For once in his life all Gregory’s coolness and resource had fallen from him. Wachmuller, Archer, Rosenbaum and Lieutenant Gautier rose before him in a series of horrible pictures. The Pastor with the back of his head blown out, his blood and brains spattering the floor; Archer’s tortured face as Karl’s torch had flashed upon it, scarred, burned and bleeding; little Rosenbaum hanging crucified from the minstrels’ gallery, still dripping blood from the wounds that twelve knives had made in his body; Gautier lying on his back in the shell-hole with the blood streaming from his mouth. And now the awful scarlet trail, which seemed to follow him wherever he went in his impostures, had reached to his beloved Erika.
To his horror and disgust he found that he was trembling from head to foot; his free hand shook as though he had the palsy and the bottle of champagne wobbled in the other. He knew that every moment was precious. Evidently Grauber had as yet no idea that Erika had brought the man she had hidden to Berlin, but he would waste not a moment in putting the question to her directly they reached the underground torture-chambers of the Gestapo.
That high-voiced, sadistic pervert Grauber would spare Erika nothing in an effort to squeeze from her every tiny detail that she could give about the man who had tricked him and posed as the chief of Gestapo Department U.A.-1, in his place. With cold efficiency the Nazis would perform all the fiendish acts that Grauber had threatened until they dragged out every item of information from their screaming victim.
Gregory made a supreme effort to control himself and to think—to think clearly. There were still two of the S.S. men in the flat. They had gone into the sitting-room with Irmgarde but the door was standing wide open. To get his gun he would have to pass it, and it would be sheer lunacy to launch himself upon them unarmed. What could he do that would not lead to his throwing away his own life quite uselessly?
Any attempt to escape from the flat unseen was equally hopeless, as he would have to pass the open door of the sitting-room to reach the door of the hall. If they did not see him they would hear him as he pulled back the latch, and before he could get out on to the main landing of the block they would shoot him in the back. The only fire-escape was at the other end of the flat so he could not reach that either. He was trapped like a rat. What could he do? What could he do?
Putting the bottle down he turned and tiptoed into the kitchen. Old Franz had been out when the dread visitation had descended upon them, so the kitchen quarters were empty. The whole block having been designed on the most modern, labour-saving principles, there were two service-hatches in the kitchen, one into the dining-room and another into the sitting-room for passing in drinks. The lights were full on just as Irmgarde had left them.
Creeping across to the sitting-room hatch Gregory bent his head a little and listened. The two Black Guards were muttering in there and prising the hatch open a fraction with his finger-nail he was able to see a section of the room. They were busy near-by at Erika’s desk, running through her papers. He could just glimpse the top of old Irmgarde’s white head as she sat with it bowed, weeping, at the far end of the big room.
The two Nazis were within two feet of Gregory. Had he had a gun he could have thrown open the hatch and had them both at his mercy. As it was, with the hatch open he could have leaned through and touched them, but it was hopeless to try to attack them through the hatch with his bare hands.
At his elbow there was a sizzling and a bubbling as dinner cooked upon the large gas-stove. Very cautiously he closed the hatch again and gingerly lowered the steel shutter, about which Irmgarde was always forgetting but which was there to prevent the smell of the cooking getting into the sitting-room.
Turning to the gas-stove he lowered the flames of each ring until they were no more than glimmers, blew them out, then turned the whole lot full on again. Casting a swift eye round the kitchen he assured himself that there were no naked lights there, tiptoed to the only window and shut it, then retreated to the passage, closing the door gently behind him.
Frantic with impatience he waited there while awful mental pictures of Erika in the hands of the Gestapo seethed through his brain. He saw her hustled out of the car on her arrival at Headquarters, just a little dishevelled. He saw one of her high heels twisting and coming off as she was hurried downstairs to the basement. He saw her wide-eyed and staring, the touch of rouge on her cheeks standing out like patches of blood on a dead-white face as her captors produced the whips with which they meant to flay her. He saw her stripped to the skin, naked, gibbering, her body streaked with red weals, the blood running down her skin while those blond swine laughed and threw filthy gibes at her. He knew that no one, neither Statesman, Archbishop, King nor Saint could keep his dignity in such circumstances. Nude, defenceless, tortured and screaming, they would lose all semblance to intelligent humans, and he knew that to be the treatment the Nazis meted out to their victims. Yet he knew too that he must not act prematurely. For what seemed an eternity he stood there. Gradually the kitchen became filled with gas. At last it percolated under the door and he could smell it strongly where he stood in the passage.
