Page 84 of The Avenging Angel and the Spy
Trying to suppress the memory of Lazare’s mocking questions, Belle quickened her steps. There was only one way to gain answers and that was to find Sinclair.
Belle had no difficulty locating the correct place. Even without the doorman’s reluctant directions, No. 32 was the only apartment on the lower level erupting with such commotion. Scantily clad women stood about shrieking in the street while an old lady bellowed for the police, a brassy-haired girl weeping against her shoulder.
When Belle saw the two uniformed guards coming, she ducked into the shadows. This was no time to risk being caught up in a raid, or whatever it was, and find herself getting arrested. But what about Sinclair? Was he still inside?
Belle crept round to the back of the place, trying to figure out what was happening. She had just decided there was a fight in progress within, when she was startled. A dark object came crashing through the window, rolled, and came to a halt almost at her feet.
It was a man. The moonlight rimming down past the trees enabled her to make out the dazed features.
“Sinclair?” she gasped.
Stunned, he stared up at her for a moment. “Angel,” he said in a bemused voice. He shook his head as though to clearit, fragments of glass tinkling to the ground. Leaning upon his umbrella, he attempted to rise. Belle put one hand beneath his elbow to assist him.
“Have you seen Paulette?” he asked.
“What!” The question made no sense to her. Sinclair’s forehead was bleeding. She wondered if a blow to his head was making him disoriented. But at the moment she could think of nothing else but getting him away from here.
As he struggled to his feet, his vision seemed to clear somewhat, but Belle found his next remark equally as confusing. He gave a soft grunt, managing a painful smile through his split lip. “The devil seems to be after me. Or at least two of his henchmen.”
Belle heard the sash of another window being thrown up in the building behind them. A mustached soldier was silhouetted in the opening, brandishing a sword.
“There he goes, Giles. The English pig!” the man shouted, beginning to clamber out the window.
“Two new friends of mine,” Sinclair murmured, reeling slightly on his feet. “Giles and Gus.”
“I don’t think you are in any condition to continue the acquaintance!” Belle exclaimed. “Let’s get out of here.”
Tugging on his hand, she started to pull him away from the Palais-Royal. Behind the glittering palace the streets were dark as pitch, only the moon to guide the way, a fact not much in the their favor, despite the concealing blackness. It was too easy to trip and fall over the refuse tossed beside the buildings or lose one’s way in the narrow mazelike passages. Belle saw that she had made a mistake by heading away from the lights and the other people of the Palais¬Royal, except that the police might prove as great a threat as the two heavy-footed soldiers charging behind them.
Belle could easily have outdistanced them, but in Sinclair’s battered condition, he soon drew up, panting, clutching his side. “Go on, Angel. Get out of here. I can hold them off.”
But Belle wanted none of his heroics. “This way,” she said, yanking him beneath the arch into an inner court.
Too late she realized she had drawn them into a trap. Ahead of them loomed a high stone wall surrounding someone’s private garden. The heavy iron gate was barred from the other side, a pair of-black mastiffs snarling at them through the bars. The Argand lamp affixed atop one of the posts only served to light their presence as though they had been caught in a flood of sun.
Belle snatched Sinclair’s umbrella from his grasp and tugged frantically at the handle.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Trying to get out your swordstick.”
Sinclair looked at her blankly. “What swordstick?”
“Why, I always assumed …” Belle’s voice trailed off in the sickened realization that she indeed held in her hands nothing but a common umbrella.
Sweat and blood trickled down Sinclair’s face. He dashed it aside with the back of his hand. “Do it my way, this time, Angel.” He shoved her farther into the shadows of the wall. “It’s me they are after. When you see your chance, get the devil out of here.”
She had no opportunity to argue. One of the soldiers loomed at the entrance of the court, moonlight revealing the murderous snarl on his weasel-like features. Sinclair didn’t wait for him to take the offensive. He charged forward, tackling the man and dragging him to the ground.
The entrance to the court was cleared, but the possibility of flight never entered Belle’s mind. Tossing Sinclair’s umbrella. aside, Belle slipped her hand beneath her cloak and tugged at the jeweled ornament affixed to her bodice, drawing forth a sharp stiletto from the sheath sewn into the gown.
As Sinclair and the soldier locked in a death struggle, the Frenchman screamed, “A moi, Auguste!”
It took the second soldier but a moment to come running to his comrade’s aid. Auguste raced forward, his sword arcing as he prepared to run Sinclair through the back. Belle rushed at the soldier. He heard her approach in time to turn, but not to deflect her blow.
She drove the knife deep into his shoulder. He emitted a shriek of pain, then staggered back, dropping his sword. The other large man now had Sinclair pinned beneath him, his hands going for Sinclair’s throat. Belle snatched up the fallen sword and crept toward the battle, but Auguste with a furious grunt had ripped the knife out of his flesh. He stepped in between her and the struggling men, wrenching the sword from his companion’s scabbard. Auguste approached her with an ugly scowl.
Belle was forced back from Sinclair’s desperate struggle. She tensed as the soldier closed in. He lunged wildly, but she deftly parried the blow, the scrape of steel ringing out into the night.
