“I don’t think so,” he said, taking off his spectacles and handing it back. “By and large, the story seems too logical to be fishy. Reading between the lines, I should say your husband is just as anxious for a divorce as you are. He obviously thinks you’ll be in no position to support him in the future and would like to be free to sell his title to some rich man’s daughter who wants to put a coronet on her undies.”
“I imagine it is not easy to get to Switzerland now Hitler is in control of Northern France and Vichy France is closed to us, but I take it you will be able to help me about my journey?”
“Yes. If you wanted to go only on personal grounds, to get this divorce, it might be very awkward. But in view of this new type of warfare business I can say with a clear conscience that you’re going out to do a job for me. We send long range aircraft over now and again with the bags for our Legation, and I can get you a passage in one of them. I’ll fix up the money side of it for you, too. Get you a credit for twelve hundred at a Swiss bank and have a chit sent to our Minister there that he is to weigh out any bigger sum that you may require if you can do a deal over the secret information.”
When Erika had thanked him he finished his port and they went upstairs, where it was agreed that she should return to Gwaine Meads the next day and wait there until she heard from him.
A week elapsed and on the following Thursday morning she received a letter in Sir Pellinore’s bold, flowing hand. It was extremely laconic and simply said:
A plant will be leaving on Sunday. Suggest you arrive here early Saturday afternoon. Have written instructing your escort to place himself at your disposal. You can now tell him whatever it is strictly necessary for him to know. Bless you.
P.
Piers Gaveston had also received a brief chit from Sir Pellinore, by the same post; and, glancing up from it, he smiled at her across the breakfast table. He was a tall fair young man with nice brown eyes and a slightly upturned moustache. They made no comment on their letters but as soon as the meal was over, on seeing her go out on to the terrace, he drifted casually after her.
As soon as they were out of earshot of Madeleine and the Professor he said with a grin: “I’m instructed to report for duty, madame! What are your orders for the day?”
“Nothing very onerous,” she smiled. “Let’s walk through the woods as far as the little Greek temple, and as we go along I’ll tell you why Sir Pellinore has asked you to help me.”
They fell into step, and, leaving the gardens, strolled slowly down the long grassy glade while Erika told him about the journey they were to make and her husband; but she said nothing of the secret work upon which Kurt von Osterberg had been engaged.
“I do hope you manage to fix things up all right,” he said, when she had finished. “It must be rotten to be tied up to a chap that you no longer care about. Anyhow, I’ll make darn certain it’s him who is living at this place, and not some of those Nazi so-and-sos, before you go anywhere near it.”
She told him then that Sir Pellinore had let her into the secret of his cashiering, and that she thought it far braver for a young man to submit to such an ordeal in the interests of his country than any heroics would have been that he could perform in a battle; but he replied quite lightly:
“Oh, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. The day after I had committed myself to Sir Pellinore I would have given the earth to get out of it. The time while we were setting the stage for our little act was pretty grim, too; but once the balloon went up the fun began. People’s reactions were so unexpected and often quite comic. They hurt at times, because some that I would have put my last quid on as good as spat in my eye; but others, some of them people I hardly knew, came forward and practically offered to perjure themselves for me. There’s nothing like a spot of real bother to show you what your friends are made of.” Then, without disclosing its object, he gave her an amusing account of the case.
As they were walking back, Erika remarked: “Gregory Sallust told me that you have the same name as a famous character in English history. Are you descended from him?”
“Infamous, you mean,” he laughed. “Piers, or Pierce, Gaveston was the wicked favourite of Edward the Second. He used to take the King out to night clubs when he ought to have been attending to dreary affairs of State. The Barons were a gloomy lot of killjoys and didn’t like poor Piers a bit; they caught him and did him in, in the end. My family claim to be descended from this young spark and apparently thought it would be amusing to christen me after him. Fortunately both my parents are dead, so they’ll never know how suitable their choice was, as I, too, shall always be regarded as a bad hat.”
This confidential chat had the effect of drawing Erika and Piers closer together than all their casual conversations in the past weeks had done, and she felt that she was lucky to have such a likeable companion for her escort.
On the Friday night she told the Matron that she was leaving to do some secretarial work for Sir Pellinore in London, and said good-bye to a number of people she had come to know in the convalescent wing. Afterwards she had a long heart-to-heart chat with Madeleine, and was seen off by her and the Professor when she left with Piers next morning.
That afternoon she found that Sir Pellinore had made an appointment for her with the barber who worked for one of the M.I. Department. He dyed her hair a deep, rich brown and took a shade off the corners of her eyebrows. A photograph of her was then taken, and after dinner that night Sir Pellinore gave her a Swedish passport in the name of Madame Astrid Largerlöf and all the other papers that she would require. On the morning of Sunday, the 10th of August, he waved them good-bye from the steps of his house and a taxi took them to a wartime department of the Air Ministry situated in Holborn.
