For a second he paused there holding his breath; then he sank down on to his knees and gingerly lifted the bottom of the heavy curtain with the finger tips of his left hand.
No light appeared. The room was in darkness, but if Karl was in the house and had heard the window creak as it had been forced open he might enter the room at any moment and switch on the lights. He would instantly spot the bulge in the curtains made by Gregory’s body and fire at it, taking a chance as to whether the housebreaker was a police agent or an ordinary burglar. In either case he had the acid bath handy in which to dispose of his kill.
Turning sideways to present a smaller target Gregory crept on all-fours along the floor behind the curtain until he reached its edge and could pass round it into the room. Drawing himself upright again he listened intently. No sound broke the stillness of the darkened house.
Still holding his automatic, its safety-catch off, ready in his right hand, with his left he took out his spotlight torch and flashed it towards the end of the room. The beam flickered for a moment, then came to rest upon the door. Advancing cautiously between the pieces of heavy furniture which indicated by their shapes, shrouded in dust-sheets though they were, that the place was a drawing-room, he reached the door, pocketed his torch and put his hand on the door handle. Firmly but gently he turned it right back, then cautiously began to open the door. There was no light in the hall either; the eerie silence remained unbroken.
Opening the door to its full extent he passed into the hall, his automatic still gripped ready in his hand, his rubber-soled shoes making no sound on the polished parquet. A few steps took him to the bend of the stairs where, he remembered, they took a right-angled turn half-way to the floor above. Sheltering there so that he could not be shot in the back he flashed his torch again, first round the empty hall and then upwards into the shadows of the staircase and the first-floor landing.
Pocketing his torch once more and treading with the utmost care he moved across to the door of the big library. Opening it a fraction he found that the library, too, was in darkness. It was still too early for Karl and Rosenbaum to have gone to bed, so unless they were in the kitchen quarters the house was presumably deserted. He pushed the door open; then halted in his tracks. Something had stirred within the room.
A tiny yet distinct noise had unmistakably broken the eerie silence. Gregory grasped his gun more firmly and stared with straining eyes into the darkness, ready to pump lead into the impenetrable blackness of the room at the faintest indication of any movement. He waited for a full minute in tense silence; not daring to breathe for fear of giving away his position to some unseen enemy.
He had just decided that the sound he had heard had been merely one of the nocturnal creakings natural to a deserted house containing old furniture, when it came again. It was not a creak, but could best be described as a prolonged click.
Again he waited. Another minute, and the sound came once more. It was exactly similar to that which he had heard before, and but for the fact that the intervals between the sounds were far too long it might have been the ticking of a clock.
For another three minutes he stood there, carefully controlling his breathing. The sounds continued at regular intervals, and after listening intently he decided that they could not be made by any human agency but must emanate from some piece of mechanism.
Very warily he moved forward into the room flashing his torch again. Its pale beam fell upon Rosenbaum’s ornate desk. On it there lay open a large blotter, in the centre of which glistened a great, red patch of sticky-looking stuff. One glance was enough; Gregory knew that he was looking at a pool of congealed blood.
As he stood there staring at it there was a faint yet distinct splash as another drop of blood fell on to the blotter. This, then, was the sound which had broken the awful stillness of the room.
Slowly Gregory raised his torch. Its beam lit dangling, black shoes, a pair of legs, a body that appeared to have no arms, then a face fallen forward upon a narrow chest, its chin resting on a portrait of Adolf Hitler which had been hung about the skinny neck, It was Jacob Rosenbaum and no closer inspection was needed to show that he was dead.
Something he had done or said must have given him away. Karl had exacted a terrible vengeance and by now had presumably fled. Turning, Gregory stepped back to the door and switched on the lights.
Then was revealed the full horror of Rosenbaum’s end. His wrists were tied to the railings of the minstrels’ gallery above the desk and he was hanging from them as though crucified, while protruding from his body and limbs were the hilts of a dozen knives. Gregory went forward and examined one of them. It was clear that at one stage of his career Karl had been a professional knife-thrower, earning his living by giving exhibitions of his art upon the stage, for the knives were unmistakably of the type used in such acts; all of the same pattern, strong-bladed, with heavily-weighted handles and very sharp points so that they would easily embed themselves in a thick board.
The usual knife-throwing act, which Gregory had several times seen, necessitated the assistance of a pretty girl. Dressed in a loose robe she would take her stand in front of a thick wooden screen, when the knife-thrower would exhibit his skill by hurling his knives from a distance of some fifteen feet so that they would penetrate the board as near the girl as possible without actually touching her, gradually forming a palisade of steel around her body. A real ace knife-thrower could even plug his knives into the skirt, loose sleeves and puffed shoulders of the girl’s garment so that she was pinned to the screen; unable to move at the conclusion of the exhibition without tearing her clothes.
Karl had exercised his skill on Rosenbaum, sending knife after knife into non-vital parts of his body with mathematical precision so that there were two in each of his arms, two in each leg, two just under his collar-bone, one in the stomach and a final blade in his heart. The two knives beneath the collar-bone each touched the wooden frame which held the unglazed photograph of Hitler; the last blade, that which had ended his torment, had shorn through the stiff card of the photograph and pinned it to Rosenbaum’s chest. A wry half-smile twisted Gregory’s lean face as he took in the grim symbolism of the scene. The same weapon, flung by the hand of a perverted fanatic, had transfixed both Führer and Jew. The forces of oppression, savagely wielded by Hitler’s henchmen, would in due time destroy the man who had unleashed them.
