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Page 47
Roaring "Give it to me!" he rushed at me like some frenzied beast of the
jungle. The veins stood out at his temples, his hairy nostrils opened
and closed as his breath came faster, his long arms shot out and his
great paws clutched at my throat.
But I was waiting for him. As he came at me, I heard his clubfoot stump
once on the polished floor, then, from the radiator behind me, I raised
high in my arms the heavy marble slab, and with every ounce of strength
in my body brought it crashing down on his head.
He fell like a log, the blood oozing sluggishly from his head on to the
parquet. I stopped an instant, snatched the cigar-case from the pocket
where he had placed it, extracted the document and fled from the room.
CHAPTER XI
MISS MARY PRENDERGAST RISKS HER REPUTATION
The rooms of our suite were intercommunicating so that you could pass
from one to the other without going into the corridor at all. Schmalz
had retired this way, going from my room through the bathroom to his own
room. In the excitement of the moment I forgot all about this, else I
should not have omitted such an elementary precaution as slipping the
bolt of the door communicating between my room and the bathroom.
As I stepped out into the corridor, with the crash of that heavy body
still ringing in my ears, I thought I caught the sound of a light step
in the bathroom; the next moment I heard a door open and then a loud
exclamation of horror in the room I had just left.
The corridor was dim and deserted. The place seemed uninhabited. No
boots stood outside the rooms, and open doors, one after the other, were
sufficient indication that the apartments they led to were untenanted.
I didn't pause to reason or to plan. On hearing that long drawn out cry
of horror, I dashed blindly down the corridor at top speed, followed it
round to the right and then, catching sight of a small staircase, rushed
up it three steps at a time. As I reached the top I heard a loud cry
somewhere on the floor below. Then a door banged, there was the sound of
running feet and ... silence.
I found myself on the next floor in a corridor similar to the one I had
just left. Like it, it was desolate and dimly lit. Like it, it showed
room after room silent and empty. Agitated as I was, the contrast with
the bright and busy vestibule and the throng of uniformed servants below
was so marked that it struck me with convincing force. Even the hotels,
it seemed, were part and parcel of the great German publicity bluff
which I had noted in my reading of the German papers at Rotterdam.
I had no plan in my head, only a wild desire to put as much distance as
possible between me and that ape-man in the room below. So, after
pausing a moment to listen and draw breath, I started off again.
Suddenly a door down the corridor, not ten paces away from me, opened
and a woman came out. I stopped dead in my headlong course, but it was
too late and I found myself confronting her.
She was young and very beautiful with masses of thick brown hair
clustering round a very white forehead. She was in evening dress, all
in white, with an ermine wrap.
Even as I looked at her I knew her and she knew me.
"Monica," I whispered.
"Why! Desmond!" she said.
A regular hubbub echoed from below. Voices were crying out, doors were
banging, there was the sound of feet.
The girl was speaking, saying in her low and pleasant voice phrases that
were vague to me about her surprise, her delight at seeing me. But I did
not listen to her. I was straining my ears towards that volume of
chaotic noises which came swelling up from below.
"Monica!" I interrupted swiftly, "have you any place to hide me? This
place is dangerous for me.... I must get away. If you can't save me,
don't stay here but get away yourself as fast as you can. They're after
me and if they catch you with me it will be bad for you!"
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