Part 56

XVIII

Spoerri had fetched the Countess from the villa in the western suburbs, which she had occupied but half an hour, and hurried off with her in the car. Mabuse, in his light little two-seater, had caught up the heavier car between Kaufbeuren and Günzburg, and both drove on without stopping. This had all been arranged between them long before. Where the road to Wangen diverged from the Lindau road, the large car ahead came to a standstill, and the little car drove close up. The Countess was transferred; Mabuse drove on, and Spoerri took the road leading to Austria.

Mabuse had arranged that at this point their roads should separate. Spoerri should reach Switzerland by way of the Rhine. Each of them must leave an address in Zürich with Dr. Ebenhügel, who could then exchange them. Mabuse, with the Countess, would drive to the Villa Elise, where George, who had been instructed by pigeon-post, would be waiting with the chest containing the securities and the jewels Mabuse would take with him on his flight. Then the three of them would immediately cross the lake to Luxburg, where a motor would be in waiting, and proceed along the Romanshorn main road to Zürich. There would be a brief stop at Zürich for the transaction of business.

It was likely that the authorities in Bavaria would ask the Swiss ones to search for the fugitives, and therefore Mabuse wanted to make his stay in Switzerland as brief as possible, and to push on to the Italian frontier. He had had passes for himself and the Countess prepared in a Portuguese surname. An Italian official had been bribed, and by his help all difficulties disappeared as chaff before the wind.

The Countess sat at the back of the car, behind its high body. In front of her Mabuse, sitting at the wheel, seemed like some monumental image. In the uncertain light the outlines of his powerful figure stood out with ghostly effect. There was not the slightest movement to be seen, and from her seat behind he looked like a block of granite, seen standing alone in a meadow.

They sped by highways, villages, hamlets, and then the waters of the lake gleamed in the night. A few lights at intervals on its shores, shapes appearing and disappearing in the darkness, dimly suggesting human beings, a change in the air one breathed ... two villages appearing to float like illuminated ships upon the water ... there was Switzerland already.

Lindau lay to the side, and their car was now racing along roads bordered by country villas. And then came the last minute. The car bounded across the track to the Enisweiler station, and rushed forward to the Villa Elise. At the first glance Mabuse’s sharp eyes saw that the gates opening on to the drive stood wide open.

The pigeon-post had arrived safely and in good time then. He felt as if the impetuous haste with which he had driven hither in the darkness had yielded him a fresh sensation. It was now just before 3.30 a.m., and he kept his senses constantly on the alert without slackening his speed. When he was about to turn into the drive, he pressed the brakes hard for a moment before allowing the car to run its course; it held up for an instant, then, veering round, went straight through the gates and turned towards the garden.

Just then he felt something spring on to the car. On the clutch side, springing over the door, a form squeezed down on the outer side of Mabuse. Two hands covered his own, snatched the steering-gear from him, and a wild, hoarse, impressive voice whispered, “Doctor, I’m here: it’s George. Give me the wheel. We are surrounded. Straight forward into the lake....”

Mabuse yielded the wheel and let go the brakes. Under its new guide the car dashed ahead, thundered round the grey walls of the villa, abruptly turned a corner, got on to a grass-plot, and raced frantically across it, along the sloping gravel patch to the wall which divided the lake from the garden above. Through the gate in the wall it leaped like a wild horse and then clattered down the inclined wooden footway, the boards thundering beneath it. A moment later its nose was in the water and the lake hissing around it.

George leant forward as quick as lightning and gripped levers, Mabuse helping him. The night re-echoed the Countess’s cry, and then the vehicle, tottering slightly at first, but slowly righting itself, went onward over the surface of the water.

“Splendid!” cried George. “It is working like magic!”

This car was an invention of his own. It could be driven straight from the highroad into the water without stopping, and a couple of levers turned it at once into a motor-boat.

“It is the pigeons that have done the mischief,” said George, when he had gained thorough control of his vessel. “After they arrived in the dark, about an hour ago, I seemed to hear whispering voices behind a shrubbery. I looked very carefully round, and thought I noticed a movement going all round the park. In one place, and then twenty paces further on, and then twenty paces beyond that again, in a circle, the whole way round, so then I knew we were surrounded. However, I managed to get to the gate leading to the garden without being seen. It took me fifty minutes to do the hundred yards. If we had not had this car, we should now be sitting handcuffed inside the Villa Elise.”