As blood was still dripping from the body at intervals of about a minute Gregory felt certain that Rosenbaum could not have been dead very long; Karl had probably been taking his time over the business, amusing himself by throwing one knife every half-hour or so during the day. He might even be still in the house.
Switching off the light again Gregory went cautiously back into the hall and investigated the dining-room at its far side and a small sitting-room next to the kitchen quarters at its rear, but all of them were dark and deserted.
He then proceeded upstairs and went through both floors of bedrooms. In one of these empty drawers and an empty wardrobe that had been left open suggested that Karl had occupied it and had recently made a hurried get-away.
When he had come downstairs again Gregory went through to the laboratory to make quite certain that the house was empty, and in the cell behind it he found the evidence which had given Jacob Rosenbaum away. On the floor there still lay the severed pieces of the cords which had bound his own wrists and ankles on the previous night. Karl, too, must have seen them, have become suspicious and on examining the acid bath have found only one body in it. Such a discovery would have been more than enough to have sealed Rosenbaum’s fate.
Returning to the library Gregory took out his pocket-knife, cut poor Rosenbaum’s body down, ripped the blood-stained portrait of Adolf Hitler from the knife which impaled it and flung it in the fireplace.
It was his ideology which had inspired it; it was his Gestapo chief, Heinrich Himmler, who had trained and paid men like Karl to carry out such hideous barbarities, Gregory sighed. What could one do with such people? Shooting was too good for them. When Hitler’s armies had been broken why should he expect the courtesies which were usually extended to defeated rulers on the supposition that they had gone to war only in what they had considered to be the best interests of their peoples?
Ten million Jews had groaned under his ordinances; millions of Czechs and Austrians had been scourged under his rule; the Polish cities had gone down in a chaos of fire and smoke and blood because the Polish people had dared to defy him. He had stolen millions of pounds’ worth of property and goods from those who lived in the so-called German Protectorates and millions more from his own countrymen. Even Art had not ben sacred to him. He had personally looted the finest Dürers, Rembrandts, Memlings, Van Eycks, Titians and Rubens from the public galleries of Germany and sent them over the border to Switzerland to be stored with the intention of selling them in other countries if he were ever forced to get out.
He had broken his word, pledged in the name of his country to the statesmen of the world. He had lied in public about his intentions and in private to those who had befriended him in his early struggles. Through his puppet Goebbels he had suborned the Press of a nation to stuff his fellow-countrymen with massed perversions of the truth. Himself an Atheist, he had endeavoured to suppress Christianity and to substitute a new religion of which he was to be the God. He was even the sort of rat that turns King’s evidence, for the trial which followed his ill-fated Munich Putsch he had betrayed his comrades, testifying against them so that he might get off with a lighter sentence.
With another sigh Gregory picked up Rosenbaum’s mutilated body, carried it upstairs to the principal bedroom of the house, laid it on the bed and drew up the counterpane over the poor, tortured face.
After this he spent half an hour in going cursorily but systematically through the house. To have done the job with real thoroughness would, he knew, have taken several men at least twenty-four hours, but the police would attend to that in due course and would probably discover a concealed wall-safe, a cache under one of the floors, or perhaps even a secret wireless sending-apparatus hidden somewhere up under the roof. All he could do for the moment was to run through drawers, cupboards and other likely places on the off-chance that the Germans might have left anti-British propaganda or other interesting material behind them, but he did not consider it likely and, as he had expected, his search proved unavailing.
Going out again through the drawing-room window into the garden, he walked round the side of the house, re-locked the tradesmen’s entrance behind him with his skeleton key and proceeded down the hill. In the Finchley Road he picked up a taxi and told the man to drive him to his flat.
Upstairs in his sitting-room he considered the situation. From his point of view it was even worse than it had been that morning. Rosenbaum was now dead, so the experts could no longer question him upon a thousand-and-one details of his association with Grauber; details which, while perhaps seeming trivial to him, might have linked up with other information and have proved of considerable assistance to the counterespionage people. Karl could not longer be brought in at will, as he had evidently abandoned the house and gone to ground elsewhere immediately he had discovered that Rosenbaum had betrayed them. Grauber was by now well on his way back to Germany. There he would learn of Rosenbaum’s treason through Karl or other German agents, so although he might return to London he would certainly never again visit the house in Hampstead. Altogether the position seemed a pretty mess; he would have a failure to report to Sir Pellinore even grimmer than that of his first effort.
Yet after a few moments Gregory’s sense of humour came to his assistance. Even though poor Rosenbaum had died a most ghastly death only a few hours before, the world, life and the war must go on. It was useless to give way to depression, and to counteract the irritation and annoyance which Sir Pellinore was almost certain to display he decided to give the grand old chap a good laugh. Unlocking a cupboard, he made up a neat brown-paper parcel; then put on his hat and took a taxi up to Carlton House Terrace.
It was still well before midnight and when he jumped out of the taxi he saw that a large car was waiting in front of Sir Pellinore’s house. One glance at the special number-plate showed him that it belonged to a Cabinet Minister. In addition to the policeman on the beat who was standing nearby an Inspector was keeping a watchful eye on the street, and as he rang the bell Gregory mused on the remarkable way in which the police bobbed up from nowhere whenever anybody important was about.
