Sabine was dressed in a light summer frock, and for a few moments Gregory stood there admiring her slim figure and the perfection of her features. She was now about twenty-eight and had changed little since he had first known her. A few tiny laughter wrinkles showed at the corners of her mouth and her hips and bust were slightly larger, but her magnolia-petal skin remained unblemished and a splendid foil to the dark hair that grew down so attractively into her smooth forehead as a widow’s peak. Her mouth was a little open and showed a glimpse of her small, even teeth; her lips had always been a bright red, which he knew owed little to lipstick, and her dark eyelashes curled up making delightful fans on her cheeks.
Stepping back out of sight, in a clear voice he spoke one of the few sentences in Hungarian that he knew: ‘Holy Virgin, we believe that without sin thou didst conceive.’ It was the first line of a couplet he had heard her say a score of times before they had gone to bed together.
Suddenly there was a stir in the hammock. As Sabine sat up he ducked down behind it. With a low laugh she completed the couplet, ‘And now we pray, in thee believing, that we may sin without conceiving.’ Then she cried, ‘Come out from behind there, whoever you are.’
Putting his head up above the back edge of the hammock, he grinned at her.
‘Gregory!’ she exclaimed, her black eyes going round with amazement.
‘Then I’m not the only one who has heard you say your little prayer,’ he laughed.
‘Goodness, no,’ she laughed back. ‘But I thought you must be one of my old Hungarian boy friends. What in the world are you doing here?’
‘Oh, I’m in Berlin to destroy the Third Reich and put an end to the war,’ he replied lightly.
‘I wish to God you could,’ she said with sudden seriousness. ‘The air-raids have become simply ghastly. Every night I go to bed expecting to be blown to pieces before morning. But, honestly; how do you come to be in Berlin?’
‘The usual way. I caught an aircraft and was dropped by parachute.’
She frowned. ‘You’ve come as a spy, then? After you got me out of the Tower and failed to get away yourself it was certain you would be arrested. I thought, perhaps, that you’d escaped from prison and managed to get here as a refugee. You told me that if your plan failed you would be finished with the British and try to get to Ireland.’
‘It didn’t fail, as far as you were concerned,’ he said quickly. ‘But, of course, I was arrested. They gave me a whacking great prison sentence; so I’ve had a very thin time these past eighteen months. I’m only out now on what you might call ticket-of-leave. Sent here to spy for England.’
As he told the lies he had prepared should he succeed in finding her, he watched her expression intently. For now was the critical moment. To his immense relief the frown left her face and, shaking her head, she said, ‘So you’ve been in prison on my account. You poor darling. But come round here and tell me about it.’
‘I’d better not,’ he replied. ‘I might be seen from the house and I’m on the run, remember. I knew I could trust you, but for both our sakes we mustn’t be seen together.’
She shrugged. ‘You needn’t worry. In the daytime I’m all alone here except for my maid Trudi; and it’s her afternoon and evening off.’
Reassured, Gregory came round from behind the hammock and sat down beside her. With a smile, he said, ‘You wouldn’t be you, my sweet, if you didn’t have company at nights. Is it still Ribb, or have you another boy friend?’
‘I still see Ribb at times, but not often these days. He lets me stay on here, though, and my present boy friend, if you can call the old so-and-so that, was provided by him. He’s a once-a-weeker. Think of that, as a contrast to yourself, my dear, and those wonderful first weeks we spent together in Budapest.’
Of them Gregory needed no reminding. As her dark eyes, full of wickedness, caught his he could see her again lying naked and laughing on a bed, shaking her hair back a little breathlessly as she reached for a glass of champagne. This disclosure made him more uneasy than ever; for, since Sabine had such an unsatisfactory lover, he felt certain now that if she did let him stay there she would look on him as a heaven-sent outlet for her amorous propensities. As he was wondering how he could deal with such a situation, she said:
‘You’d never guess who my present boy friend is.’
‘Without a clue, how can I?’
