Flashman And The Tiger

"I’m innocent, gentlemen, I swear it!" I was bleating it softly in the darkness, and time was racing by, and I’d nothing but an empty pistol … but suppose Willem was still picking the lock, or waiting for moon-set, or for his Holnup confederates to arrive, or pausing to relieve himself or have a smoke, or for any other reason you like, and I could just steel myself to sally forth and find him, whispering raucously to identify myself … well, he might wonder what the blazes I was about, but he’d not shoot before asking questions … and I still had the seaman’s knife I’d slipped into my boot on the Orient Express, and he’d be off guard (just as his father had been when I’d parted his hair with the cherry brandy bottle)—he might even turn his back on me … well, it was that or the hangman’s rope, unless they still went in for beheading in Austria.

On that happy thought I put up my empty piece, transferred the knife from my boot to my pocket, and crept as fast as might he down the stairs with my heart against my back teeth. There was the window, pale in the gloom; I slipped over the sill to the ground … and realised I’d no notion where the sundial corner was. I forced myself to envisage the house from above … there was the Emperor’s room, here was I, on t' other side, and there the guard-room by the front porch, so I must make my way cautiously by the back.

There was still faint moonlight, casting shadows from the trees and bushes, and the loom of the house just visible to guide me as I crept along, my fingers brushing the ivy. In my imagination the undergrowth was full of mad Hungarians waiting to leap out and knife me, and once I rose like a startled grouse as an owl hooted only a few yards away. Round one corner, peering cautiously, along the wall towards another—and there was something glittering in the dark off to one side, and I saw that it was the moonlight on a little puddle of rainwater that had collected on what might well be the surface of a sundial. And in that moment, from just beyond the corner I was approaching, came a sound that sent shivers down my spine—a faint clicking noise of metal, and the rustle of someone moving. I tried to whisper, and failed, gulped, and tried again.

"Willem! Are you there? It’s me, Harry!"

Dead silence save for the pounding of my heart, and then the faintest of sounds, a foot scraping the ground, and after what seemed an age, Willem’s whisper:

"Was ist das? Harry, is that you?"

He was still outside! Relief flooded through me—to be followed by a drench of fear at the thought of what I must do. I drew the knife from my pocket, holding it against my thigh, and edged my way round the corner. The ivy was thick on the wall just there, but there was light enough to see a dark opening a couple of yards ahead—the recess of the secret doorway, and just within it the pale outline of a face. I took another step, and the face hissed at me.

"What the hell are you doing here?" In his agitation he lapsed into German. "Stimmt etwas nicht? What’s up, man?"

Where the inspiration came from, God knows. "The Emperor ain’t in bed!" I whispered hoarsely. "He … he got up! His aides made a din, and woke him!"

"Arschloch!" Whether he meant me or Franz-Josef I can’t say, but it was enough to assure me I was right: he was bent on murder, for if he’d been the innocent guardian, why the deuce should he care whether the Emperor was abed or not? The clicking I’d heard must have been his working on the lock … Gad, if he decided to give up for the night, I might not have to risk attacking him … I could pour out my tale to the Emperor in the morning, denouncing Willem, clearing myself … a whirlwind of wild hopes, you see, as I crouched peering at the dim face a yard away, near soiling myself in agitation, and then those hopes were dashed as he spoke again, soft and steady.

"Back inside with you! He’s bound to go back to bed presently—and they may still come! Go on, man, be off, quickly!"