'Say I agree, what will you do?' she asked quickly.
'I think I told you that I had one contact here, a Jewish merchant. He offered to conceal me for a bit if I got into trouble, and could reach his place without being followed. There should be no difficulty about my doing that. Fortunately I've plenty of money on me. I'll get him to buy me some peasant clothes, and leave the city on foot after dark tomorrow.'
'You seem to forget that you can't speak Hungarian.'
'Yes; that is a snag. Still, lots of the better class country people speak German.'
'True, but they speak Hungarian as well, and you don't. You will come under suspicion in the first village you stop at for the night.'
'Then I'll have to sleep in haystacks until the hue and cry dies down. After a few days it should be safe for me to board a train going towards the frontier.'
'What about a passport? You can't use the one you've got.'
'No; I'll have to leave the train before it reaches the border, and get across in some lonely spot at night.'
'Darling, it's no good!' she cried in desperate protest. 'You'll never make it! Living like a vagabond, yet without a word of Hungarian and no passport to produce if you're questioned, you are bound to run into trouble. Long before you reach the frontier you'll find yourself in some village lockup. It is certain that a description of you will be issued to all police stations. Someone will recognize you from it. Then you'll be hauled back to Budapest and handed over to the Germans.'
'That is taking the blackest view. I have been in worse spots before. I'll manage somehow.'
'But why inflict such hardship on yourself and take such a prolonged risk when there is an easy and quick way out?'
'If you know one, tell me of it.'
'It's quite simple. I planned it while on my way to the police station. I have an Italian chauffeur who is fairly near your age and colouring. He has been with me ever since I married Kelemen, and I am sure he will let me have his passport. You can dress up in his uniform and we'll make an early start on Sunday morning just as if I was setting off for Berlin three days earlier than I originally intended. We'll have ample time to reach a town on the Yugoslav frontier before nightfall, and you can drive me straight over it. Once you are safe you can put off the chauffeur's uniform and we can spend a little honeymoon together. Then… well, then I'll recross the frontier on my own at a different place and drive straight to Berlin.'
'Oh, my sweet!' he kissed her hand again. 'It is terribly gallant of you, and terribly tempting. It is a perfect plan, too; but I simply can't let you take such a risk.'
'Don't be silly. The risk is negligible. Ribb got me a diplomatic laissez-passer; so that I should never be put to any inconvenience when crossing frontiers. That frees us from having to fill up any forms, customs' examinations, and formalities about currency. No official would dream of holding us up and questioning us once I've shown him that; so we won't even have to worry about my chauffeur's passport photograph not being very like you.'
'I suppose you are right.' All against his instinct Gregory weakened. After the hour of dread he had just been through, he would not have been human had he rejected outright this alluring prospect of escaping all sorts of difficulties and dangers by driving straight out of the country.
'Of course I'm right,' Sabine insisted, and leaned forward to press the self-starter.
'No; wait!' he caught her hand. 'What is to happen in the meantime?'
'You are coming home with me. You'll be perfectly safe there.'
'I shan't, and neither would you be. As it was you who secured my release and I drove off with you in your car, your house is the first place they'll come to when the balloon goes up in the morning.'
'Really, darling! I think that whack on the head must have temporarily deprived you of your wits. Is it likely that I shouldn't have realized that? I shall say that I was driving you back to the house to change your clothes when you said that having been knocked out had made you feel sick. So I stopped the car for you to get out. Then, to my amazement, instead of being sick, you ran off down a side turning; and I haven't the faintest idea what became of you afterwards. That is entirely in keeping with what would probably have happened if I had really believed you to be Tavenier.'
He nodded. 'Yes; that is just about what I should have done. Knowing that the Germans had got on to me, once you had got me out of prison I should have left you as quickly as I could. In fact, just as I meant to.'
'Exactly. And the very last place you would have let me take you to would have been my house; because they are certain to make enquiries there.'
'Yes, they probably would even if I had got out of prison by some other means. The odds are that they will find out that after I left the Vadaszkürt this afternoon the driver of the carriage took me and my luggage to your palace. That is the sort, of thing that worries me. What reason are you going to give them for having done that?'
'A perfectly straightforward one. I greeted you in front of a table full of people last night as an old friend, and mentioned that I had stayed with your aunt in Paris. I wished to return her hospitality, so asked you to stay for a few days, and you accepted. There is nothing wrong about that.'
Gregory had a feeling that there was somewhere, but another thought struck him and he asked, 'What about Ribb? Won't he kick up rough when he hears that you invited your ex-boyfriend, without his aunt, or a wife or chaperone of any kind, to come and stay with you?'
'No. That is one of Ribb's good points. At times he fools around rather half-heartedly with little film starlets and I never make scenes. But in return I assert my right to go about with whom I like, and he stands for that, because he enjoys my companionship more than anyone else's. Providing I am always on hand when he either wants to talk or show me off to his friends, and I don't let other men make up to me while he is present, he doesn't seem to mind much what I do when he is otherwise engaged.'
