Elizabeth went back to the bed and lay down. The chain was more of an enc.u.mbrance than she had antic.i.p.ated. It had left red imprints on her arm.
She ran down her list of great escape stories. The Thinking Machine, in the cla.s.sic tale, had managed to reach a confederate on the outside of the prison via an old disused sewer and an accommodating rat, which he had caught and trained to run down the sewer carrying a message. Elizabeth snorted. To think that once she had admired that author"s ingenuity! He had invented the sewer and put it right where it was needed. She had no such convenience, and if she encountered a rat, nothing on earth could force her to touch it.
The Count of Monte Cristo was of no help whatsoever. Monte Cristo"s fellow prisoner, the old Abbe, had spent twenty years-or some such depressing figure-chiseling through the stone wall, and then had ended up in the wrong place. She didn"t have twenty years-or a spoon that could be sharpened into a chisel-or a stone to sharpen it on.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, imprisoned by his deadly enemy Chauvelin, had been in a situation more a.n.a.logous to hers. Chauvelin, cruel agent of the French Revolution, wanted to recapture the little Dauphin, whom the gallant Pimpernel had freed some weeks earlier. Feigning surrender, the Pimpernel had persuaded Chauvelin that he alone could lead the pursuers to the Dauphin"s hiding place. Once outside the prison, he had made good his escape, though guarded by an entire troop of soldiers.
Elizabeth sighed. It was an ingenious idea, and she might have tried it if she had had the faintest notion what Schmidt wanted. She could hardly offer to lead him to ... whatever it was . . . unless she knew what it was. (Margaret"s bathrobe? Nonsense.) Besides, if Schmidt believed her claim, he might decide to force the information from her. The Scarlet Pimpernel had heroically resisted Chauvelin"s torture for weeks before pretending to succ.u.mb. Not me, Elizabeth thought. One touch of the thumbscrew or the whip, and I"d tell him everything I knew-which is nothing-which could lead to extremely unpleasant consequences if he didn"t believe I knew nothing.
She was glad she had thought about it before she tried it.
In one movie she had seen the hero pretended illness. When his jailer rushed in, in response to his howls of agony, the hero had hit him on the head. . . . That wouldn"t work either. She didn"t even have a beer bottle.
How about bribery? She had no money and no jewelry, but perhaps she could tell Schmidt she would wire for funds. After all, her father was a millionaire-chairman of General Motors . . . and she was a world-famous poet. Schmidt wouldn"t dare keep her prisoner. The whole Danish police department, and Interpol, and the French Foreign Legion were looking for her. A good thing she had studied karate. When he advanced on her, leering from ear to ear, she shouted, "Hi-ya!" and kicked him in the groin. He fell writhing to the floor. The calvalry was coming. She could hear the bugles. . . .
She awoke with a start and a gasp when the key rattled in the lock. The shattering of her dream was so painful that tears welled up in her eyes. She brushed them away with the back of her hand, forgetting that she had meant to play the sniveling female.
Schmidt and Eric appeared, and the original performance of bathroom and tray was repeated. But there was one difference. The opaque window in the bathroom was darker than it had been the first time.
The stew was even worse warmed over. Elizabeth put her spoon down after the first bite. "I can"t live on bread and beer," she protested.
"It won"t be for long," Schmidt said.
This could be an encouraging comment or the exact opposite. Elizabeth decided not to ask what Schmidt meant. In this case ignorance could be bliss.
She ate every crumb of the bread and finished the beer. Beer was very nourishing. Then she smiled at Eric.
"I can"t eat any more. I"m sorry."
For the first time he looked directly at her. His eyes were a soft faded blue and as expressionless as gla.s.s marbles.
"She says she can"t eat that swill," Schmidt shouted. "I don"t blame her. It stinks. Take it away. No more. You hear me? Take it away."
"You"ve hurt his feelings," Elizabeth said. She continued to beam determinedly at Eric, who paid no attention to her, but moved to carry out Schmidt"s orders. When he bent to relock the iron band she got another whiff of the strange pungent odor and wondered what it could be. Neither Eric"s clothes nor his person looked dirty; though his hands bore stains of oil or paint, or some other substance impervious to soap and water, they had obviously been washed quite recently. His fingertips were pink and wrinkled.
