The Black Baroness

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘You fool!’ he almost screamed. ‘You miserable fool! You will pay for this mess-up before you’re much older.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’ The Major cringed away. ‘I wasn’t in the Council Chamber—and, even if I had been, I couldn’t have stopped him going into his bedroom.’

  ‘No, imbecile! But someone must have warned him.’

  ‘I know—I know.’

  ‘And it was your job to prevent such a thing happening. Who was it? Who was it, eh?’

  Gregory tensed his muscles and his hand tightened on his gun. Now for it! The footman could not possibly have got into the Council Chamber without Major Heering seeing him, and once the footman was exposed von Ziegler’s swift mind would link the man with Gregory’s absence from the room three-quarters of an hour before. He watched the Major’s thick lips begin to move again so that he might act the very instant that a single syllable fell from them which would give away the part that he had played.

  ‘No one said anything to the King,’ muttered the Major. ‘I’m certain of that, because our friends who were with him say so. He must have been warned by a written message.’

  ‘Who entered the Council Chamber last?’

  As Gregory saw the Major’s mouth form the words ‘a footman’ he drew his gun.

  But von Ziegler’s back was still towards him and the Major’s eyes were riveted upon the stern face of the German airman, as he hurried on:

  ‘He only brought in the King’s morning coffee. I saw him, through the doorway, set it down at the King’s elbow and walk straight out again, so it couldn’t have been the footman. One of the members of the Council must have found out something earlier, but had to wait for an opportunity, when he was unobserved, to pass a scribbled note.’

  Gregory turned his gun over sideways and began to examine it as though he were just making certain that the mechanism was all in order. The footman had turned out a trump. Evidently, on realising that to give the King the paper openly might arouse the suspicions of any members of the Council who were traitors, he had conceived the brilliant idea of waylaying his colleague who was on duty upstairs and by some means or other arranging to take the King’s coffee-tray in himself; after which it had been a simple matter to slip the folded message under the King’s cup, where he would be bound to see it and could remove it without much chance that anyone else would notice what he was doing.

  But Gregory knew that he was by no means out of the wood yet. The infuriated conspirators would immediately institute an inquiry among the guards at the various entrances of the Palace and the damning bottom strip of the paper which von Ziegler had signed would come to light. He might almost have put the thought into von Ziegler’s mind by mental telepathy as the German snapped at Heering:

  ‘Anyhow, what in thunder were your people on the gates doing to let the King through? Who was responsible for that?’

  ‘Have patience,’ the Major snapped back in a sudden spurt of rebellion against the airman’s bullying. ‘Colonel Ketch is now visiting the posts to find out. He will be here at any moment; then we shall know.’

  Von Ziegler turned angrily away and began to pace impatiently up and down the room while Gregory, in his role of sympathetic co-conspirator, proceeded to ignore Heering’s presence and began a slashing attack upon the inefficiency of the Norwegians who had bungled the job so badly.

  Some moments later a broad-shouldered officer with a fine flowing moustache arrived. Von Ziegler evidently knew him already and Gregory rightly assumed that this was the Colonel Ketch whom Heering had just mentioned. Having stamped into the room the Colonel said with a worried frown:

  ‘The King must have known that the gates were being watched, as he didn’t go out by any of them. He and the Prince climbed over the wall of the tennis-court and dropped down into the street. One of the sentries saw them, but by the time the fool had gone inside and reported to his officer the King and the Prince had made off and were out of sight.’

  ‘Donnerwetter!’ roared von Ziegler. ‘The lot of you shall answer to the Gestapo for this!’

  Gregory snapped down the safety-catch of his automatic, drew out the magazine and began to toss it playfully up and down.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ he murmured with a sigh. ‘We’re out of luck this morning, and I suppose it’s not much good our waiting here any longer.’

  Von Ziegler looked round at him. ‘There’s no such thing as luck, Baron; only brains and organisation—as I propose to show this afternoon. Come on.’ Without another word to the two Norwegians he shouldered his way past them and strode out of the room.

