The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ says she. “You’re very tired.”

      “Not too tired,” says I. “But I’m damned hot. Come on, Lola, Rosanna, let’s go to bed.”

      “Very well. Come along, then.” I’m sure she said that, and then she turned away, and I followed her out of the din and stuffiness of the banqueting chamber into a corridor; I was weaving pretty recklessly, for I walked into the wall once, but she waited for me, and guided me to a doorway, which she opened.

      “In here,” she said.

      I stumbled past her, and caught the musky sweetness of her perfume; I grabbed at her, and dragged her to me in the darkness. She was soft and thrilling against me, and for a moment her open mouth was under mine; then she slipped away, and I lost my balance and half-fell on to a couch. I called out to her to come back, and heard her say, “A moment; just in a moment,” and then the door shut softly.

      I half-lay on the couch, my head swimming with drink and my mind full of lustful thoughts, and I believe I must have passed into a brief stupor, for suddenly I was aware of dim light in the room, and a soft hand was stroking my cheek.

      “Lola,” says I, like a moon-calf, and then there were arms round my neck and a soft voice murmuring in my ear, but it was not Lola. I blinked at the face before me, and my hands came in contact with bare, plump flesh—any amount of it. My visitor was Baroness Pechman, and she was stark naked.

      I tried to shove her off, but she was too heavy; she clung to me like a leech, murmuring endearments in German, and pushing me back on the couch.

      “Go away, you fat slut,” says I, heaving at her. “Gehen Sie weg, dammit. Don’t want you; want Lola.”

      I might as well have tried to move St Paul’s; she was all over me, trying to kiss me, and succeeding, her fat face against mine. I cursed and struggled, and she giggled idiotically and began clawing at my breeches.

      “No, you don’t,” says I, seizing her wrist, but I was too tipsy to be able to defend myself properly, or else she was strong for all her blubber. She pinned me down, calling me her duckling, of all things, and her chicken, and then before I knew it she had suddenly hauled me upright and had my fine Cherrypicker pants round my knees, and was squirming her fat backside against me.

      “Oh, eine hammelkeule!” she squeaked. “Kolossal!”

      No woman does that to me twice; I’m too susceptible. I seized handfuls of her and began thrusting away. She was not Lola, perhaps, but she was there, and I was still too foxed and too randy to be choosy. I buried my face in the blonde curls at the nape of her neck, and she squealed and plunged in excitement. And I was just settling to work in earnest when there was a rattle at the door handle, the door opened, and suddenly there were men in the room.

      There were three of them; Rudi Starnberg and two civilians in black. Rudi was grinning in delight at the sight of me, caught flagrante seducto, as we classical scholars say, but I knew this was no joke. Drunk as I was, I sensed that here was danger, dreadful danger when I had least expected it. It was in the grim faces of the two with him, hard, tight-lipped fellows who moved like fighters.

      I shoved my fat baroness quickly away, and she went down sprawling flabbily on her stomach. I jumped back, trying to pull up my breeches, but cavalry pants fit like a skin, and the two were on me before I could adjust myself. Each grabbed an arm, and one of them growled in execrable French:

      “Hold still, criminal! You are under arrest!”

      “What the devil for?” I shouted. “Take your hands off me, damn you! What does this mean, Starnberg?”

      “You’re arrested,” says he. “These are police officers.”

      “Police? But, my God, what am I supposed to have done?”

      Starnberg, arms akimbo, glanced at the woman who had climbed to her feet, and was hastening to cover herself with a robe. To my amazement, she was giggling behind her hand; I wondered was she mad or drunk.

      “I don’t know what you call it in English,” says he coolly, “but we have several impolite names for it here. Off you go, Gretchen,” and he jerked a thumb towards the door.

      “In God’s name, that’s not a crime!” I shouted, but seeing him silent and smiling grimly, I struggled for all I was worth. I was sober enough now, and horribly frightened.

      “Let me go!” I yelled. “You must be mad! I demand to see the Gräfin Landsfeld! I demand to see the British Ambassador!”

      “Not without your trousers, surely,” says Rudi.

      “Help!” I roared. “Help! Let me loose! You scoundrels, I’ll make you pay for this!” And I tried in frenzy to break from the grip of the policemen.

      “Ein starker mann,” observed Rudi. “Quiet him.”

      One of my captors shifted quickly behind me, I tried to turn, and a splitting pain shot through the back of my head. The room swam round me, and I felt my knees strike the floor before my senses left me.

      

      I wonder sometimes if any man on earth has come to in a cell more often than I have. It has been happening to me all my life; perhaps I could claim a record. But if I did some American would be sure to beat it at once.

      This awakening was no different from most of the others: two damnable pains, one inside and one outside my skull, a stomachful of nausea, and a dread of what lay ahead. The last was quickly settled, at any rate; just as grey light was beginning to steal through the bars of my window—which I guessed was in a police station, for the cell was decent—a uniformed guard brought me a mug of coffee, and then conducted me along a corridor to a plain, panelled room containing a most official-looking desk, behind which sat a most official-looking man. He was about fifty, with iron grey hair and a curling moustache, and cold eyes flanking a beaky nose. With him, standing at a writing pulpit beside the desk, was a clerk. The guard ushered me in, bleary, unshaven, blood-stained, and in the fiend’s own temper.

      “I demand to be allowed to communicate with my ambassador this instant,” I began, “to protest at the outrageous manner in which—”

      “Be quiet,” says the official. “Sit down.” And he indicated a stool before the desk.

      I wasn’t having this. “Don’t dare to order me about, you cabbage-eating bastard,” says I. “I am a British officer, and unless you wish to have a most serious international incident to answer for, you will—”

      “I will certainly have you whipped and returned to your cell if you do not curb your foul tongue,” says he coldly. “Sit.”

      I was staring, flabbergasted at this, when a cheerful voice behind me said:

      “Better sit down, old fellow; he can do it, you know,” and I wheeled round to find Rudi Starnberg lolling against a table by the door, which had hidden him from me when I came in. He was fresh and jaunty, with his undress cap tilted forward rakishly over one eye, smoking a cheroot in a holder.

      “You!” cried I, and got no further. He shushed me with a gesture and pointed to the stool; at the same time the official rapped smartly on his table, so I decided to sit. My head was aching so much I doubt if I could have stood much longer anyway.

      “This СКАЧАТЬ