"Don"t bother trying to charm him," Schmidt said, as Eric walked out carrying the tray. "He"s slow. If you"re thinking of seducing a jailer, how about me?"
"I"d rather have something to read," Elizabeth said. "You promised you"d look."
It was much easier to sound plaintive and frightened than she had expected-and this frightened her even more. She had read of prisoners who came to identify with and depend on their captors, to such an extent that they sometimes begged to be permitted to join the gang. She had never been able to understand how that could happen. Hate and fear and resentment surely could not metamorphose into affection. Now she wondered. Would long days or weeks of imprisonment have that effect on her?
Her pleading voice pleased Schmidt. "Okay," he said tolerantly. "I"ll have a look."
When he came back he had a handful of magazines and a paperback book. He tossed these at the bed. Several of the magazines fell on the floor, and Schmidt stood waiting until Elizabeth, divining what he wanted, climbed off the bed and knelt to retrieve them. Schmidt did not comment. After watching her with a faint smile he went out and locked the door.
Still kneeling, Elizabeth turned her face to the door and addressed it in a stream of profanity whose richness and inventiveness surprised her. She felt a little foolish swearing at a door, but there was no doubt she felt much better when she was finished. Then she climbed onto the bed and examined her reading material.
It consisted of several magazines, all in Danish. One appeared to be a news magazine. The subject matter of the others eluded her until she came upon a photograph of a big, sn.o.bbish-looking bull. Danish farm journals- that"s what they were. Fascinating reading, even if they had been in English.
Disgustedly she tossed them aside and picked up the paperback book. At least it was in English. The cover depicted a half-naked female cowering before a man standing over her with a whip. The t.i.tle was Dead Drab in a Ditch.
Just the sort of literature she would have expected Schmidt to read. She was tempted to heave it across the room. But, having slept half the day, she was now wide awake. It was Danish cows or American drabs or nothing.
In desperation she returned to the news magazine, hoping it might have pictures. It did; and she amused herself-to use the term loosely-trying to deduce the subject matter of the articles from the ill.u.s.trations. She concluded that the periodical was at least two weeks old. The major news stories concerned matters she had read about before she left the States.
The magazines were additional proof of a fact she had already suspected from the vile food. There was no woman in the house. Schmidt"s sense of humor was direct and unsubtle; he would not deliberately select farm journals and avoid women"s magazines if any of the latter had been available.
The confirmation of what had been only a half-realized premise made her feel very lonely. The female of the species can be as vicious as the male; but if Elizabeth fell ill, or injured herself, she would be dependent on the men for care. It was not a pleasant thought.
She forced herself to think of something else. The magazines suggested another idea. Surely only a farmer would subscribe to journals about cows. Had she been taken clear out of Copenhagen, into the country?
Trailing her chain, she went to the window and pressed her ear against the boards. They were certainly thick, but were they heavy enough to keep out all sound? She heard nothing. Surely the roar of traffic or the sound of a siren or horn would come through.
The exercise reminded her of one sense she had not yet fully employed-her hearing. She tried the door first and was rewarded by a remote ringing sound that she finally identified as the pulsation of her own heartbeat. Then she lay down on the floor and put her ear against the boards.
At first she heard nothing. She was about to get up when she caught a thudding noise, possibly caused by a closing door. The faintest, most distant murmur of voices followed. Elizabeth pressed her head against the wood till her ear ached, but she was unable to make out distinct words.
"d.a.m.n," she said. Trudging back to the bed, clanking like Marley"s ghost, she reached for Dead Drab in a Ditch.
It wasn"t quite as awful as she had expected. But it was pretty bad.
"Mitch Gruber shoved his creaking swivel chair away from his beat-up desk and got the bottle of absinthe out of the bottom drawer. He raised it to his lips. The fiery liquid burned a path clear down to . . ."
"I don"t think that"s possible," Elizabeth muttered. She went on reading.
Mitch was a private eye. She had deduced that right away, because of the bottle of booze in the desk drawer. The inevitable sultry blonde entered on page two. Mitch kissed her pa.s.sionately on page four. On page six somebody shot her through the window-and the guts-and she collapsed in a pool of gore.
Even s.e.x and violence can be boring when carried to excess-as they usually are. By page seventy-six, Elizabeth"s eyelids began to droop. The fourth murder (decapitation) made her yawn. Four pages later she was sound asleep.
