One glance was enough to satisfy Gregory that Madame de Swarle was unquestionably the Baroness.
Her dead-black hair was quite straight and cut short, with a fringe making a line across her forehead so that her pale face stood out startlingly from it; and from beneath a pair of level eyebrows her jet-black eyes stared at him with an inscrutable expression. She was small and slim, and to the casual glance she certainly did not appear to be the fifty years that Sir Pellinore had given her. Her figure was perfectly preserved and apart from a faint network of wrinkles at the outer corners of her eyes her face looked like that of a woman of thirty. The only splash of colour was her mouth, which was heavily lipsticked a vivid scarlet. Gregory understood at once why she had such power over men. She had a subtle and peculiar sexual attraction which seemed to exude from the poise of her whole figure and her red mouth. He could not have defined it, but there was something about her— warm, soft, pulsating.
She stared at him across her open dressing-case but she was perfectly self-possessed. There was no trace of fear in her dark eyes at the sight of this masked unknown man who threatened her with a gun.
She remained absolutely still and did not even open her red-lipped mouth to ask him what he wanted, but waited quietly for him to speak first.
He wondered for a second where she could be off to at this time of night, but that did not concern him for the moment. Stepping into the room and closing the door behind him he said in a gruff, low voice:
'Madame is said to have some very nice jewels. I want them. Take off your rings and those pearls, put them in that dressing-case and bring it over here to me.' He knew that any papers that she might have would be in the dressing-case, and it was these that he was after; but he wanted her to believe him to be an ordinary hotel thief.
'And if I refuse?' she said in a low, musical voice.
'Then, Madame, you must take the consequences. I want those jewels and I mean to have them. Also, I do not intend to risk a long term of imprisonment by chancing your giving an alarm while I tie you up and gag you. There is a silencer on this automatic. If you refuse to do as I tell you I shall have to shoot you.'
She raised, her voice and cried with sudden defiance: 'I do refuse!'
Gregory gave her full marks for courage although he felt certain she could not realise how very near death she was at that second. She was gambling upon the fact that few jewel thieves will deliberately commit murder. They may shoot if they are surprised during a theft, in order to escape capture, but not once in a thousand times will they kill purely to secure their loot when they are the masters of a situation.
But he was not a jewel thief and it was his duty to put this dangerous woman out of business just as much as it is a sentry's duty to fire upon an enemy whom he may see creeping towards him across no-man's-land. It was a perfect opportunity to settle the matter once and for all. The silencer on his gun would prevent the shot being heard. Within two minutes he could be back in his bedroom. In ten, abandoning his suitcase and its contents which had no marks by which he could be identified, he could be out of the hotel; and he could take her jewels to provide a motive for the murder. Travel presented no difficulties in these countries which were still at peace and long before her body was discovered he would be over the Belgian frontier. Certain interested parties might guess that the Baroness had not been killed purely for the sake of her jewellery, but they had good reasons for keeping their mouths shut. When he reappeared in Brussels as Erika's butler there would be nothing whatever to connect him with the crime.
He was very tempted to squeeze the trigger of his automatic.
Yet somehow he could not do it. If she had attempted to reach the bell or to grab any weapon that she might have had in her open dressing-case she would have been a dead woman; but she did nothing of the kind; she just stood there staring at him, and the only expression which he could fathom in her eyes was a look of interested curiosity as to whether he meant to shoot or not.
'All right,' he said. 'I'm not shooting for the moment; but I will if you move your lips by as much as a millimetre. Stand back from that case and put your hands up!'
She did as he had ordered and, stepping forward, he slammed down the lid of Mae case, pressed home the locks and picked it up.
Her lips twitched into a sudden smile. 'It is not, then, my rings and my pearls that you are after?'
For a second he debated whether he should continue his bluff and forcibly strip the rings from her fingers or if he should content himself with the suitcase, thereby giving away the fact that he had really come for her papers, and get out as quickly as he could. But in either case she would raise the alarm the moment he had left her suite, so he had somehow to render her incapable of doing that until he was at least clear of the hotel. It occurred to him that the easiest way to do so was to get her into the bathroom, where there was a good supply of large towels. By gripping her throat with one hand he could prevent her screaming until he had pouched his gun; then he could wrap one large towel round her head and tie her up with the others. So he said:
'All in good time. I'll have the rings and the pearls in a minute, but I expect you've got some other trinkets in this case so I'm taking that as well.'
He brandished the gun again. 'Now, you've got it coming to you this time unless you obey me. Quick march! Out of here and along the passage to the bathroom!'
Somewhat to his surprise, she did not again refuse to be intimidated, but walked unhurriedly past the foot of the bed and across the room to the door leading into the passage.
As she opened it Gregory followed her with his gun in one hand and her dressing-case in the other. He was just about to cross the threshold when he heard a faint noise behind him. Swinging round he saw that the door of the sitting-room had opened. In it, covering him with a gun, stood his old enemy, Herr Gruppenfuhrer Grauber.
CHAPTER 14
The Hurricane Breaks
For once Gregory cursed the acuteness of his hearing. If he had not heard that faint creak as Grauber had opened the sitting-room door he would not have swung round. In consequence, he would still have had the Baroness covered had Grauber called on him to put up his hands; which would at least have created a stalemate wherein he could have held her life in pawn for his own. But, in turning, he had had to take his eye off the small, dark figure in front of him. At that moment she had produced a little mother-of-pearl gun from somewhere on her person; so on swinging back to her he found that he was now covered from two directions while his own gun was not pointing at either of his opponents.
'Step back into the room and throw that gun on the bed!' commanded Grauber in his high, piping voice.
Gregory hesitated. Had it not been for the Baroness he would have risked a shot from Grauber's pistol while he took one flying leap down the passage; but she was barring his path. Realising that he was cornered he stepped back into the bedroom, but he did not relinquish his pistol.