The Furies by Irving McCabe

to her mouth.
    â€˜I’m a surgeon,’ Gabriel said as he approached the bed.
    The aide lifted his head to look at Gabriel. ‘Thank God you’re here…I can’t hear any breathing,’ he said, his voice filled with panic as Gabriel reached past him to feel for the carotid artery in the duchess’s neck. Gabriel tried his fingers in several different positions, but he couldn’t find a pulse and when he lifted her closed eyelids he saw the already-glazed, dilated pupils. Gabriel felt strangely calm now; the shock of finding blood in the car had already passed and his surgical instincts had taken over.
    â€˜I’m afraid she’s dead,’ Gabriel quietly said to the young man. The woman pressing on the duchess’s abdomen sat back on the bed and let out a low moan, then began to sob uncontrollably. Another aide – Gabriel hadn’t noticed her at first – was kneeling on the far side of the bed and she now began to pray and weep at the same time.
    The young man pointed at an archway across the room. ‘The Archduke’s through there,’ he said. ‘You must try to save him.’
    Gabriel hurried through the archway and found that it led into a separate annexe, a small dressing area off the main bedroom. In the middle of the annexe was an ornately embroidered red-and-gold Ottoman couch. And lying on his back on the couch, with his eyes closed as if asleep, his hands resting on his lap, his gold-buttoned blue tunic heavily stained with blood, was the Archduke.
    Standing above him was General Potiorek, his face a mask of disbelief as he looked down at the wounded man. Kneeling on the floor beside the couch was Colonel Harrach, his clean-shaven cheeks splashed with blood. Standing next to Potiorek was another of the Archduke’s aides, a frantic look in the man’s eyes as he waved a small pocket-knife in the air.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Gabriel heard the aide say to Potiorek, ‘but the buttons are only for decoration: the Archduke always insists on being sewn into his tunic.’
    Potiorek and Harrach both looked up at Gabriel as he entered the annexe. ‘Captain Bayer – thank God you’re here,’ Harrach said as Gabriel knelt beside him.
    â€˜Please, good doctor, can you save him?’ Potiorek said, the pitch of his voice raised in desperation as Gabriel took hold of the Archduke’s wrist. ‘He must not die…’
    Gabriel could feel a fast, slender pulse at the wrist bone. ‘He’s still alive…just,’ he said, looking up at Potiorek, ‘but he’s lost a lot of blood.’ He turned to Harrach. ‘Where’s he been shot?’ he asked.
    â€˜In the chest, I think,’ said Harrach, just as the chief appeared in the archway behind, breathing heavily.
    â€˜Good God!’ the chief exclaimed.
    Gabriel looked up at him. ‘He’s still alive but bleeding badly.’
    The chief knelt beside Gabriel as they tried to find the bullet entry hole. Gabriel could see a large gash had been made across the left side of the Archduke’s tunic; unsuccessful attempts by the aide to cut the jacket open, he presumed. But the right side of the tunic was more blood-stained and there was a small hole in the right side of the collar…
    â€˜There,’ Gabriel said, pointing to the rent in the collar.
    The chief reached across and lifted the collar: and immediately a small fountain of blood gushed from a hole at the base of the Archduke’s neck; Potiorek gasped at the sight. The chief quickly pushed the collar back into place: at the pressure of his hand the Archduke’s eyes flickered open, then closed again.
    Gabriel looked up at the aide. ‘Give me the knife, quick,’ he ordered. As he took the penknife he turned to Harrach. ‘Get him on his side. I’ll cut the jacket open at the back.’
    While the chief kept his fingers on the neck wound, Harrach and the aide