The man on the door informed him that Sir Pellinore was engaged. Gregory said that he would wait, and was shown into a downstairs sitting-room. His wait was a long one, as the Cabinet Minister and Sir Pellinore remained closeted upstairs for the better part of two hours; but the footman asked if he might bring Gregory a brandy-and-soda, and on returning with it brought all the evening papers, so while he waited he read them through from cover to cover, assimilating the latest war news.
Hitler’s peace speech in the Reichstag and the world’s reactions to it formed the most prominent items. It was much less conciliatory than Gregory had expected, but a very able piece of work. The facts had been marshalled—and distorted—with all the skill of a Machiavelli.
He referred once again to the injustice of Versailles; a basic fact which every thinking man admitted, He had only righted that wrong done to the German people; the last, the very last step had been forced upon him by the utter intractability of the Poles, who had flatly refused every appeal to reason once they had received guarantees from Britain. Colonies must be discussed, but this was no demand; merely a reasonable request. They must all disband their armies and meet in an atmosphere free from threats. He was prepared to disarm, would be a good boy for evermore, and so on.
It seemed that this second week-end in October was merely the lull before the storm. In the next fortnight anything might happen and another half-dozen nations might be drawn into the war.
It was nearly two o’clock when the servant returned to say that Sir Pellinore would see Gregory, and with his parcel in his hand he followed the man upstairs.
‘Good evening,’ said Gregory as he entered the room, ‘I see you’ve been advising the Government again.’
Sir Pellinore was standing with his legs spread wide apart and his back to a roaring fire, and his mind was evidently still occupied with the discussion in which he had been engaged He waved Gregory towards a chair and did not reply for a moment; then he appeared suddenly to wake up.
‘Eh? What’s that? Nonsense! I never advise anybody, No good at that sort of thing,’
‘Oh, no!’ said Gregory with gentle sarcasm. ‘Everyone knows that you’ve an eye for a horse or a pretty woman and an infinite capacity for vintage port, but no brains—no brains at all;
‘Impudent young devil!’ Sir Pellinore growled, ‘Quite true, though. I suppose you saw his car outside? A few of the older ones come to see me sometimes, but it’s only for a little relaxation. They talk; I listen. Gives ‘em a chance to straighten out their ideas, that’s all.’
‘Well, how are things going?’
‘Not at all badly. Our situation is at all events infinitely better than it was after the first five weeks of the last Great War. The way the B.E.F. had been transported to France with all those millions of tons of material is absolutely beyond praise, Churchill’s dealing with the U-boat menace magnificently, and our Air Force, man for man and plane for plane, is proving itself streets ahead of the Germans’. Of course, it’s Britain’s luck that Hitler thought he could grab Poland and bully us into climbing down afterwards instead of loosing hell here right away. We’d have come through somehow—we always do—but the breathing space has been invaluable. Every day that passes without a major action is a gain to us and, if he continues to lie doggo, we’ll be so strong by the spring that we’ll have enough planes to blow every munition factory in Germany sky-high.’
‘And the home-front?’ prompted Gregory.
Sir Pellinore frowned. ‘The way the Ministry of Health has let down the doctors is a scandal, though. Over a thousand of the poor devils called up to stand by in the hospitals for airraid casualties. Lots of ’em sold their houses, practices, everything. Then, after five weeks, they’re told they’re not wanted and dismissed without a cent of pay. The Ministry of Mines is behaving with even greater stupidity. They hold up the nation’s coal supply because they fear that after an air raid it might be difficult to distribute to the comparatively few Government centres, forgetting how much more difficult it would then be to feed the thousands of ordinary depots. People have got to have coal for the winter, haven’t they? Then why not fill every cellar in Britain while the going’s good, and keep the few essential Government dumps supplied by an emergency service of lorries or any other damn’ thing afterwards? Much simpler.’
Gregory knew that it was no good fishing for any special items of information as Sir Pellinore was close as an oyster about anything which had been told him in confidence. That was precisely why all sorts of important people freely discussed State secrets with him. Producing his parcel without attempting to pump his host further, he said:
‘I’ve brought you a little present.’
Sir Pellinore gave him a quick look. ‘Really? Very nice of you. What is it?’
‘Open it up and see.’
Having cut the string and undone the paper, Sir Pellinore took out a dusty, long-necked bottle of Mentzendorff’s pre-1914 Kümmel.
‘By Jove! Where did you get this?’ he exclaimed.
‘I bought it when I was last in Paris, from the cellars of the Tour d’Argent, and I’ve been saving it up for an occasion.’
‘Ha! Tour d’Argent. Marvellous cellars; probably the best in Europe. I bet it cost you a packet though, and it’s very decent of you to bring it along to me, but what’s the occasion?’
‘To celebrate my retirement into civilian life. I’m going to apply to my local Borough Council for an allotment and tend cabbages for the remainder of the war.’ Gregory had no intention of doing any such thing, but the presentation of the precious bottle had enabled him to bring out that line of talk very neatly, and thus to prepare Sir Pellinore for the bad news that he was about to give him.
‘I see,’ said Sir Pellinore non-committally. ‘You’ve come another mucker, then?’
