The Corfu Affair - Phillifent John T. - Страница 27

"She started in to activate all this lot against me, you know. That was a near thing. I didn't know she had all of them already primed with her own modules. Of course, the ones I brought were fake, as you know. When the Thrushes had paid up, all nice and willing, and made their choices, I thought it was time to make my play, so I broke loose, went over to the door, drew on them, and started in telling them some home truths. Naturally, she grabbed for her bangle-charms and tried to turn me off. And it didn't work. That's what made her scream, the first time. Then, like a flash, she hit a master switch of some kind, and all these lovely ladies came promptly out of coma and started for me."

"They look—and feel—real enough," Kuryakin murmured, as they stood the last one peacefully upright in her velvet-lined box.

"They are real, so far as the physique is concerned. But just bodies. No minds. Even Adam, there, hasn't a lot of wit. Just enough to do a few routine chores. As you saw, he didn't even have enough sense to lie down when he was clobbered. That was what threw me. I couldn't have shot them down!" Solo straightened up, dusting his hands and recalling that queasy moment. "It was sheer luck that I thought of snapping a shot at that control box of hers. And that, of course, stopped them cold. They just fell over. That's what made her scream again. She's over the edge, Illya. Jumped the tracks!"

"Not," Kuryakin said quietly. "to the extent of forgetting to take the money with her. At least, I don't see it anywhere."

"That's a point!" Solo scanned the room rapidly. "It was in a box, and that's gone too. A million bucks!"

"A nice round figure. Napoleon, you did say there is no other way of getting out of the palace, except from the front?"

"Right. That's why you had to fly in."

"Very well. She has the cash. She won't leave without it, and you can't stuff a million dollars down the front of your dress the way you do in the movies!"

"Especially the dress you don't have on. You are a smart Russian, after all. You step out on to the balcony and flash the yacht. I'll mosey down to the hall and put all the lights on, courtyard and everything. We're going to need help with the bodies in any case, but so long as we make sure she can't hop it, we can take our own time ferreting her out. This place will have to be gone over inch by inch in any case."

CHAPTER TWELVE

KATHERINE WINTER heard this extraordinary dialogue as if in some hideous nightmare. The stricken statue had fallen sideways, pinning her to the wall. Its nude weight felt rubber somehow, not a bit the way she expected a statue to feel. Not marble. It felt alarmingly like a real body. A dead body. She kept quite still, not at all sure whether she would ever be able to move again. Rolling her eyes, she saw Solo hurry out of the door and go trotting busily downstairs. Her bemused brain finally delivered back to her the idea that the other man would be out on the balcony, flashing some kind of signal to that yacht they had mentioned. If she was ever going to get away, this was the moment. She concentrated, sent messages to her arms and legs, took a deep breath, then collapsed again as she heard a rustle and click from the darkness close by.

So near to her left hand that she could have reached out and touched it, the solid-seeming wall slid back to reveal a dark chasm, and then a face peered out. Just one breath earlier, Katherine would have sworn piously that life could hold nothing more terrifying than what had just happened in the past few minutes, but when she saw that face emerge and catch the light, all previous starts and shocks paled into trivia. She stared. She wanted to scream but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and her throat dried into sand. If she had not already been leaning against the wall, she would have folded up on the floor.

It was Madame, the Countess Louise. And yet not. The flawless lovely features were the same, but those lovely lips were drawn back over gleaming teeth in a smile so evil and sinister that Katherine's blood ran like ice. And the eyes glittered with a light that had nothing of sanity in it at all. Deep in its throat the beautiful evil vision laughed, and it was an insane chuckle that Katherine was to remember all the days of her life, a cackle of complete insanity. The rolling, peering eyes swept the gloom, lingered for a terrifying moment on the shadows where Katherine trembled, then moved on. The head emerged further, followed by the classically perfect body, the dim light spilling over the naked curves. For some odd reason, the very perfection of that figure made the whole business seem even more horrible to the petrified watcher. She saw Louise pad away like a pale cat in the gloom, and she knew there was more evil yet to come.

She sagged back against the wall and tried to put her scrambled ideas into some sort of order. Solo, for instance, now seemed to be on the good side again, and she found a moment to be glad of that. But what had the bad ones been up to? What had Solo meant by making the bodies come alive? Surely—and chills chased themselves up and down her spine as the thought shaped itself in her mind—surely he didn't mean these statues? Could they really be made alive?

Katherine shivered, and peered with wide eyes as large men came tramping up the stairs and went back down again carrying bodies. Then she saw a slim fair-haired man in brief blue swimming trunks come out of the door. He had a leather harness that held a gun and a torch. One of the other men spoke to him.

"Is it all right if we dump these in the hall downstairs, Illya? Doc Harvey wants to take a look at them before we haul them out to the yacht."

"She came ashore with you?"

"Downstairs right now, waiting."

"Women! I told her to stay put until everything was clear. We have enough trouble on our hands as it is. I'll go down and talk to her. We have to remember that the Countess is still loose, and dangerous."

The little knot of men moved to the top of the stairs. The one named Illya paused to look down and call out.

"Napoleon, what about the cook-housekeeper? We haven't seen anything of her, and she must have heard the racket."

"Kate? I don't know about her, Illya. She went off to bed right after dinner. She has her own room over in the West Tower. It's possible she never heard a thing. Louise reckoned to keep her nighttime cocoa laced with sleepy-bye powder. But you can't believe that. She may be one of the zombies, for all I know. Either way, she won't bother us any."

"Maybe not, but she could be in danger. What if Louise grabs her as some kind of hostage...?"

The voices dwindled as the men went away down and round a corner, leaving Katherine on her own. She was in a new quandary. She heaved the leaning statue away from her, then herself away from the wall, and stood on very shaky legs, trying to decide what to do next. Where to go?—with that crazy woman roaming about, and all those tough looking men with guns! And bodies!

From somewhere came a last flicker of curiosity, sparking her to steal as far as that door and peer inside. It was quiet now, but the smell of gunsmoke was strong. She dared herself to go in, and to gape at the silent array of lovely, lifeless bodies. These were not statues. She knew that at once, by some instinct. They were real creatures, and very beautiful. She went on further, into the small room next door. It told her very little. It was full of stuff that looked like radio sets and signaling equipment. And it went nowhere. She wandered back into the main room, wondering why U.N.C.L.E. should be so interested in all this. What had Madame done?