'Exactly.' She got to her feet as Karl came back into the room with a tray. 'I must say I'm glad I was paid in advance. You don't strike me as being much of a bargain, Mr. Chavasse.'
Karl moved back to the door and she poured coffee into a blue mug. 'Would you like cream?'
'No, better make it black.'
She handed the mug to him and turned to Karl. 'You can take the tray away.'
In that single brief moment in which neither of them was looking at him, Chavasse poured his coffee into the space between the edge of the bed and the wall. When the girl turned to face him again, he was holding the empty mug to his mouth.
There was a sudden glint of amusement in her eyes that told him he had been right to be cautious. He pretended to drain the mug and leaned back, shaking his head from side to side as if suddenly drowsy.
As he closed his eyes, she chuckled. 'That's right, Mr. Chavasse. Just drift with the tide.'
Chavasse pushed himself up, allowing the mug to roll off the bed on to the floor, then fell back, head lolling to one side. He was aware of her cautious approach to the bed and schooled himself to take the sudden heavy slap across the face without flinching.
A step sounded in the doorway and the Russian spoke, sounding a little out of breath as if he had climbed the stairs too quickly. 'Karl told me he was awake.'
'Not any more,' Peggy said. 'He's just had a cup of black coffee laced with chloral hydrate. He'll be out for hours.'
'You're sure he'll be all right? He's of no use to us dead, you know.'
'You worry too much. Personally, I feel like an early breakfast. It's been a long night.'
They moved to the door. It closed and Chavasse heard two bolts rammed home and then a key turned in the lock. He swung his legs to the floor, sat there for a moment and then got to his feet.
The strange thing was that he felt no ill-effects at all except for a fierce hunger that gnawed at his empty belly as he moved to the door and listened. The voices faded away as though the two of them were descending a flight of stairs and then there was silence.
There was little point in wasting time on the door and he moved across to the window and pulled back the curtains. It was of the old-fashioned sash type and heavily barred. Rain drummed against the dirty glass and fifty or sixty feet below, a stone courtyard and outbuildings gleamed palely through the grey dawn. Beyond, rolling parkland was shrouded in a heavy, clinging mist.
He turned away and from somewhere in the depths of the building, a patient cried aloud, drumming on the door of his room and the sound was taken up by another and yet another, ugly and menacing.
The door was out and so was the window which left the floor or the roof. One thing was certain. Whatever he did had to be done quickly. He would certainly get no second chance.
He moved back to the window, crouched down and looked up and could just see a heavy iron gutter which at least proved that the false roof of the house was directly above the room or perhaps an attic. There was only one way of finding out. He dragged the table into the corner by the window, placed the chair on top of it and climbed up carefully.
The plaster of the ceiling was old and covered with a network of fine lines, so soft that when he raised his elbow into it sharply, a large piece fell away, a waterfall of white dust cascading after it. The noise being made by the inmates in the other part of the house was even louder now and Chavasse clawed at the edges of the hole, enlarging it quickly, tearing the wooden lathing away in great pieces. His fist went through and he could see into the false roof, light gleaming between chinks in the slates.
A couple of minutes later he was pulling himself up between two beams to crouch in the half darkness, covered in white dust. The false roof was extensive and obviously covered the whole house, a rabbit warren of strangely shaped eaves and half walls. He moved forward cautiously, walking on the beams and came to a trapdoor which had obviously been designed to give a more conventional access. He opened it carefully and looked down on to a tiny landing and below it, a narrow staircase, obviously leading from servants' quarters or something very much like them.
He dropped down and paused to listen. There was still a considerable disturbance going on elsewhere in the building, but fainter somehow and he started down the stairs quickly, stepping lightly on bare feet.
He paused on the next landing, peering over the rail for a moment before starting down and then a door on his left opened and Karl walked out, his mouth gaping in a wide yawn. In the same moment, he saw Chavasse and his eyes widened in alarm. Chavasse moved in fast, slamming his right fist into the man's stomach, lifting his knee into Karl's unprotected face as he keeled over, sending him backwards into the small room to sprawl across the bed.
He followed him in quickly, closing the door. Karl slid from the bed and rolled on the floor, moaning softly. Chavasse could find no gun on him and a quick search of the dressing-table drawers proved equally unsuccessful. He helped himself to a pair of rubber tennis shoes that were half a size too large for him, laced them up quickly and left.
At the bottom of the stairs he came to a narrow stone-flagged passage. A stale smell of cooking rose to meet him and somewhere to the left he could hear voices and the clatter of pans. He moved to the door at the end of the passage, opened it cautiously and looked out into the courtyard. It was quite deserted in the heavy rain except for an old green jeep parked a few yards away. He climbed inside quickly, pulled out the choke and pressed the starter. The engine turned over at once and a moment later, he was driving away.
Beyond the cobbled yard and the outhouses, a bridge took the road over a small stream, joining what was obviously the main drive very quickly. It was flanked by poplar trees, woodland fading into the grey morning on either side and he drove on, his eyes straining into the mist anxiously. There was a narrow turning to the left that disappeared into the trees and then he rounded a corner and braked suddenly.
Some twenty yards in front of him, the way was barred by iron gates, a steel mesh fence running into the mist on either side of it. The man who lounged beside the sentry box wore a peaked cap and semi-military uniform in dark blue, a black oilskin coat draped over his shoulders. He looked up quickly, flicking his cigarette away as the jeep braked to a halt. Chavasse hesitated, debating his chances of ramming the gate and then the man took an automatic rifle out of the sentry box and cocked it quickly.
As he raised it to his shoulders, Chavasse reversed round the corner quickly and from the direction of the house, the strange, unearthly wailing of a siren echoed through the morning in a dying fall.
He turned into the side track that he had noticed earlier and drove through trees as quickly as he dared, wheels bumping over the deep ruts and then the track simply petered out into a footpath, the undergrowth closing in on either side. He switched off the engine, jumped out and plunged into the trees running in the general direction of the fence.
He was soaked to the skin before he had gone twenty yards but didn't slacken his headlong course, one arm raised before him to protect his face from the flailing branches. He came out of the trees and paused on the edge of a strip of open parkland, the fence no more than ten yards away.
It was perhaps fifteen feet in height and angled over sharply at the top, but presented no particular problem to any reasonably active man, which was strange-and stranger still was the absence of even a single strand of barbed wire along the upper edge.
He picked up a large branch, moved forward and touched the fence gingerly. There was an immediate flash, a puff of blue smoke and the end of the branch burst into flame. He dropped it with a curse and somewhere behind him the hollow baying of a dog sounded on the morning air.