V for Vengeance

by Dennis Wheatley

  Having secured the telephone number of the café he gave her name to the waiter as Mademoiselle Olivaux and told him that she was expecting a telephone call during the next half-hour. He then told Madeleine that she was to remain there until he rang her up to say that it was all right for her to come along to Ferrière’s house. If he did not ring up before eleven o’clock she was to assume that he had met with unexpected trouble, and must fend for herself that night. If he succeeded in getting away he would meet her the following morning at eight o’clock at the bench in the Bois on which they had slept; but if he failed to put in an appearance there by nine she would know that he had been captured. In that event she was to telephone Lieutenant Ribaud, banking on his chivalry to stretch a point in her case and help her to get safely out of Paris; or, failing that, seek his advice as to how she could best hide or escape from the danger area without compromising him.

  ‘Dear Stefan,’ she murmured, stretching out a hand across the little marble-topped table and clasping his. ‘You think of everything; but I shall be holding thumbs for you all the time, and, if prayers have any meaning, mine to Sainte Jeanne this morning will bring you her protection.’

  With a last long look into her shining eyes he kissed her hand and went out into the night.

  On reaching Ferrière’s house he rang the bell with his left hand, and with his right grasped the automatic in his overcoat pocket, so that if need be he could shoot through the coat and would not be taken at a disadvantage should an S.S. guard open the door to him. But his wise precaution proved unnecessary; it was the old housekeeper who answered his ring.

  Putting a finger to his lips to enjoin caution he whispered: ‘Is Monsieur le Maire in, and alone?’

  She shook her head, and Kuporovitch drew back a step as he enquired: ‘Are the police still here then?’

  ‘No, no! It is not the police; only a young Frenchman who arrived about ten minutes ago. I believe he’s a friend of Mademoiselle Lavallière because immediately I showed him in he asked Monsieur Ferrière if he knew what happened to her.’

  ‘I see,’ Kuporovitch paused a moment. ‘Is he by any chance a tall young man—dark, good-looking and with side-whiskers; rather like a Spaniard?’

  ‘Yes, you have described him exactly.’

  ‘In that case, I know him, so I will go in.’ Kuporovitch had described Pierre Ponsardin, and felt certain now that it must be the young artist. While the housekeeper closed the front door he strode down the passage and, throwing open the door of the sitting-room, walked straight in, with his gun in his hand.

  As he had supposed, the visitor was Pierre, who was surprised and delighted to see him, but it was quite otherwise with the lean owner of the house. Springing to his feet, Ferrière exclaimed:

  ‘What! You again! Go away, go away! You will be my ruin!’

  ‘I trust not,’ said the Russian affably, ‘but that depends almost entirely on whether you are willing to give me your co-operation.’

  ‘No, no!’ wailed the Mayor. ‘This is too much! It is only by the grace of God that the Nazis accepted my story of what happened last night. They may still regard me with suspicion. It is enough for them to see you enter my house and leave it for them to have me shot.’

  ‘I have no intention of leaving it at the moment,’ replied Kuporovitch, and turning to Pierre he added: ‘So you got away after all. Congratulations, mon ami! I am more delighted than I can say to know it.’

  ‘It was a horribly narrow shave,’ Pierre admitted. ‘I got out on the roof and nearly ran into a group of gendarmes, but I was just in time to hide behind the chimney-stacks, and they missed me in the darkness. Afterwards, I managed to get down through another house farther along the street. But what’s happened to Madeleine? I’ve been simply frantic with anxiety about her. It occurred to me that, in view of Monsieur Ferrière’s official position and his being an old friend of the Lavallières’, he might be able to get me some information; but he says he cannot help.’

  Raising his gun, Kuporovitch prodded the Mayor with it in the stomach, as he said:

  ‘Then this knobbly-kneed old Quisling is meaner than even I thought him. Be of good cheer, Pierre. With Monsieur Ferrière’s unconscious aid we got Madeleine out of the Cherche-Midi prison last night. At the moment she is sitting in the Café du Rhône up the street and just round the corner to the left. Now that I have satisfied myself that there are no Gestapo people here I should be obliged if you would go and fetch her.’