‘Yes. I’ve killed Tom Archer.’
Sir Pellinore swung round. ‘You serious, Gregory?’
‘Perfectly. He’s as dead as a door-nail, and his corpse is now rapidly dissolving in an acid tank.’
‘The devil it is! But seriously, my boy, this is no joking matter. If the police get you you’ll swing for murder. It’s all very well to shoot these Nazi blackguards as you did in Ems, but to kill an Englishman in the heart of London is a very different matter.’
‘I didn’t kill him with my own hands, though last night he damned nearly murdered me. I say that I killed him because it was owing to my going down to see him that he met his death.’
‘H’m! That’s a trifle better, but perturbing all the same. D’you realise that you’ve been responsible for the deaths of three innocent people in as many weeks?’
‘Four,’ said Gregory. ‘There was another chap called Rosenbaum who died today in peculiarly horrible circumstances entirely owing to my activities.’
Sir Pellinore groaned. ‘You are a bird of ill-omen! Damme! If you’re allowed to remain at large much longer you’ll succeed in getting me killed next. Still, better tell me the facts and get it over.’
Gregory gave a concise but extremely graphic account of his doings during the last thirty hours, and when he had done Sir Pellinore began to walk thoughtfully up and down.
‘Only thing of importance that emerges from all this is that before he died Archer told you to warn Madame Dubois.’
‘Yes, but who is Madame Dubois? Obviously a French woman, but that doesn’t get us any further. The name Dubois is about as common in France as Brown is in England.’
‘True. But I think I know the Madame Dubois to whom Archer referred. When that devil Grauber was torturing the poor feller he had to give away something. To protect his friends in Germany he probably swore that he knew very little about the movement there, but offered to give Grauber such information as he could about the French end of it.’
‘I don’t see how that would have done Grauber much good.’
‘Don’t you? I do. The headquarters of the German People’s Freedom Party are in Paris; the great majority of the Germans who have escaped from concentration-camps and the intellectuals and Jews who have been thrown out are gathered there. They’re very much tied up with the French Left Wing extremists, and Madame Dubois is one of the most able of the French Red leaders. The threads of this tangled skein evidently lead to Paris, and Archer gave away enough of the business to Grauber for him to be able to instruct his agents to get busy there. Best thing you can do is to catch the morning plane, see Madame Dubois and convey Archer’s warning to her as quickly as you can.’
Gregory suppressed a smile. That Sir Pellinore knew who Madame Dubois was had been a piece of specially good luck, but he had already made up his mind that he would go to Paris in any case and endeavour to sound anyone of that name who might be mixed up in revolutionary activities there. By so skilfully breaking his bad news he had led Sir Pellinore into suggesting that he should go instead of telling him, as he had feared, that as his activities had now resulted in the deaths of four people he was to take no further hand in the affair.
‘That seems the best line,’ he agreed quietly. ‘Of course, I’m not in a position to tell her exactly what Archer gave away because I don’t know myself, but the knowledge that he was forced to split will at least put her on her guard so that she and her associates in Germany can change their methods of communication. Perhaps, too, as this will temporarily postpone my cabbage-fancying operations, we’d better postpone the drinking of that bottle of Kümmel until my return from Paris.’
Sir Pellinore’s blue eyes twinkled. ‘Congratulations, my dear boy, on handling a very tricky situation extremely well! But for goodness’ sake don’t get more people killed in France than is absolutely necessary. In any case, as it’s getting on for three in the morning this is hardly the time to do justice to the contents of that lovely old bottle, but perhaps a tankard of champagne wouldn’t do us any harm.’
‘Grand! I could do with that. Just about this time last night I honestly thought I’d never live to drink another.’
‘What a thought!’ Gregory murmured.
For a while they talked on about the Gestapo, and when they had finished the bottle of champagne, Gregory rose to say good-night. It was four o’clock by the time he got back to his flat, but as he had slept for several hours between mid-afternoon and early evening he was not particularly tired. He left a note instructing Mrs. Cummins to call him at seven, snatched two hours’ sleep, bathed, dressed, packed a bag and caught the nine-o’clock plane from Croydon. By mid-morning he was in Paris.
Whenever he stayed in the French capital he put up at the St. Regis, in the Rue Jean Goujon, just off the Champs Elysées. It was a quiet hotel and Gregory preferred it to the larger places, although it was quite as expensive, because each of the rooms was furnished with individual pieces instead of the usual standardised bedroom-suites. Many of them were valuable antiques, giving the place the atmosphere of a beautifully-furnished private house rather than of an hotel, and Gregory liked luxury and comfort whenever he could get it.
On his drive to the hotel he noted many stacks of sandbags and specially protected shop windows as in London, but there were plenty of people about, so he assumed that now the war was five weeks old and there had been no air-raids a good proportion of the evacuees had returned to take up their old activities. Many men in horizon-blue mingled with the crowds, and here and there near the centre of the city, a khaki-clad British officer.
As soon as he had settled in at the St. Regis he telephoned a French journalist whom he knew and succeeded in securing from him the address of the Madame Dubois who was prominent in French Marxist circles.