The constables, who had distributed themselves with all possible precautions about the villa, and had taken four hours to complete the ring around it, one after another taking up his position, had heard the car thundering along through the silent night. They lay in tense expectation at their posts, awaiting the whistle which should summon them to the house to fall upon the criminals.

Just an hour before there had been a slight interruption. A bird had suddenly flown through a tree and disappeared beneath the eaves. One of the constables close to the house had noticed it. He had seen the bird fluttering about the roof and then suddenly disappearing without having flown away elsewhere. His conjecture that it was a carrier-pigeon was soon confirmed by the appearance of a second bird, which also disappeared in the eaves. The constable stole softly to the inspector and announced what he had seen and suspected. The latter saw at once what this might indicate. Poldringer had received warning from Munich, from the fugitives. He therefore ordered a constable to proceed with the utmost caution from one outpost to another and relate the fact, saying that those in the house had probably been warned, and that they must redouble their precautions and at the same time be prepared for stronger resistance.

The movements of the constable as he went from post to post had put George on his guard.... Mabuse’s car reached the grounds, and the inspector’s quivering fingers were already raising the whistle to his mouth. At the moment when the occupants of the car should have left it and be about to close the door of the house behind them, he meant to give the signal. Two detectives were lying concealed in the shrubs to the left of the front door, and could reach it before the key was even turned in the lock, but the inspector gave no sign.

The car rushed round the corner, not stopping at the door. It tore frantically round the house as if about to rush pell-mell into the Lake. The inspector, forgetting all caution in the excitement and disappointment of the moment, sprang forward after it, and saw that it actually did disappear in the water. Like a sinister amphibian it leaped over the low wall, thundered down the wooden footway and sprang into the Lake.

Then at last he blew his whistle, and the posse of constables came running from all directions, knocking up against each other.

“To the shore!” shouted the sergeant.

There was no car to be seen anywhere. About two hundred yards from the shore the engines of a motor-boat could be heard in the darkness. They searched beneath the roadway, up and down the lake-side, dazed and disappointed, but in vain.

Then at last the inspector realized what must have happened. The unceasing efforts, strain and hopes of an entire month had come to nought. His prize capture had escaped him. He was so absolutely disheartened by this maddening thought that he unconsciously pressed to his temples the revolver that he held ready-cocked in his hand, as if his very life must be forfeit through the failure of his enterprise. A moment later he lowered the revolver, and the ball, singeing his hair, fell harmless into the night. Upon the Lake a light shone out. Further on, another. The shot had aroused the attention of the spy-boats.

Not till then did the inspector remember these allies, whom in his first access of despair he had completely forgotten. “Bring Morse lamps!” he cried. How could he have overlooked the motor-boats?

Immediately flashes were sent to the two boats: “The fugitives have escaped, and are on a motor-boat on the lake.”

“All right,” was flashed back, and a few minutes later powerful searchlights were directed towards the lake. It was not long before they had located the escaping boat. But they had also warned it, for at that very moment it was about to run into them.

* * * * *

Mabuse and George were at once aware of their danger. The two searchlights advancing on them seemed like the open jaws of a monster approaching to devour them. George steered to larboard, and the boat settled its course in a new direction. The water streamed over the rudder and gleamed about them, frothing in the darkness. “There is only one way,” said Mabuse in a low voice, “the Rhine estuary.”

He considered the matter coolly and boldly. He was once more in a situation quite familiar to him, because he had lived through and overcome it countless times in imagination. On the German shore, whither they could easily return, everyone would be on the lookout for them. On the Austrian shore there was only Bregenz, shown up clearly by the searchlights. Between these two regions there was a large and very sparsely inhabited territory around the Rhine estuary. In twenty minutes they could reach land and then make their choice between Switzerland and Austria. If they were lucky enough to run their vehicle on to land again as easily as they had run it into the water, they would have sufficient start to make their escape certain.