The crowd moved back as Tregor collected his chips with the help of several casino employees and headed toward the cashier. I noticed that at least twelve secret agents from various foreign governments, all of whom I recognized, were trailing him. Tregor wouldn’t, he couldn’t, go anywhere without those agents right behind him. The world’s governments had made it difficult for him to slip out of town easily.
I considered all modes of transportation in and out of Monte Carlo. There were only three roads that led out of the town, and they could be easily watched. The town officials kept all boats in the harbor under constant surveillance, and they had the fastest boat in the Mediterranean. No one could leave by air because there is no level stretch of ground in Monte Carlo long enough to make an airfield. These factors would prevent Tregor from eluding the agents who were trailing him to find out where he was taking the money he had won. It wasn’t necessary for me to follow.
I was interested in the director and the croupier, who were now dismantling the roulette wheel — a common practice at the close of play when the house has suffered such enormous losses. The wheel would be carried to the casino basement where all the casino’s wheels, which are made of rosewood, are manufactured. Each wheel, I knew, was balanced to an exactitude of one thousandth of an inch and moved on jewels as precisely as a watch.
But a wheel could be fixed. That’s why I wanted a closer look at this particular one and why I followed the director and the croupier when they went through a nearby door. As I watched them disappear through the doorway, I instructed Elsa to go back to the hotel and to wait for me there.
It was dark on the stairs that led to the basement, but there was a light below. I’d gotten halfway down the stairs when the door above me slammed shut. At the same moment a blinding light snapped on. Then I heard a shrill scream. Turning quickly, I saw that Elsa, contrary to my instructions, had followed me. A man, probably the one who had slammed the door, had her in a tight grip and was pointing a gun at me.
I turned back toward the basement to see the casino director and the croupier climbing the stairs toward me. Both carried guns, and the croupier also carried a length of pipe in one hand. When the two men had reached the step below me, the director whipped off his dark glasses. His eyes were glazed as if he were hypnotized or drugged. “Take care of him,” he ordered. The croupier raised the iron pipe, and everything went black.
Consciousness returned slowly, and even when I was able to see and hear again, it was as if I were viewing my surroundings from a distance and through a hazy filter. My body and limbs felt heavy and sluggish. Although rough hands were shoving me, I hardly felt a thing. Gradually I recognized die symptoms of my lethargic condition. I had been heavily drugged while I had been unconscious. It must have been one of the powerful depressants that work on the central nervous system.
I was fighting hard to overcome the effect of the drugs, but even though I was in excellent physical shape, I was only partially succeeding. I could see all that was going on around me but could not move. The croupier and the director had placed me behind the steering wheel in the front seat of a car. I saw Elsa, drugged and unconscious, sprawled in the seat beside me, and there were men leaning inside both opened doors. The motor of the Mercedes was racing, but the car wasn’t moving.
Then I noticed that one of the men was adjusting something around the floorboards under my feet. Soon he slid out of the car, and I heard him say, “Okay, she’s ready to take off.”
The car doors were slammed shut. The engine was still racing. My drugged brain couldn’t determine die meaning of what was happening. Dimly, as if I were in the midst of a fog, I saw a hand reach in through the open window next to me and put the Mercedes in gear. The car shot forward.
Then I realized that Elsa and I had been placed in the Mercedes with the accelerator pressed to the floorboards. We were now streaking along the dark, deserted roads of Monaco at over a hundred miles an hour. At that accelerated speed, the Mercedes would crash before we had gone too far, and we’d both be killed. When our bodies were found, it would look like we had died in an accident after an overdose of drugs. There would be no indication of murder.
Desperately I tried to gain control of my body.
So far, we had been lucky and the car had stayed at the center of the road. But up ahead there would be hills and curves, and unless I could begin steering the car, we’d go off the side of the road soon. I tried to raise my hands, but they felt like heavy weights. I tried again. Both hands rose ponderously, — faltered, dropped, and rose again slowly. I could see the dark landscape sweeping past in a blinding blur from the car window. Sweat was pouring from my body from the effort of lifting my hands a few inches to the steering wheel. Then I saw a sharp curve ahead. I could see my fingers closed around the steering wheel, but I couldn’t feel the wheel under them. Somehow I managed to turn it a few degrees to the right just as the car went into the S-curve. It was enough to keep us on the road. The car whipped around the curve at break-neck speed and catapulted over the top of a steep incline.
The road continued to climb. From the car window I saw that we were on the precipice of a cliff that fell almost straight down from the edge of the pavement to the sea. The car crested on the top of the precipice and then careened along the steep angle toward the road like a metal projectile shot from a cannon. The tires shrieked against the pavement. Still dulled by the drugs, I tried to concentrate on our one chance of survivaclass="underline" somehow I had to keep the car upright and on the road until it finally ran out of gas.
There seemed no end to the nightmare that followed. Mile after mile the Mercedes roared past darkened villas and cottages, up and down the winding, twisting roads of the Cote d’Azur. Monaco was far behind us. We sped along the corniches, the highways linking Monaco to Nice and then through Nice itself, silent and shuttered for the night.
The highway beyond Nice ran level with the sea — wet and slick and dangerous. The rear of the Mercedes slipped from one side to the other. If we skidded, we would land in the sea. But the Mercedes streaked on through Antibes. Finally, somewhere between Antibes and Cannes, it began to lose speed, and in another mile or so it was barely rolling. With a tremendous effort I twisted the steering wheel, and the car lunged to the side of the road and stopped. The engine went dead. Elsa, still on the seat next to me, hadn’t stirred once.
Nine
The sun was streaming into my eyes. I groaned and sat up, nibbing the back of my neck. The Mercedes was still by the side of the road. The first thing I saw was Elsa putting on her makeup. Then I saw a crowd of children outside the window on Elsa’s side pressed close to the glass, staring at her with wide eyes as she powdered her nose. She looked great — as if she had just awakened from a refreshing sleep. Trucks and cars were whizzing past on the highway, and I saw that most of the passengers inside them were craning their necks to get a better look at us.
Elsa noticed that I was sitting up, put her com-pact and lipstick away, and smiled.
“Did we have fun last night?” she asked brightly.
I didn’t know how much she knew or remembered of the previous evening when we had been roughed up on the basement stairs of the casino. The whole night had been a nightmare to me, but I had to give the Von Alder women credit for one thing — they were resilient.
“Come on,” I said as I leaned past her to open the door on her side. She climbed out of the car, and I followed. “We’ve got to get back to Monte Carlo. This car is out of gas.”