‘Oh, he’s an old friend of yours; at least, a sort of connection—er, by marriage.’
‘But I’m not married.’
‘No, but there’s that lovely blonde that got so het-up when she learned about our trip together down the Danube. You told me in London that for a long time past you had looked on her as your wife.’
‘What, Erika? But I’ve never met any of her relations.’
Sabine’s big, dark eyes twinkled with amusement. ‘You’ve met her husband.’
‘Kurt von Osterberg! My God, you can’t mean …?’
‘I do. He has been living here with me for the past three months.’
‘But damn it! He must be nearly sixty and …’
‘Don’t I know it, my dear. And I shouldn’t think he ever was much good between the sheets. But there it is. I’m saddled with him and trying to make the best of it.’
‘But in God’s name why?’ Gregory stared at her in amazement. ‘You’re as lovely as ever you were, and could take your pick of a hundred lovers. Von Osterberg hasn’t even got any money. Erika married him only because it meant so much to her dying father that she should rehabilitate herself in the eyes of the aristocracy after her affaire with Hugo Falkenstein; and she picked Kurt because she knew that if she financed his scientific experiments with a part of the millions Falkenstein left her he would raise no objections to her having boy friends.’
Sabine made a little face. ‘My dear, for getting me out of the Tower you say you had to pay by being sent to prison. After I got back here I had to pay in another way, because the information you gave Colonel Kasdar was false.’
‘I know; but I didn’t realise that till afterwards,’ Gregory lied smoothly. ‘As I told you, I was never a Planner myself, only one of the bodies in the Cabinet War Room who stuck pins in maps. I thought that I’d passed the right dope to Kasdar for you to take back, but my pal on the Planning Staff had sold me the Deception Plan.’
‘Is that the truth?’ she asked, a shade suspiciously.
‘Of course,’ he replied, without blinking an eyelid. ‘Kasdar’s price for getting you away in a Moldavian ship was that I should get him the objectives of Operation “Torch”; so that by passing them on to the Nazis he would stand well with them when they had won the war and Hitler took over all the little neutrals that had stayed on the fence. He was pretty well informed about most things, so I didn’t dare try to trick him. If he’d found me out he would have ditched us both.’
‘Well, I’ll take your word for it. There are times when even Ribb doesn’t know what the Führer has really decided. He’s often told me that so many different versions about our next moves are put out by Bormann and Keitel that he is led to believe one thing and Goering and Himmler others. I suppose in Churchill’s headquarters it’s much the same. Of course, I couldn’t help suspecting you, but I did think you might have been fooled yourself.’
Gregory suppressed a sigh of relief at having got over that nasty fence. But she was going on:
‘All the same, you landed me in a pretty mess. As your information tallied with so much else they’d had, the Führer didn’t take it out of Ribb; but Ribb did out of me because he had given himself a lot of kudos from having had in me a first-class spy who had done better than any of Admiral Canaris’s people or Himmler’s. As soon as it emerged that I’d been fooled the fat was in the fire. Himmler came back at Ribb and raked up his man Grauber’s report about you and me in Budapest. They swore I’d deceived Ribb deliberately and demanded that I should be handed over as a British agent.’
‘My dear, I am sorry!’ exclaimed Gregory, with genuine feeling.
‘And well you may be,’ she said, frowning at the memory. ‘For a few days I was scared stiff. But Ribb saved my bacon. By sheer luck one of his agents had just turned in information that Marshal Weygand was contemplating a break with Pétain and planning to make himself Chief of a separate French State in North Africa, then bring it over to the Allies. Ribb said I had got it for him in London. Weygand was arrested before he could leave France and evidence was found that he meant to play traitor. That evened up the score against the black I’d put up and enabled Ribb to claim that I was on the level. But to keep Himmler and Co. quiet I had to keep the pot boiling.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘The Gestapo were still so suspicious of me that Ribb had to show my Nazi zeal by using me in other ways. He made it obvious in public that he had dropped me as a mistress, so it should appear that I was no longer in favour with the Nazis, then he arranged for me to get to know various people who were believed to be plotting against the Führer. The first group was a Professor of Philosophy named Kurt Huber and a couple named Scholl. It wasn’t difficult to fool the old boy and I got hold of some of his papers.’