They were there as instructed, at half past nine, but, although the journey down to the airfield in Kent, from which they were to depart took only a little over an hour, their aircraft did not take off till nearly three o’clock in the afternoon. The delay seemed interminable, pointless and exasperating; which caused Piers during one dreary wait to remark:
“What extraordinary people airmen are. I’ve had quite a lot to do with them in the past two years and operationally they are absolutely wizard. I’ve seen squadrons go up to fight in the Battle of Britain, and squadrons of bombers leave on long trips to Germany, and in every case the aircraft took off, one after the other at stated intervals, to the split second; yet, if you want them to fly you anywhere, nothing is ever ready. They start to test their engines only when the aircraft is due to get off and, like today, often in the end decide to use another, or stop testing for an hour because it’s time for the mechanics to have their lunch. In fact, where passenger flying is concerned they seem to lose their sense of time altogether.”
“They’ve inherited that from the Civil Air Lines of pre-war days, I expect,” Erika replied. “They had brought time-wasting to a fine art; but what can the poor passengers do as long as air routes are granted to corporations as a monopoly?”
Piers shrugged. “Well, let’s hope that the British Air Lines run things a bit better after the war.”
By ten to three they were at last emplaned with the one other passenger who had accompanied them from London. He was a pleasant middle-aged man with spectacles; and although he had said nothing of his business, Piers, having caught sight of the heading of some documents he had been reading during one of their interminable waits, had gathered that he was something to do with the Ministry of Economic Warfare.
As they were going to a neutral country their pilot was a civilian and the aircraft had civil markings; its windows were also blacked cut in order that the passengers from a belligerent country should not gain knowledge of the Swiss defences. In consequence they could see nothing of the landscape below them, but the aircraft climbed and climbed until Erika thought it was never going to stop and the great height made her acutely uncomfortable, even when she put on her oxygen mask. But the high altitude at which the aircraft made the gre
ater part of its flight was necessary in order to avoid the possibility of running into German ‘planes while flying over France. In due course they dropped and dropped, which gave her an equally sickly feeling, but the pilot made a good landing on the Swiss aerodrome, having accomplished the actual journey in considerably less time than his passengers had spent between reporting to the office in London and taking their seats in the ’plane.
After their papers and suit-cases had been examined, Erika and Piers said good-bye to their fellow passenger and took a taxi to a small hotel. It proved to be full, so they went on to the second on a short list that Piers had made before starting, and here they secured accommodation. The plain but abundant food, together with unstinted butter and cream, that they were given for their dinner seemed almost a banquet compared to meals in wartime Britain; and, after it, tired out from their long day, they went early to bed.
Next morning they drew some Swiss money from the bank at which credits had been arranged for them, and made a few purchases. Erika could not help glancing at herself whenever she encountered a mirror in the shops they entered. She was still very good-looking, but no longer striking, and that was not due alone to the change from blonde to brunette in her hair and make-up, or to the fact that the barber had deliberately dressed her hair in a new style less becoming to her. At length she came to the conclusion that it was mainly the clever alteration in the shape of her eyebrows; and, although she felt a natural resentment at no longer looking her best, she had at least the consolation of being reasonably certain that the only people who had known her well in the past were likely to recognise her if they now ran into her in the street.
After lunch they caught a train for St. Gall and, during the afternoon, enjoyed the splendid scenery of the Swiss mountains. On arriving at their destination they went to another modest hotel—the Pension Julich. Piers also had a forged Swedish passport and registered there as Olaf Hjelm, their story being that he was her brother. She found that he could talk German with considerable fluency, so now that they were in the Germanic cantons of Switzerland they spoke German together in order to make themselves less conspicuous.
Having looked at a map before leaving London, they knew Steinach to be a village towards the east end of Lake Constance, and only about fifteen miles from St. Gall. After breakfast on the Tuesday, therefore, Piers left Erika to sit in a quiet part of the hotel garden and went off to see what he could find out.
The previous evening she had given him a very full description of her husband and he had repeated it to himself several times. “Forty-four years of age, height about five foot eleven, medium build with rather narrow shoulders, a thin face, brown hair greying at the temples, high forehead, brown eyes, straight nose, thin-lipped mouth, pointed chin, clean shaven, well-cared-for hands with square fingertips and small feet.”
With such abundant data to go on Piers felt that he could not possibly mistake his man, even if the Count had grown a moustache and beard as a disguise; and when he returned, just after four o’clock, Erika saw from his smiling face before he spoke that he had been successful.
“He’s there?” she exclaimed, trying to suppress her excitement.
Piers nodded. “The chalet is quite a little place and several hundred yards from any other houses. It stands right on the lakeside and has only a small fringe of garden separating it from the road. As I drifted up they were both getting their boat out—”
“There’s someone with him, then?”
“Yes, a tall, thin fellow with blue eyes, who’s gone prematurely bald. I shouldn’t think he’s much more than thirty, and he wears what hair he has left smoothed sideways across his shiny scalp, in the same way as you may have seen some old-fashioned waiters wear theirs. At a guess I should say he’s a servant of a rather superior type, but he’s definitely not a gent. On the middle finger of his left hand he was wearing a gaudy amethyst ring. I don’t know if he’s a German or one of the local German-Swiss. I’m not good enough on accents to have been able to tell that. Anyhow, I got a good look at the two of them before they noticed me and I’m quite certain that the shorter one was your husband. Your description fitted him exactly, and he hadn’t even grown a beard.”
