Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 by Wheatley Dennis

Author:Wheatley, Dennis [Wheatley, Dennis]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-04-05T13:57:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVIII - THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

On the evening of Tuesday, 30th of June, De Richleau found himself back in Vienna. That was not due to any determined last moment effort on his part to keep his promise to Ilona. He was certainly in no condition to have made the journey by himself, and had he shown any intention of attempting it the hospital authorities would have forcibly restrained him. The fact was that he had suddenly become a person of great interest to the Austrian Government. It had not been remotely suggested that he was under arrest but, all the same, his own wishes were not even consulted. They required his presence in Vienna urgently. Several telegrams about him had sped back and forth between Vienna and Sarajevo on the Monday; and, when it was reported that he was in no danger of death, an order sent that he should be brought to the capital with minimum delay and maximum precautions against worsening his condition. A military ambulance car had been attached to the train, his doctor and nurse had accompanied him, and he was now installed in one of the best rooms of a private nursing home that overlooked the Prater.

After his collapse, following the double assassination, he had become delirious and continued so for a good part of Sunday evening. Only by inference and the somewhat garbled statements of the nurse and doctor had he since been able to get some idea of what he had said in his ravings; but it had certainly been far more than he ever would have, had he remained in control of his faculties.

Later that night, during a lucid interval, he had found Franz Ferdinand’s A.D.C., Count Harrach, at his bedside. The Count was still overwrought himself, and could hardly restrain his tears as he gave a rather disjointed account of the day’s terrible events.

The assassin was a nineteen year old student named Gavrilo Prinzip. The two shots he had fired had hit the Archduke in the neck and Sophie von Hohenberg in the stomach. Although the shots had been fired at only three yards range, for a moment no one had realized that either of them had been hit; but after murmuring a few words to one another they had fallen forward in a faint. Neither had recovered consciousness and in less than a quarter of an hour both of them were dead.

The man who had thrown the bomb was a young printer named Nedjedliko Cabrinovitch. He had been caught and taken off to Police Headquarters. On learning of his arrest the Archduke had exclaimed cynically, “Hang him as quickly as possible, or Vienna will give him a decoration.”

At the Town Hall an address of welcome had been read. Not unnaturally, Franz Ferdinand had replied to it with some terseness. Rumours, then untraceable owing to the excitement of the moment, were running round that other attempts would be made on his life. Alarmed by the total lack of

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