  Gregory followed more slowly and, pausing in the doorway, said to the other two conspirators: ‘I’m afraid you’ve made rather a mess of things, gentlemen, and in Germany such mistakes are not readily overlooked. Your only chance is to get out of the country while the going is good. There are still some neutral ships in the harbour and if I were you I should get on to one of them without an hour’s delay.’ Having clicked his heels and bowed sharply from the waist he turned and left them.

  His advice sounded like that of a sympathetic German who was not whole-heartedly with the Nazis and was sorry for two officers who had bungled a very important operation. Actually, it was a Machiavellian piece of cunning by which he hoped to ensure that those two traitors would get their just deserts.

  If they fled up-country—as they probably would have done had he not spoken to them—it was highly probable that they would have evaded capture, for the Germans had only just landed in the capital; but if they followed his advice and went down to the harbour their capture was quite certain. No neutral ship would now be allowed to leave Oslo without German permission and if they were caught trying to get out of Norway the assumption would be that they had made up their minds to go over to the Allies; so what had only been a blunder in the first place would, in German eyes, be aggravated to deliberate treachery, and they would be dealt with accordingly.

  Von Ziegler was already half-way across the courtyard when Gregory reached the door. As he followed the German he blessed King Haakon and the Crown Prince. Evidently they had had the wit to see that to present any kind of pass to a sentry on their own doorstep was certain to excite comment, so they had decided not to use the pass but to go out over the wall; and that, Gregory felt, had probably saved his life.

  When he caught von Ziegler up the German was climbing in to his car. ‘What d’you propose to do now?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘Go after them, of course. They can’t have got far. Would you like to come with me, or would you prefer to go and let Quisling know how the Norwegians have ruined our admirable plan?’

  Nothing was further from Gregory’s wishes than to go and see Quisling at that moment, but he hesitated artistically before he said: ‘I think perhaps I’d better go with you. It will now be a matter of a hold-up in the open, and as there are two of them you may need my help if they happen to be armed.’

  ‘Right. Are you taking your own car or will you come in mine?’

  ‘If I leave mine here somebody may pinch it, so I think I’ll go under my own steam. I’ll be close behind you.’

  With a nod von Ziegler let in the clutch and his car streaked away. Gregory jumped into his and ran smoothly along behind him, knowing that with the roads now so choked with refugees the adventurous airman would not get very far at the pace at which he had set off. For ten minutes they wound in and out of the slow-moving traffic until they reached the Oslo Police Headquarters, outside which von Ziegler pulled up.

  ‘What now?’ thought Gregory. ‘Surely the Nazi organisation can’t have managed to get the Norwegian police force under its thumb.’ But he was mistaken. After he had waited outside in his car for nearly forty minutes von Ziegler came out again and hurried up to him. His blue eyes were shining and a satisfied smile curved his strong mouth.

  ‘We’re on to them,’ he said. ‘Oslo is such a little place that everyone here knows the King and the Crown Prince by sight. I felt cert
ain they’d be recognised by scores of people before they had gone ten miles. We had to wait until we could get reports of them from well outside the town so as to make certain in which direction they were heading. They’ve taken the road to Eidsvold, a small town about forty-five miles north from here.’

  Two minutes later they had joined the stream of traffic heading north and Gregory settled down to what he knew would be a dreary chase. Had he been von Ziegler he would almost have wept with frustration at the impossibility of getting every ounce out of his car, but, as it was, he was quite content to loiter. In fact, he knew that the longer they were held up by the refugees the more chance the King would have of getting away, for even crowds who had been panicked from their homes would make way at the sight of their King, whereas they would certainly not give way to anyone who had the appearance of an ordinary civilian; but in this he had counted without von Ziegler.