‘Do you mean that you turned them in?’ Gregory asked, with difficulty concealing how shocked he felt.
Sabine lit a cigarette and nodded. ‘Of course. I could only enable Ribb to keep me out of a concentration camp by showing willing, and they were, as near as makes no difference, Communists. That’s the one thing Hitler and I think the same about. All Communists are poison and the sooner they are eliminated the better.’
Gregory knew her views about that from the past too well to argue the matter; and as he considered Communism to be as much a menace to civilisation as the Nazis he only asked, ‘What then?’
‘Later I was given the Kreisau Circle to tackle. The group takes its name from the Silesian estate of Count Helmuth von Moltke, because he and Count Peter Yorck and others used to meet and plot there. But they came quite frequently to Berlin. They were intellectuals who started off as Socialists, but they went Communist, too, and were trying to sell us out to the Russians. That little coup put me in the clear. And when Ribb gave Himmler the information I’d obtained about them even that big fat slob had to admit that his suspicions of me had been unfounded.’
‘Well, you’ve been a busy girl,’ Gregory smiled.
‘Busy in a way I don’t like,’ she retorted. ‘There have been others, too, that I’ve failed to get anything on. And I prefer to pick the men I go to bed with. Still, it’s better than having to eat offal in a concentration camp and being had by three or four Nazi thugs every night.’
‘How about von Osterberg?’ Gregory enquired. ‘I’d bet my last cent that he is not a Communist.’
‘Oh no. That’s quite a different kettle of fish. But the aristocracy and most of the Generals have always been anti-Hitler. On and off for years they have been plotting to kill him, and since the Allies landed in France it’s been brewing up again. Kurt is in it. I’m certain of that. He has been working for years on these Secret Weapons, and for the past year or more he has been the top boy at an underground laboratory near Potsdam. As that’s not far from here Ribb thought it would be a good idea for me to play around with him, then when he was bombed out of his flat suggest that he should come to live here. Reluctantly I obliged. He was terribly flattered, of course, that anyone like myself should take an interest in him, so he fell for me like a ripe plum. I’m really like a mother to him and he gives me very little trouble.’
‘Still, that must be pretty dull for you,’ Gregory grinned at her. ‘And what a shocking waste of the very best fissionable material.’ Next second he was cursing himself for what he had said. If he remained there she was going to prove a terrible enough temptation without his leading her on.
‘Don’t worry,’ she smiled back. ‘Kurt is away for a few nights now and then; and there are the afternoons. I’m sure those old Viennese psychologists would approve my methods. The Führer has said that it’s our duty to entertain our heroes on leave from the front, so I stave off getting any complex about suffering from night starvation by playing fairy godmother to a variety of young men.’
‘I hope you haven’t become altogether promiscuous,’ Gregory remarked.
‘No. Hardly that. But you know well enough that I’ve never been exactly frigid. And I dare not take a regular lover for fear of complications. Even with the bombing there are still parties. In fact, more hectic ones than ever. Now we’re all so afraid that every night will be our last, half the women in Berlin have become like alley cats. They’re half drunk most of the time and will go with any man who asks them. People aren’t even shocked now when they go into their hostess’s bedroom and find a couple on the bed. I have only to go to a party to be besieged by a dozen applicants; and if I feel that way I make a date, or see the night out with the man I like best.’
‘But, reverting to von Osterberg, how extraordinary that, of all people, you should have had to take on Erika’s husband.’
Sabine shrugged. ‘I don’t see anything very strange about that. As far as we know these plotters are quite a small clique, and he just happens to be one of them. You’re not jealous, are you? After all, you’ve been hitting it up with the poor man’s wife.’