  ‘So she’s safe!’ cried Pierre. ‘Thank God for that!’ And, his face wreathed in smiles, he ran from the room.

  The Russian could now give his undivided attention to his unwilling host. Pocketing his gun, he settled himself comfortably in an armchair, and remarked: ‘We may as well begin as we mean to go on. Am I not right, Monsieur le Maire? It is with that in mind that I am making myself at home. It is my pleasure to announce to you that Madeleine and I, and possibly young Monsieur Ponsardin as well, propose to remain with you as your guests—probably for some weeks to come. I hope that we shall all settle down very happily together.’

  ‘What!’ screamed the Mayor, flinging up his long arms. ‘Settle down! Have you in my house! To stay! With half the police in Paris after you! But you must be crazy!’

  ‘On the contrary,’ beamed Kuporovitch, ‘I fancy that, all things considered, I’m extremely sane. After last night the Gestapo will certainly not imagine that Madeleine and I would venture back here; so you see, provided we do not go out, except at night, and are careful not to expose ourselves at any of the windows, we shall be safer here than anywhere else in Paris.’

  ‘I will not have it! I will hand you over to the police!’ cried the Mayor with a show of spirit.

  ‘Oh no, you won’t!’ Kuporovitch grinned, tapping the pocket that held his gun. ‘You’d be dead before you reached your own doorstep.’

  ‘So you plan to keep me a prisoner in my own house,’ sneered Ferrière. ‘You seem to have overlooked the fact that the people in my office will come to enquire for me. Either you’ll be discovered by them, or you must allow me to continue my official duties; how do you propose to stop my reporting you the moment I am out of range of that horrible weapon which you handle so casually?’

  ‘That we shall arrange in good time, but for the moment I hope the position is clear.’

  ‘And what of my housekeeper, Madame Chautemps? Do you think she will submit to this invasion without telling the neighbours?’

  ‘I do,’ nodded Kuporovitch. ‘It so happens that Madame Chautemps is a de Gaullist.’

  ‘Quel horreur! A de Gaullist in my house! What I shall do without her after all these years I cannot think, but I will dismiss her in the morning.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing: but it’s most fortunate for us that this good woman should feel as most French people outside official circles do. I am confident that she can be relied on not to betray us.’

  ‘But you cannot stay here! You cannot!’ insisted the Mayor desperately. ‘Think what would happen to me if later on it was discovered that I had been hiding you. The Gestapo would cut me in little pieces.’

  ‘They wouldn’t treat you any worse than they’re already treating far better Frenchmen than you.’

  ‘But I have done nothing to deserve it, and I serve France in my own way, for what I honestly believe to be her best interests. Have you no mercy?’

  ‘No, none at all,’ said the Russian quietly.

  At that moment there were footsteps in the hall, and Pierre came in with Madeleine.

  Kuporovitch told them of his intentions and asked Pierre if he too would like to avail himself of Monsieur Ferrière’s unwilling hospitality; but the young artist shook his head.

  ‘It’s a comfort to know that there’s this place to come to in an emergency, but at the moment I don’t see why I should leave my old apartment. The police have no record of me at all. They didn’t even see me in the nursing-home, so there’s no reason why they should suspect me. It s
eems to me, too, that at any time this old devil may think up some way to betray you. Why don’t you come and stay with me? There’s not much room, but we’ll manage somehow, and you’d both be safer there than here.’

  ‘Yes, yes! The young man is right,’ said Ferrière eagerly. ‘Why don’t you go and stay with him?’

  But Kuporovitch quelled him with a frown.

  ‘Thank you, no. Both Madeleine and I are known to the police. We are also known to the concierge and other people in the block where Monsieur Ponsardin has his apartment; so we should be running the gravest risk to go there, although I think he’s quite right as far as he himself is concerned.’

