Come into my Parlour

by Dennis Wheatley

She smiled at him. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to be twenty years younger, anyway. I never have found it amusing to be practised on by boys just out of their Gymnasiums.”

  The old, lame man that Gregory had seen through his binoculars on the terrace earlier in the afternoon came in with a well-laden tray, and set it down on a small table near Helga.

  “Thanks, Johann,” she said pleasantly, but he did not smile or reply by a single word, and walked stiffly from the room.

  Helga made a grimace behind his back, then smiled at Gregory as she began to pour the coffee, and said:

  “See what I’ve got to put up with. The only staff we’ve got left are a lot of old doodlers like that who have been growing hay in their hair at Niederfels most of their lives. They don’t much like my being mistress now, and I have to show a pretty firm hand to keep them in their places.”

  “I should have thought they would be glad to have a change of mistress, after being under that tyrannical old harridan for so long,” Gregory replied.

  “You would, wouldn’t you? After all, I’m easy enough to get on with.”

  “I’m sure you are. Perhaps it’s that they rather resent you acting as gaoler to the Countess Erika.”

  “Maybe there’s something in that; although she scarcely ever came here, so most of them hardly know her.”

  “I wonder,” said Gregory, between two mouthfuls of sugared cake, “that you ever came here. Why did you take this place with the old Countess originally? A smart girl like you ought to have been going places in Berlin.”

  “I was,” Helga laughed, “until I was caught out using the lady’s frocks and she refused to give me a reference. Then my godfather, who’s head-keeper here, wrote about this place. He has got quite a bit put by, and no children of his own, so it will come to me if I play up to the old so-and-so. Not that that matters now, but at the time it seemed important; so I came here and stuck it for a year. Anyhow, I’ve since had my own back on the old woman; and now I’m on the up and up, as they say.”

  “You certainly are,” agreed Gregory, drinking up his coffee. “A lovely person like you ought to go a long, long way.”

  “You’re kidding,” she murmured. “Still, every girl likes to hear that sort of thing. And I’ll bet you’ve got lots more pretty speeches where that came from.”

  “It’s just the simple truth,” Gregory assured her.

  “You’re telling me!” She gave him a mocking glance from under her long black lashes, as she lit a fresh cigarette from the one she was already smoking.

  “I mean it,’ he persisted. “And if Fritz weren’t coming back tomorrow night I’d have liked the chance to tell you lots more truths like that.”

  She drew her feet up on the chaise-longue, clasped her hands round her knees, rested her chin on them, and gave him a long, steady look from her dark eyes, as she asked, “Are you afraid of Fritz?”

  “No, I’m not the least afraid of Fritz,” he replied with perfect candour.

  “Then why not stay and have dinner with me here tonight?” she said quietly. The new attitude she had just adopted had, he knew, been purposely designed to give him a good sight of her silk undies, and an alluring glimpse of the insides of her plump pink thighs, just above where her stockings ended. It was clear that the invitation was not confined to dinner.

  He hesitated only a second. To be actually in the Castle when the time came to attempt his coup would simplify things enormously. But he felt that there were certain snags attached to the invitation. He had now extracted from Helga all the information that she could give him, and if he dined with her it was obvious that she would expect him to make love to her. He could have dealt with that, and, for the moment he could not actually put his finger on what other snags there might be; yet some sixth sense warned him that to accept would land him into unforeseen difficulties.

  “No,” he said. “Thanks, all the same. I’d simply love to, but the trouble is that there are certain arrangements that I have to make down in the village tonight.”

  She pouted prettily. “Oh, come on. Why not? I’ll see to it that the servants put their backs into giving us a jolly good meal, with lots of the Count’s best drink; and we might—well, we might have a bit of fun afterwards. Surely you can do whatever you’ve got to do in the village tomorrow morning.”

  He shook his head and stood up. “No! Honestly! It’s as much as my job is worth not to get those arrangements made tonight. I’m sure Fritz won’t be occupying all your time and that we could have lots of fun together. Leave it to me, and after tomorrow night’s business is over I’ll get in touch with you.”

