At the foot of the first flight she stopped to listen again. Footsteps tapped busily on parquet. She looked down and saw Sister Ingrid going into the major’s study. She waited until the door had closed behind the squat figure before going on again.
By the time she reached the hall beads of sweat were running down her backbone. The major’s door was still shut, but peering around the angle of the wall she could see the uniformed man asleep at the receptionist’s desk. The front door was less than fifty feet away. It was bolted top and bottom and there was a heavy lock of cylinder pattern at breast-height. Even if she got past the watchdog safely it was going to be quite a trick to get the door open without noise.
She took off her shoes and stuffed one into each pocket of her ski-pants. The short stretch of parquet suddenly looked like a limitless sea. She took a deep breath and ran for it.
Her hand was on the top bolt, forcing it back, when a voice snapped, “Leaving us?”
She whipped around, flattening against the door in a useless posture of defense.
Garbridge was standing, Luger in hand, in the door way of his study. Beside him Sister Ingrid smiled benevolently.
Garbridge was not smiling. His face, grown haggard during the strain of the past hours, was set in an ugly scowl.
“Get her over here,” he shouted at the uniformed man, who had stumbled to his feet and was standing apprehensively by his overturned chair. “Hurry up, you dolt. Do you think this is a dormitory?”
The man, still not properly awake, shambled across to Karen, grabbed her by the upper arms and pushed her toward the couple in the doorway.
Garbridge had been drinking; Karen could smell the fumes of whisky. The hand that held the Luger was not quite steady. The amber eyes had lost their cold, hard brightness.
He said thickly, “You never give up, do you? Well, you’ve asked for it, and by God, you’re going to get it. I’m taking no more chances.”
He looked at the watchman and jerked his head. “Take her down.”
Sister Ingrid said in her little-girl voice, “Til fodselsstuen?”
“Where else?”
He turned and went into the study, slamming the door behind him.
Sister Ingrid trotted happily toward the elevator gate. She stood there with her finger on the button, beckoning with the other plump hand for the uniformed man to hurry.
As the elevator door glided open Karen kicked backward viciously, trying to knock the guard’s legs from under him. He slipped, but regained his balance quickly. He shifted his grip, forced her arm up and back in a hammer-lock, and almost threw her into the cage of the elevator. Sister Ingrid crooned, “Quietly, quietly, elskede! We are going to enjoy ourselves, you and I.”
The lift whined downward, came to a stop at the basement level. The door slid open and Sister Ingrid ran ahead, fumbling at the châtelaine hanging from her belt for the key of the “labor room”. She was murmuring to herself delightedly as she turned the lock.
The man pushed Karen into the room, still holding her firmly. He asked, “Where do you want her?”
“On the operating table, if you please. That’s right. That’s right. Now, the straps…”
She began to pull the buckles tightly. Thin lines of saliva had begun to dribble from the corners of her tiny rosebud mouth.
The guard’s face had turned to the color of old dough. He said shakily, “Do I have to stay?”
“No, no. That would never do. We must be quite alone. Mother’s little baby has been naughty, and she must be corrected, you see.”
The blue eyes behind the steel-bowed spectacles were quite, quite mad.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE VOLVO DECREASED speed. Viggo said, “We’re coming into Horsens now. Keep a sharp lookout for the side road.”
“In this blizzard,” Illya grumbled, “we’ll be lucky if we manage to hit the town.” There were now almost four inches of snow on the highway and flakes large as kroner pieces were beating onto the windshield, almost obscuring vision.
The steady piping of the homing signal weakened. Solo said, “We’re off-beam. We’ve missed the turn somehow. We’ll have to go back.”
Viggo swung the car in a U-turn, risking the chance of another vehicle on the road. The signal grew stronger again and after a minute Solo cried, “There!”
They turned down the side road. Illya rolled the window down and peered out, his eyes slitted against the snow-filled wind which slashed his face like a knife. A big sign ahead shone white in the headlights. He said, “Stop the car. This is it.”
Viggo braked, killed the engine and switched off the headlights. The men got out stiffly, cramped after the long, cold run.
The gates to the drive were locked. Using his flashlight, Illya found a porter’s bell set into one of the pillars. “Shall I ring it?” he asked. “Maybe they’ll think we’re expectant mommas.”
“Leave it alone,” Solo said. “We’ll go in over the wall.”
“After you!” Illya bowed jauntily, then bent and made a step with his linked hands.
Solo caught the top of the wall, pulled himself up and dropped noiselessly to the ground on the other side. The others followed him, one by one. He whispered, “Get right onto the drive. The lawn is probably trip-wired.” Not a light showed as they walked up to the house.
The place might have been empty. But the bleep of the transmitter, now muffled inside Solo’s coat, was still distinct.
They circled to the back of the building. There, too, all was in darkness. Solo found what looked as if it ought to have been the door to the kitchen quarters. He inserted a slim plastic tube into the lock and lit the end with his pocket lighter. There was a momentary, brilliant flash and a smell of burning metal. He pressed gently and the door opened.
His torch beam danced around the room, coming to rest briefly on an electric range, a refrigerator and a white wood table. Another door was let into the farther wall. A thin thread of light showed beneath it.
“Wait,” Solo whispered to the others. Taking great care to avoid the table and other obstacles, he crossed the room and listened at the door. There was no sound. He turned the handle. The door let out into a short passage where white jackets hung on hooks. Beyond the passage he could see the entrance to an elevator, and beyond that a section of hall where a gaily decorated Christmas tree towered beside a desk.
He winked the flashlight three times, and the other three joined him.
“All clear, so far,” he said. “Now the trick is to find where everybody’s hiding.”
He drew the Luger from its place under his left arm and slipped the safety catch.
They had gone only a few steps along the passage when the whine of the elevator stopped them in their tracks. They flattened against the wall.
The elevator door opened. A man in uniform stepped out. His face was paper-white. He walked unsteadily toward a big bowl of flowers standing on a side table. He wrenched the flowers out of the bowl and threw them onto the parquet. Then he put his head over the bowl and was thoroughly, enthusiastically sick.
The jolt of Knud’s twin gun barrels in his kidneys brought him upright abruptly. Knud said softly in Danish, “Make one sound and I’ll blow your back out. Over here, friend, quickly.” He prodded the man toward the passage.
Solo said, “Take him into the kitchen.”
He followed them, pushing the door shut behind him. “Now, talk,” he said, keeping the flashlight beam full on the man’s frightened face. “Where’s Garbridge?”
Knud translated, and the man gasped, “In his study, off the hall.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, sir.”
Solo said, “Viggo, go and take care of him. Don’t kill him unless you have to.” Then to the man,“ How many of you are there?”