After luncheon he took a taxi to her apartment, which was in one of the better streets of the Montparnasse quarter. The sight of the block of flats in which she lived told him at once that she was not the type of Marxist that considered it necessary to live in a slum. A smartly-uniformed, one-armed porter took him up in a lift and he rang the bell of Flat No. 14. The door was opened by a pretty, plump little maid, but on Gregory’s inquiring for Madame Dubois the girl shook her dark head. Madame was not at home.
‘When will she be back?’ Gregory asked in his best French, which was very nearly as good as his German.
The girl made a grimace. ‘Poor Madame is here no longer. She met with an accident. Three nights ago she was knocked down by a car right outside the flats and she was taken straight to a nursing-home.’
Gregory had a sort of hunch that he could guess how the ‘accident’ had been caused. Only that morning, in the early hours, Sir Pellinore had told him that the Gestapo’s foreign department, U.A.—1, consisted of no less than 5,000 picked men who were all still outside Germany either in belligerent or neutral countries. It was their business to engineer accidents to anyone who might be counted an inveterate enemy of the Nazis, and therefore likely to use their influence against the acceptance of the peace proposals designed to let Hitler get away with the rape of Poland. Cabinet Ministers and other important folk in France and Britain were most carefully guarded by their own Secret Service people, but Madame Dubois held no official position and Sir Pellinore had said that her influence among the French working classes was immense. He thought it more than probable that the men of U.A.-1 had done their best to eliminate Madame Dubois and had succeeded in doing so, temporarily at least.
Having secured the address of the nursing-home he went there to make a personal inquiry as to the extent of Madame Dubois’ injuries. After waiting for a quarter of an hour he saw a portly, grey-haired matron who, while very voluble, was by no means cheerful about the condition of her patient. Her description of the circumstances in which Madame Dubois had been injured confirmed Gregory’s theory that she had been deliberately run down, for she had apparently been knocked down in the black-out not twenty yards from her apartment, which she had just left, by a car which had been stationary outside the block but which suddenly started up and charged right into her as she crossed the road. The driver had not even waited to ascertain the extent of her injuries and the car had disappeared into the darkness.
The matron went on to say that Madame Dubois’ left arm had been broken in two places, her collar-bone fractured and her head badly cut, besides which she had sustained severe concussion. Although she was now out of danger it would be quite out of the question for her to see anybody, even her closest relatives, for at least ten days or possibly a fortnight. Stymied again, Gregory thanked the matron and went disconsolately out into the October sunshine of the Paris street.
Taking a taxi to the Taverne Royale, near the Madelaine, he ordered himself a Vermouth Cassis and sat down to review the situation. As he would be unable to interview Madame Dubois for the best part of a fortnight it seemed that the only thing to do was to return to London, there to possess his soul in such patience as he could muster, though it was galling to remember that every day during which he kicked his heels in enforced idleness hundreds of people were being killed and wounded in the battle areas, while his mission was the one factor which might bring the slaughter to a swift conclusion.
It seemed intolerable that he should be compelled to sit still and do nothing when somewhere in Paris there must be people who could place him in possession of the very facts which would justify his taking the risk of entering Germany again in a new attempt to deliver the list of the Inner Gestapo, together with the letter signed by the Allied statesmen, to the unknown German general who was plotting Hitler’s downfall. Even though he was unable to talk to Madame Dubois in person there must be some way in which he could discover and get in touch with her associates, who would doubtless be as well informed as she.
It next occurred to him that as Madame Dubois had been taken straight to the nursing-home after her accident she would have had no opportunity to remove, conceal or destroy any correspondence that might have been in her flat at the time. It was hardly likely that she would have left any secret documents lying about, but on the other hand it was quite possible that her desk would contain letters which would act as pointers to the identities of some of her associates. The more he flirted with the idea the more certain he became that it was now up to him to obtain access to Madame Dubois’ apartment by hook or by crook and to go through her papers.
The charming vision of the pretty little maid who had opened the door to him flashed back into his mind. Perhaps something could be managed in that direction; at all events, he would return to see. He paid for his drink and took a taxi back to the block of flats in Montparnasse.
The same attractive girl opened the door again, and greeting her with his most charming smile he said:
‘I’ve been to the nursing-home and I’m sorry to say that Madame is even worse than I had feared.’
‘Yes, poor Madame is very ill indeed,’ the girl agreed.
‘It’s extraordinarily unfortunate that she should have met with an accident just at this time,’ said Gregory. I wanted to see her on most important business. I’ve come all the way from London to do so, in fact.’
The maid shrugged. ‘I’m afraid that Monsieur has had his journey for nothing. They say that it will be at least ten days before Madame is able to receive anybody.’
‘I know,’ Gregory nodded, ‘so I suppose I’ll have to kick my heels in Paris all that time. I must see her before I go back, but I shall be horribly bored waiting here; the only men I know in Paris are all away serving with their regiments.’
A dimple showed just below the left corner of the girl’s mouth as she replied demurely: ‘Even in war-time, Monsieur, Paris is not altogether a dead city, and with the men at the Front there are even more ladies than usual with time on their hands.’
‘That’s true,’ agreed Gregory, as though the thought of ladies had never occurred to him.
‘I do not think that Monsieur need be bored for very long,’ she went on, lowering her dark eyes until her lashes were like fans upon her cheeks, ‘unless, of course, he finds the company of ladies boring.’
