But only for a moment. With all his strength Sanchez brought up his right knee. It would have been the finish of de Quesnoy had he not jerked his thighs together and taken the brunt of the blow upon them. Even as it was, he in turn gave a sharp cry followed by a groan, and the upward thrust unseated him. Yet their hands and arms were still interlocked. Simultaneously both gave a violent twist in the same direction. They slid off the bed and landed with a crash on the floor.
Sanchez was underneath. The back of his head struck the boards first, with a hard resounding thud. His body went limp. With a surge of relief the Count realized that he had him at his mercy. It was at that moment, in the sudden silence succeeding the noise of their struggle, that he heard a dragging sound in the next room.
Panting and still trembling from his exertions, he staggered to his feet. He had left the communicating door to the other room partly open, but it was dark in there. Grabbing the door handle, he pulled the door wide. Now there was enough light for him to see inside. Somehow Inez had managed to gnaw through the tape he had put round her neck and tied to the head of the bed. He could see about eight inches of its end still tied to the rail. And she was no longer on the bed. Her wrists and ankles were still tied but she was dragging herself along the floor towards the door that gave on to the corridor.
Taking in the situation at a glance, de Quesnoy guessed that she must have been conscious and working to regain her freedom for some time. Knowing that Sanchez would be returning soon after eleven she had probably been lying there, not daring to move till he came on the scene, but ready to act the moment he did. As she had managed to gnaw through the tape it seemed certain that she had first succeeded in working the gag out of her mouth. At any moment she might scream for help.
De Quesnoy moved to dive through the doorway. His arms were outstretched to seize her, but his hands clutched empty air. A strong arm had been thrown round his neck. It dragged him back. Sanchez had either only feigned being stunned, or his thick skull had saved him from being knocked out for more than a few seconds. He had come swiftly and silently to his feet behind his enemy, and suddenly gained the advantage over him.
For a few moments de Quesnoy strove in vain to break Sanchez's grip. Gasping for breath he felt himself being pulled over backwards by his more powerful antagonist. In desperation he lifted his right foot and kicked out behind him with all his might. His heel caught Sanchez on the shin bone. The sickening pain caused him to relax his hold. De Quesnoy swivelled round within it and jabbed him hard in the stomach. Sanchez was still groggy from having struck his head on the floor. Reeling backwards with the wind knocked out of him, he half doubled up.
Finding herself discovered Inez began to shout. She had now reached the door and was endeavouring to struggle up on to her knees. De Quesnoy knew that if he could not deal with them both in the next few minutes he would be caught like a rat in a trap. But he could not deal with both of them simultaneously.
Although bent half double Sanchez was reaching out a hand across the bed. On it lay the knife that he had been forced to drop. The Count dared not let him snatch it up. With his left hand he grabbed a handful of the Spaniard's coarse, black curly hair and hauled him back.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Inez, still yelling murder. She had got to her feet and was striving to get a grasp on the door knob. Her hands having been bound palm to palm made that by no means easy; but if she succeeded in opening the door, her shouts would echo down the corridor and carry double the distance they did at the moment.
De Quesnoy decided that if he was to save himself there was only one thing to do. When he had first come upon the cunning, coarsely handsome oaf he now held by the hair, he had been making a bomb in the very laboratory in which it was virtually certain that Morral had learned to make the type of bomb that had killed Angela. A few weeks later he had first wanted to cut de Quesnoy's throat, then suggested roasting him alive, and finally lent a willing hand in an attempt to murder him by suffocation. If more was wanted he was the lowest form of criminal cur who lived on the immoral earnings of women and blackmail.
Lifting his right foot the Count drew back his bent leg. Next second he brought his knee up hard against Sanchez's rump. The anarchist's body reacted to the blow by shooting forward. At the same instant de Quesnoy gave a sudden wrench on his hair, jerking his head violently back. There came the sound of a sharp crack. Sanchez's head suddenly dragged like a ton weight on the hand that grasped his black curls. The Count let go and the limp body slumped across the edge of the bed. He had broken Sanchez's neck.
Swivelling round, de Quesnoy dashed into the small room to secure Inez and muffle her shouts. He was too late. At the very instant he had put an end to Sanchez she had got the door open. As she pushed it wide, her ankles still being tied, she had lost her balance and fallen. Her red hair and most of her body were now out in the corridor and she was screaming at the top of her voice. Still worse, her earlier shouts for help must have been heard, for the Count caught the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs only twenty feet away.
The corridor was a cul-de-sac ending in a window between the big bedroom and another room opposite. Jumping over Inez's prostrate body de Quesnoy ran to it. From the reconnaissance he had made of the inn before going into its bar, he felt certain that the window overlooked the central courtyard and, as the rooms of the old building had low ceilings, he knew that he would not have far to drop.
But he had overlooked the fact that in old inns windows giving on to landings and passages are rarely opened. When he reached it he found it stuck fast. As he turned away he saw several men, one behind the other, charging down the corridor towards him. Turning, he dashed through the door to the bedroom, slammed it behind him and shot its bolt. The window in there would, he knew, open, because Inez had gone to close it on account of the storm.
Having bolted the door to the corridor had not secured his retreat. The men who were after him could still come through the slip-room. The question which now agitated his racing brain was 'Could he get the window open and drop from it before they were upon him?'
He decided that he could not. That precious minute trying to get the window in the corridor open had robbed him of the vital leeway needed to escape. But there was still a chance. He felt sure he had seen a bolt on the communicating door. If he could close and bolt that he would be temporarily safe.
He sprang round the bed, leapt towards the door and slammed it shut. But only in the nick of time. The leading man, a crop-headed fellow who looked like a Scandinavian bosun, had just stumbled past Inez and was within six feet of him. His fumbling fingers found the bolt on the door. With a gasp of thankfulness, he shot it.
Turning again, he jumped over Sanchez's sprawling legs, pulled the dressing-table aside, and reached the window. Grasping its lower sash he pulled it up and gratefully gulped in the cool night air. At that second there came a resounding crash. The connecting door between the two rooms was only a flimsy affair. The muscular square-head had burst it open with one kick of his heavy boot.
Again, there was not much more than six feet between them. De Quesnoy knew that he could not get through the window before the sailor grabbed him. He had only one course left; to hold him and the others back and, if possible, drive them from the room under the threat of his revolver. Wrenching it out he pointed it at the seaman and shouted: