Читать книгу The Return of Grey Shadow - George E. Rochester - Страница 5

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There was not a light to be seen anywhere in the shop or in the windows above, but in response to Scotty’s knock there came a shuffling of feet on the other side of the door, and the door opened to disclose an aged and dirty-looking old hag carrying a candle.

“What’s your business at this hour?” snapped the crone, holding the candle so that its yellow illumination shone full on Scotty’s face.

“I come to see my Uncle Johann Litz, who lies ill here,” said Scotty. “He’s expecting me.”

“Is he?” snapped the woman, thrusting forward her seamed and wrinkled face with its wispy grey hair in order to take closer stock of this nocturnal visitor. “He’s said nothing to me about it. You’d better wait there while I tell him.”

She closed the door in Scotty’s face, leaving him to wait whilst she went to report his arrival to Johann Litz, whose real name was Captain Weston, of the British Secret Service.

That she was some old hag whom Weston had got in to minister to his needs whilst he was ill, Scotty didn’t doubt, and as Weston couldn’t have been certain when assistance would reach him in the form of a colleague such as Scotty, he had evidently said nothing to the woman about expecting anyone.

The moments passed, then suddenly the door opened again and the hag reappeared, candle in hand.

“You’re to come with me,” she said.

Scotty followed her into the dark and shadowy interior of the little shop, the atmosphere of which was redolent with the smell of tar and hemp and creosote.

Carefully closing and locking the door, the old woman led the way up a narrow, rickety staircase and into a low-ceilinged, sparsely furnished bed-room where a man, unshaven and haggard, was lying on a low, truckle bed.

An oil-lamp was standing on a little table by the side of the bed, and as Scotty advanced into the room, the invalid raised himself on his elbow and peered at him.

“How are you, uncle?” asked Scotty.

“I’m bad, nephew, bad,” said the other; then to the old woman: “Get out of here. Go downstairs and brew some coffee. And close the door behind you!”

Waiting until the old hag had shuffled from the room and descended the creaking staircase Johann Litz turned to Scotty again.

“I dare do all that may become a man,” he muttered.

“Who dare do more is none,” said Scotty, completing the quotation from Macbeth which Litz had suggested as the password when he had sent his message across the lines into France asking for assistance.

Satisfied that Scotty was the colleague who had been sent to help him, Litz relaxed on the pillow with a smile.

“So you’ve got through safely,” he said. “Good man. It’s been weary waiting here. Who exactly are you?”

“Scott, of the Secret Squadron,” answered the pilot.

The sick man started.

“By Jove, so they’ve sent you, have they?” he ejaculated. “I know you by repute, of course. But take your coat off, and when the old hag’s brought up the coffee we’ll have a talk.”

“Who is she?” demanded Scotty, divesting himself of his overcoat.

“A woman I got in to look after me when I became ill,” said Litz. “She knows nothing about our real activities, of course——”

“Listen!” cut in Scotty sharply.

“What is it?” demanded Litz, as the pilot stood with head inclined in listening attitude.

“I thought I heard someone knocking downstairs,” answered Scotty. “Are you expecting visitors?”

“No, no one at this hour,” said Litz quickly. “I didn’t hear any knocking. It’s probably a shutter banging somewhere.”

Scotty stared at him. The man’s voice was quick and jerky—nervous, almost, Scotty would have said.

“You’re certain you’re unsuspected?” demanded Scotty.

“Yes, quite certain,” answered Litz. “You think I sound a bit nervy, eh? I am. It’s been ghastly lying here wondering when you or someone would reach me. There’s work to be done. Important work. I’m certain the German Grand Fleet is planning a sortie out into the North Sea. We’ve got to get on to that right away. Even now we may be too late. I tell you these Germans are planning something, and here am I, bed-ridden and helpless——”

“What exactly is wrong with you?” interjected Scotty.

Some seventh sense was warning him of danger. Whether or not it was because Litz was talking wildly and at random, he didn’t know, but the feeling was strong upon him that there was something wrong here somewhere.

“What are you suffering from?” he repeated.

“Pneumonia,” answered Litz quickly. “I caught a chill and neglected it, and this is the result. I’ve had a bad time—a rotten time—but now that you’re here to carry on, I won’t worry so much——”

“Be quiet!” rapped Scotty.

Above Litz’s voice he had caught the creak of a floorboard out there on the landing—a creak which seemed to have been caused by some heavy foot which was certainly not that of the woman’s. Turning, he stepped swiftly towards the door. As he did so, Litz’s voice came harsh and rasping from the bed:

“Stay where you are, you hound!”

Scotty whirled, then froze rigid and motionless. For Litz had raised himself on his elbow and was covering him with a heavy automatic.

“Move a muscle and you’re a dead man!” snarled Litz.

“Are you mad?” snapped Scotty.

“No, nor ill, neither!” jeered Litz.

Breaking in on his words, the door of the room crashed violently open, and there on the threshold, drawn revolver in hand, stood a grim-faced German officer and half a dozen grey-clad German soldiers armed with rifles and fixed bayonets.

“Here he is!” cried Litz, flinging back the dirty blankets and swinging his feet to the floor. “Come and take him!”

Scotty’s eyes flickered swiftly round the room. Escape by the door was impossible, and the window was a couple of jumps from where he was standing. Before he could reach it he would either be overpowered or else mercilessly shot down.

But the alternative was arrest and then a firing squad, for the Germans would take thundering good care that this time he didn’t slip through their fingers as he had done in the past.

Even as the thought flashed through his mind, Scotty hurled himself sideways towards the window. Simultaneously Litz’s gun roared into life and something like white-hot metal drove through Scotty’s shoulder with a force which sent him staggering.

Before he could recover, the Germans were on him, crashing with him to the floor, a fighting, struggling, heaving mass.

Wounded as he was and against such overwhelming odds, Scotty could do nothing, and a few moments later, panting and dishevelled, he was jerked roughly to his feet and held in the grip of the soldiers.

“So!” exclaimed the officer, surveying Scotty with the liveliest of satisfaction. “Our little trap has proved successful, yes, in spite of your effort to escape!”

“Yes, and you watch him!” grated Litz. “D’you know who he is? He’s none other than Captain John Scott, of the British Secret Squadron—the dog on whose head there is a reward of one hundred thousand marks!”

“Is that so?” said the officer softly. “Captain John Scott, eh? What a capture! There will be rewards and promotions all round for this, Stendal!”

“So your name’s Stendal, is it?” cut in Scotty, staring at the man who had pretended to be Captain Weston, alias Litz. “You’re a German Secret Service agent, I suppose?”

“You’re right, I am!” admitted Stendal harshly. “I suppose you’re wondering where your precious fellow-countryman Weston, alias Johann Litz, has got to. Well, he’s in the military prison, if you want to know. We caught him four days ago, and set this little trap for gentlemen like you. We examined his code book, and it was we who sent the message across the lines asking for assistance in the name of Johann Litz.”

“Yes, and we’re also sending out false information in the name of Johann Litz,” put in the officer, grinning. “Now that you’ve turned up and been captured, we’ll send it out in your name for a time, then we’ll report that you’ve had an accident or been killed in a dock-side brawl or something, and ask if someone else can be sent. In that way we’ll net another clever Englander spy. Oh, it’s a very simple but very effective trap this, my friend!”

“I’m glad you think so,” said Scotty dryly, his face white with the throbbing agony of his wounded shoulder.

“Think so!” cut in Stendal snarlingly. “Of course it’s an effective trap. Look how you’ve walked into it.” His voice became a sneer. “You—the clever Captain Scott. Why, you fool, you’ve been shadowed from the moment you presented identification papers in the name of Litz at Saarburg railway station. You never dreamt your Johann Litz had been captured, did you? You never thought the message we sent for assistance was a fake? Oh, no, we’ve been a bit too smart for you this time, you dog. Well, take him away, Herr Offizier——”

Abruptly he broke off as there came a sudden fierce crackling and wraiths of pungent smoke curled and drifted in through the open doorway.

“What’s that?” he gasped, dashing to the door.

Next instant he recoiled, choking and coughing, for the rickety staircase which led upwards from the shop below was a raging holocaust of flame.

“The house is on fire!” gasped Stendal, stark terror in his streaming eyes. “The woodwork’s rotten and bone dry—it’ll go up like a furnace. We’ve got to get out of here—we’ve got to get out!”

He blundered desperately towards the window. By this time the fierce crackling of the flames had risen to a hungry, terrifying roar, and the landing and bed-room were thick with dense and suffocating smoke.

It is a true saying that nothing communicates itself so quickly to others as panic, and the panic Stendal was in sent the soldiers rushing pell-mell to the window, the glass and framework of which they frenziedly smashed with the butts of their rifles.

“Steady, you fools!” screamed the officer. “See to the prisoner, curse you! Where is the prisoner?”

All he could see was the struggling soldiery at the window, each man of whom was fighting savagely to escape from that veritable deathtrap.

With one hand pressing his handkerchief over his mouth and nostrils, and with drawn revolver in the other hand, the almost demented man blundered out on to the fiercely burning landing in search of Scotty, who had completely vanished during that first mad rush the soldiers had made for the window.

Was it imagination, the officer asked himself desperately, or did he glimpse a figure wreathed in the roaring, leaping flames at the head of the blazing staircase?

His gun crashed into life, but the figure had gone, and with a choking oath the officer turned and blundered back into the room, reeling towards the window through which Stendal and a couple of the soldiers had already vanished, dropping down through the darkness into the little stone-pathed yard below.

In thinking he had seen a figure wreathed in the leaping flames at the head of the staircase, the officer had been quite correct—and that figure had been Scotty. The young Englishman had had one split instant in which to act when the officer had been swept aside by the soldiers’ rush for the window. Oblivious of the agony of his wounded shoulder, sensing only the opportunity to escape, he had shot through the open doorway and bounded for the head of the blazing staircase.

For an instant he poised himself there, then, bunching himself together and with eyes tight shut, he launched himself forward, hurtling down through the flames to crash sickeningly at the foot of the staircase as the officer’s revolver roared into life above.

