Dennis Wheatley - Traitors' Gate

Gently but swiftly he broke her hold, and said in a low urgent voice, 'My sweet, we're in trouble again. You must get up at once. That swine Grauber has set his thugs to burn down the house. Quick now!'

As he spoke he pulled back the bedclothes. She gave a little shudder; then doubled up her fists and, like a child, began to rub the sleep from her eyes as she muttered, 'Oh, hell! Aren't we ever to have any peace?'

'Come along!' He took one of her arms and gave her a little shake. 'I tell you the house is on fire. For God's sake start getting yourself dressed.'

Swinging her long legs over the side of the bed, she got to her feet. Magda had left her underclothes laid out all ready for her on a nearby chair. She was fully awake now. Running to it she started to pull on her stockings.

Gregory left her and walked swiftly towards the windows. Both of them were French and led out on to the balcony. One was a little open, and he could now smell smoke coming from it. Opening it wide he stepped out on to the balcony. The moon was up, silvering the spires of the Parliament House across the river, and making the scene almost as bright as day.

As Pipi had said, Grauber's people were attacking the back of the palace. Seventy or eighty feet below, down in the road, near the small car that had been parked there earlier, there was now a big wagon. Grouped about it there were a score or more of figures, and Gregory grimly took in the fact that most of them were in the uniform of the Arrow Cross. Then, after the first quick glance, his attention concentrated on the immediate foreground just below him. Two men had come up the steps cut in the steep slope. They were standing just beyond the Iron Gate, and could easily have forced it, but for some reason they had apparently decided not to break through on to the terrace. One was kneeling beside a square box and evidently fusing the grenades. The other had just taken one from him, and as Gregory watched, pitched it through a ground floor window.

Stepping back into the room, Gregory grabbed the first piece of furniture to hand. It happened to be the stool in front of Sabine's dressing table. Running out on to the balcony again he lifted it high above his head and hurled it down at the two men. Both ducked but one of its legs caught the kneeling man a glancing blow on the head and he toppled backwards. The other was holding another bomb ready to throw. He lobbed it up at Gregory. The bomb missed his head by inches, sailed over his shoulder through the open window, and fell with a dull thud in the room.

Swinging round, he ran towards it, hoping to snatch it up and throw it out again before it could explode. It was not a grenade, but a cylindrical tin canister from one end of which sparks were sizzling. As he dived to grab it, there came a loud 'phut' and from the place where the sparks had been there shot out a jet of thick oily smoke. It was pointing towards him, so the smoke fountained up right into his face. Blinded and choking he staggered back, while Sabine let out a scream and ran to him, fearing that he had been seriously injured.

It was a good minute before he could get his breath and his eyes had ceased to water sufficiently to see again. Meanwhile the bomb had been vomiting forth its pitch and sulphur in a steady stream. For several feet around it there billowed a cloud of such denseness that it was no longer even possible to guess where it lay, and to have dived into the smoke again would have been to invite asphyxiation.

As they backed away still further a second bomb hurtled through the window and rolled under the bed. Gregory dropped to his hands and knees and strove to reach it. But again he was a few seconds too late. Before his groping hand could hit upon it the fuse ignited its contents. A moment later clouds of noisome smoke were coiling up in great spirals from under both sides of the bed and from behind its headboard.

By now the far end of the room was totally obscured. The electric light over the dressing table showed as no more than a faint blur in a pea soup fog. In the centre of the room the smoke billowing out from under the bed hid all but its foot and, fearing that they would be cut off from the door, Gregory pushed Sabine round it. When rushing into the room he had left the door a little open; so a gentle draught from the window was causing the smoke to swirl and eddy inwards after them. With incredible swiftness wisps and fingers of it reached out from the two black central masses, while others now struck downwards from clouds of it that had hit and rolled along the ceiling. The eyes of both of them were smarting, their nostrils teasing and their throats full of acrid fumes. Sabine had had time to put on only her stockings, elastic belt, brassiere and shoes; but it was impossible to remain there longer and Gregory thrust her towards the door.

'My jewels!' she gasped. 'My jewels!'

'Where are they?' he cried.

'In my beauty box. By the dressing table. I must…" A violent fit of coughing cut her short.

She had turned to go back for them, but he caught her by the arm. Although he was again choking and gasping he took a couple of paces forward. Then he halted and stepped back. The whole room was now filled with smoke. A few feet in it was so dense that he could no longer see the bed.

'No good!' he spluttered. 'No… no good. Suffocate in there… for… for certain.' Sabine had already stumbled from the room and was bent double in the corridor. Half blinded again he staggered after her, pulling the door shut behind him' with a bang. Gratefully they drew in the clean air; but it was several minutes before their eyes had stopped oozing tears and they had cleared their lungs sufficiently to breathe freely.

As soon as they were able they set off at a run along the broad corridor. At the stair head they paused, still wheezing and weeping. The upper part of the hall was clear, but below, like mist upon a pond, strata of faint bluish haze were floating. It was coming from the back of the hall and under the stairs, filtering in beneath the doors of the big reception rooms that gave on to the terrace.

'My coat!' exclaimed Sabine. 'Holy Mary be praised! That's safe, anyway!' It was still lying on one of the settees where she had left it after Mario had brought it in from the car for her. They hurried down the stairs and as Gregory helped her into it, he remarked:

'By Jove, it's heavy.'

She nodded. 'Sables always are; but it's not only that. I've got a big flask of brandy in one of the pockets, and there's this.' Patting a bulging zip up pocket in the lining, she went on, 'When I am travelling I always keep my passport and papers in here. There's less risk of losing them than in a handbag.'

Gregory wondered grimly if they would ever now have a chance to use their passports; but his mind was swiftly taken off speculations about the future by the doors of the vestibule being thrust open and Pipi appearing in them clasping the nozzle of the hose. Gregory ran forward to help him and Sabine quickly did up her fur coat to hide her semi nakedness.

Several other servants appeared with coats pulled on over their night clothes. Between them, they ran out the long flat snake of canvas through the hall to the door of the saloon. They were all jabbering in Hungarian but, from their gestures as much as anything, Gregory gathered that a shout from Pipi would be relayed to a man in the courtyard who would turn on the water, and that as it spouted from the nozzle the footman was to throw open the door.

Gregory was a little dubious about the wisdom of opening the door, but a fire might be raging behind it; and, if that were the case, in doing so lay the only hope of saving the palace. In the event, his fears proved justified. The water rushed along inside the hose rounding it out in a matter of seconds, the footman flung open the saloon door,, the jet of water erupted into the room; but, at the same instant, there welled from it a great convoluted cloud of stygian blackness that swiftly enveloped them all.