On the following morning, Wednesday, June the 5th, Gregory slept late and lunched early. At twelve-thirty he received a telegram from Sir Pellinore, which read: ERIKA NO WORSE NO BETTER DON’T PHONE WILL WIRE YOU IF SHE SHOWS ANY CHANGE: and with this cold comfort he had to be content for the time being.
Punctually at one o’clock the porter at the Saint Regis rang up to say that a Monsieur Riband had called for him in a car, and on going down Gregory exchanged warm greetings with the fat little French detective who had arrested and later cooperated with him in the previous October.
As they drove through the sunny streets of the capital, which was much more crowded than when Gregory had last seen it, owing to the great influx of refugees, they exchanged views upon the war, but neither had anything very cheerful to say so Gregory was glad when they turned off the main road into the grounds of a small château outside Choisy and he saw a solitary aeroplane standing outside a hangar.
Ribaud Introduced him to the pilot, Raoul Desaix, a lean, lantern-jawed, middle-aged man, and five minutes later he was waving good-bye to the detective as the plane took off.
It was a four-seater civil aircraft with a cruising speed of 160 miles an hour so Gregory knew that it would be about four o’clock before they reached the Mediterranean. There was little aerial activity south of Paris. The skies were a clear, bright blue and they were flying at no great height, so he was able to amuse himself by watching the landscape unfold beneath them.
From 2,000 feet there was no indication of war at all. The fields, villages and isolated châteaux looked very peaceful and it was an utterly different world from that other part of France through which he had passed by tank, on foot and in the train during the two preceding days. By half-past three the main colour of the patchwork quilt of fields and woods below had begun to change from a greenish hue to the greyish-brown of the olive orchards and myrtle scrub of Provence. They left Avignon, with its great Papal Palace and broken bridge across the Loire, on their left, and Nimes, with its Roman amphitheatre on their right, to pass right over Aries, and a few moments later the plane came down on a private landing-ground just north of Marseilles, They refuelled there and went on, following the line of the coast until they passed over Hyères, with its islands, then, leaving the Côte d’Azur with its miles of famous pleasure-beaches on their left, they passed out over the Mediterranean.
The colouring of the scene—the deep blue sea creaming upon the shore in a tiny white line, the gold of the beaches, the greens and the browns of the scrub, vineyards and woods, then far away to the north the mountains with the white-capped peaks of the Italian Alps standing out against a sapphire sky—was as vivid as that on a picture postcard. They had hardly left France behind when Corsica rose out of the sea ahead of them. It was perfect flying weather and the only bump they had was caused by the currents rushing up the ridge of mountains in the northern neck of the island, and as they passed over the sunbaked volcanic stone Gregory felt that he could have reached down and touched it with his hand. Five minutes later they could see Elba, a little island as flat as a pancake set in the wine-dark sea on their left, and Monte Cristo’s Island, little more than a huge rock, right below them; then the coast of Italy loomed up, and a little before half-past six they came down on the airport outside Rome.
Gregory used his own English passport and Desaix having made arrangements for garaging the plane they drove to the Hotel Ambassador, where they both booked rooms, and Gregory then went at once to make contact with Monsieur Antoine Collimard. The shop was shut but he was fortunate enough to find the French hairdresser at home above it, which suited him much better than being seen entering the shop by a number of assistants when it was open.
Collimard proved to be a Basque. He was small, dark-complexioned, with a little hook nose and quick, intelligent brown eyes. Gregory presented Colonel Lacroix’s chit which had attached to it the original photograph of the Reverend Eustace Arberson.
The Frenchman studied Gregory’s face carefully for a moment and said: ‘I think I can do it well enough for a casual acquaintance to mistake you for this man at a distance, at all events, and naturally the clergyman’s clothes will help a lot. But you must appreciate that, while I could make your face into a mask which would be the image of his in semi-darkness it is impossible to use make-up which would alter the shape of your nose, chin and forehead in daylight.’
‘I quite understand that,’ Gregory smiled, ‘but, to the best of our belief, the Baroness has never set eyes on the Reverend Eustace so a superficial resemblance is all that is required, and it’s more a matter of altering my own face—which she has seen for just one moment—than of making it resemble his. Do you know if she’s still at the Villa Godolfo?’
‘No. But I will find out. In any case, you can do nothing tonight as it will take me some hours to prepare the moustache and to study the matter of the eyebrows. There is also the question of clothes. You will see to that yourself, I take it?’