  “What about coming back later on tonight?” she enquired.

  The last thing he wanted her to do was to stay up for him, so he said: “I shan’t be through before two o’clock at the earliest. We had much better make it another time.”

  “All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “Still, if you find that you can get back earlier——”

  “That’s sweet of you,” he smiled. “But I doubt if I can. I’ve got the hell of a lot to do, and I simply must go now.”

  As he moved towards the door she accompanied him, and in the hall outside helped him on with his coat. Then she opened the front door for him.

  “I’ll be seeing you,” he smiled, as he stepped out into the courtyard.

  “Auf Wiedersehen!” she called, letting her eyelashes fall in a last gesture of renewed invitation.

  He nodded, blew her a kiss, and crossed the big echoing yard. He would have preferred not to go down the main road to the village, but felt that he must do so because she might still be watching him from a window.

  As he walked down the curving slope he was thinking what marvellous luck he had had so far. When he had set out from London it had seemed that he had set himself an almost impossible task. Yet, he had had one good break after another. There was the cardinal fact to start with that Erika was still at Niederfels and in good health, instead of a poor helpless wreck in some heavily guarded concentration camp deep inside Germany, as she so easily might have been. Then his turning back after his first visit to the Villa Offenbach, to see Einholtz setting off across the lake and von Osterberg handcuffed to his chair, had given him an enormous advantage over the enemy. The raid on the Villa had gone without a single hitch. He had met with no difficulty in disposing of Einholtz’s body. He had reached von Lottingen’s villa without even being challenged by a patrol boat. No one had spotted him coming ashore. Everything had gone according to plan once he was inside Germany, and he had got away with a first-class car. To cap it all he had learned from Helga’s letters that Erika was guarded only by herself and two or three middle-aged road patrol men, and those letters had enabled him to reconnoitre the inside of the Castle in daylight.

  Look for snags where he would he could not see them, and the job now seemed unbelievably easy—if only his luck would hold for another few hours.

  He was halfway down to the village, and just about to turn off into the woods to recross the valley, when he caught the purr of a powerful car approaching. Swiftly as he jumped aside into the fringe of trees the car was almost upon him. As it raced round the bend he had a full view of its occupants. Inside, with their backs to the driver, sat two heavily jowled Gestapo thugs. Facing them was a handsome young S.S. man, whose face had obviously been painted, and beside him sat Gruppenführer Grauber!

  Gregory’s coat collar was turned up and the brim of his soft hat pulled down over his eyes, as some protection against the cold; so, even if any of them had noticed him, he didn’t think there was any chance that he had been recognised. But the very sight of Grauber was for him, at that moment, like a terrific punch landing straight on his heart.

  Only a moment ago everything had looked so easy. Now, by arriving on the scene a night earlier than Gregory had expected him, Grauber loomed like a dark and terrible menace over any prospect of spiriting Erika simply and swiftly away.

  Instead of the occupants of the Castle going to
bed at the early hour usual in the country, with Grauber there they would be sure to sit up until midnight or later, talking and drinking. When Gregory stealthily made his way to Erika’s dungeon he might find it empty, as it was quite possible that Grauber would have her upstairs to taunt and torture her with the news that her lover would also be a prisoner by the following night. Worse, Helga might mention his recent visit.

  He had told her that he was making certain arrangements in the village in connection with the trap. Grauber would know that no instructions of that sort had been issued to any of his people. He would ask Helga to describe her visitor and from the description he would recognise Gregory at once. If that happened when he made his way to Erika’s dungeon, they would be there in the dark, waiting for him. The trap would close with a snap. It would then be impossible for him to make any second attempt to rescue Erika, and he would have to bite through the capsule of poison that he carried in his mouth.

  In a terrible wave of depression he knew that he had been counting his chickens too soon. His luck had now run out.