‘Good lord, no. Why should I worry? I’ve got the best part of the bargain.’
‘That’s not very complimentary.’
‘I meant that as far as this foursome is concerned I’m more fortunate than you are,’ he amended hastily.
‘Foursome!’ Sabine repeated with a sudden laugh. ‘In the old days, if only Kurt were younger and more attractive, we might have had one. In Budapest it was quite a thing for two couples to go off to some place in the country for the weekend and for the husbands to swop wives or mistresses, then finish up by all playing games together. When it came to a free-for-all I bet I would have made Erika jealous before I’d finished with you.’
Gregory shook his head. ‘My dear, you are incorrigible, and the most lovely piece of wickedness. But such a situation is never likely to arise, and I’d like to talk about the present. As I’ve told you, I’m on the run. Not actually being hunted at the moment, but I’ve no papers, no ration card and very little money. I had all these things, of course, but my wallet was stolen while I was sleeping in an air-raid shelter last night; so I’m really up against it. For old times’ sake, would you be willing to hide me for a while?’
Her face remained expressionless as she replied, ‘I don’t know. I’ve my own skin to think of. You admit that you are here as a spy. I ought to say “Yes”, then when you are asleep do a Delilah on you and send for the police.’
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t do that,’ he smiled; then added seriously, ‘Besides, if you did, I’m armed and agile; so it could only result in several people getting killed.’
‘Including me, if you had the chance?’
‘No. I couldn’t do that after what we’ve been to one another. Not even if it meant the difference between my getting away and being captured.’
‘I believe you mean that,’ she said quietly. ‘So you win. We’ve both risked being put on the spot for one another before, so we’ll risk it again. But tell me what you’re really up to here. Not this nonsense about stopping the war single-handed.’
‘It’s quite simple. In London they know that the air-raids must have hit Berlin pretty badly, but not how badly. Air-reconnaissance photographs give a general idea, but no more; and for months past the Allies haven’t had an agent here worthy of the name. For eye-witness reports of conditions in the industrial districts and actual buildings of importance destroyed they’ve had to rely on the accounts of neutral diplomats who have refused to stick it here any longer and returned to their own countries; and, of course, by the time they reach London such reports are weeks out of date. To come here and find out is a pretty tough assignment, but the chaps who run that sort of thing knew that I know Berlin and can pass anywhere as a German; so they came to me in prison and offered to annul the remainder of my sentence if I’d take this trip and come back with the goods.’
‘You want me to hide you, then, while you spend a week or so checking up on the damage that’s been done to the city?’
‘No. I’ve seen quite enough already to put in the sort of report that will satisfy them. My problem now is to get home. With my wallet I lost the coded names and addresses of two neutrals living in Berlin who, I was told, might help me in an emergency, as well as my forged identity papers and money; so I’m stranded. What I want you to do if you possibly can is to get other papers for me and some cash; so that I can make my way to a neutral frontier.’
‘I can let you have all the money you need,’ Sabine replied; then she added with a worried frown, ‘But to get identity papers for you is going to be far from easy.’
‘Money is more than half the battle,’ said Gregory quickly. ‘For a good round sum I might be able to buy a passport from some minor official in a neutral Embassy; but to find such a man would take time and I don’t want to embarrass you with my presence for longer than I can help. Another possibility would be for me to hang about in a well-populated district while an air-raid is in progress and hope to find someone just killed, then take his papers.’
Sabine shook her dark head so that her hair shimmered in the sunshine. ‘No. To approach anyone on the staff of an Embassy is too great a risk. He might agree to get you what you want, then when you went to collect it turn you in to the police. But your second suggestion has given me an idea. People are brought home dead or dying every night. Their wives or relatives are then left with their papers. I’ve known several women who’ve lost their menfolk in the last few months. I could go to see them and sound them out. I might be able to get a set of papers for you that way.’
‘Bless you, my dear. I’ll never be able to repay you.’