Exercising an iron control he remained still for a further two minutes, then he tied his handkerchief over his mouth and nose, opened the kitchen door quietly but quickly and shut it behind him. He reached the steel shutter in four swift strides on titpoe, spent an agonising thirty seconds easing it up on its well-greased guides and beat a hasty retreat.
Out in the corridor, with the kitchen door closed again behind him, he withdrew as far as he could and took up a position half-way round the corner of the main passage. Producing his match-box he struck a match and, flinging it towards the kitchen door, dodged swiftly back.
Holding his breath he waited, but nothing happened. Peering round the corner he saw that the match had gone out. He tried a second, a third and a fourth, dodging back each time. Suddenly there was a terrific roar which seemed to shake the whole building.
He was flung sideways against the wall and fell half-stunned to the floor. Huge flames reached out at him from the angle of the passage. There was the sound of falling masonry, a high-pitched scream, then the crackle of swiftly-burning wood.
Staggering to his feet he grabbed up the champagne bottle and dashed down the passage towards the sitting-room. It was now or never! If the Nazis were still conscious they would shoot him as he came at them. There was no time to get his gun, as they might have recovered from the shock before he could collect it and get back to the sitting-room. But as he came hurtling round the corner of the door he saw that he had no need for any weapon.
The desk the Gestapo men had been examining was just under the hatch to the kitchen. The whole of its top was now a mass of splinters and flaming papers. The hatch had disappeared and there was a great hole in the wall through which he could see most of the kitchen. Tables, chairs and curtains were all on fire and billows of smoke were already beginning to blot out the scene of devastation. One Nazi lay groaning on the floor, his face burnt and blackened by the explosion. The other had been stunned and lay still beside the desk, his face bleeding from the place where a great splinter of the hatch had torn it open. Old Irmgarde, still in her chair at the far end of the room, seemed to have escaped injury but had evidently fainted.
There was nothing to show that the explosion had not been an accident and in any case when the Nazis recovered sufficiently to get help they could not blame the old woman, as she had been sitting there with them when it had occurred. There was nowhere Gregory could take her, nothing he could do, and every second was of vital importance.
He knew that the explosion must have alarmed the other tenants of the flats and that already people would be hurrying from upstairs and down to find out what had caused it. After one swift glance round he ran to his bedroom, grabbed his gun, slipped some spare clips of ammunition into his pocket and dashed back into the main hallway.
As he flung open the hall door he saw that a man and a woman were running along the corridor towards him from the left. A porter was hastening up the stairs with a page-boy following close behind. Striding out on to the landing Gregory rushed past the man, and thrusting the boy from his path leaped down the stairs four at a time.
In the main hall below a crowd had gathered. Some people were heading from the staircase, others were running in from the street, all were calling excitedly to each other, seeking to learn the cause of the loud report they had heard.
He saw instantly that if he attempted to force his way through them they would connect his flight with the explosion and try to stop him. Even if he drew his gun and by threatening them with it succeeded in reaching the street, the crowd would give chase. Armed policemen would join the hue and cry. He would be tripped or cornered and lugged off to jail. That would put a swift end to his last hope of securing help for Erika. Yet if he turned and bolted now that he was in full sight of the crowd, that would equally arouse their suspicions and cause them to chase him upstairs through the block.
There was only one thing for it. Pulling himself up short at the angle of the stairs he yelled: ‘Help! Help! There’s been a terrible accident!’ And turning, he dashed back the way he had come, waving to the crowd to follow.
The mob came after him at the double and when he had regained the second landing they were hard on his heels, but they had no suspicion that he had had any hand in the explosion. Up there about twenty people from the other flats had now arrived and some of them were forcing their way into Erika’s apartment. Thrusting his way forward he mingled with the crush about the door, cursing each second of delay but knowing that he dared not yet attempt to leave the block. The crowd on the stairs joined the crowd on the landing, and with the new additions to it that constantly arrived a mass of excited people soon choked the whole of the upper hall.
Smoke was now pouring from the doorway of the flat. Everyone was asking questions of his immediate neighbours and wild rumours were already spreading. ‘What happened?’ ‘Who did it?’ ‘An accident.’ ‘No. A bomb.’ ‘The Gestapo; they were arresting one of their own people.’ ‘Nonsense! The Communists were at it again. One of them was actually wearing a red shirt.’ ‘It killed six S.S. men.’ ‘No, eight; the porter said so.’
Firemen and police came on the scene, driving the crowd back. Hoses were brought into action to quell the flames, and the injured Nazis were carried out while the crowd goggled at them from a distance. That was Gregory’s opportunity. Easing his way through the back of the crowd he slipped round a corner of the main corridor, along to a back staircase and down to a side-entrance. With a gasp of relief he reached the street.