‘Yes. Rome bristles with shops that sell clerical outfits, so I should have no difficulty in finding things to fit me tomorrow morning.’
‘Bon! Come here a little after twelve, bringing your things in a suit-case, and by the time you leave I will have transformed you as far as lies in my power into the Reverend Eustace.’
Gregory thanked him and, returning to the Ambassador’s, tried to put a telephone call through to London but he was told that there would be at least six hours’ delay, so he booked one for the following morning. That night he had dinner with Desaix, whom he found to be an amiable though not particularly gifted man whose only grouse was that as he was over forty they would not let him fly a fighter plane in the service of his country.
Gregory endeavoured to console him by saying that he was doing every bit as good work by making secret trips like the present for Colonel Lacroix, and he explained that he did not know how long he would be in Rome but that he might have to leave in a great hurry. It was agreed that he should vacate his room the following morning and that they should see nothing of each other until the time came for a quick get-out to France; also that the airman should remain at the Ambassador’s, going out only to places from which he could return in twenty minutes and leaving with the hall-porter the telephone number of the place at which he could be found.
Afterwards, up in his room, Gregory read the forged letter of introduction from the pro-Nazi Mayor of Bordeaux to the Baroness, together with the particulars of the Mayor and the Reverend Eustace which had been in the packet from Lacroix that Riband had handed him that morning. In an hour and a half he had committed to memory all the available data about the man he was to impersonate and went to bed.
Having spent a restless night, due to worry over Erika, Gregory took his London call only to learn that she was still in grave danger. He then paid his bill and went out to do his shopping. Since he had abandoned his suit-case in Ghent eleven days earlier his only luggage had consisted of shaving and washing gear which he carried slung around his shoulders, in a small gas-mask container; so, after changing some of his English bank-notes for Italian lira, it was a joy to be able to re-equip himself with fresh underclothes, dressing-gown, brushes and pyjamas as well as the black suit, black slouch hat and clerical collars necessary to his new role. With the whole of his purchases packed into a large Revelation suit-case he arrived at Collimard’s at a quarter-past twelve.
‘I fear that I have some bad news for you,’ was the Frenchman’s greeting. ‘La Baronne Noire is in Rome no longer; she has left her villa out at Marino and gone north; one assumes to keep in touch with Il Duce, who is said now to be inspecting his troops in the Cottian Alps and other places on the French frontier.’
‘Damnation!’ muttered Gregory. ‘Still, I suppose Mussolini is pretty certain to make his headquarters in Turin, so if I go there I ought to be able to get on her track.’
Collimard shrugged. ‘Who can say? She left Rome only last night, but she may quite well be back here in a day or two. Il Duce is not a man to stay in one place for long and he moves very swiftly; if you go north you may pass her on her way south again.’
‘That’s true.’
‘Also, you will find your disguise uncomfortable and worrying at first, so it is far better that you should wear it for forty-eight hours before putting it to the test.’
‘But the matter is so frightfully urgent.’
‘All right; go if you wish, but you would be far wiser to wait at least until I have been able to secure further news for you. By tomorrow I may have fresh information about Il Duce’s intentions.’
‘You’re right,’ Gregory admitted reluctantly. ‘There’s no sense in my setting off on a wild-goose chase without even knowing for certain where she is.’
Collimard then set about changing Gregory’s appearance. He washed and set his hair à la Adolf Hitler so that it hid the scar over his eye, then he proceeded to pluck his eyebrows in one place and add single hairs, with minute particles of very strong gum, in another, until their shape was completely altered. He next opened a packet of false eyelashes and trimming them to half their length added them one by one to Gregory’s own so that although his did not appear longer they became very much thicker. After that he placed more false hairs just in front of his ears, thereby giving him short side-whiskers, and, lastly, he attended to the moustache.
‘There!’ he exclaimed in triumph when he had done. ‘You must use only a very soft brush each morning, and you are bound to moult a little as you turn in your sleep each night, so you must come to me to be touched up every two or three days, but I do not believe that your best friend would know you.’ And when he looked in the mirror Gregory had to agree that his face had been changed beyond anything he would have believed possible.
Having dressed in his clergyman’s clothes he thanked Coilimard for his artistry and, going out, took a taxi to the station, where he mingled with the crowd, and a few minutes later took another one to the Hotel Excelsior, as though he had just arrived by train.
