Passport To Peril

TRICK THAT FAILED

I stood just inside the window. I thought of closing it behind me but I decided it was smart to leave one possible avenue of escape.

The voices I had heard from outside were speaking Russian. Probably discussing what to do with Hiram, Teensy, and Walter. My knowledge of Russian is strictly limited, but I remembered some of the words from the G.I. handbook and I recognized “spy” and “enemy” and “shooting.”

There was enough light from the hallway for me to cross the room without bumping into the furniture. When I reached the doorway, I realized the voices were coming from somewhere down the corridor, toward the rear of the house, on the same floor. I listened for that warm, low voice that I’d heard for the first time in compartment seven on the Orient Express. I tried to identify the voices of my three friends. But the speakers were Russians, without an accent.

They were the two men who had entered the house. They were doing all the talking.

I remembered Hiram’s voice, the way he’d said, “Run like hell.” There was no place for me to run to. I’d be picked up in five minutes if I tried to get back to Budapest where I had no friends. I even lacked an identity. Hiram had lifted my passport in the name of Jean Stodder, Swiss. He’d told me I was John Stodder, American, again, but the papers were in his pocket.

I put one foot into the hallway, and the floor creaked under me. I thought it loud as a pistol shot, but the voices droned on without a break. I crossed the hallway into the front room on the far side of the house.

There was only the dim light from the hallway. As soon as my eyes became adjusted, I found I was in what Europeans like to call the music room. There was a piano in one of the corners toward the back of the house and an old-fashioned overstuffed sofa in the other. Between the two pieces of furniture there were double doors, undoubtedly leading to the dining room. Light was streaming under them and through a slit in the center where they didn’t quite meet. The voices were in that room and so were Hiram, Teensy, and Walter. I moved right up to the doors and I could see the three Americans sitting together on a sofa at right angles to me. I didn’t see Maria. The Russians were out of my line of vision. They were still doing all the talking.

Had I been able to handle my gun, I could have surprised the Russians without difficulty. There was only one other possibility, to get my gun into the hands of my friends, tricking the Russians into dropping their guard for the moment.

I decided I’d have to draw them into the hallway, at the same time opening the double doors and kicking my gun along the floor to the sofa where one of the three Americans could quickly pick it up. I realized it was a slim chance.

I managed to drop my gun from its holster onto the sofa by bending over and hitting the bottom of the holster with my wrist. I found I could pick up the gun by using both my bandaged hands. I placed it carefully on the rug. I’d shove one of the double doors open with an elbow, then kick the gun with the opposite foot.

There was a large vase on the piano. I picked it up in my arms. I tiptoed to the door into the hallway. The Russians’ voices seemed louder, as if the speakers were about to discard talk for action.

I measured the distance with my eye between the door into the hallway and the double doors into the dining room.

I raised my arms and tossed the heavy vase down the hallway, toward the other door to the dining room. I was a foot from the double doors when the vase landed with a crash that shook the house.

One of the double doors rolled back easily under the pressure from my elbow.

At the same time, I kicked the gun. It slid across the bare, polished floor. It stopped almost at Hiram Carr’s feet.

In a split second, I had ducked under the piano. I expected one of the Russians to investigate the crash in the hallway, the other to fire where my head had been. The double diversion would give Hiram his chance to pick up the gun and use it.

But there was no shot, and I realized the door to the hallway hadn’t opened.

That meant that my trick wasn’t good enough, that the Russians hadn’t left Hiram uncovered long enough for him to seize the gun at his feet.

Then someone moved. I heard his shoes scrape the bare floor and I saw his shadow move ahead of him through the doorway. The shadow moved to where I was crouching.

Then he spoke.

“Get up,” Hiram Carr said. “Get up, John, and join us in the other room.”