  Directly they were outside the town and the traffic was a little less congested the German pulled up at the roadside and took two large squares of paper out of his pocket, one of which he proceeded to paste on his own windscreen and the other on Gregory’s. Both bore large printed inscriptions in Norwegian, which Gregory could not understand, but the airman said Swiftly: ‘No good putting them on before we were out of that crush, but they’ll help us a lot now. These notices say: “POLICE—URGENT!” and the small lettering underneath means ‘Offence to obstruct”.’

  ‘Grand!’ said Gregory. ‘You think of everything; I couldn’t have tackled the job better myself.’ And as they went on again he noticed with dismay how the law-abiding Norwegians paid due deference to the placards. Each time that von Ziegler sounded his Klaxon they turned to stare and immediately gave him room to pass.

  Even with these aids-to-travel their going was miserably slow, as the way curved and twisted through the mountains, where it was much too dangerous to shoot ahead for any distance with one solid line of traffic blocking half the road, and Gregory reckoned that they could not be making much more than fifteen miles an hour. But the King could not be doing any better, so he had no more than his original lead, which, allowing for their long wait at the police-station, was just about an hour.

  Now that spring had come, southern Norway was gradually divesting herself of her winter robe of snow. All the mountains were still white-capped but the thaw was climbing out of the deep valleys day after day and every stream and river was in spate. The road lay well below the snowline, but it was very chilly and Gregory thanked his stars that he was warmly clad. He pitied the poor wretches they were passing as he felt certain that many of them would not be able to find accommodation for the night, but conditions were nothing like so appalling for them as they had been for the Finns whom he had seen driven out of Helsinki, in the depths of winter, by Russian bombers.

  At a quarter to four they entered Eidsvold, a little town that had only one hotel of any size, in its market square. Von Ziegler drew up in front of it and marched into the crowded lounge. As Gregory had not had anything to eat or drink for over eleven hours he got out too, but his hopes were disappointed. Von Ziegler simply produced a Norwegian police-pass, buttonholed the porter and, addressing him in fluent Norwegian, asked if the King was there.

  For Gregory’s benefit he translated the man’s answer. ‘No; he’s not here, but he passed through about an hour ago on the way to Tangen.’ And while he was speaking von Ziegler was already leading the way back to the cars.

  It was about another twenty miles to Tangen and for most of the way the road lay along the east shore of the beautiful Mjose Lake, which is not very broad but extends for over forty miles, like a great inland fjord. They had ample time to admire the scenery, as the road was still choked with Norwegian families moving north, who had left Oslo early that morning; but the going along the lake-shore was distinctly better and they reached Tangen by five o’clock.

  There, once more, von Ziegler produced his police-pass at the only hotel of any size, and they learnt that the King was still an hour ahead of them on the road to Hamar, a considerably larger town which lay some fifteen miles farther along the lake.

  At Hamar von Ziegler had better luck. The King and the Crown Prince had halted there and were now in the private house of a rich Norwegian. When the place was pointed out to them they saw that it stood on a small promontory where it had a beautiful view over the pine-fringed lake and was cut off from the mainland by a high wall enclosing its own grounds.

  Immediately they had left their informant von Ziegler said: “Now, the question is—does the King mean to spend the night here or has he stopped only for a meal?’

  ‘I could do with a sandwich and a drink myself,’ murmured Gregory.

  ‘Plenty of time for that, Baron,’ replied the single-minded German. ‘Come on; we must find out,’ and getting into the cars again they drove along to the house at which the King had decided to make a break in his journey.

  On the gate there was a squad of half a dozen armed police and others were standing about in the grounds, so evidently the best part of Hamar’s police force had been mobilised to protect the King. But there were no military, as Norway has only a very small regular army and Hamar was not a garrison town. Quite unperturbed by this considerable body of police, von Ziegler jumped out of his car and yelled in Norwegian for their inspector. Gregory could not help admiring his tactics as he would have employed the same self-confident manner himself.

  The inspector was brought; an elderly, grizzled man with a drooping walrus moustache, who did not look too happy at the great responsibility which had suddenly been thrust upon him. His normal life in this little country town was, Gregory felt sure, as placid as the surface of the lake below them, and it could be no joke for such a man to learn, on top of the news that his country had been invaded, that his King was in flight from the enemy and looked to him for protection.