How Scotty got to his feet he did not know. He seemed to feel himself jerked up by a powerful hand, then next thing he knew he was staring into the face of the aged crone, who was saying urgently:

“For goodness’ sake pull yourself together, man. You’ve got to run for it!”

“Run for it?” gulped Scotty, still half-dazed. “Run where?”

“Out there!” snapped the crone, thrusting him roughly out into the night. “We’re friends. I’m English. Go with the boy—he’ll lead you to safety!”

Scott was dimly aware that a slim and ragged street urchin had gripped him by the sleeve.

“Quick, m’sieur—across the street!” said the lad breathlessly, tugging at Scotty’s sleeve.

Following the ragged urchin, Scotty dived across the street and down a narrow, high-walled side-turning as inky-black as the pit. The cold night air had served to revive him. Gripping the boy by the arm, he said:

“Who are you and where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to safety, m’sieur,” answered the lad urgently. “Please, hurry, because these Boches will throw a cordon round here as soon as they learn you have escaped!”

Scotty relapsed into silence and hurried grimly on. The narrow, high-walled lane terminated suddenly at a rotting wharf and there stretched in front of Scotty the dark waters of the river.

“Quick, sir, I’ve got a boat here!” exclaimed the lad, darting forward and unfastening a boat’s painter.

He dropped down into the boat, followed by Scotty, and hugging the black shadow of a warehouse, he commenced to scull quietly but expertly downstream.

“Look here, kid, who the dickens are you?” Scotty burst out. “And who’s that old woman?”

The lad laughed.

“I’m not a boy, m’sieur,” he said. “I’m a girl in boy’s clothing. My name is Marie—Marie Leroux. And the old woman is not really a woman. She is Grey Shadow, the British spy!”

Grey Shadow and Marie Leroux!

The startling revelation caused Scotty to stare in dumbfounded astonishment, for Grey Shadow and the French girl Marie were two of the most brilliant spies in the service of the Allies.

Scotty had often heard of them, but he had never met them, for they were as mysterious and elusive as shadows, here to-day and gone to-morrow and invariably playing a lone hand in the very heart of enemy country. And now had come this amazing meeting with them in the blazing shop where he, Scotty, had been trapped by the Germans.

“But how on earth did Grey Shadow come to be on the premises back there, and why did he let me walk slap-bang into such a trap?” demanded Scotty in bewilderment.

“He’ll tell you that himself, m’sieur,” said Marie.

And Grey Shadow did, later that night, when Marie had tied up the boat and led the way through dark and narrow sidestreets to a miserable basement kitchen which was also used as a living-room.

When Scotty followed the girl into the kitchen he saw Grey Shadow, still in his crone’s rags, seated at a rough, wooden table drinking acorn coffee and eating black bread and aniseed cheese.

“So you’ve got here,” said Grey Shadow with a smile; then, with a quick change of tone, he went on: “But you’re hurt. Let me have a look at that wound. Marie, get some hot water.”

And whilst he bathed and bandaged Scotty’s wounded shoulder, he said:

“About a week ago Marie and I were in Konisberg. I received a letter from Weston, whom I knew well. The letter was in code. In it Weston said he was uneasy. He fancied he was being watched, he said, but he was hesitating to let British Headquarters know in case it turned out to be a false alarm. Marie and I came to Hamburg at once, but we were too late. Weston had been secretly arrested and Stendal was installed in the Nordstrasse in his place. I didn’t know Stendal. I had never heard of him. I rather guessed what his game was, but I couldn’t be certain. So I got the job of looking after him.”

“How?” demanded Scotty.

“By becoming friendly with the old hag who was working for him, doctoring her coffee so that she was forced to take to her bed, then turning up at Stendals’ place as her sister,” explained Grey Shadow. “That was two days ago. When you arrived to-night, I admitted you not knowing whether you were German or English or who you were. The moment the soldiers demanded admittance, I knew jolly well you must be English. I crept upstairs after them, heard you arrested, then I soaked the staircase with paraffin and creosote and set it on fire.”

“But why?” demanded Scotty.

“To create—shall we say—a diversion and give you a break,” laughed Grey Shadow. “I knew the whole bunch would make a dash for the window the moment they realised they were trapped—and that meant a chance for you. And you took it on the jump, by Jove!”

“But if I hadn’t I might have been trapped and burned to death!” exclaimed Scotty, staring.

“Not you,” said Grey Shadow confidently. “Even had you been last out of the window, you’d still have escaped the flames. They all got out, every one of them, but if you’d followed them you’d be where Weston is now.”

“In the military prison,” said Scotty sombrely.

“Yes,” nodded Grey Shadow. “He was tried this evening and sentenced to be shot!”

There was a moment of silence. It was broken by Scotty.

“Can’t we save him?” he demanded.

“Marie and I are going to try,” replied Grey Shadow. “Are you with us?”

Scotty thrust out his hand.

“To the end!” he cried.

Grey Shadow’s hand met his in firm clasp and thus was sealed an alliance which was destined to lead along many a dark and perilous path of high adventure.