Things were going in just the way that Gregory wanted, and he hastened to rebut the implications. ‘Good Lord, no! There’s no companion like a pretty girl for cheering one up, but unfortunately the only girls I know in Paris are all doing war work, and I’m afraid they won’t be able to get much time off. It can be terribly lonely in a big city, you know, when you’ve nobody to talk to.’
‘Poor Monsieur, that is very sad.’ A mocking note crept into the girl’s voice as she fiddled demurely with the handle of the door. ‘But not all the girls in Paris are doing war work, and some of them are perhaps lonely too. A gentleman of Monsieur’s distinguished appearance should not have to remain lonely for very long unless he chooses.’
‘I certainly wouldn’t do so from choice,’ said Gregory, ‘but the devil of it is I’m rather a shy person. I’d hate to be ticked off through trying to scrape acquaintance with a decent girl, and picking up the sort of woman one finds in the bars and dance-halls doesn’t amuse me.’
‘That is understandable, but if one does not take a chance one doesn’t get anywhere in this life,’ said the girl with true French realism.
‘In that case I—er—wonder,’ Gregory murmured hesitantly, simulating acute nervousness, ‘I suppose you have to work terribly hard looking after the flat—Madame’s family—and all that sort of thing?’
‘Mais non! Madame has no family, and now she is away the place is never untidy, so I have very little to do.’
‘But—er—I mean, a pretty girl like you must have plenty of boyfriends to occupy any free time that she has?’
She shook her head with a sad little grimace. ‘Mon cher ami is a Sergeant of the Chasseurs Alpins and like the rest he is with his Regiment.’
‘Then—in that case—perhaps you too feel a little lonely and bored, now that you’ve got hardly anything to do?’
‘Very lonely! Very bored!’ she agreed, flashing him a sudden smile.
‘Then—er—couldn’t we do something about it? I do hope you won’t think I’m the sort of chap who wants to force himself on you, I mean. But for the next ten days I’m going to be absolutely at a loose end. Could you—would you—er, take pity on me, sort of thing, and come out and have a spot of dinner with me somewhere this evening?’
‘But what a long time you took to ask me that,’ she smiled. ‘Of course we must console one another. Our loneliness is due to this awful war, and we are allies, are we not?’
‘Vive la France!’ cried Gregory with sudden enthusiasm.
‘Vive l’Angleterre!’ replied the young minx gaily. ‘What is your name? I cannot call you “Monsieur” all the time.’
‘My name’s Gregory—Gregory Sallust. And yours?’
‘Collette Pichon.’
‘I say, that’s nice. Well, look here Collette, it’s most awfully decent of you to say you’ll spend the evening with me. Shall I come back for you in an hour, or what?’
‘If you wish, Grégoire. But it is nearly seven o’clock already and in war-time all the restaurants close so early. It will not take me long to change; you can come and wait for me if you like.’
‘Grand!’ Gregory seized her hand and kissed it.
‘How gallant for an Englishman!’ she laughed.
‘It’s catching. Paris, you know. Just the sight of you standing there, looking so jolly attractive. But, by Jove, if I knew you better it wouldn’t be your hand I’d kiss!’
‘Méchant! Méchant!’ she exclaimed in mock reproof. ‘But in ten days anything might happen, might it not? And after all, there is a war on.’
‘Anything might happen in ten hours,’ Gregory grinned, ‘or in ten seconds, for that matter,’ and dropping his role of the dumb Englishman he suddenly put his arm round her shoulders and kissed her on the lips.
She drew back quickly and lifting a small, plump hand smacked his face, but it was a friendly slap and he knew that she was not really displeased as she said: ‘You go too fast, Monsieur. I do not permit such things on so short an acquaintance.’
Gregory reverted at once to the bashful idiot, and looking at his feet, mumbled: ‘I’m terribly sorry; just couldn’t resist it, you know. Not like me at all. But you won’t let it make any difference to this evening, will you, if I promise to be terribly good and not do it again?’
‘This time I forgive,’ she replied with conscious graciousness, ‘as to the future, we will see. Perhaps I will let you kiss me good-night in the taxi on the way home, but I am not certain that I like you enough yet. Come in now and have a cigarette while I change my dress.’
With restored gaiety Gregory followed her into the sitting-room of the flat. It was a well-furnished apartment with a modern décor. It was evident that Madame Dubois had an artistic eye and that in spite of her work for the down-trodden she herself believed in living in considerable comfort. He seated himself in an arm-chair near a big, glass-and-steel desk that was covered with letters and books. As he took out his cigarette-case Collette gave him a paper to read, then with a wave of her hand and a bright smile she left him, closing the door behind her.
Gregory puffed cheerfully at his cigarette while he gave her a couple of minutes to reach her room. Collette was a nice little soul and he congratulated himself upon the approach that he had made to her; a skilful mixture of awkward Englishman and ‘I’m a devil when I once get going.’ It was just the line to appeal to a girl of her type. The ‘humble suppliant’ touch from a well-dressed foreigner was probably quite new to her and rather intriguing, whereas she would have been bored by a man who, although he appeared to be well-off, did not suggest by the twinkle in his eye that he liked his bit of fun.
