Dennis Wheatley - Mayhem in Greece

For the next two hours, in fits and starts, he read a few pages of his book then, each time realizing that he had not taken in a word of what he had been reading, he turned back and went over most of the passage again. By half-past-seven the light began to fail; so he put the book in his pocket and, knowing that if Stephanie had succeeded with her part of the plan she should soon be bringing Barak to the house, he began to listen intently.

About ten minutes later he caught the sound of a car approaching, and it pulled up not very far away. Then came footsteps. But they puzzled him, for it sounded as though more than two pairs of feet, and one of them a woman's, were crunching the rubble. Anxiously, he peered through the spy-hole he had made. He suppressed a gasp of dismay and his heart began to hammer heavily. Stephanie was leading, but there were two men behind her. Barak must have brought one of his thugs to help him exact vengeance on the man who had ruined his looks.

The party of three went on into the house. Robbie sat down again and endeavoured to rally his wits to cope with this unforeseen complication. Stephanie must have received the same shock as he had, on finding that Barak had brought one of his men with him; but, having met him, she had evidently found herself unable to think of any excuse for not taking them both to Robbie's hideout. According to plan, having led Barak there, she should now come out of the house leaving him behind. But his companion would remain with him. If, later, they left together, Robbie could have no possible hope of knocking out both of them. Even if Barak came out alone, leaving his underling to remain on watch, Robbie would not be able to sandbag him without the other man hearing the scuffling on the rubble and appearing on the scene to find out what was going on.

Clearly the whole plan had broken down. The only thing to do now was to wait till Stephanie came out, follow her to the car and go off with her to some place where they could talk over the situation, devise some new plan to trap Barak or, if that seemed beyond them, agree to abandon their idea of forcing him to disclose his secret.

Anxiously, Robbie waited for the sound of Stephanie's light footfalls as she walked from the house; but they did not come. After a while he decided that Barak must be keeping her there, to ensure that she should not give way to a last-minute change of heart and waylay Robbie to warn him that she had betrayed him. They had envisaged such a possibility but had agreed that

Stephanie's being with Barak when Robbie knocked him out would have no adverse effect on their plan. The only thing Stephanie had stipulated was that she should not be present afterwards for, although she had not an atom of love left for her husband, she was still averse to standing by and watching while he was maltreated.

For over an hour, that seemed like an eternity, Robbie sat behind the low wall, straining his ears. Darkness had fallen and, being so near the house, he could see tiny chinks of light round the edges of the black-out curtains in the upper room. Now and again a low, indistinct murmur, which he knew must be muffled voices, came to him, but that gave no indication of what was going on up there. He had been due to return at eight, and a glance at the luminous dial of his wrist-watch showed him that it was a quarter to nine. Barak, he felt, must by now be becoming impatient.

Ten minutes later, he had evidence of it. The murmur coming from above suddenly became louder and faintly there came to him what sounded like cries of protest. There was a brief interval of silence, then the sounds of a scuffle, followed by a wail of pain. The blood drained from Robbie's face. Those sounds could mean only that, on his failure to appear, Barak had become suspicious that Stephanie had deliberately misled him, and was now trying to drag out of her the truth about where Robbie might be found.

The thought of the extent to which their plan to trap Barak had now miscarried appalled him. Standing up, be stared with agonized gaze at the blacked-out windows. His imagination ran riot as he visualized the scene now taking place behind them, Stephanie bound and with the end of a lighted cigarette pressed against her skin, or her arm being twisted to near-breaking point behind her back, or Barak's fingers clutching her throat, so that she could get her breath only in gasps at intervals when the pressure was relaxed.

But what could he do? To dash into the house and attempt to rescue her from two armed men would be hopeless. He would be riddled with bullets before he could even strike a blow. In desperation, he looked about him. He could run to the road and back along the quarter of a mile of deserted sea-wall to the harbour, then up into the town until he met a policeman. But when he did, would one policeman be willing to return with him, and go into the house, knowing that there were two men in it who, rather than allow themselves to be arrested, might shoot him?

Robbie's glance suddenly came to rest on lights sixty yards away. They were those of the car at the end of the track. As twilight had been falling when Stephanie drove up, she had switched them on before leaving the car. He had not driven a car since he had taken the Ford Zephyr into Pirgos, but he knew that most cars were much alike; so he should be able to get this one started and drive it to the police station. The explanations he would have to give there would necessitate his giving himself up but, in the circumstances, he felt that was a small price to pay for help.

He started off towards the car. Before he had taken two paces that muffled, agonized wail came again. The sound brought him to a halt. He had no idea where the police station was. Even if he met with no hitch in starting the car, a quarter of an hour or more must elapse while he enquired the whereabouts of the station, then found it. To rush in, shouting that a woman was being tortured, would not be enough. He would have to give particulars, perhaps to some slow-witted junior who might insist on taking them down, then repeat them to someone higher up before any action was taken. Even after that further time would be needed for the return journey. Given the best of luck, it would be twenty-five minutes before he could bring a squad of police to the house, and it might well be forty.

Meantime, what would be happening to Stephanie? In jthe space of half an hour, she could be made to suffer terribly. Far worse, having wrung all he could out of her, Barak might kill her. He had failed when he pushed her over the precipice, but here there was no one per cent chance of her possible survival should he decide to rid himself of her for good, and no attempt could be made to stop him. In a matter of minutes, he could strangle her and, with the help of his man, in a further ten carry out her body and bury it under a pile of rubble. If Robbie went for the police, it could easily be ail over by the time he came back with them; Stephanie dead: her body hidden, Barak and his thug gone and only Robbie's word for it that they had ever been there.

Driven frantic with fear that Stephanie might be murdered before he could get help, he decided to go in. Whatever Stephanie had said to Barak, he would hardly ignore the possibility that Robbie might return to the house. Therefore it seemed certain that, while he held her prisoner upstairs, he would have left his companion downstairs; so that he could hold up Robbie the moment he entered the front door. If that were so, Robbie felt that he had at least a sporting chance, because he could enter the house from the side where the wall had collapsed. With luck, he might take the man on guard by surprise, overcome him and get his weapon. Then the odds between Barak and himself would be even.

Quickly, but as quietly as possible, Robbie moved round to the side of the house. He was armed only with the plaster-filled sock and, while that would be as good a weapon as any for knocking out an unsuspecting man from behind, he might have to tackle his opponent from the front. Fortunately, amongst the rubble of the kitchen wall, there were a number of pieces of broken wood. He knew roughly where they lay and the star-light was now sufficient for him to find them without difficulty. Hastily he rummaged amongst them, discarded two or three, and chose a tapering piece about three feet long, with a thick end, that would make a good club.