Traitors' Gate gs-7

by Dennis Wheatley

  'True, but the charge is only a civil one; surely your regulations enable you to release me against security for' my appearance?'

  'Yes; normally I could do so.'

  Gregory tried to still the beating of his heart as his hopes rose. 'Then why should you not? Fortunately I have a considerable amount of money on me in fact a very large sum, as I was too late to pay it into the bank today. I will willingly deposit the bulk of it with you as a recognizance.'

  The Hungarian's face broke into a smile. 'You mean that, having made provision in advance against a probable fine, you would not turn up?'

  'The sum would cover a fine and there would be a very handsome balance which could go to your police orphanage,' Gregory smiled back, in good hope now that his scheme for bribing the Captain to let him go was about to come off.

  But the Hungarian shook his head. 'No. It can't be done. Ordinarily there would have been no difficulty about what you suggest; but you seem to have forgotten that the Germans believe you to be a spy.'

  'That is the whole point,' Gregory countered. 'If I had nothing to fear from appearing in court tomorrow, I'd be a fool to offer several thousand pengoes to save myself a night in a cell; but my life may depend on my becoming a free man again tonight.'

  'I realize that; but I cannot help it.'

  On seeing his one chance slipping Gregory began to plead desperately. 'But you can! You can! I am not charged with spying. You have only to go by the letter of the law and treat me as though I were an ordinary stranger in Budapest who had created a row in a nightclub. If it hadn't been for the Gruppenführer you wouldn't hold me. To do so is to associate yourself with his frightful error and, perhaps, bring about my death.'

  'Not necessarily. You still have a way out.'

  'Way out? If you've thought of one for God's sake tell me of it.'

  'To come clean with the magistrate, as you have done with me.'

  'But if I admit to having fought as one of the Free French I shall be counted an enemy and interned.'

  'Well, that is not much to worry about compared to being carried off by the Gestapo.'

  'That may be my fate just the same, unless I appeal to Vichy to substantiate my identity.'

  'Then you must do so.'

  'Admittedly that would knock the bottom out of the Germans' case, but Vichy in their turn would at once apply for my extradition.'

  'Why should they bother. If you were interned here you could do them no further harm.'

  Gregory had been aware of this weakness in the wholly academic argument he was putting up; but, short of saying that he was wanted for murder by the Vichy police which it could be assumed would at once alienate the Hungarian's sympathy from him he could see no way of making it appear that should he call on Vichy he would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. All he could do was to adopt a middle course, and say:

  'As I have already told you, I am listed by Vichy as a traitor. You may be sure they would not be content to leave me here; and if I am sent back, God knows what will become of me. Some of these Petainists are as bad as the Germans, and they delight in the chance to revenge themselves on officers who have shown them up to be cowards.'

  'All the same, they won't torture you, as the Germans would.'

  'No, but they might shoot me.'

  'I see no reason why they should; unless you have done something to deserve it.'

  'You do not know these Vichy traitors as I do. They stick at nothing to curry favour with the Germans.'

  The Hungarian shook his head sadly. 'It is an evil day for any country when such things can happen in it. But it looks as if you must take your chance with Vichy as the only way of keeping out of the clutches of the Gruppenführer.'

  'Either way the most terrible ordeals await me,' Gregory replied with great earnestness. 'Yet you have it in your power to save me from them. You alone can play the part of a good angel. God would reward you for it. One word from you the signing of a paper…'

  'No!' The Captain held up his hand to check the flow of pleading. 'It is useless for you to go on. I'm sorry for you, but I have to think of myself. I've a wife and two youngsters. I'd be only too willing to let you go if you could produce any concrete proof that you were not this English spy, Sallust. But as things are, I daren't risk it. I've already earned the animosity of that Gruppenführer, and he is too powerful a bird to be just laughed off. If I fail to produce you in court tomorrow he will create hell with my own Chiefs, and what possible excuse could I give. I'd be out of a job, or, at the very least, suffer a reduction in rank.'