  Gregory wished that he could have understood the conversation that followed, as he was anxious to know if von Ziegler’s swashbuckling audacity would carry him to the lengths of endeavouring to get into the house and attempting to secure the person of the King in the face of the bulk of the Hamar police force. He sincerely hoped that the airman had no such intention, for it was one thing to plan the arrest of the King in his Palace, where a considerable body of traitors had already agreed to render their assistance, and quite another to try to pull off such a coup here in the country where the King was surrounded by men who were almost certainly loyal to him. If von Ziegler started anything there was going to be bad trouble, and Gregory, as his companion, felt that half that trouble would be coming his way.

  To his relief, von Ziegler came back after a few moments. Evidently the special pass that he had illegally secured from some traitor in the Oslo Police Headquarters conferred considerable powers on him, as he said in a low voice: ‘I made them tell me what we want to know. He has telephoned for his Ministers to join him here, so evidently he means to stay—anyhow, for the night.’

  ‘Good. How about a meal, then?’ replied Gregory, who was now distinctly hungry.

  ‘Yes. Let’s get back to the hotel, then after we’ve fed I’ll make a few arrangements.’

  The hotel was packed with people. Consequently the meal that they secured was a far from satisfactory one. Had it been summer-time they might have fared better, as the place was a favourite holiday resort, famed for its boating, fishing and excursions into the mountains, in addition to which many of the wealthier people in Oslo often motored up there for the week-end, so in the season the hotel kitchen might have coped with this unusual rush of business. But as it was early April, with snow still on the mountains, the management was catering only for the handful of guests—mostly retired people and invalids—who lived there through the winter, and the dinner to which Gregory had looked forward with pleasurable anticipation boiled down to a couple of salted herrings on half-rolls, eaten standing up. However, the cellar was well stocked so they managed to get a bottle of passable hock.

&n
bsp; While among the crowd Gregory was very careful to refrain from talking. He made it a rule never to disclose to anybody that he spoke several languages, unless he had good reason to do so, and he had no reason at all to inform von Ziegler of that fact; while, as feeling against the Germans was running extremely high, he preferred to remain silent rather than run the risk of being lynched.

  Von Ziegler, on the other hand, conversed fluently in Norwegian with a number of people, and later, having acquired a bottle of Loitens Norwegian Punch from the barman and found a quiet corner where they could not be overheard, was able to pass on to Gregory the latest news.

  General Count von Falkenhorst, who was commanding the German forces, had outlawed King Haakon and his Government on their flight from the capital and had set up a puppet Government under Major Quisling instead. Oslo had then surrendered at four o’clock that afternoon and the German troops were already taking possession of the capital. Two German cruisers, in addition to the powerful battle-cruiser Gneisenau, were reported to have been sunk in the operations and fighting was still going on outside the city; but the Danish Government had capitulated that morning, so the whole of Denmark had fallen to the Nazis almost without a blow.

  There were no beds to be had in the hotel, but when Gregory raised the question von Ziegler said casually that they could, if necessary, sleep quite well in their cars; a hearty attitude of which Gregory did not at all approve, but as this was not his party he forbore to argue.

  At ten o’clock von Ziegler said: ‘I’ve got a little job to do before we get some sleep, Baron, and you had better come with me. It may mean that we’ll have to wait about for some time, but we can always talk of this and that together.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Gregory obligingly, and he tactfully refrained from asking any questions as they walked round to the garage to get out von Ziegler’s car.

  In it they drove off the main road and along a side-turning that wound its way up into the mountains to the east, for about three miles. There was no traffic on the road at all and there were as yet no anti-aircraft regulations in force in Norway about motor-car headlamps, so von Ziegler’s spotlight showed the winding way ahead in its full glare, and they were able to proceed at a good pace without difficulty.