For the second time that day the sound of the key in the lock brought her awake. She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Had she been asleep that long? If her theories about time were accurate, the next meal ought to be breakfast. Hopefully it would not consist of another batch of burned stew.
The door opened and Elizabeth saw not Schmidt"s familiar face, but Eric"s not so familiar back. This was enough of a change in routine to awaken her completely and inspire a thrill of alarm, which intensified as Eric backed slowly into the room. He was a large man and the doorway was narrow; he was all the way in the room before Elizabeth understood the reason for his unconventional method of locomotion. He was carrying something-or rather, one end of it. Schmidt followed, carrying the other end. This consisted of a pair of rather large feet and two legs clad in trousers that had once been light brown; they were now thickly coated with mud, dust, and berry stains. Eric"s body concealed the upper portion of this apparition, but Elizabeth would have known the feet anywhere. With a shriek of horror she rolled off the bed, and the chain jangled an atmospherically gothic accompaniment.
AS SOON as he was in the room, Schmidt let go of Christian"s feet, which hit the floor with a crash. Eric lowered his portion of the load less precipitately and stepped out of the way as Elizabeth flung herself upon her fallen rescuer.
He now had two b.u.mps on his head-neat, symmetrical b.u.mps whose contours proclaimed their creator as a fat pink nude G.o.ddess announces, "Rubens!" There did not appear to be anything else wrong with him. He was breathing heavily through his nose, and the frantic hands she ran over his face and body found nothing that should not have been there.
"You rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she said.
"That"s not a nice thing to say," Schmidt remarked. "He went to a lot of trouble to find you."
"I was talking to you."
"I figured you were. Well, sweetheart, so long for now. At least you"ll have somebody to entertain you-if you can wake him up."
"I need water, bandages-"
"Too bad."
A rumble of unintelligible comment from Eric stopped Schmidt on his way to the door. Apparently it was an appeal, for Schmidt said grudgingly, "Oh, all right, get her some water. Hurry up. This is one h.e.l.l of a complication, and I"ve got things to do."
Eric was soon back with a plastic container of water. He and Schmidt departed, leaving Elizabeth free to express her feelings.
She did so with abandon, forgetting her plans for first aid. When Christian opened his eyes she didn"t notice, she was crying so hard. A tear fell straight down onto one of his eyeb.a.l.l.s, and he protested feebly.
"Ouch. That stings."
"I"m sorry."
"Crying isn"t going to help, you know."
He sounded normal-irritated, querulous, critical. Elizabeth sat back on her heels and beamed at him, wiping her eyes with her fingers. Christian sat up. He reached into his pocket and presented her with a large clean white handkerchief.
"Are you all right?" he inquired.
Elizabeth peered at him over the handkerchief. "No, I"m not all right. I"m frightened and confused and mad and-"
"Did they hurt you?"
His tone was more urgent. Mollified, Elizabeth admitted, "No. I"m all right. Christian, how did they catch you?"
"I let them catch me. I practically forced them to. Kidnapping me was not part of their plan."
"You"re talking nonsense."
"Let"s get up off this hard floor." He rose and offered a hand to Elizabeth. She stood up, jangling, and then Christian saw the chain. A wave of angry red darkened his face.
"That filthy b.a.s.t.a.r.d Schmidt-"
"Now, now. Swearing won"t help." Elizabeth looped the chain over her arm. His anger had pleased her enormously. "Come over to the bed. It"s the only place to sit," she added hastily. "Except the floor."
"So I see." Christian"s voice still shook with fury. "And you"ve been in this filthy hole since last night?"
"I don"t even know what time it is." They sat down on the bed side by side, their shoulders touching.
Christian consulted his watch. "Five to one. A little over twenty-four hours. Elizabeth . . . Has it been very bad?"
The moment was fraught with emotion. Elizabeth was tempted to take advantage of the concern in his voice, to cast herself on his manly chest and whimper. She restrained herself. He would have expressed as much outrage if he had found a dog chained in a filthy kennel; and she had already made a sufficient fool of herself, dripping tears all over him.
"Mostly it"s been boring," she said. "For heaven"s sake tell me what has happened."
Christian lay back, his hands under his head. "Excuse me if I recline. I"m p.o.o.ped. Didn"t get any sleep last night."
"Oh, really. What were you doing?"