  "Gregory saw now that his endeavours had been in vain. He could only nod gloomily, as the Captain went on: 'We've spent quite enough time in talking, and I have work to do. Come along now, and we'll put you in a cell for the night.'

  As they left the waiting room, Gregory caught sight of himself in a small mirror. Up till that moment he had been so desperately concerned with trying to save himself that he had paid little regard to his physical condition and none to his appearance. Now he saw that the hair oil from the half full bottle that Cochefert had broken over his head had wrought havoc with his collar, shirt and jacket, and he became newly conscious of its oily stickiness; so he asked if he might wash.

  His request was granted. He was taken to a washroom where he succeeded in getting most of the surplus oil out of his hair and off his face and neck, but about his clothes nothing could be done short of sending them to a cleaners.

  He was then taken to a cell and locked in. Only a dim blue pilot light was burning in it; but that was sufficient to show him that it was clean and reasonably comfortable. It contained an iron bed with three coarse blankets, a chamber pot, a chair and a small table. On the table there had considerately been placed a mug of steaming coffee. Having sipped it he found it to be ersatz stuff, probably made from acorns, but he was none the less grateful and, sitting down on the bed, he slowly drank it while reviewing his situation.

  Whichever way he looked at it he could see no ray of comfort. From a modern police station of this kind there could be no escape, and there was no reason at all to suppose that a chance to do so would occur when the routine drill was followed next morning of taking him from it in a black Maria to the court.

  Once there, he would not have a leg to stand on. He hoped that the injury he had inflicted on Cochefert was proving extremely painful, but it could not have rendered him inarticulate. If the Frenchman had not already made a statement to the police, he would certainly do so next day. His statement would include irrefutable proof that Gregory was not Tavenier, and also disclose that he had passed himself off as Lt.Colonel Einholtz of the S.D. If anything could add to Grauber's vindictive rage it would be that he had posed as this favourite disciple in frightfulness of whose services he had deprived the Gestapo for good and all.

  The outcome must be that by afternoon he would be in a train under heavy guard on his way to Germany, to await the Gruppenführer s grim pleasure. It seemed that only one eventuality might prevent this namely Grauber's failure to appear in court. Yet there was not the least reason to suppose that he would fail to do so.

  There had been other occasions when Gregory had fallen into Grauber's clutches and been equally despondent about ever getting out of them. He had done so because, although the Gruppenführer was brave enough in other ways, he was terrified of high explosives. Once an air raid alarm had scared him into abandoning his prisoner, and another time, when they were both in a submarine, depth charges had panicked him into abandoning ship prematurely. But Budapest was hundreds of miles outside the range of Allied aircraft, and there was not the remotest possibility that bombs, shells, showers of grenades or any other form of big bang was likely to keep Grauber cowering in a cellar next morning.

  Taking off his still sticky jacket, collar and tie, and shoes, Gregory spread out the blankets and lay down on the bed. As the bottle of hair oil had struck him neither on the temple nor the base of the skull, but a little to one side of the top of his h
ead, it had caused him no serious injury. His head still ached but now only slightly, and not sufficiently to prevent his continuing to think coherently without undue effort, although there was no longer any desperate necessity for him to do so.

  He began to wonder about Sabine, and if she had learned that he had fallen foul of a Gestapo man, or knew only that he had been run in for participating in a brawl. In any case, his arrest was tough luck on her, because his efforts, during their long day together, to restrain her from wrecking his mission had succeeded only through their appeal to her emotions. There had been setbacks from time to time, but by evening she was clearly thinking of him again as a lover whose presence filled her with ardent desire; and when they had been together for those few minutes in her bedroom, she had made it plain that she was longing for the night of passion that she then believed lay before her.

  She was going to be bitterly disappointed and so, for that matter, was he; although the loss of a night's pleasure to her was a microscopic infliction compared with what he had to expect from the cause of their enforced separation. With Grauber's threats in the forefront of his mind he was too much of a realist to take any comfort from the thought that the Gruppenführer had preserved his moral rectitude by forcing him to remain faithful to Erika. She, he knew, would have preferred that he should sleep with a dozen other women rather than that he should pass one night at the mercy of Grauber.