She patted his hand. ‘Dear Gregory, you never know. These days we’re all living on the edge of a volcano. If I do survive the war I’ll probably find myself penniless. If so, I’m sure I could count on you to see me through to better times.’
‘Of course you could. Now about hiding me. Where do you suggest that I lie low? How about the rooms over the garage?’
‘Yes, they are furnished and empty. My car’s still there, but I had to get rid of my chauffeur over a year ago when it became impossible for even people like me to get petrol. We all go about on bicycles now. I see no reason, though, why you shouldn’t occupy one of the top bedrooms in the house. Kurt never goes up there and it would be more convenient for Trudi to bring you your meals.’
‘Are you absolutely certain you can trust her?’
‘Yes. I shall simply tell her that you are in trouble with the Nazis. That will be quite enough. She is Hungarian but her mother was a Jewess. And what those fiends are doing to the Jews in Budapest is beyond belief. Hitler is positively obsessed by his fanatical determination to exterminate the whole Jewish race. Ribb told me it was that much more than strategic considerations that led to his taking over Hungary. There were more than a million Jews in Budapest alone; mostly good honest people who ran all our industries and commerce for us. I gather it was the sweeping advance of the Soviet Armies that decided Hitler to go into Hungary and kill all the Jews while he had the chance; and Himmler, who from the beginning has made race-purity his overruling passion, urged him to it. They sent a man named Adolf Eichmann there. He is the head of what is termed the “Office of Jewish Emigration”, but it would be better styled “The Office of Wholesale Murder”.’
‘He is the brute who drove all the Jews in Poland into ghettos, then systematically slaughtered them, isn’t he?’
‘That’s the man, and as his Einsatzgruppen could not shoot the poor devils quickly enough he invented the gas chamber. They sent him to Budapest in March and he made his headquarters the Majestic Hotel. The hordes of Jews rounded up were so enormous that they overflowed the ghettos; so thousands and thousands of them were packed into cattle trucks, ninety to a truck—can you imagine it?—to be sent to Germany. But only a handful ever got here. The trains were shunted on to sidings and the people in them left to starve to death.’
‘God, how appalling!’
‘Isn’t it? And no-one can stop it. The Generals try to when they get the least chance; but Bormann’s Gauleiters have the power to overrule them. It’s said now that Himmler’s ape-men have murdered over four million Jews.’
Gregory shook his head. ‘After all, there are great numbers of decent Germans. One would think they’d get together and stage some sort of protest at such hideous barbarity.’
‘They daren’t. Everyone knows what is going on, of course, and about the tortures that are inflicted on the prisoners in the concentration camps. But no-one mentions these horrors above a whisper. They’d pay for it with their lives if they did. But let’s get off this frightful subject and go across to the house.’
The interior of the villa was much as Gregory had expected: a flight of stairs led straight up from the hall; on one side was a drawing room that ran the whole length of the house, with a bay window looking towards the road and French windows leading on to the garden at its other end; off it, beyond a velvet curtain, there was a small writing room; on the other side of the hall was a dining room and, in rear of it, the kitchen.
Up on the top floor Sabine showed Gregory the room he was to occupy. It was comfortably furnished and, she said, had been used by her manservant when she had had one. Trudi’s room and two others were on the same floor, but there was no bathroom; so Sabine told him he would have to wait until Kurt had gone to his laboratory then use the one on the first floor.
Down there she showed him her luxuriously furnished bedroom, which was as big as the drawing room, and off it, above the back hall, was the bathroom. Beyond that lay a dressing room and the best spare bedroom, in which von Osterberg usually slept. As they came out of the bathroom she smiled, and said:
‘Kurt goes off to his work every morning at half past eight. Trudi will bring you up your breakfast as soon as he has gone. I don’t usually get up till ten o’clock or later; so perhaps when you’ve had your bath you would like to come and keep me company?’
Her smile made the implications of this invitation quite unmistakable, and Gregory knew that, although he had found sanctuary, he had come to the edge of a precipice.