Read Online Evil in a Mask by Dennis Wheatley - Free Book Online Page A

still panting from his exertions.
    â€˜When Znamensk fails to return to the castle, someone will come to find out what has delayed him,’ Roger replied quickly. ‘Whoever it is, we ambush him and knock him out. The odds are it will be either Kutzie or the woman. By now the others will have settled down to their supper, then they’ll go to sleep. With luck they won’t learn till morning what has been going on. But Kutzie will come here for certain. He has been ordered by the Baron to spend the night here, keeping us in order with a gun.’
    Semi-darkness had fallen and, listening tensely, they stood veiled by the heavy shadows, two on one side of the barn door and one on the other. The time of waiting seemed interminable, and all of them knew that there was still a big chance that their desperate gamble would not come off. Kutzie might bring one or two of the other men with him for companionship, and they could not hope to take more than one man completely by surprise. All the Baron’s men carried knives and would not hesitate to use them. Three lame men armed only with cudgels stood little chance of winning out in a brawl of that kind. And, if they were overcome, they knew the price they would have to pay. For having killed her husband, it was certain that the lumpy Baroness would have them put todeath, and the odds were that it would be a very painful one.
    It seemed to them a good hour, but not more than fifteen minutes could have elapsed, when they caught the sound of approaching footsteps and whistling. They then knew for certain that it was Kutzie who was coming towards the barn, because his missing teeth gave his whistling a peculiar note. But was he alone? Everything depended on that. And they dared not peer out, for fear that he would glimpse whoever did, and realise that they had come down from the loft, intending to waylay him.
    A beam of light flickered over the earth outside the barn. Next moment, all unsuspecting, Kutzie entered. Under his right arm he carried a shot-gun, from his left hand dangled a lantern. He had no chance even to cry out. The Sergeant’s cudgel descended on his head from one side and the Corporal’s from the other. Although he was wearing a fur cap, the blows felled him. His knees buckled, he dropped his gun and the lantern and fell to the earth, out cold.
    â€˜What’ll we do with the swine?’ asked the Sergeant. ‘I’ve rarely come across so great a bastard. It would be a sin just to kill him where he lies. I’ve a dozen weals still smarting from that knout of his. I vote we let him come to, then thrash him to death.’
    â€˜I’m with you,’ agreed Vitu. ‘But, better still, let’s put his feet on the red-hot stones of the fire until he passes out, then pitch him in and let him burn to death.’
    â€˜No,’ Roger answered sharply. ‘If we did either, his cries would bring his comrades running. Anyhow, we have no time to waste. Though I agree that the brute deserves to die.’
    â€˜I have it!’ Vitu exclaimed. ‘We’ll gag him, strip him, tie his ankles and his hands behind his back, then throw him to the pigs.’
    Fournier laughed. ‘That’s a grand idea. Pigs like human flesh. I know of a child who fell into a sty and they made a meal off the poor brat before anyone realised that he was missing.’ Without more ado, the two N.C.O.s began to tear the unconscious Kutzie’s garments off him.
    Roger was in half a mind to intervene; but he knew thathis two companions would resent any mercy being shown to this Prussian brute who had delighted in flogging all three of them, and he decided that being bitten by pigs until one died from loss of blood would be a less painful death than being left to roast slowly; so he let the N.C.O.s have their way.
    Kutzie, naked, gagged and unable even to murmur, was carried out from the barn and pitched on to a huddle of grunting pigs. It was