He was hatless, coatless, and even had he had the blind man’s paraphernalia of shade and stick with him he could never have brought himself to adopt the slow gait necessary to the part for the sake of securing temporary immunity from questioning.
Fortunately, now that darkness had fallen he was much less likely to be halted. Darkness—blessed darkness—was his friend, and the black-out made inconspicuous the fact that he was a youngish, fit-looking man in civilian clothes, except where the hooded traffic-lights threw up his figure for a moment as he passed street corners.
Hurrying along, dodging the passers-by and the high piles of white-washed sandbags which guarded the entrances to office blocks, he strode down the street until at last he found a telephone kiosk. A small, downward-shining light which had been fixed in one corner enabled him to turn up General Count von Pleisen’s number. The Count, he saw, lived in the Pleisen Palace out at Potsdam. He might be there; he might be at the War Office; he might, by now, be at some secret headquarters giving his last orders for the Putsch. In the latter case it would be impossible to trace him, while if he were at the War Office Gregory knew that he dared not jeopardise the fate of Germany and perhaps of the world by speaking to him openly over the telephone about Erika’s arrest. But there was just a chance that he might be at his home, so Gregory dialled the number.
‘This is the Pleisen Palace,’ said a voice a moment later.
‘I wish to speak to His Excellency,’ said Gregory.
‘I’m sorry’ said the voice, ‘that is impossible.’
‘It’s urgent; a matter of life and death,’ Gregory pleaded hoarsely. ‘I must get hold of His Excellency with the least possible delay.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the voice again, ‘His Excellency is in conference and no private calls can be put through, however urgent.’
‘He is there, then? All right, I’ll come out to Potsdam.’
‘His Excellency will not see you until the conference is over.’
‘I’ll come out, anyhow.’ Gregory slammed down the receiver, flung open the door of the kiosk, and stepping back into the street ran full-tilt into the arms of a policeman.
For a second they stared at each other, but before the man had time to speak, Gregory muttered: ‘Sorry! Trying to get a doctor—my wife!’ And dodging past him he set off at a run down the street.
Potsdam was fifteen miles from Berlin. How the devil he could get out there with the maximum speed was the question which now agitated his overheated brain. He had no car or any means of obtaining one. It was illegal to take a taxi except for definitely specified purposes, and in any case they were so few and far between that he might have to wait there half an hour before one came crawling down the street. The electric trains were still running but they were infrequent, they halted every half-mile and the black-out added to their slowness. To go by train meant a long walk to the station and then perhaps having to kick his heels in impatient fury for twenty minutes or more before one was due out.
It had taken time to think of a way of escaping from the two S.S. men, time to get the kitchen filled with gas, time to hang about in the crowd before he had dared leave the block, time to find a telephone kiosk and time to get through to Potsdam. Every second counted now that Erika was in Grauber’s hands. Nearly half an hour must have elapsed since her arrest, so she would be at Gestapo Headquarters by now and they would be beginning to question her. The thought was agony to him.
A car pulled up at the kerb about ten yards ahead. As Gregory came level with it a Brown-Shirt officer got out and strutted across the pavement. Gregory waited until he had entered the hall of a big building. It seemed positively suicidal to attempt holding up a Nazi chauffeur right in the middle of the Unter den Linden, but there was no time to make elaborate plans—no time even to think coherently, strive as he might to do so. If he could not get help for Erika quickly, those black-clad beasts were quite capable of depriving her of her beauty for life in their determination to wring information from her.
Grabbing the near door of the car he pulled it open. One glance into the black shadows was sufficient to show him that its back was empty; only the driver sat silent and immobile at the wheel.
Next second Gregory had drawn his gun and scrambled in. With one hand he slammed-to the door, with the other he thrust his automatic right into the astonished man’s face.
‘Drive me to Potsdam!’ he snapped. ‘Come on, step on it!’
The man gasped, lowered a hand towards his own gun, then, as he felt the cold steel ring of the pistol barrel pressing into his cheek, decided that discretion was the better part of valour.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he exclaimed.
‘Never mind that!’ Gregory jerked out. ‘Get her moving else I’ll blow your brains out and drive the damned thing myself!’
Gregory’s tone rang with such desperate determination that the man knew that he meant exactly what he said. Letting out the clutch the Nazis put his foot on the accelerator of the already purring engine and the car slid away into the darkness.
‘Faster!’ said Gregory. ‘Faster! Unless you want to be put to bed in a coffin tonight. Step on it, man! I’m in a hurry!’