After registering there as the Reverend Eustace Arberson, and handing in his passport in that name for the usual police check-up, he wrote a note to the Baroness, on the hotel paper, saying that he was in Rome for some days and asking permission to call. Enclosing the letter of introduction with it, he posted it in the hall, then purchased the latest papers and sat down in the lounge to see how the war was going.
Lacroix’s belief that the German preparations for the next stage of their offensive had been completed on the Tuesday night had proved correct. On Wednesday morning, June the 5th, the battle for France had opened at 9 a.m. On a hundred-and-twenty-mile front, from the Somme to the Aisne, the Germans had attacked with great masses of troops supported by over a thousand dive-bombers. Hitler’s weather still held in France, but the paper said that the smoke of battle had been so thick that it had blotted out the bright June sun. The enemy had made no progress until the afternoon, but they had then succeeded in securing bridge-heads across the river and their tank columns had struck through Amiens, Peronne and Laon towards Paris. The French Cabinet had met to discuss the new crisis shortly before midnight.
That evening Churchill had made a statement in the House in which he had frankly referred to Dunkirk as a ‘colossal military disaster’ sustained by the British Army, which had enabled the enemy to acquire strategic bases of great importance and many of France’s most valuable industrial areas. Britain had lost vast quantities of material and over 30,000 killed, wounded and missing, but 335,000 British, French and Belgians had been saved and the R.A.F. had covered themselves with glory. The B.E.F. was to be reconstituted and, said Mr. Churchill, Britain would never surrender.
Owing to the pro-German bias of the Italians the Government-controlled Press had printed Mr. Churchill’s speech only in small type on the back page of the paper. The front page was devoted to that day’s news; the announcement of a new French Cabinet in which Daladier, the sworn enemy of Italy, was out altogether, Reynaud’s taking over Foreign Affairs as well as the Premiership; and a statement that although the French centre was reported to be holding for the moment it must soon give way, since the Germans had hurled 2,000 tanks into the battle.
Another headline on the front page announced Italy’s declaration that a band of twelve miles round her coast and that of Albania must now be regarded as dangerous to shipping and that exit permits would be distributed to foreigners who guaranteed to leave Italy within two days.
Gregory’s Italian was by no means as perfect as his German or French but he knew quite enough to read the paper with reasonable ease and its contents were extremely perturbing. The matter of issuing special exit permits might be only one more measure designed to scare the Allies and there was no suggestion that foreigners who did not take advantage of it would be interned; but the whole tone of the paper was openly threatening and it looked as though Mussolini was now very near the brink.
On the Friday morning, the third day of the battle, the news looked somewhat better. The French were reported to have destroyed at least four hundred German tanks and although at some points they had made withdrawals they had succeeded in throwing back the enemy forces which had reached the south bank of the Aisne.
Gregory rang up Collimard but the Frenchman had as yet no news and urged him to wait another day, as by that time either the Baroness would be on her way back to Rome or else he would have definite information of her whereabouts. He also tried to get through to London, but, owing to the crisis, the Exchange refused to take his call.
A small item in one of the afternoon papers caught Gregory’s eye and he saw that Captain B. A. W. Warburton-Lee, of H.M. destroyer Hardy, had posthumously been awarded the first Victoria Cross of the war for his gallant attack on Narvik. The action had taken place barely eight weeks before, but Gregory thought sadly how far away Narvik seemed now and how utterly unimportant compared with the vast struggle which was at that moment taking place in Northern France.
The headline of the paper was to the effect that all Italian ships had been ordered to the nearest home or neutral port, which seemed to Gregory really sinister. Mussolini had been filling his money-bags by working his merchant fleet for all it was worth during the past nine months while his peace-time competitors were compelled to use theirs for war purposes. For him to have cancelled all future sailings was therefore showing the red light in earnest. That evening bands of excited young Fascists marched through the streets of Rome calling for war and hurling abuse at France and Britain.
On the Saturday morning Gregory telephoned Collimard again and learnt that both Mussolini and the Baroness were in Genoa, so he decided to go north at once. Having paid his bill he went to Collimard’s, where he spent an hour having his disguise touched-up. At first its strangeness had irritated him exceedingly, particularly the moustache, which was the very devil while eating, but he was getting accustomed to it now and Collimard expressed his satisfaction at the way in which it had stood up to two days’ wear and tear. Gregory then drove to the station and before catching his train bought all the papers—Italian, British, French and German—that he could lay his hands on to read during his journey.