'You are a clever girl, and I give you full marks,' Gregory said with a smile. But he at once became serious again, and added, 'All the same, I can't possibly let you run any further risks on my account. At least, not as far as coming back to, your house is concerned. I'll lie low in the city tonight and tomorrow; then, if you are really confident that you can get away with it, we'll do our trip to the frontier on Sunday.'
'No, Gregory; no!' She hit the wheel angrily with the palm of her hand. 'You are being stupid again. My whole plan hangs on your taking my chauffeur's place, and driving me off as though we were setting out for Berlin. How on earth can we do that if I have to pick you up somewhere? And if you came to the house early Sunday morning, you might be spotted entering it. All sorts of complications might crop up. The only certain way for us to pull it off is for you to come back with me to the house now.'
He sighed. 'There is an awful lot in what you say. But I'm so scared that something may go wrong when the police come along to question you about me in the morning. If you tell them that I bolted from you tonight, and after that they find that you are concealing me, you won't have a leg to stand on. You'll be in it up to the neck.'
'There's no reason why they shouldn't believe me.'
'You never can tell. Some little thing may make them suspicious; then they might insist on searching the house.'
'They wouldn't dare!'
'Wouldn't they? You don't know Herr Gruppenführer Grauber.'
'Is he the man who recognized you?'
'Yes; and he is the most ruthlessly efficient swine that ever wielded a rubber truncheon. What is more, he has personal reasons for wanting to take me into little pieces, so he'll stick at nothing to ferret out where I've got to.'
'Where did you come up against him before?'
'Oh, in lots of places. The first time was in England and the last in Russia. But Fate seems to take a special delight in throwing us together, and during the past three years we have done our best to kill one another in half a dozen countries.
'You misled me, then, about your missio
n to Budapest being a special thing. From what you say, it's clear now that all through the war you have been working against the Germans as a secret agent.'
'No, I didn't mislead you. I simply refrained from telling you about my previous wartime activities because I didn't want to quarrel with you and you had made it clear that you were on the Germans' side.'
'I am. Oh, Gregory!' Her voice held a sob of acute distress. 'Why are you English so blind? Can't you see that the Russians are the real enemy? If we don't destroy them now we have the chance, they'll destroy us later. They are evil, utterly evil; and given time they will grow so powerful that either by peaceful penetration or by war they will become masters of the whole world.'
He sighed. 'You may be right. God knows. I've no illusions about Communism, and the way in which it turns all those who come under it into slaves. But first things must come first. Stalin is little worse than Hitler and…'
'That is not true! I know Hitler is a fanatic about some things, and that his persecution of the Jews is unforgivable, but…'
'No ruler who employs men like Grauber can be allowed to continue to enforce his will on millions of people. But this is not the time for us to wrangle about degrees of evil. What I was about to say was that Grauber is the head of the Gestapo
Foreign Department; so, apart from Himmler, there is no German who has a bigger pull with your police, and they will stick at nothing to get me for him. That is why, if they have the least suspicion that you are lying, they will search your house.'
'I tell you they will not. This is not Germany, you know. First they would have to go away and get a search warrant; so you would have plenty of time to make yourself scarce.'
'They might bring one with them.'
'I should refuse to allow them to execute it until I had telephoned to the Palace. I would get on to Ribb and have him speak to Admiral Horthy; and he would send an order that they were to leave me in peace.'
'If they were hunting for an English spy at the request of the Germans I don't see why Ribb should interfere.'
'Then I'll tell you. The top Nazis hate each other's guts. All of them are always trying to get hold of some piece of dirt that will discredit one of the others with the Fuhrer; and Ribb and Himmler are at daggers drawn. Ribb would accept my version of what had happened and jump to the conclusion that one of Himmler's boys was trying to pull a fast one on him by seizing this excuse to search my house in the hope of finding some thing among my papers that could be used against him later.'
'If that is really so…' Gregory murmured. 'But wait a minute! Ribb is leaving tomorrow afternoon for Berlin and, according to your plan, we don't leave for the frontier until Sunday morning. If the police come back with a search warrant on Saturday night Ribb will no longer be here for you to appeal to.'
For a moment she considered that, then she said, 'I decided on Sunday morning because it is much more natural to set out on the first stage of a long journey with a whole day ahead of one; and anyway I couldn't leave till fairly late on Saturday afternoon because Ribb and I will be lunching together and he will expect me to see him off from the airport afterwards. But, if you like, we will start as soon as we can after he has gone.'
The temptation to leave himself in her hands was overwhelming. She was so completely confident that no harm would come to her through his doing so; and, as far as he was concerned, the alternative held all sorts of dangerous uncertainties. Levianski might be away from Budapest or get cold feet and, after all, refuse to hide him. He was unarmed, hatless and the clothes he was wearing were dirty and torn, showing that he had recently been involved in a fight. He had plenty of money but could not use it till the morning to buy other clothes, and a rucksack to carry essentials in for his journey. Even if he succeeded in getting safely out of Budapest, he would be faced with many hazards before he could reach the frontier; then he would have to run the gauntlet between two lots of guards in getting across it and, as Yugoslavia was controlled by the Germans, still be without a passport that he dared to show. Yet his instinctive caution against committing himself to an easy course made him continue to search his mind for possible holes in her alluring offer. After a moment, he said:
'My clothes. When the police learn tomorrow that I was going to stay with you, they will ask you for them on the chance that I have left something among them which would help to trace me.'