From a crawl the car jumped to a moderate speed, but Gregory was still not satisfied.
‘Faster!’ he growled. ‘Faster! Or I’ll shoot you where you sit and drive myself.’
‘Gott im Himmel!’ muttered the man, ‘D’you want to break both our necks? I’ll crash into one of these islands in the black-out if I don’t take care.’
They were already driving at a reckless speed for night-time in the darkened city, so Gregory pressed him no further but sat there, now holding his gun pressed into the fellow’s ribs and counting the seconds, in an agony of impatience, each time the car had to halt at main crossroads where the traffic-lights were against it.
There was little traffic, and leaving the city the car ran smoothly on along the wide Autobahn. Five minutes, ten, fifteen, twenty. Every minute sixty seconds, every second a tensing of Gregory’s muscles as the thought of the thrashing Erika might be enduring during those moments struck him like a blow from a whip right over the heart.
At last they came to houses again and the Nazi said: ‘Whereabouts in Potsdam d’you want me to drop you?’
‘D’you know the Pleisen Palace?’ Gregory asked.
‘Who doesn’t, seeing it’s the house of the Military Governor of Berlin?’
‘To hell with him!’ growled Gregory, not wishing the Nazi to know that he wanted to go to the Palace itself. ‘You’re to drop me on its nearest corner. From there I can find the place I want.’
For a few minutes more the car twisted through some side-streets, then it slowed down and pulled up. Gregory reached forward across the Nazi’s lap, jerked his gun from its holster and rammed it in his own pocket as he said:
‘You’ll sit here quitely for five minutes, then you can get off back to Berlin. But if you let out a shout while I’m still in this street I’ll run back and fill you full of lead. By the living God, I will, if it’s the last thing I ever do!’
‘All right—all right,’ the man mumbled, now clearly completely terrified of his maniac passenger. ‘I don’t want to die yet, so I’m not starting anything.’
‘You’d better not!’ muttered Gregory. ‘Because if you do, you’ll never live to start anything else.’
With this last threat he scrambled from the car and set off down the street towards a just-discernible gateway which appeared to be the main entrance to the Palace. A sentry was on guard there, standing in front of a sentry-box. He halted Gregory and called his Sergeant.
Gregory explained that he had an urgent message for the Military Governor, upon which the Sergeant led him through the gateway into a big courtyard which was surrounded on all four sides by tall buildings.
The yard was chock-full of cars and their military chauffeurs could be dimly seen in the faint light standing about chatting in groups. From the number of cars and people mustered there it was clear to Gregory that von Pleisen had decided to rally the officers who were to take part in the Putsch at his own house and that the conference of which the telephonist had spoken concerned their final arrangements. Winding their way through the cars they crossed to the far side of the court and the Sergeant led Gregory up a broad flight of steps to the main entrance of the ancestral home of the Counts von Pleisen, which Gregory saw consisted of this great, four-sided building.
‘Civilian with message for His Excellency,’ said the Sergeant huskily.
‘This way,’ said a voice, as he hurried up the steps, and an overcoated porter on duty there threw open a door, the handle of which it would have been difficult to find in the almost total darkness caused by the overhanging portico, repeating as he did so to somebody inside:
‘Civilian with message for His Excellency.’
Going in, Gregory passed an A.R.P. light-lock formed by some heavy, hanging tapestries a few feet beyond the door and found himself in a well-lighted vestibule. An elderly manservant in dark clothes stood there, also a Colonel and three Majors, in great-coats and caps, who were talking together in low voices. They had evidently been posted there as a special guard and Gregory realised that although it might be a comparatively easy matter to get into the Pleisen Palace it would be a very difficult business to get out again if its master desired to detain one.
‘I want to see His Excellency,’ said Gregory sharply to the servant.
The man shook his head. ‘His Excellency is in conference; he can see no one.’
‘If you’ll take my name in he will see me,’ said Gregory with quiet assurance. ‘My business is of the most urgency.’
The Colonel suddenly stepped forward. ‘His Excellency cannot be disturbed. But if you will tell me what your business is, and it really is of an urgent nature, I will give him a message from you directly the conference breaks up.’
‘Danke schön, Herr Oberst,’ replied Gregory. ‘But my business is personal and it is to do with the conference which His Excellency is holding at this moment.’
Two of the Majors moved slightly, cutting off Gregory’s retreat from the door, while the Colonel said: ‘I think you’d better tell me.’
Gregory took Erika von Epp’s little golden swastika from his pocket and held it out. ‘We’re wasting time that may be absolutely vital to the plans that His Excellency is making now. Please take this to him immediately and tell him that Gregory Sallust is here with news of the utmost importance.’