The Germans had launched a new attack on a sixty-mile front, from Aumale to Noyon. To the forty divisions already engaged they had hurled in seven fresh armoured divisions and twenty new infantry divisions. The Nazis were now using 4,000 tanks, 2,500 planes and 1,000,000 men.
The British Admiralty had announced that after nine months of war the balance of naval strength in our favour was greater than ever before and that nearly a million tons of warships were building in British shipyards. That little paragraph made cheering reading, but the trouble was that it was of very little help to the French at the moment.
He arrived at Genoa at 6.30 in the evening and immediately bought fresh papers. The stop-press told him that the new enemy attack had sent the French reeling back from the Aumale-Noyon line and that the Germans had secured a small bridgehead over the Aisne but had not succeeded in actually breaking through; there was a rumour that Mussolini would speak on the following day.
He drove up the hill to the Hotel Miramar and, having secured a room, set about making tactful inquiries as to the whereabouts of Mussolini, representing himself as an American parson, since feeling was now running very high against the English. No one seemed to know anything for certain although the Italians—polite as ever—were willing enough to gratify the goggle-eyed foreigner’s obvious desire to catch a glimpse of the great man. Il Duce had certainly been in Genoa that morning but he was living on his special train, which had moved out of its siding at half-past two in the afternoon; the probability was that he had gone up again to inspect other units on the potential battle-front. A little after midnight Gregory went to bed depressed and miserable. The awful uncertainty about Erika was preying on his mind, and he knew that it was hopeless to look for the Baroness until he bad managed to locate Il Duce.
On the Sunday morning Gregory was up and out early. He found that the whole great city was alive with troops and pulsing with activity. Sailors, soldiers, airmen, Blackshirts, singly and in groups, crowded the hot pavements; aeroplanes hummed overhead, tanks, guns and lorries clattered through the streets or bounced along on their big balloon tyres. Genoa was the nearest Italian port of any size to the French Riviera so it was naturally a base of the first importance and it already had the appearance of a war-time city.
From the morning papers it seemed that the German war machine was at last losing its impetus and between Montdidier and No yon the attack was certainly less incisive. It was not until after midday that he learnt definitely that Mussolini was now in Turin, so he took the afternoon train there and sat sweltering in his shirt-sleeves while the train wound its way up through the mountains and across the plain of Piedmont.
On arriving, he learned to his delight that II Duce’s train was actually on a siding just outside the town but he soon found that he could not get within half a mile of it; every approach was guarded by both Fascists in their black-and-silver and the picturesque Carabinieri with their comic-opera hats and fierce-looking black mostaccios. However, he thought it unlikely that the Baroness was on the train and spent the evening combing every hotel in the city to try to get news of her.
Turin was also packed with troops and, if possible, even more of an armed camp than Genoa, Mussolini had not yet spoken, but it was thought that at any hour he might do so.
It was the fifth day of the battle for France, and for the Allies it might well have been termed Black Sunday. As Gregory listened to the last radio broadcast in his hotel that night he realised that for the French things were very black indeed. Near the coast a force of three hundred enemy tanks had penetrated the Bresle defences the day before. They had now reached the outskirts of Rouen and Pont de Larche, on the Seine. The Germans were within fifty miles of Paris and the French radio announced that all schools in the capital were to be closed and the children sent out of the city.
That morning at dawn a new attack had been launched on a wide front, from Château-Porcien to the Argonne. The French had stemmed it, but 2,000,000 men and 3,500 tanks were now storming their line along the entire front from the sea to Montmédy, and General Weygand, the hope of France, had spoken, saying: ‘We have reached the last quarter of the vital hour.’
Italy’s entry into the battle was unquestionably imminent, but Gregory felt that if only he could find and kill the Black Baroness there was just a chance that, with her evil influence removed from Mussolini’s immediate followers, wiser counsels might yet prevail.
That night, therefore, he went back to the station for another endeavour to get near enough to Il Duce’s train to question some of the people on it. He felt that, as the Italians are very open to bribery, if only he could get hold of one of the cooks or attendants they might be induced to tell him whether the Baroness had visited the train, or give him some fresh line to work on; but when he got to the station the train was no longer there. Il Duce was on his way back to Rome.