  At Madeleine’s suggestion Madame Chautemps was then called in. The position was explained to her, and she was asked if she would like to leave or preferred to stay on and take the risk that later she might get into serious trouble for not having reported to the police that two people were hiding in the house.

  ‘I’ll stay,’ she said at once. ‘Otherwise who’s to do for you? Monsieur le Maire can’t do his own shopping, otherwise the tradesmen would soon begin to suspect that something fishy was going on; and if you get some flighty young baggage in to take my place you wouldn’t be able to trust her farther than you could see her.’

  ‘But the work will be too much for you,’ interjected the agitated Mayor, ‘and this is not a very large house. We couldn’t make them very comfortable.’

  ‘It’s quite large enough,’ replied Madame Chautemps grimly; ‘and if the work proves a big burden on my old bones I’ve no doubt Mademoiselle will help me.’

  ‘Of course I will!’ exclaimed Madeleine. ‘And thank you a thousand times for helping us.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure, Mademoiselle, now that I know you and your friends are on the right side.’

  Kuporovitch also thanked her, then he said: ‘Monsieur le Maire has just set us a pretty little problem. If he suddenly neglects all his official duties without giving any adequate explanation an investigation will at once be made which would lead to our discovery; on the other hand, once he has left the house we have no means of ensuring that he won’t betray us. Have any of you any suggestions as to how we could get over that?’

  ‘Perhaps you could make him give you some form of security to ensure his behaving himself,’ murmured Pierre. ‘Something that you could destroy if he attempts to double-cross you.’

  ‘An excellent idea,’ smiled Kuporovitch; ‘but what?’

  ‘Take his stamp collection,’ said Madame Chautemps. ‘He’s simply crazy about those stamps of his. He spends every night of his life playing about with them, and, although he’s so mean that you wouldn’t believe it about other things, he spends goodness knows what on those little bits of paper. I’ve heard tell that his collection is worth half a million francs.’

  ‘The very thing!’ exclaimed the Russian, and, jumping up, he seized the two large stamp albums which still lay open on Ferrière’s big desk.

  ‘You can’t, you can’t!’ wailed the Mayor, tears coming into his weak eyes. ‘Those albums represent a lifetime of patient industry. How can you be so ruthless to rob me of them?’

  ‘We have no intention of doing so,’ Kuporovitch replied quietly. ‘We are merely confiscating them temporarily as a guarantee of your good behaviour. If all goes well you shall have them back when we have made other plans and decide to leave your house; but if not you will never see them again, and they will be burnt to the last five kopek stamp in the collection.’

  As he spoke he handed the volumes to Pierre and added:

  ‘If we keep them here he might arrange a surprise raid in which I’m caught napping before I have time to destroy them. You’d better take these away with you, Pierre, and deposit them in a bank or some safe place. Then, if anything goes wrong with us, you’ll be able to make Monsieur le Maire pay the penalty.’

  Ferrière continued to protest and plead, but Kuporovitch saw that Madeleine was dropping with fatigue, so he cut him short by saying: ‘All is fixed up most satisfactorily. I’m sure you will see the sense of holding your tongue when you leave the house tomorrow. It only remains now for you to show us our rooms.’

  The Mayor was in a corner, and he knew it. With a helpless little shrug of his lean shoulders he looked across at his housekeeper, who said at once: ‘We’ll put Mademoiselle in the Blue Room, and the gentleman can have Monsieur Georges’ old room. It won’t take me long to get them ready.’ And she left them.

  On hearing her dead fiancés’ name Madeleine went pale. It was getting on for five months now since his death, and in recent weeks she had been so fully occupied that she had had little time to brood upon it. With a sudden feeling of guilt she realised that she had hardly thought about him at all since becoming the matron of the nursing-home, but this mention of him, and the fact that she was in the house where he had lived, brought the whole tragedy back vividly to her.

  Seeing her agitation, Kuporovitch walked over to the side-table on which there was a decanter of brandy and some glasses. As he poured her out a stiff tot he said to the Mayor: ‘While we’re in your house I fear you will have to regard us as an army of occupation. We shall take what we want, and I shall give you chits for it. After all, there won’t be much difference between that and the worthless marks the German Army is foisting on the French people; although actually my paper is a better bet, as I am a comparatively honest person, and if I escape death or capture until the end of the war I shall pay you in real money afterwards.’

