“Clare! Clare! We are going to win—and it is because of your braveness! He is coming back—and if it is I who win over him, we have won everything. . . .”
He said: “Clare: listen to me! There is a plane—and if . . .”
He leapt to his feet. He had heard the faint single note of a horn. He said:
“Go out of here! Go to the cellar! Do you hear! Go quickly!”
She raised her head and looked at him through welling tears. She saw his face and got to her feet and went without a word. He passed her in the passageway and pulled out the concealing chair and opened the door.
“Pull the chair back,” he said. “And bolt the door.”
He was gone.
He was outside, at the corner of the house. He ran to the centre and stood at the edge of the shadow and pulled from his pocket the flashlight he had taken from Carson’s body and faced the road and the sound of the horn and pressed the flashlight in a long, single beam.
He switched it off and ran back, in the cover of the shadow, to the corner of the house and stood near the open side-door. He put the torch back into his left hip-pocket and pulled the Lüger from the right. This time he held it by the butt, and slipped off the safety-catch. He must be ready to shoot now—but he must not shoot unless it were absolutely, vitally necessary. Somewhere near, there might be—there could be—other men. . . .
He looked out into the bright silver square of moonlight beyond the trees and saw two figures quickly cross it and go back into the shadow again. He could hear the swishing of their feet in the grass, coming towards him.
He stood motionless. He was in the deep darkness cast by the eaves of the house and they could not—they must not—see him until they were close upon him. He could hear them approaching. They were only a few yards away. His body was cold again and his mind raced.
Then they stopped. They were almost opposite to him, just the other side of the narrow strip of moonlight which separated the two black fields of shadow. Altinger’s voice came out of the darkness. It was pitched low, but it carried. It said:
“Where
Otto did not breathe: he was utterly still.
The man Flecker said something in his high-pitched nasal whine, but Otto could not hear the words.
Altinger snorted contempt—and he came out into the strip of moonlight, making for the door. Flecker came behind him. Altinger’s hands were empty, but Flecker carried a gun and it was held ready.
They came into the shadow of the house—and Otto struck. With the barrel of the Lüger he struck Flecker a downward, deliberately glancing blow upon the back of the skull—and then, as the man crashed against Altinger, he leapt around the falling body and jammed the pistol into Altinger’s back with a thrust so savage that it jerked the air from Altinger’s lungs and Altinger’s hand from the gun for which he reached.
He said to Altinger: “Keep your hands up! Stand still!” The motionless body of Flecker lay huddled by his feet and he hoped against hope that he had not struck too hard—or, alternatively and worse perhaps, that he had not struck hard enough.
But he dared not take his eyes or any part of his attention from Altinger. By Flecker’s head lay a fallen gun, and he kicked it away into the shadows. It was the best he could do.
He jabbed Altinger again with the muzzle of the Lüger. He said:
“Go on—into the house. Do not make one move except to walk! And keep your hands where they are.”
Altinger went forward, his hands held at shoulder-level, and passed through the door and into the darkness of the passage. Otto stayed close to him, very close.
They reached the hallway and the white spreading beam of the flashlight. They reached the centre, and were beside the table and the chair in which Clare had been tied. The light spread about them in a circle here.
Otto said: “Stop now. And turn around!”
Altinger halted. He had made no sound since the gun had first been at his back. He kept his hands where they were as he turned. His eyes were bright and shrewd and something like a smile twisted one corner of his mouth. He said:
“So what, young Jorgensen?” His eyes were fixed upon Otto’s eyes.
Otto did not answer then. He reached out his left hand and pulled Altinger’s pistol from its shoulder-holster and threw it to the far dark end of the hallway. He stepped closer to Altinger and felt all over him and found no sign of any other weapon and stood away again. He said:
“I am going to kill you. You remember what I said to you—and what you would have said to me if you could have spoken?”
“Sure,” said Altinger. “I remember.” His eyes flickered a glance at the Lüger.