Weary, angry and despondent, Gregory inquired about the first train south by which he could follow and found that the next did not leave until 5.40 in the morning. For a moment he considered ringing up Desaix to ask him to fly north and take him back to Rome in his plane, but he abandoned the project almost as soon as it entered his head. Desaix was a Frenchman and he, as the Reverend Eustace, was travelling on an English passport. Turin was now a military area and it was certain that the Italian authorities would not allow aircraft belonging to their potential enemies to come and go freely from it any longer. The two of them might even be arrested on suspicion and detained. If that happened it might be days before they could get free again, or if Italy entered the war they might find themselves in a concentration-camp for good. He went back to the hotel, slept naked on account of the torrid heat, and caught the train south just as dawn was breaking.
He had come to loathe the sight of his thick, black clergyman’s clothes and during the seemingly endless morning they proved almost unendurable. By mid-day the steel train was like a furnace and his clerical dog-collar had been reduced to a limp rag.
The papers that he bought in stations where the train stopped informed him that the French Army was still intact and that for the last few days fresh British forces which had been landed in France had been holding a sector on the French left flank. Churchill had sent a message to Reynaud promising that every available man should be rushed across from those units which still had arms and equipment, and calling upon the French to hold fast.
The Italian Press was now openly screaming for war. ‘Nice, Corsica, Tunis!’ they cried in union, aching to get their dirty fingers on the loot, like a sneak thief who sees a householder at night already being bludgeoned by a powerful burglar. To add to the overflowing cup, the British aircraft-carrier Glorious and the destroyers Asarta and Ardente had been sunk while pulling the Army’s chestnuts out of the fire in another ‘skilfully conducted’ evacuation. After all the shouting we had abandoned Narvik and left to their fate all that remained of the wretched Norwegians, who apparently had covered our withdrawal by a gallant action.
Arrived in Rome, Gregory drove straight to the Excelsior, and from there rang up the Villa Godolfo. A manservant answered him and he asked if Madame la Baronne was at home. To his immense relief he learned that she was, so he gave his name as the Reverend Eustace Arberson and asked the man to find out if the Baronne had received a letter of introduction which he had sent her some days before.
The man left the line and after being away some minutes returned to say that Madame la Baronne regretted her apparent discourtesy in not having acknowledged Pére Arberson’s letter, but that she had been away for several days and had got back only early that morning. Unfortunately she was leaving the Villa Godolfo again that evening so she could not ask him to lunch or dine, but if he cared to come out that afternoon she would be most happy to see him.
Gregory thanked the man, said that he would certainly come out that afternoon and hung up. He telephoned Collimard that he would be round in half an hour, had a quick bath to freshen himself up after his journey, and took a taxi to the Via Veneto, After having had the very minor ravages which had occurred in his numerous patches of false hair during his two days absence from Rome made good he rang up Desaix to warn him to go to the air-port, get ready to take off at once and stand by there until further orders. Collimard, whose part it was to take him to the Villa and get him away again swiftly, then led him round to a garage where a car was in readiness. Gregory got in the back and the Frenchman took the wheel as though he was the driver of a car that had been hired for the afternoon. Shortly before three they set off for the Villa Godolfo.
The sun was still grilling down and Gregory dared not mop his face except with the greatest care, for fear of deranging Collimard’s excellent work; but in other respects the journey was a pleasant one, as it lay along the famous ‘Via Appia’ for thirteen miles towards Alban, then round the shore of the Albano Lake to the little town of Marino. Half a mile past the town Collimard pointed out the Villa.
It was a lovely house set on the hill among terraced gardens and cypresses, looking right out over the lake. A short, private road led round to its entrance on the other side of the building. Gregory was hating with all his heart the thought of the task that lay before him; nevertheless he was determined to go through with it. As they pulled up he leant forward to Collimard and said in a low voice:
‘I don’t think I shall be long, as I mean to do the job immediately we’re alone together. Be ready to start the second you see me coming out of the front door, and drive like blazes for the air-port.’
Collimard nodded. ‘Bien, mon ami. We may both be executed for this, but, by God, it will be worth it. Bonne chance!’
A black-clad servant had already appeared in the doorway, and immediately Gregory gave the name of the Reverend Eustace Arberson he was led inside, through a wide hail to a fine room, the tall windows of which had a lovely view across the lake. The little Black Baroness was sitting there curled up on a sofa and she extended her hand to him with a charming smile.