  Ferrière groaned, but made no protest, as the Russian poured out two more goes of cognac for Pierre and himself. Then he looked across at the Mayor with an amused smile and said: ‘Won’t you join us?’

  ‘Why not?’ sighed his victim. ‘I might as well at least drink a small share of my own brandy.’ It was his final surrender, and Kuporovitch knew then that they would have no more trouble with him, at all events for the time being.

  When they had finished their drinks Pierre left them, it having been agreed that neither of the parties should attempt to get in touch with the other for the next few days, except in a case of emergency. He had hardly gone when Madame Chautemps came downstairs to say that the rooms were ready, and, well-satisfied with the evening’s proceedings, having wished her and their host good-night, the two fugitives from the Gestapo went up to bed.

  Next morning when they came down to breakfast the Mayor seemed to have accepted the situation which had been forced upon him, and his principal concern was now for the safety of his precious stamp collection. Madeleine assured him that Pierre was absolutely honest and that there was no cause to fear that it would not be returned intact to him in due course if all went well.

  When he had gone out to his official duties Kuporovitch made a full inspection of the house to ascertain its resources. He had no food-card of his own, and they dared not present Madeleine’s. They could not go out in daylight while the shops were open, yet they had to live somehow and might even have to face a lengthy siege there.

  Monsieur Ferrière’s cellar was a great disappointment as, although, like all Frenchmen, he knew what was good from having been born with a natural palate, he was a very moderate drinker and never entertained. The cellar held only about three dozen bottles of claret, burgundy and sauterne, five bottles of brandy, two of Armagnac, and no champagne, liqueurs or non-French wines at all. On the other hand, a second cellar revealed that Monsieur le Maire had had the forethought to lay in a good supply of emergency stores, and the piles of tins and boxes comforted the Russian with the thought that they would certainly not suffer from starvation for several weeks at least.

  Madeleine meanwhile had a chat with Madame Chautemps, during which they arranged to share the work of the house between them. Food was now becoming so difficult to obtain that even the possession of a ration-card was no definite guarantee of actually getting the goods, and to make certain of doing so it was often necessary to queue up early at the shops in order to get one’s share before the item
s ran out. In consequence, shopping was a lengthy process, and it was decided that the housekeeper should give most of her time to it while Madeleine made all the beds and kept the house clean.

  That evening they waited with some anxiety for the Mayor’s return, since, in spite of his apparently philosophic acceptance of their presence, there was still a chance that he might decide to risk his stamp collection as less precious than his life—which would be in jeopardy as long as they remained with him—but he arrived back at his normal hour, showing no change of attitude from that which he had displayed in the morning.

  When he saw that dinner consisted mainly of things from his hoarded stores he began to complain most bitterly, saying that the food situation would get infinitely worse before the war was over and that at this rate they would consume the whole of his stock in a month.

  Kuporovitch told him not to worry, as when the hue and cry for Madeleine and himself had died down a little he would be able to go out again and somehow or other would obtain additional supplies.

  The week passed quickly, as although neither of the refugees showed their noses outside the house there was plenty to do inside it, even for the Russian, who was by no means a bad cook, and had volunteered to take over the preparation of the meals.

  On Sunday, November the 10th, the news came through that Libreville, the capital of Gabon in West Africa, had surrendered to General de Gaulle and the Free French Forces; so, in spite of Ferrière’s anti-de Gaullist feelings, they held a little celebration at which they insisted that Madame Chautemps should join them, selecting for dinner that night some of the Mayor’s most precious tinned foods and a few of the best bottles of wine from his cellar.

  Now that they had been for eight days in the house Kuporovitch felt the time had come when, provided that he exercised caution, he might go out occasionally with reasonable safety. On the Monday he telephoned Ribaud and fixed a meeting for that night at the Café du Rhône, just round the corner.