  For some time he thought of her with that deep, abiding warmth of affection which is the essence of real love. Then his thoughts turned again to Sabine. He hoped that she was not going to become involved in his disaster, and thought it unlikely that she would be. It was not as though they had been carrying on a long intrigue, as it was barely twenty-four hours since they had recognized one another at the Piccadilly. Her association with Ribbentrop would protect her from any prolonged cross-questioning about him; and if the worst came to the worst she could always explain having spent the day with him by saying that she had known all the time that he was an Englishman, and had decided to do a little counterespionage work herself by trying to get out of him what he was up to in Budapest.

  About Count Laszlo, Colonel Janos and the others he felt there was much more cause for worry. Fortunately, his reply to Grauber about the people he had met while in Budapest had been only a slight exaggeration of the truth. In the past fortnight he had made many new acquaintances; so investigation of his activities would pinpoint the conspirators. Since the formation of the Committee he had, too, constantly impressed on its members the necessity for secrecy, and they had taken serious notice of his warnings. But there remained the danger to them from that first conference at the Nobles Club to which Count Zapolya had indiscreetly invited such a large number of his friends. It must have been through either someone who had been present at that meeting, or one of the Club servants, that Grauber had got wind of the affair, and if the former then that person, having witnessed the election of the Committee, might also give away the names of its’ members.

  As there was no way in which Gregory could send them a warning, he could only hope that when Count Laszlo called at Sabine's as arranged, at nine o'clock next morning, on hearing of his arrest he would take fright, then swiftly warn the others, so that they could all go into hiding until the danger was past. But that they would do so on the bare information that he had been pulled in on account of a row in a nightclub seemed unlikely, and by the time they learned more of the matter it might be too late.

  Gregory was still speculating on the point when he heard a jingle of keys out in the corridor, the door of his cell was unlocked, and the warder signed to him to get up.

  With an inward groan he obeyed. After Grauber's departure he had thought himself safe at least until after he had been taken before a magistrate, but only about an hour had elapsed since he had been brought to the station. There could be only one reason for rousing him up while the night was still young. Grauber must have gone straight to some higher authority and had now returned with an authorization to collect him. He might have known that his old enemy was not the man tamely to accept defeat, or let the grass grow under his feet in rectifying a temporary setback. At the thought of what he might now have to suffer before morning, Gregory's hands grew damp his mouth dry, and as he followed the warder down the corridor his feet seemed as though made of lead.

  To his utter astonishment and boundless relief, as he stepped through the door of the waiting room he saw that beside the Police Captain stood, not Grauber, but Sabine.

  The chunky faced Captain looked from him to her and asked, 'Baroness, do you definitely identify this man as Commandant Etienne Tavenier?'

  'I do,' she replied with a smile at Gregory.

  The Captain smiled at him too, and said, 'My friend, your luck is in after all. This lady with whom you went to the Arizona has taken steps to secure your release. Please sign this declaration that nothing has been taken from you while in custody, and you are free to go.'

  Almost in a daze, Gregory signed the paper, thanked the Captain, and followed Sabine out to the main office. A policeman politely opened the front door of the station for them and they stepped from the bright light into semidarkness, nearly colliding with another officer who was about to enter. He stood aside then turned to stare after them for a moment before going in. Sabine's Mercedes was standing at the curb in the narrow street, and as Gregory sank into the seat beside her he let out a great sigh of thankfulness.

  Before driving off she lit a cigarette, then turned to him and said, 'You are looking terribly groggy, darling. Did you get badly hurt?'

  'No,' he murmured. 'No. I'll be all right in a minute. I was hit over the head with a bottle of hair oil; but I've got a thick enough skull to stand much worse things than that. I was unconscious for only a few minutes, and I've hardly a trace of a headache left. If I look queer it is from the pleasantest shock I've ever had. You can have no idea what you have saved me from. I'll be in your debt till my dying day.'