As he took it his whole instinct was to get the terrible thing that he had to do over, whip away his hand and pull out his gun; but he knew that the servant was still standing in the doorway behind him. He must at least play the part of the Reverend Eustace long enough for the man to close the door and get away to his own quarters.
Half Gregory’s mind was now obsessed with the murder he was about to commit. Was his gun loose enough in its shoulder-holster for a quick draw? Would the silencer on it work properly? Would he be able to make a quick, clean job of it and shoot her through the heart before she realised his purpose? Or would she leap up the second she saw him produce his gun and endeavour to escape so that he had to shoot her in the back, perhaps several times, before she died? If that happened, her screams might rouse the household and his escape would be seriously jeopardised. That must not occur if it could possibly be avoided. The only thing to do, then, to make quite certain that she did not scream before she died was to wait until her back was turned and shoot her through the heart from behind.
While those thoughts were racing through his brain she had been saying: ‘Mon cher Pére Arberson, how very nice to see you. I am desolated beyond words that you should have been in Rome for five days while I was in the north and that now I have to go again so soon I cannot entertain you properly, but I have heard so much about you from our mutual friends that even the opportunity of a brief meeting gives me the greatest pleasure. Come and sit down and tell me about the wonderful work which I hear you have been doing for us in that most difficult of all countries—England.’
Gregory felt his face crease into a smile and it was almost in surprise that he found himself saying in an unctuous voice well-suited to the part he was playing: ‘It’s most kind of you to receive me at all when you’re here for only a few hours. I’ve been wanting to meet you simply for ages on account of the admiration I feel for one who has done so much for the cause that we all hold so dear.’
As he sat down he heard the manservant say: ‘Shall I bring tea, Madame la Baronne, or would you prefer to wait until your usual hour?’
She glanced at her diamond wrist-watch and replied quickly: ‘It is earty yet—only half-past three. But wait….’ She suddenly broke oil and smiled at Gregory. ‘You will forgive me, I know, it I say that I did not expect that you would get out here quite so soon, although it is a compliment which I appreciate. I have one telephone-call that I must make before we settle down to enjoy a really interesting talk. Since it is a trunk-call it may take a little time, because the lines are so congested now that the crisis has reached its height, but I will be as quick as I possibly can. In the meantime, I am sure you would like to sit out in the garden, and as there is almost an hour to go until teatime you will have a glass of iced wine to refresh you after your journey.’
As she stood up, Gregory rose too, murmuring that he perfectly understood but inwardly cursing at the thought of this most inopportune telephone-call; which meant that for minutes that would seem hours he would have to sit contemplating in advance this ghastly thing that he had to do when she rejoined him.
The Baroness moved towards the door, a small, neat figure, and as Gregory stared at her back, through which he meant to put a bullet at the first suitable opportunity, it seemed impossible to believe that she was over fifty. When she reached the door she said to the manservant: ‘Take Pére Arberson down to the lower terrace and bring him some of the Lacrima Christi or any other refreshment that he may prefer.’
The man bowed her out and, turning to Gregory, murmured: ‘Would you please to follow me, sir.’
With the feeling that he was acting in a play, or was the subject of some nightmare dream, Gregory followed the man ihrough the french windows out on to the balustraded terrace, down some ancient stone steps at either side of which a fountain was playing, and along the sloping paths of the formal Italian garden until they reached a second terrace about fifty feet below the level of the house. They turned left along it until at its end they passed through an archway in a tall yew hedge and came out on a circular extension of the terrace which was shaded from the sun by tall cypresses and had a table and garden-chairs arranged upon it.
Gregory sat down and stared out over the placid blue waters of the lake below. It was very quiet there and cut off by the trees from the sight of any other house along the lake-shore. Not; a thing was moving and the only evidence of the handiwork of man in the whole panorama was the lemon-yellow villas just discernible in the distance upon the further shore and the ancient moss-covered, stone balustrade immediately in front of him. It occurred to him that the scene must have been just the same nearly 2,000 years before when some Roman patrician had perhaps entertained his Caesar there.
The black-clad manservant had disappeared as Gregory sat down, but he returned with a large, flagon-shaped decanter which had a narrow spout rising out of one side of it like that of a teapot, and on the other a sausage-shaped hole which went right down into the centre of the flagon and was packed full of crushed ice so that the wine was cooled without the ice getting into and diluting it.
