. At last, however, the black interior was visible and Mailler walked towards him.

Kenton’s arms were seized by one of the men standing by and he was dragged across the concrete. A moment or two later he was lying across the rails inside the tank. He heard Saridza mutter something to Mailler. The latter grunted.

“He’s pegged out all right,” Kenton heard him add.

The dead body of Grigori was thrust in. It crouched grotesquely against the curved wall of the tank. Zaleshoff came last. Then the door began to close.

Kenton watched the shrinking crescent of light in silence and without emotion. He was feeling sick. The light narrowed to a thread. Then it disappeared. In the darkness, Kenton listened to the faint squeak of the wheel-nut being tightened from the other side of the door.

F
OR
a time Kenton kept his eyes open, but soon the absolute darkness seemed to press unbearably on his pupils. He shut his eyes and lay listening to Zaleshoff’s breathing.