  As she slipped in the clutch and the car moved off, she replied, 'I was right, then, in my surmise that you were arrested as a spy, and not just taken up, as they said at the Arizona, for getting mixed up in some silly fight.'

  'Yes and no. I haven't been spying here. I told you the truth about that. And I was only charged with a breach of the peace. But I had the accursed ill luck to run into one of the top boys of the Gestapo who knows me to be an Englishman.

  In the morning, when I was taken to court, he meant to charge me with espionage and secure my extradition to Germany.'

  'Thank God I got you out then! Tomorrow morning would have been too late, and I wouldn't have been able to.'

  I marvel that they let me go tonight. The Captain was a decent chap; he protected me from the Germans and kept an open mind. But he knew they believed me to be an English agent named Sallust; so it really is surprising that he should have released me simply because you said that you knew me as Commandant Tavenier.'

  'He didn't; and I don't suppose for a moment that he would have in the ordinary way. He was only verifying that I was satisfied that you were the person referred to in the paper I had brought.'

  'What paper?'

  Sabine laughed. 'I told you this morning that I could get most things I wanted done for me in any of the Government Departments because, like it or not, they have to play along with the Germans. When I heard you had been run in, as the Ministry of Justice was closed I went to the house of Erdelyi, the Minister. He wasn't too pleased at being dragged from a game of bridge; but I told him what had happened, declared that it was not your fault because, being a foreigner, you had misunderstood some remark that was passed about me, and that I was determined you should not spend a night in jug through acting as my champion; so he must give me an order for your release. As a further inducement to make him play, I added that we were expecting Ribb to join us for supper and he would be terribly annoyed if you weren't there, as it was his last chance to see you before returning to Germany. Of course, I'v
e known old Butyi Erdelyi for years, and there was no reason for him to suspect that there might be more behind your being detained than just a fist fight; so he wrote me out a note to take to the Police Station.'

  'Bless you, my dear.' Gregory laid a hand on her knee. 'But I'm afraid you may get into bad trouble for having done this.'

  'Why should I? No one can prove that I knew all the time that you were an Englishman. I gave the impression of being just a spoilt young woman who was furious because she had been deprived of the man who was taking her out to dinner, and meant to make trouble in high places if he was not restored to her. There is nothing criminal about that.'

  'No; I suppose not. All the same I…" The car had turned out of the Zrinyi Utcza and was heading for the Swing Bridge. Gregory broke off to ask quickly, 'Where are you taking me?'

  'Home, of course,' Sabine replied lightly.

  'You mustn't!' he exclaimed. 'Please stop here so that I can get out.'

  'What! And leave you to go off on your own in that state! Is it likely?'

  'All right. But don't cross the river yet. Turn along the Corso and pull up under the trees. If we don't handle this thing carefully we will both land in the soup. We simply must talk things over before you commit yourself any further.'

  With evident reluctance, she did as he suggested. Meanwhile his thoughts were running swiftly. 'She has been marvellous. What a fool I was ever to think that she might hand me over to the police. It looks as if she has managed to keep herself in the clear, and for me to involve her now would be the height of ingratitude. I must leave her, and the sooner the better. That Jewish furrier, Leon Levianski, said he would hide me if I was hard pressed. Best thing I can do is to take advantage of his sporting offer, anyhow for the night.'

  As Sabine pulled the car up, he took her hand, kissed it and said, 'Listen, my sweet. I hate to say it, and more than ever after what you've done for me; but this is goodbye. I'm red-hot now. Or anyway I will be once the Germans hear that I'm a free man again. You'll have quite enough to answer for tomorrow, without having me still on your hands. This day with you has been wonderful, but it has to end like Cinderella's at the ball. My fairy trappings as Commandant Etienne Tavenier are already falling in rags about me, so I've got to run out on you.'