The man poured the golden wine into a cone-shaped crystal goblet and handed it on a salver to Gregory. With a nod of thanks he took the glass and drank. It was a light, dry Italian wine, deliciously cool and refreshing after his hot journey, but with a slight taste of sulphur about it which has prevented such Italian wines ever becoming popular in England.
He set the glass down and began to think again of the grim work before him. When the Baroness joined him where would she sit? Probably in that chair there, as it was beside his own and faced the view. How would he then be able to get behind her? How utterly revolting the whole business was, but it must be done—it must be done. The lives of thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen, the happiness or misery of literally millions of families, the fate of two great nations perhaps hung upon it.
He drank some more of the refreshing wine and with a momentary flash of his old cynicism thought how fate had played into his hands in the matter of the Baroness’s trunk-call. In this secluded spot which could not be seen from the house or observed from the roadway it would be infinitely easier for him to do the thing he had to do, without any risk of being caught in the act. No doubt there was a path leading round the house which would make it unnecessary for him to go back through it. With luck he would be able to slip away unobserved and the Baroness’s body might not be discovered until he was well on his way back to Rome or perhaps hours later when with Collimard and Desaix he was in the plane head nig for Paris once more.
He suddenly realised that he was feeling very tired; the strain of the last two months, and particularly of the past four weeks, had been appalling. It was not only his own work which had taken it out of him so much, but the frightful mental stress of watching the world-tragedy unfold, with victory after victory going to Hitler. Norway seized, Holland overrun, Belgium smashed to her knees and now France in dire peril—yet there had seemed so little that one could do to halt the onward sweep of the mighty German war-machine.
He was sitting in the shadow, but the strong sunshine on the waters of the lake tired his eyes and he closed them for a moment. It was very pleasant there—so utterly peaceful and far removed from all the turmoil and the killing that was going on under the same sun far away to the north. For a little he remained between sleeping and waking; he did not hear her come, but when he opened his eyes again the Baroness was standing in front of him.
She was now dressed for travelling, in a light tweed coat-and-skirt. Her old-young face expressed none of the easy social charm with which she had greeted him on his arrival. Her dead-black eyes were staring down at him with an expression of mixed amusement and contempt.
‘Well, Englishman?’ A harsh note had crept into her soft voice as she addressed him. ‘Are you the best thing that the British Government could find to send against me? Did you think for one moment that stupid clerical collar would deceive such eyes as mine?’
Gregory sat staring at her, his mouth a little open, as she went on mockingly: ‘Your name is Sallust, isn’t it? I think that was what Grauber said when I described you to him after that night when you tried to dissuade Leopold from surrendering and I had to shoot your little girl friend who turned out to be the traitoress Erika von Epp.’
The moment Gregory had opened his eyes he had attempted to spring to his feet, but although his brain was still working perfectly clearly it seemed that it no longer controlled his body. All that happened was that after a slight jerk forward his feet slithered a little on the stones; but even by exerting all his willpower he could not lever himself up out of the chair. The awful truth came home to him with blinding suddenness—the wine had been drugged.
The Baroness lit a cigarette and went on calmly: ‘I only caught a glimpse of you when we were with Leopold and the things someone has done to your face are very effective; but Grauber told me, too, that it was you who was the masked man that broke into my suite at the Hotel Weimar, and we stood within a few feet of each other for the best, part of ten minutes then. It is useless to cover or alter your face unless you also do something about your hands—and you have very nice hands, Mr. Sallust; the moment you came into the room this afternoon I knew you by them for the man of Rotterdam.’
In vain Gregory wriggled, making superhuman efforts to get up, but it needed every ounce of concentration he had to move one limb at a time. He could raise either his hands or feet a few inches, but then it flopped back again and he was as fast in his chair as though he had been bound to it.
‘Stop squirming!’ she admonished him suddenly. ‘It will do you no good. What you came here to do I don’t know, but you have been caught by quicker wits than your own. Into the wine you drank I put an old and subtle Italian poison which is almost tasteless and leaves no trace. Its first symptoms you already know, the later ones you will learn in due course; I should think, judging by the amount you have drunk, in about two hours. No one will disturb you here; I sent a message out to your chauffeur that you had changed your plans and would not require him until ten o’clock, so he has gone back to Rome. My work in Italy is done and I am leaving now to hear Mussolini speak, before flying home. Count Ciano is already on his way to inform the French and British Ambassadors that Italy will enter the war on the side of Germany at midnight. Good-bye, Mr. Sallust; you will die quite peacefully and in no great pain.’