'Pipi, my butler, will pack them up and hand them over. I gave away most of Kelemen's things after he died, but there are still enough of them in various cupboards to fit you out; and he was only an inch or so taller than you are.'
'I gather, then, that Pipi is to be trusted. But what about your other servants? Surely there is a big risk that one of them might give away the fact that I am still in the house.'
'Apart from Mario, my chauffeur, only Pipi and his wife, Magda, need know. She used to be my personal maid until she married Pipi and I made her housekeeper, so that she could remain with him while I am away. When I come to Budapest I leave my new girl Lili in Berlin, and Magda still maids me. All three of them are devoted to me. You will have to stay up in your room, of course; but Pipi and Magda between them will look after you and bring you anything you want. Stop havering, darling. It's having been through such a horrid time that makes you so nervy. Really, you can leave everything to me.'
'It's only that I should never forgive myself if, through trying to save me, you found yourself charged with aiding and abetting an enemy agent.'
'Most men wouldn't give a damn if they saw a good chance of saving their own necks. Your scruples make me love you all the more. That's settled, then. Let's go!'
Gregory made no further effort to stop her. The car slid forward, along the Corso back to the bridge, crossed it and followed a zigzag course up the slope of the Buda hill, until Sabine brought it to a halt in a dark, narrow street. On the right could be seen a row of small palaces; on the left only a stone wall sloping slightly inwards that reared up into the darkness. The section of wall alongside which Sabine pulled up was the great buttress in the hillside which supported the east front of the row of palaces in which hers was one. Flush with it, like a ladder from the water to a ship's deck, was a steep narrow flight of stone stairs. Pointing to them Sabine said:
'That's the way in that lovers of the Tozolto ladies have used for centuries. At the top you will find a gate leading on to the terrace. Wait there until I have taken the car round to the courtyard, then I'll come and let you in.'
Five minutes later she unlocked the gate, led him across the terrace and through French windows into a dark salon. There she took his hand and guided him between the dimly seen furniture to a further door which opened into the vaulted hall. When they came out from under the broad staircase he saw the manservant who had taken his things that evening standing by the outer door, and it was evident that Sabine had told him to wait there.
The butler was a middle-aged man, with a pleasant open, rather round, face and slightly greying hair. As he bowed to his mistress she said with a smile, 'Pipi, this is Herr Commandant Tavenier, who came this afternoon to stay with us. Unfortunately there was a row at the Arizona tonight and he got into trouble with the police. It was a stupid business and will all blow over in a day or two, but it would be embarrassing for him if he had to appear in court. You can tell Magda what I've told you, but I don't want anyone else at all to know that the Herr Commandant is here. Is that understood?'
'Yes, Lady Baroness,' the man replied with a frankness and lack of servility that impressed Gregory very favourably.
'Now,' Sabine went on, 'the police may call tomorrow morning to make enquiries and collect the Herr Commandant's belongings. I want you to go up to his room, pack them all up and bring them downstairs ready to be handed over. Then take up to the room everything you can find of our Baron's things for him to use until this silly affair is cleared up. When you have done, come down and let us know.'
With a murmur of assent the butler left them, and Sabine went over
to a trolley of drinks. On its lower shelf, under transparent covers, reposed the usual plates of sandwiches, biscuits and cake, in case she came in late and felt like nibbling something with a nightcap before going to bed.
'As we've had no dinner, we had better eat something,' she said. 'Although I'm not really hungry; I had such a large lunch. How about you? If you would like something more solid Pipi could get it for us.'
'No, thanks; there is plenty here. A couple of sandwiches and a brandy and soda will suit me.'
'Ought you to drink anything? Alcohol, I mean, after that blow on the head.'
He smiled. 'Don't worry. I've been knocked out too often not to know when I'm likely to get delayed concussion. All I need now to make me my own man again is a drink and a good hot bath to get this oily muck off my neck and chest.'
'All the same, your poor head ought to be seen to,' she said solicitously. 'Mix me a brandy and soda too, while I get things to bathe it.'
Having left him for a few minutes she returned with a basin of hot water, lint and ointment. Her examination confirmed that the blow had had no serious effect. Only the skin of his scalp was broken and there was very little clotted blood about the place. After cleaning the wound she applied the ointment, and they settled down to their alfresco supper, eating considerably more than they had at first expected.
They had not long finished when Pipi came back to report that he had carried out his orders. Greatly to Gregory's surprise Sabine stood up and said to him:
'You must still be feeling very groggy after that fight you got mixed up in. What you need is a hot bath and a nice long sleep; so I won't keep you up any longer.' Then she turned to Pipi and added, 'Please see the Herr Commandant up to his room.'
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