It might take a few days to get Collette just where he wanted her, but after tonight he would have ready access to the flat and she was evidently alone in it. Sooner or later there would arise an occasion when she had to go out to do some shopping. He would pretend that he didn’t feel very well as an excuse for not accompanying her and she would leave him there with his feet up on the sofa and an aspirin in his hand. Given an hour alone in the place he would back himself to find any secret wall-safe that there might be, and later he would be able to devise some scheme for getting her out of the flat long enough for him to attempt to open it. In the meantime, as she was going out to dine with a smartly-dressed man it was quite certain that she would put on her best clothes and make up her face with special care, so he could count on a good half-hour before she rejoined him. Standing up, he began to examine the letters and papers that strewed the glass top of the big desk-table.
They had been tidied, presumably by Collette, into two piles. He soon saw that the left-hand one consisted solely of bills, but that on the right seemed more promising as it comprised letters nearly all of which were hand-written. There were about twenty of them and from their headings Gregory saw that they came from places scattered all over France.
The first that he read came from Abbeville and contained a long, rambling account, written in an uneducated hand, of the death of a French miner who had been killed by accident on his company’s premises at a time when he had no right to be there. It appeared that his widow had claimed compensation but that the company had refused to pay on the grounds that although he had met his death on their premises he had not been there at their request nor had he been engaged on work for them at the time.
The next came from a silk-operative in Lyons who had been dismissed by his employers for circulating revolutionary literature among his fellow-workers. He had not been able to find other employment and was now destitute. Would Madame Dubois help?
A third was from a prison outside Marseilles. The writer had been arrested in a riot and sentenced to a term of imprisonment for injuring a Gendarme. The prisoner was a widower with two children aged eight and ten, and their sole support. Neighbours were looking after them for the moment but they were poor people who could not afford to do so without some assistance. Would Madame Dubois contribute?
It soon became clear to Gregory that Madame Dubois was the trustee of a fund to be utilised for Communists or their families who found themselves in financial difficulties owing to their participation in subversive activities. None of the writers appeared to be even local leaders, but men and women of the rank and file whose names and addresses were quite useless to him.
It had taken him some twenty minutes to go through the letters and he had also spent a little time in examining the bills, but as he reckoned that he had still a few minutes before Collette was likely to return he looked round the room for any other place where papers might be kept.
In one corner there was a tall, narrow bureau with deep drawers; it had been painted a duck-egg blue so that it should harmonise with the colour scheme of the room. It was thus made comparatively inconspicuous and it was for this reason that he had not at first noticed that it was really an ordinary office filing cabinet. He felt at once that the material he was after was much more likely to be found here than among the papers on the desk.
Tiptoeing across to it he tried the top drawer and found to his delight that it was unlocked. He had just pulled it out for about a foot when he heard the tapping of high heels in the corridor and swiftly pushed it back again. But the wretched thing jammed when it was still not closed by a quarter of an inch. He had no time to pull it out again and ease it home so he had to leave it as it was, thanking his stars that it had not jammed further out. As it was, only a careful observer would have noticed that it had been opened at all.
In two quick strides he had put a couple of yards between the cabinet and himself and when Collette entered the room she found him idly gazing at a Surrealist painting which appeared to depict a number of herrings growing from the branches of a tree planted in a bath-tub.
As he turned, took Collette’s hand and kissed it again, he thought she looked prettier than ever. A little hat from which a stiff, gauzy veil stood out in all directions was perched on her head, partially concealing her dark hair, and the curves of her trim figure were admirably displayed in a smart, black coat and skirt. Not for the first time Gregory gave full marks to those young women of France who were not too well blessed with this world’s goods yet always managed to present a delightful chic appearance owing to their skilful planning and their natural flair for clothes.
He wondered where to take her for dinner. The Tour d’Argent, the Café de Paris or any other of the de luxe places would be overdoing it. She was so pretty and smart that he would not have been ashamed to have been seen with her at the Ritz, but if he were to take her to one of the haunts of the haute monde she might run into some previous employer and feel rather awkward.
Then there was Pocardi’s, the huge Italian restaurant off the Boulevard des Italiens, where large and appetising meals were to be had at comparatively moderate prices. It was a favourite spot with the French bourgeois when they wished to hold a little celebration; the sort of place to which a well-paid clerk might take his girl as a treat. Gregory had often fed there in his earlier years when in Paris and not so well off as now. For a moment he considered it, but it was quite possible that Mademoiselle Collette Pichon had been taken to Pocardi’s by other boyfriends from time to time and he wished to strike a fresh note if he could.
Suddenly the thought of the Vert Galant, down by the river on the right bank, flashed into his mind. Quiet and unostentatious, it was yet one of the oldest-established restaurants in Paris, and the cooking there was excellent. From the plumpness of her trim figure Gregory felt certain that Collette enjoyed her food, and when he suggested it she beamed with delight.
‘How lovely! It is very good, the Vert Galant. Real French cooking—not the sort of messed-up things they make for you English and the Americans in the smart places—so I have been told. I have never been there and I’d love to go, but I’m afraid you will find it very expensive.’
‘I don’t think we need worry about that,’ Gregory smiled. ‘I want to give you the very best dinner we can get. That’s the least I can do, since you’ve been kind enough to take pity on me.’
She shrugged. ‘Ah, well, I suppose you can afford it. Some of my friends have to be careful of their money even when they wish to give me a good time, but you look very rich. All Englishmen have lots and lots of money, haven’t they?’
