He left her standing there looking up at him in wonder or pity, and then turning the stairhead went on down the upper corridor. There were nurses conversing here, and a patient or two, so Renwick went slowly until he reached his room. But once within the door he acted with speed and resolution. First he turned the key in the lock and softly shot the bolt, then crossed the room quickly, his heart beating rapidly. He was not strong and his nerves already were warning him, but they did not fail him. He peered out of the window upon the terrace. It was not yet dark and there was a nurse below standing beside a man in a wheel chair. He could not go now for they would see him and surely give the alarm, and so he waited, going back to the door and listening for the sound of approaching male footsteps. As yet no sound. He peered down upon the head of the luckless nurse, mutely imprecating. The moments were precious. Would they never go in? It was past the hour for loitering on the terrace. For a moment the idiotic notion came to him to go out into the corridor and call the attention of the nurse in charge of the floor to the infraction of rules, but he turned again to the window. The nurse was moving now, slowly pushing the wheel chair toward the door. It was barely a hundred feet away, but to Renwick it seemed an eternity before the pair vanished within. Then taking off his slippers he put them in the pocket of his wrapper, and rolling it into a bundle, dropped it noiselessly upon the terrace below. His nerves quivered as he sat astride the window-sill but he set his jaw and lowered himself from the window, catching the iron gutter-pipe with bare fingers and toes. The spout seemed to creak horribly, and for a moment he thought that it was swaying outward with him. But the sensation was born of his own weakness. The pipe held and slowly he descended, reaching the ground, his knuckles bruised and torn, but so far, safe.
He paused for a moment to slip into his wrapper and then crossed the terrace quietly, reached the lawn and the shelter of the bushes below.
CHAPTER XIX
DISGUISE
Long ago he had planned the direction in which he should go when the time came for him to escape. And so without pausing to look behind him he hurried down the hill in the shelter of the hedge until he reached its end. A hundred yards away was a hillock. By going forward in a line which he had already marked he would have the partial protection of rocks and bushes. He paused just a moment to be sure that no one was coming after him. All was as before and the dark group of buildings, his home for nearly two months, loomed in silent dignity behind him. But Renwick knew that it would not be long before the whole countryside would be buzzing like a hornet's nest. In his enfeebled condition, he could hardly hope to cope with his pursuers in the matter of speed and so as he went on across the stream at the base of the hill, he tried to plan something that would outwit them. The nearest outlying houses of the town were but a few hundred yards distant, but instead of taking the road down the hill, he turned sharply to his left after crossing the road and entered the Moslem cemetery, laid according to the custom in a cypress grove. He now moved slowly and leaning against the bole of a tree regained his breath while he listened for the expected sounds of pursuit. The cemetery seemed to be deserted, but he decided to take no chances, so he found a tree with thick foliage, and climbed from one bough to another until he found a crotch of a limb where he disposed himself as comfortably as possible to wait until the pursuit had passed him by.
His pulses were still pounding furiously from the sudden effort of muscles long unused, and his nerves were tingling strangely, but he clung to his perch until the period of weakness passed and then planned what he had better do. Inside of an hour every policeman in Sarajevo would be warned by Herr Windt to look out for a man with a beard, wearing a sleeping suit and a blue woolen wrapper. The obvious thing therefore was to avoid Sarajevo or else find a means to change his costume. But if he begged, borrowed, or stole an outfit of native clothing—what then? Where should he turn? He had no money, for that, of course, had been taken by the ruffians who had carried his body into the woods and stripped him of his clothing. To all intents and purposes he had been born again—had come into the world anew, naked save for the unsightly flapping things in which he was wrapped. His English clothes were at the inn in the Bistrick quarter where he had left them, but to seek them now meant immediate capture. And if he wore English clothes in the streets of a town full of men in uniform he would be as conspicuous as though in sleeping suit and wrapper. A native costume was the thing—and a fez which would hide the plaster on his head. But how to get it? He heard voices, and two men passed below him weaving in and out among the trees; he blessed the inspiration which had bidden him climb. He would have known Windt. He was not one of them. They were men from the hospital, out of breath with running, and the phrases they exchanged gave Renwick comforting notion that they were already wearily impressed with the hopelessness of their task. A while they waited, and then he saw them go out on the further side of the copse as though glad to be well away from so melancholy a spot. Indeed the gray turban-carved tombstones were eloquent to Renwick and a newly made grave not far away was unpleasantly suggestive of the fate that had so nearly been his. It was starlight now, but dark, and the owls were already hooting mournfully as though the souls of those who lay in the sod beneath had come again to visit by night their last resting places. It was not the most cheerful spot for a man who had just come out of a bout with death, and Renwick had no mind to stay there. So when the men who had been searching for him had gone their ways, he clambered stiffly down. He lingered by the newly made grave, obsessed by the rather morbid notion of digging up the estimable Moslem who reposed there and exchanging his own hospital wrapper for the much to be desired native costume, but desperate as was his need the idea was too unpleasant. He would rob, if necessary, but not the dead.
As he wandered among the trees in the direction of the nearest lights, he felt a pair of scissors in the pocket of his wrapper—Fräulein Roth's. His fingers closed upon them now. A weapon? Better than that. A plan had come to him which he proceeded immediately to put into practice. Taking off his wrapper he seated himself upon a tombstone and began cutting it into pieces, shaping a short sleeveless jacket. He cut the sleeves of the wrapper lengthwise and made a turban.
Its skirt made him a belt with something left over. He puzzled for awhile over the remnant of cloth left to him, thinking of his legs, but at last discarded it as useless, and hid it among the bushes. Then, laboriously, he trimmed his mustache and beard. It was low work without light or mirror, but he persevered until to the touch of his fingers the merest bristle remained, a stubble such as a man would have who had gone a few days without shaving. Then, satisfied that under cover of the darkness he might pass in a crowd of people unnoticed, he slipped the scissors into the coat of his sleeping suit and sallied forth.
At least he was rid of the flowing robe which would have made of him a marked man. Fortunately the night was hot and sultry, and so far he suffered no inconveniences, but he knew that this disguise was only a makeshift and that by fair means or foul, he must come into the possession of some sort of costume in which he could face the light of day. In the road, he passed a farmer returning from the bazaar, and the careless greeting of the man reassured him. A polyglot costume surely—but this was a city of polyglots. The disguise would do—at least for this night. But the appearance of Windt had seriously alarmed him. It meant, if he was taken, that he would surely be interned, or worse, perhaps that he might be accused of complicity in the murder of Szarvas, Windt's own man. In the back of his head a plan had been forming, which meant if not active help in escaping from the city, at least a short refuge from pursuit, and perhaps something more. He meant to go to the house where Marishka had been—and speak to the girl, Yeva. It was the only hope he had of a clew to Marishka's whereabouts—the only hope of help in this city of enemies. He was quite sure that he would not be a welcome visitor, for it was the old ruffian in the turban, of course, who had taken the clothing from Renwick's body and left him for dead upon the hillside. The theory in the hospital had been that those who had carried Renwick into the woods had intended burying the bodies—for a spade had been found later near the place—but that the murderers had been frightened away before being able to carry out their plan. And lacking information upon the subject, Renwick had come to the same conclusion. He might not be welcome at the house of the blue door, but he knew the old man's secret and decided to risk danger by playing the game with an open hand.