The Colonel’s face changed instantly, and taking the swastika he handed it to one of the Majors with an abrupt order to carry it with Gregory’s message to His Excellency. Two minutes later the Major returned, beckoned to Gregory, and leading him down a broad passage, flung open the door.
It led into the lofty banqueting hall of the Palace and between two and three hundred officers were assembled there talking in animated groups. Nearly all of them were either Generals, Colonels or Staff Officers, as Gregory saw at once from the glittering array of gilt foliage and stars which decorated the collars and shoulders of their tunics. Many of them wore distinguished orders, hanging from their necks and nearly all had a row or more of medal-ribbons on their breasts. At the far end of the great room Gregory could just see the grey, distinguished head of the tall General Count von Pleisen as the Major who was acting as his guide led him through the crush in that direction.
Gregory caught sight of a big clock at one end of the hall. Its hands pointed to 8.14, Erika had been in the clutches of the Gestapo for just about an hour and a quarter. Grauber was a sadist, so he would derive a personal joy from torturing a beautiful woman. It was probably that he would take his time about the business, and rack her mentally before proceeding to extremities. Gregory could only pray that things were happening so, and now that he had succeeded in getting to von Pleisen he was inclined to take a more optimistic view of Erika’s chances. There was no time to lose, not a moment, as during the second hour she was under examination Grauber would certainly begin to apply physical torture. But it would be slow, subtle and ingeniously planned, and if von Pleisen exercised his authority to have Erika transferred under a guard to a military prison, an order, telephoned at once, might yet be in time to haul Grauber up short and prevent his satiating his sadistic lust by applying that ghastly ‘beauty treatment’ with which he had threatened Erika.
The Count was engaged in a sharp argument with several other senior officers, but catching sight of Gregory out of the corner of his eye he broke it off and turned swiftly towards him.
‘Well? What brings you here? Not bad news, I hope?’
In a few quick sentences Gregory told him of Erika’s arrest.
‘That’s bad,’ said von Pleisen. ‘But in an hour or two we’ll have her out of it.’
‘An hour or two!’ Gregory repeated, aghast. ‘But don’t you realise, Excellency, what she may be going through as we stand here? Surely you can use your authority as Military Governor. Have one of your people telephone an order that she’s to be handed over at once to the Military Police.’
Von Pleisen sadly shook his head. ‘Impossible. An order of that kind is so irregular that it would be challenged and arouse immediate suspicion. I know what you must be suffering, since you love her, and I’m as fond of her myself as if she were my own daughter, but our success tonight must not be jeopardised by the fate of a single woman, however precious she may be to us personally.’
‘But they may be torturing her! We must stop that somehow—we must! And she’s your niece. Telephone them yourself and say it’s your personal wish that her examination should be held over till the morning.’
‘Not even I can stay the hand of the Gestapo, and to remind them of the fact that she’s my niece would only serve further to jeopardise the success of the Putsch. They might send some of their people out here to question me about her recent movements and find out how I’d learned of her arrest. If one of them got to know of this assembly, and succeeded in reaching a telephone, our whole plan of campaign would be ruined.’
‘Oh God!’ Gregory groaned. ‘Is there nothing we can do?’
‘Nothing for the moment. Immediately the Putsch is over we will get her out, but until then she must take her chance.’
‘But don’t you see,’ cried Gregory, swiftly resorting to an impersonal argument, ‘she’s only human and she knows all about your plans. It’s not only me they’re after. Grauber knows that I was trying to gather together the threads of the anti-Nazi conspiracy, and if he tortures her to tell what she knows about that she may be compelled to give them information which will ruin the whole Putsch at the eleventh hour.’
Von Pleisen spoke with an effort and his face was grey as he said: ‘We march at nine o’clock. To advance the hour even by five minutes would throw out our whole schedule, so I am determined not to leave this hall one second before the clock strikes. My niece is a von Epp and she will not betray us.’
Gregory looked at the clock again. Its hands now stood at 8.16. Forty-four minutes to go till the hour, at least another twenty to drive back to Berlin, a further half-hour or more before the Putsch would become effective. There was now no hope of his reaching Erika until after ten, and by that time she would have been at Grauber’s mercy for over three hours.
He knew that von Pleisen was right and that the beauty, sanity of life of one woman, however dearly loved, could not be allowed to weigh against the happiness of millions. Yet he was filled with bitter fury against the General and could have screamed aloud at his own impotence. As he thought of the agony of suspense he had yet to endure, and of the broken, crippled, bleeding state in which he was now certain that he would find his adored Erika, he very nearly fainted.