Dennis Wheatley: Mayhem in Greece

'It was you who overheard this conversation. If you are right in your assumption, during this talk they might have dropped some hint.'

'No, sir, I'm afraid I can't recall anything that might help. You see, at the time I took it for granted that they were discussing a straightforward deal. It was only later that I became a bit puzzled. It struck me as queer that if oil were to be had in Greece Mr. Onassis should not have bothered to develop it. And now you both say there isn't any. That being the case, the whole thing looks pretty fishy to me, but I expect in a few days you will have found out what they're up to.'

'How do you propose that I should set about it?'

'Well—er—isn't that what the Secret Service is for?'

Euan gave a sudden, sharp laugh. 'The Secret Service! D'you think they've nothing better to do than to investigate wildly improbable yarns brought in by nit-wits like you?'

'Oh, Euan! Why are you so beastly?' Robbie protested. 'After all, if there is something sinister behind this business, it ought to be investigated.'

Sir Finsterhorn coughed. 'Of course, Robbie; of course. But Euan is right about our Intelligence people being kept pretty busy with one thing and another; and in this matter I cannot feel that there is sufficient justification for calling them in. You must remember that there is no basis of probability for such a deal having taken place, and no supporting evidence of any kind for your story. It may quite well be that since these men were talking in a foreign language you put a completely wrong interpretation on what they said.'

'I did not, Uncle! I did not!' Robbie insisted. 'I didn't miss a word, and I couldn't be more certain about what they said.' Suddenly a bold, utterly revolutionary idea entered his mind. 'I know,' he went on swiftly. 'If you don't want to call the Secret

Service people in, why shouldn't 1 have a cut at it? You are always badgering me to do a job, and this is one I'd like. I understand Czech and can talk it fairly fluently. Let me try my hand at finding out about this business for you.'

The other two stared at him in astonishment. For a moment there was dead silence at the table. Then Euan said with a grin, 'Well, this should beat any comic strip ever printed. Just think of it! Our Robbie, gun in hand, chasing his tail in circles while imagining himself to be Bulldog Drummond.'

Sir Finsterhorn shook his head. 'Really, Robbie, you should try to keep that romantic .imagination of yours within bounds. The very idea of a young man who, at the age of twenty-three, is still incapable of qualifying for his G.C.E. undertaking such a mission is fantastic. You wouldn't even know how to make a start. Forget it, my dear boy, and stick to that little book you are writing. If it proves reasonably readable I'll have a few hundred copies privately printed for you and we can send them out as presents to the children of our friends next Christmas.'

By his offer to get Robbie's book published the Ambassador had intended to soften his previous low rating of his nephew's intelligence. But from beginning to end his words were like whiplashes on the big, awkward young man sitting beside him.

Thrusting back his chair, Robbie stood up and, without a word, almost ran from the room. Outside in the hall he could no longer hold 'back the tears that had started to his big, brown eyes. Weeping as though his heart would break, he lurched from side to side up the stairs, muttering fiercely:

'They think I'm a moron. But I'm not. I'll show them! I'll show them!'

2

The Budding Author

Lady Grenn had arranged for Robbie a pleasant bed-sitting room on the third floor, where he could read and, if so inclined, work without being disturbed. On reaching it, he flung himself on to his bed and, for some ten minutes, wept bitterly.

In spite of all he had been told about the aircraft crash in which he had so narrowly escaped death, and the effect of the injuries inflicted on himself as a result of it, he had never fully accepted the fact that he differed from other people. All his life, until quite recently, he had been hedged about with love and, even during the past year, everyone he had met, with the one exception of Euan, had appeared to like him and had treated him as a normal person.

Yet his uncle had spurned with contempt his offer to try to find out for him what lay at the bottom of the Czech deal with the Greek Government. Still worse, he had, without even seeing it, stigmatized the book upon which Robbie had been working so laboriously for the past two months as being at best fit only for children.

Gradually, the sobs that shook Robbie's big frame grew more infrequent. When they had ceased altogether he dried his eyes, sat up and went over to his desk. From it he took his manuscript. So far he had filled one thick exercise book and nearly half another with his large, round, childish writing. Feeling now an urgent need to reassure himself about the quality of his work, he switched on the desk light and began to re-read the first chapter, which went as follows;

chapter I

ZEUS AND HIS FAMILY

The beginning of things seems to be a bit confused, but I suppose that's hardly to be wondered at as there could have been no one there to set down exactly what did happen.

Anyhow, the first divinities we have any record of are Uranus, the Sky, and his wife Gaea, the Earth. Between them they had an enormous brood of most horrible children. Among them were the six boy and six girl Titans, the three Cyclopes who each had only one eye in the middle of his forehead, and three Monsters each of whom had one hundred arms and fifty heads.

Uranus was not at all happy about the sort of children his wife had produced. In fact, he disliked them so much that he shut them all up in a huge cave. Naturally their mother, Gaea, was pretty upset about that, and she made up her mind to get even with him. She managed to smuggle her youngest Titan son, Cronos, out of the cave, armed him with a sickle and set him on his father. Cronos must have caught his papa napping, as he inflicted a terrible wound on him, I suppose the worst that can be inflicted on a man. History does not relate if it actually killed him. Perhaps nothing could, as he was a god. If so, it must have been jolly hard on him, because afterwards there was no longer any point in his going to bed with a girl, and the gods were tremendously keen on that sort of thing.

All we know is that Uranus' blood gushed out and formed lots more monsters, which showed that he was just as much to blame for the horrid brood Gaea had produced as she was. Anyhow, we hear no more of him, and Cronos became top god in his place.

Cronos married his sister, Rhea, who afterwards became known as the Mother of the Gods, because it was she who gave birth to

the Royal Family of Olympus. But for quite a time, it didn't look as though she were going to get any pleasure out of her children. Cronos proved an even more unpleasant person than his father. I suppose he was afraid that, when his sons grew up, one of them might spoil his fun for life, just as he had his poor papa's. Anyway, every time Rhea gave birth to a baby, he grabbed and swallowed it.

One after the other, he pushed three girl children, Hestia, Demeter and Hera, down his mighty throat, then two boys, Hades and Poseidon. By that time, Rhea was getting pretty fed up, so when she was about to havd her sixth child she consulted her mother, Gaea, who said: 'You go and have your baby in Crete, ducks, and between us we'll pull a fast one over your old man,* or words to that effect. Rhea went off to Crete and had Zeus in a cave, then Gaea took the infant and had him brought up in secret by two nymphs on Mount Ida. Meanwhile, Rhea had hurried back to her hubby and presented him with a big stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. The great mutt swallowed it, believing it to be her baby. In due course Zeus reached manhood and dethroned his horrible father, then he gave him something very nasty to drink, which caused him to sick up the five children he had swallowed.