The Most Dangerous Game by Gavin Lyall

Author:Gavin Lyall
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9781448201686
Publisher: Pan
Published: 1963-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

MY FIRST thought was that I’d been drugged. The second thought was pure reflex: I had an intercontinental size hangover. I must have gone to bed loaded like a musket. The third thought grew on me slowly, starting with the feeling that somebody had been burning old tyres on my tongue. I had been drugged.

I lay there with my eyes shut, listening to my breathing; it was slow and deep. My hands and feet were cold, almost numb. Surely they hadn’t left me lying out in the wild woods for the bears to nibble my toes? All you have to do, Cary, is open your eyes and look. A man in my condition? — you can’t be serious. Let’s just go on lying here.

Heavy breathing and cold hands and feet: that sounded somehow familiar. The old knock drop. You can smell it and taste it a mile off, unless it’s wrapped up in something strong like whisky, and better still if you’re up in Lapland where it’s no surprise when the whisky tastes a bit left handed. The oldest trick in the game. And I’d even asked for whisky. But all you have to do is dig a pit and Bill Cary will come and fall into it — if he can find it.

It was time to open my eyes and damn the consequences. It turned out to be heavy work, all right, and all I had then was a view of a stainless steel light fitting in a dove grey ceiling. So at least I hadn’t been dumped in the woods. Against that, if I was still in the caravan, I was still in captivity.

That woke me. I rolled on my side and lifted myself on an elbow. I was lying wrong-ways in a big double bed, half covered by a red-and-white Regency-striped silk counter pane.

Behind me a voice said: ‘There’s no hurry, Liebchen.’

I said: ‘Who’s hurrying, for Chrissake?’ then looked to see who it was. Ilse was leaning in the doorway with a small automatic in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

I added: ‘And who the hell are you calling Liebchen, come to that?’ and swung my feet on to the floor. Mistake. It started a fit of coughing that nearly squeezed my stomach out through my ears.

‘Cigarette,’ I croaked.

‘If you brought any, you still have them.’

I found a packet of cigarettes I’d slept on and got one lit by holding both hands on the match. Daylight was filtering in through the venetian blinds over the window. When I looked at my watch, it was nearly ten o‘clock. But I’d expected that; if they’d fed me a dose to put me out as fast as I remembered going, it would have taken time to wear off.

Ilse said conversationally: ‘Please don’t try to be clever. I will shoot, and Herr Koenig is in the next room also.’

‘Yes, I love you, too. How about something to drink — and with a little less chloral hydrate in it this time?’

She studied me.

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