"Looking for you, of course. I waited five minutes; when you didn"t come back, I went after you. Found the office closed and locked, and not a trace of you. I got Roger and Marie out of bed and we turned the place upside down. How did they get you away so fast?"
"d.a.m.ned if I know. I walked into the office, and bam! that was it." She added, "My b.u.mp matches yours."
"Uh-huh. The little owner of the big trunk. He must be their hit man, or whatever it"s called. The one that does the dirty work."
"He got you too?"
"All in good time," Christian said, still p.r.o.ne. "I figured out, of course, that the receptionist was one of the gang-"
"Are you sure? She may have been forced to call me."
"If you"ll stop interrupting, I"ll tell you how I know. I started with the a.s.sumption that she was one of the bad guys. There were several substantiating facts, such as the peculiar illness that struck the staff of the hotel, and the fact that the former receptionist was the only one who didn"t recover immediately. Besides, Roger swore the place was locked tight. It always is, at ten o"clock, and n.o.body could have broken in without setting off the alarms. So the kidnapper had to be admitted by someone on the inside."
"Not bad," Elizabeth said. She lay down beside Christian. "But there"s one big fallacy in your train of-"
Christian raised his voice and continued, ignoring the objection. "The hardest part was waiting to see whether the wench would come to work the next afternoon- today, that is. I thought she might, even if she was guilty; so I beguiled the intervening hours with a few errands, including the one I thought they wanted me to do."
He rolled an encouraging eye in her direction, and she said obediently, "And what was that, master detective?"
"Publicizing your disappearance. What other reason would they have to s.n.a.t.c.h you except to put pressure on Margaret?"
"Now wait a minute. If they wanted Margaret to surrender herself-or whatever she has that they want- they would have kidnapped you. I"m sure she has only the most amiable feelings toward me, but she"d give in a lot faster if you were the one in danger."
"I think I"ve figured that out," Christian said complacently. "Kidnapping me wasn"t all that easy. Besides being a fairly husky specimen, capable of defending myself against . . . Did you say something?"
"Who, me?"
"Oh. I thought you said . . . Well, aside from that, you stuck to me like a burr, and that presented something of a logistical problem. I don"t know how much manpower they have, but I get the impression that this is a fairly small-scale operation-three or four people, maybe. Why should they risk the complications of trying to nab both of us when they could accomplish the same thing by s.n.a.t.c.hing you? You were much more vulnerable because we didn"t think you were in danger." He stopped suddenly, as if he had been about to say more but had decided not to. Then he resumed, "So I called Grundtvig and persuaded him to do the whole missing-persons bit -announcements, posters, rewards. By this time the word has gone out, and Margaret is bound to hear it. Incidentally, n.o.body turned up at the rendezvous last night. Grundtvig"s man waited till one A.M."
"They were too busy with me," Elizabeth said. "That appointment was a fake."
"Possibly." Christian"s voice lost some of its a.s.surance. "Or maybe something happened to make them change their minds. Will you let me get on with the main theme? I had it neatly organized before you distracted me."
"Sorry."
"Anyway. Blondie was supposed to come on duty at four o"clock. Sure enough, at five minutes to the hour there she was, bright as a b.u.t.ton and innocent as a lamb. She was shocked to hear that you were missing. She said she gave you your letter and you left, with a cheery good-night. She couldn"t imagine what had happened to you. Maybe you had a late date or something."
"That"s exactly what she would say if she was innocent."
"Oh, it was a reasonable story," Christian conceded. "I might have believed it, if I had not known you would never have been stupid enough to stick your nose outside the door of the hotel.
"I did not follow my natural inclination, which was to slap the little liar silly. I pretended to believe her. When she took her dinner break I just happened to be getting in the car, and I offered her a lift. I headed straight for the outskirts of town. The tricky part was keeping her from jumping out when I had to stop for traffic lights and signals, but she was no more anxious for publicity than I was, and she is not a quick thinker; I made sure she stayed rattled until I was ready to stop. When I finally did, I let her have it. No," he added, with a sidelong glance at Elizabeth, "I didn"t lay a hand on her. I just told her I was going to beat her brains out if she didn"t tell me where you were."
"And she did?"
"Of course not. She"s no novice. She knew I wasn"t going to hurt her. No, my scheme was much more effective. I let her pull a gun on me and steal the car."
"Well, aren"t you brilliant! Why didn"t you just persuade her to shoot you?"