“Did you speak to him?’
“No. After I’d been standing at the gate for a minute the Count looked up and saw me. I leant over it and called out, but he didn’t come up to find out what I wanted. He dived back into the boathouse as though he wasn’t at all keen about being seen, and it was the other fellow who jumped ashore and came round to the gate. I said I was an artist looking for a quiet, inexpensive lodging and asked him if he had a room to let. He turned me down pretty abruptly; just said the place was taken for the summer and that they had no rooms to spare.”
“Thank God,” Erika sighed. “It seems perfectly all right, then?”
“Absolutely, as far as I can judge. The Count is there and the chalet is too small to hold more than the two of them in comfort.”
“Thank you so much, Piers.”
“Not a bit,” he smiled. “I’m delighted to have been able to fit this little reconnaisance in for you before starting on my big job. Will it be all right by you if I leave tomorrow? The aircraft we came in was returning on Thursday, if you remember, and if I don’t catch that, there may not be another for a week.”
“Yes, of course it will. I can manage quite well on my own now we’ve made certain that it’s not a trap. I’d better not be seen going there if it can be avoided, though, for Kurt’s sake; so I think I’ll call on him after dinner tomorrow night.”
Chapter VI
The Villa Offenbach
Erika was sorry to lose Piers. Not only was he an amusing companion who had shown her a nice degree of attention that tickled her vanity without embarrassing her, but his very presence had saved her from the less welcome attentions that were the penalty of her good looks whenever she travelled, or stayed in an hotel, alone.
However, he had done the job that he had been sent out to do; it was already the 9th of August, and Sir Pellinore wanted him to start on his own work by the end of the week. She had no possible reason for keeping him with her and, even had he been free to remain, she could not have taken him on her visit to Kurt, for her husband’s hackles would rise at once were he given the least reason to suppose that she had come there, not simply to arrange about their divorce, but also as the emissary of Germany’s enemies.
Having seen Piers off after breakfast, she ordered a car for six-thirty that evening to take her down to Steinach, then spent most of the day reading in the garden. For some little time the night before she had pondered over the best way to avoid anyone knowing about her visit. The Gestapo had eyes and ears in many places and paid all sorts of people to turn in apparently unimportant information. Even with her dyed hair, a description of her might ring a bell in the mind of some Gestapo man who knew her, and a report that she had been to see the recluse at the Villa Offenbach lead them straight to Kurt. Moreover, although she knew nothing about the Swiss divorce laws, she thought it possible that if any officious person gave information that there had been collusion it might quite well prevent the case going through.
Eventually she had decided she would take a car into Steinach, tell the chauffeur to put her down at the local hotel for dinner and pick her up again at eleven o’clock. After she had dined she could then slip out to make her visit, and return without him knowing that she had ever left the hotel.
The matter went according to plan. The August night was clear and warm; the hotel to which her driver took her was a pleasant little place with a vine-covered terrace, on which she dined, overlooking the lake. As she ate the excellent fresh trout which she had chosen from the menu, dusk fell and the stars came out. After dinner she sat for a little while in a covered loggia at the far end of the terrace, but a young Frenchman’s persistent attempts to pick her up gave her an excellent excuse for leaving it, and by nine o’clock she was making her way along the almost deserted street.
The chalet was about a quarter of a mile outside the town but, from Piers’ description, she had no difficulty in finding it. The blinds were drawn but the music from a radio echoed out over the lapping waters at the far side of the house. She opened the little wicket gate, stepped up to the porch and rang the bell.
The radio was switched off; there were footsteps in the hall and the door was opened by the tall, prematurely-aged-looking man with whom Piers had spoken.
“I have called to see the gentleman to whom this chalet is let,” said Erika cautiously.
“I’m afraid the Professor is working just now,” replied the man politely but firmly. “But I look after most things for him, so perhaps you could tell me your business?”
“Dr. Fallström is expecting me,” she said. “In fact, I have come all the way from England to see him.”
The man took a step backwards so that in the dim light from the hall he could see her face better, then he smiled slowly and stood aside. “Please to come in. I am sure that the Professor will be happy to receive you.”
The hall was a small square one with a door on either side, and beyond the staircase, one at its far end. Having closed the front door her guide led her to the one at the end, opened it, and followed her inside. The room Erika entered ran the whole width of the back of the house, and it flashed through her mind that the smaller ones at the front were probably the dining-room and kitchen. The chalet had only two storeys, so there would be three, or at the most four, bedrooms upstairs. This was evidently the principal living-room. It was comfortably though unimaginatively furnished, but its dark beams and wide fireplace gave it a pleasant homely air. Kurt was sitting in an armchair with an open book on his knees.
As she entered the room he started violently, then stood up and came over to kiss her hand. He was greyer than when she had seen him last and his face was more lined. She thought he looked ill and worried, but that was no matter for wonder.
Come into my Parlour Page 8