  Chapter XX

  The Long Night

  Slowly and dejectedly Gregory walked across the valley bottom and up its further slope, to the car. Darkness had fallen by the time he reached it, and glancing at the luminous dial of his watch he saw that the time was twenty-five to seven.

  Thinking matters over, he realised that just before he had seen Grauber he had had one last piece of luck. His refusal of Helga’s invitation had been nothing less than a miraculous preservation. Had he accepted it, or even lingered with her for another ten minutes, Grauber would have arrived to find them together and the game would have been up. As it was, he was at least still alive and free.

  While he was still cursing the Gruppenführer for his most untimely arrival Gregory had formulated a probable reason for it. At first, he had jumped to the conclusion that something must have gone wrong at the Villa Offenbach and Grauber had somehow found out that he had entered Germany forty-eight hours before he was expected. But it could not be that. Einholtz was safely in a place where he would never more tell tales, and Kuporovitch could be trusted to look after von Osterberg. Even if Stefan had conceivably slipped up and the Count had escaped he had neither the guts, the means or any incentive to make his way back to Germany and, for the sake of reporting Einholtz’s death, place himself once more in the hands of the Gestapo. Even a surprise visit to the Villa by one of Einholtz’s colleagues could have revealed nothing of Gregory’s own plans. He was quite confident of that.

  Therefore Grauber’s arrival could have no ulterior motive behind it, and Gregory recalled having glimpsed some gun-cases among the luggage strapped at the back of the Gruppenführer’s car. In consequence, it seemed almost certain that he had simply decided to take a day off. He had brought his pansy boy-friend with him to provide amorous entertainment, and meant to spend the following day shooting in the woods, as a pleasant relaxation before glutting himself with sadistic fare when his enemy was brought in as a prisoner on the night of the 13th.

  The odds were, then, that unless Helga had spoken about her visitor and described him, Grauber was still in ignorance that he had as yet left Switzerland. The possibility of Helga talking remained a terrible imponderable which it was impossible to assess; but, fortunately, Grauber was not interested in women and probably still regarded her as little more than a servant. The fact that he had not bothered to notify her of his impending arrival could be fairly taken as some evidence of that.

  On the other hand, she was Einholtz’s girl-friend and Erika’s gaoler, so Grauber would be certain to have some conversation with her. Still, like most people with whom the one-eyed Gruppenführer came into contact, she would probably be frightened of him, and refrain from volunteering any information for which she was not asked. As the girl was more or less a nymphomaniac her thoughts, too, would probably now be centred on alluring one of the hefty Gestapo men whom Grauber had brought with him. Such a woman would be certain to have an instinctive dislike of perverts, so, if the choice lay with her she would probably have as little as possible to do with Grauber, and if he confined his remarks to her to formal enquiries as to Erika’s safe keeping and health, Gregory felt that there seemed a fair chance of getting into the Castle while his presence in the neighbourhood was still unsuspected.

  It occurred to him that his chances might be better if he put the job off for a few nights, until Grauber got fed up with waiting for him, and departed. But he soon realised that to do so would not really make his prospects any better, and might even make them considerably worse. When Einholtz failed to appear on the following night Grauber would know at once that his plans had miscarried. A search of the Villa Offenbach would reveal nothing, but he would guess that somehow his enemy had proved too clever for Einholtz; and the discovery of the launch in von Lottingen’s boathouse would be a pretty good indication that Gregory had used it to enter Germany. That would cause Grauber to order a maximum state of alertness; triple guards of his own men would be put on Erika, and every policeman in Württemberg would be ordered to join in a grand battue to hunt Gregory down. No, he decided, the attempt must be made that night or never.

  As, huddled in his overcoat, he ate another cold meal, he pondered a further problem that worried him considerably. This was the time factor. If he did succeed in getting Erika out of the Castle, they had to accomplish the journey back to von Lottingen’s and recross the lake before dawn. Fortunately the winter nights were long, but, even so, allowance must be made for unforeseen delays, and that meant a fairly early start.