‘I’m afraid that’s rather an old-fashioned idea,’ he laughed. It’s lingered on in France from the days when every Englishman who travelled was a milord and went about with bags of golden guineas. I’m certainly no millionaire, if that’s what you mean, but I think I’ve got enough to take you to most of the places you’d like to visit in Paris, while I’m waiting for Madame Dubois to get well enough to see me. Come on; let’s go, shall we?’
Opening the door for her to pass, Gregory closed it behind them, then drew her hand through his arm as they set off gaily down the corridor. Out in the street he found that the Paris black-out was not as bad as that in London, as a system of blue-shaded lights had been established, and they had no difficulty in getting a taxi.
The Vert Galant came up to their expectations. Gregory had a way with waiters; a quiet, authoritative manner that never failed to impress from the moment he entered a restaurant. They sensed that he was the sort of client who knew exactly what he wanted and was prepared to pay for it and to tip well into the bargain. So silent-footed minions came and went for a couple of hours while little Collette tucked in to her heart’s content and Gregory encouraged her to have all the good things she fancied.
She was an amusing small person, and he decided that he could not have found a more entertaining companion with whom to pass an evening if he had combed all Paris with that aim. She was attractive to look at across a table, she smoked her cigarette and drank her after-dinner wine with in air. She had no trace of false shame about being a maid, and between gusts of laughter she related many amusing episodes concerning people with whom she had been in service, while her shrewd, sound common sense made her comments upon the war and the general situation very well worth listening to.
Gregory did not attempt to pump her about the Marxist friends of Madame Dubois. She might assume, if she liked, that he had come to Paris to see Madame Dubois upon that sort of business, but he had made up his mind to make her forget it as soon as possible. With her mind free of such speculations she would be much more inclined to leave him alone in the flat for which she was responsible. She showed no curiosity about his affairs and appeared to be entirely absorbed in enjoying herself.
While she was away powdering her nose after dinner he bought her a huge bunch of roses from the restaurant flower-seller, and on her return she hugged them to her with the delight of a child who seldom sees sweets at all but has just been given a box of candies.
Soon afterwards the restaurant closed and they had to leave it for the darkened street. Owing to the curfew there was no possibility of their going on anywhere else, so Gregory gave the taximan the address of Madame Dubois’ flat.
Collette climbed in with her arms full of roses, while he clutched a parcel containing two bottles of champagne. He had instructed the waiter to put this up for him with the idea in the back of his mind that as there was nowhere else to go and the night was still young Mademoiselle Collette might extend to him the hospitality of the delightful flat of which she was the sole custodian.
Gregory would not normally have attempted to kiss her in the taxi because that was not his technique, but as she had raised the matter herself he thought she might expect it. When the cab was well under way, crawling steadily along the river-bank, he accordingly slipped his arm round her and drew her to him. But she quickly used the roses as a screen and turned away her head.
‘Oh come!’ he protested in a hurt voice. ‘You did promise me another kiss in the taxi going home.’
I did not promise anything,’ she dissented.
‘You said you’d let me kiss you when you knew me better if you found that you liked me. Don’t you like me?’
‘Oh, I like you lots and lots, Grégoire,’ she replied with a mocking note in her voice. ‘You make me laugh and I like that. You’re very generous, too. I like that also in a man.’
‘Well, then …’ said Gregory.
‘Why be so impatient?’ she shrugged. ‘Let us drive round for a little.’
Gregory promptly ordered the cabby to crawl round for a bit, and the man complied. He was used to such orders at that hour of the night.
For the next twenty minutes Gregory tried small-talk, badinage and even a little playful rough-housing, but still Collette used her roses as a barrier and would not let him kiss her. At length he got fed up with her refusals and, deciding that he had advanced as far as she was prepared to go on a first evening, he ordered the taximan to drive to the address he had first given.
She laughed as she heard him give the order, and declared: ‘So you are going to drive me home now. And then, all on your own, you’ll go back to your hotel and dream of me. Think how nice that will be!’
‘I’ll certainly do that,’ he agreed, ‘but I wish I hadn’t to go to bed so early. You’re not tired either, are you? You don’t look it.’
‘No, Grégoire, I’m not tired. I don’t intend to go to sleep for hours yet.’
‘Can’t we go on laughing and talking for a bit, then?’ he asked, renewing his attack.
‘But where? There is nowhere to go—and you have told the man to take me home.’
‘Exactly! Why not there?’
‘But what would Madame say?’
‘I don’t see why Madame should ever know anything about it.’
‘I don’t expect she would if neither of us told her.’
‘Then—why not?’
‘All right,’ she said with sudden decision, ‘you shall come in and have a cigarette.’
Having arrived at the flat Gregory paid off the taxi. They went straight up in the lift and along the corridor to Madame Dubois’ flat. Collette fished a key out of her bag and opened the door. The lights in the corridor had been dimmed as an air-raid precaution and the flat was unlit.
‘We’ll go through to the sitting-room,’ Collette said, and walked inside without bothering to switch on the light in the hall. Gregory closed the door behind him and for a moment they were in pitch-darkness.
Suddenly the lights clicked on and Gregory saw that two men were sitting in the hall. One of them had an automatic ready in his hand. Collette had turned at the sitting-room door and, pointing at him, said swiftly:
‘Messieurs, this is the man who endeavoured to rifle Madame’s papers. I am convinced that he is a spy.’