  It was as good as certain that Grauber would not go to bed before midnight, and by that time they ought to have reached the car and just be setting off. He had planned to go in about eleven o’clock, but to do so now meant taking a great additional risk of being caught on the spot. On the other hand, if he postponed his attempt until he could be ninety-nine per cent certain that everyone in the Castle was asleep he would have to put off his time of going in until about three o’clock.

  If he waited until then all hope of getting safely across the lake the same night would be gone. Even in the most favourable circumstances, Erika’s rescue, getting from the Castle to the car and the sixty odd miles by by-roads from Niederfels to von Lottingen’s would occupy three hours; and if they did not reach the lake side until six o’clock they would find it already stirring into its daily activity, dawn would be breaking and all attempts to evade the German patrol boats rendered hopeless by the morning light.

  As a last alternative he considered going in at four o’clock—the optimum hour of unpreparedness of the inmates of the Castle—getting well clear of the Niederfels district before dawn, then lying up in some quiet spot for the day and making his bid to recross the lake the following night. But that, too, had to be dismissed. The moment Erika’s escape was discovered Grauber would have the police of the whole countryside in a ferment. He would instantly assume that Gregory had beaten him to it and was responsible for the rescue. The theft of the car in Stuttgart the night before would be linked up with him and become a redhot menace unless he abandoned it. Investigation would reveal the Villa Offenbach’s launch in von Lottingen’s boathouse and their retreat by means of it would be cut off. They had no friends with whom they could seek shelter, very little food, no ration cards and no identity papers. With such appalling handicaps and the police in every village searching for them, in a few days, at most, they were bound to be captured.

  In vain Gregory racked his brains. His original plan was the only one that offered the least chance of success, so he must go through with it. Once more he went into times and decided that about half an hour after midnight was the latest he dared leave it to go in; but the odds were that Grauber and his friends would not be in bed by then, if they were on holiday and there was no cause for them to get up early the following morning. Moreover, even if he succeeded in reaching Erika’s dungeon without being detected, he might meet with unforeseen difficulties and
delays in getting her out.

  His final decision, therefore, was that on balance he would do better, after all, to go in as soon as the servants could be expected to be out of the way, around eleven o’clock, as he would then, at least, gain an additional hour and a half’s leeway against unexpected contingencies later in the night.

  His hours of waiting seemed intolerable and never-ending. The devastating break in his luck now seemed a presage of final misfortune and defeat. The cold was bitter and with the coming of night both the temperature and his spirits sank towards zero. But even the longest wait has an ending, and at last it was time for him to set out on his terrible gamble.

  At half past ten he edged the car back on to the forest track and drove it at a moderate pace down through the village, then some way up the winding road to Schloss Niederfels.

  About two-thirds of the way up he came to a place where the rough road widened, so he slowed down, turned the car round, and eased it in as far as he could under the shadow of the trees, with its bonnet now pointing down to the village. Getting out, he made certain that his pistol, torch, skeleton keys, chisel, pliers and file were all in their right places on his person; then, little realising that he was standing on almost the identical spot on which Erika had stood one hundred and twelve nights before, he did just as she had done when Einholtz had left her with the car and pretended to go forward to reconnoitre. Craning his head backwards, he stared up above the opposite tree-tops at the faint outline of the Schloss.

  For a moment he stood there, his thoughts for once tenuous and confused with vague speculations as to whether this would prove his last night on earth, and a half-formulated prayer that the gods would aid him to restore liberty and happiness to the woman he loved so desperately. Then he turned, and set off with firm steps up the hill.

  On reaching the wide approach to the Castle he began to tread more gently. Skirting the great main gateway, he entered the smaller courtyard that he had used on his visit in the afternoon. Pausing for a moment, he gave the façade above the kitchen quarters a swift but careful scrutiny. No light showed, no sound reached his ears. Going softly forward, he reached the postern door at which he had talked with the fat woman. Trying it, he found it locked, so he moved along to the right, looking at the windows as he went. The third had been left a little open, so there was no need for him to force an entry.