Dennis Wheatley - Traitors' Gate

It proved to be a double fronted shop in a rather dreary block, and the furs in the windows looked distinctly shoddy. Pushing open the door Gregory walked in. The shop ran back some way and was a much larger place than might have been supposed from the street; but it was three parts empty. Less than a quarter of the rows of hangers held coats, there were a few bundles of skins thrown carelessly on the floor, and the only person in it was a stout redheaded Jewess who was checking over raw pelts behind a long narrow counter.

Going up to the counter Gregory told her in French that he wished to buy a fur that could be made up as a collar for his winter travelling coat.

She replied first in Magyar, then in bad German, that she did not understand French.

Ignoring the fact that she did understand German, he repeated his statement in deliberately poor English.

As he had hoped, she again shook her head but, making a sign that he should wait, went to the back of the shop and through a glass door. A moment later she emerged again with a man of about forty. He was short, had a round face, curly black hair and a bluish chin, but he did not look particularly like a Jew.

Gregory was wondering if this was Mr. Leon Levianski. However, he had no intention of asking, as the approach had to be made with, the greatest circumspection. It was a possibility that one of Levianski's more recent letters to his cousin in New York had fallen into wrong hands. If so, it was quite on the cards that he would have been arrested for conveying useful information to the enemy. Any stranger enquiring for him thereafter would at once be suspect; and the last thing Gregory wanted was to have a description of himself in such a connexion turned in to the police.

The dark man came forward and said in passably good English: 'If you please, sir, I have no French. Speak with me please in English and tell me what you wish.'

In broken English Gregory once more enquired for fur which would make a warm collar to a travelling coat.

The furrier shrugged his broad shoulders and spread wide his hands, T regret. I have little to offer, sir. This time last year, yes. I could have given you choice of a dozen Sea Otter. Smartest and best wearing fur for gentleman's coat. But now, some odd pieces of Persian Lamb which we could make up; otherwise nothing.'

'Why have you become so short of stock?' Gregory enquired.

'Russia,' came the prompt reply. 'Our Hungarian troops, they go properly clothed for the war we fight. But the Germans, no. Hitler is everyone say a very clever man. Perhaps, but his judgment is not good when he expects to conquer Russia in one summer campaign. Winter comes and many thousand Germans they shiver, get frostbite, die. Their Fraus and Fräuleins make sacrifice of vanity and send them fur coats. But it is not enough. Our Government orders that we hold nothing back from the German Mission that comes to purchase.' After an almost imperceptible pause he added, 'And as they are our Allies it is right that we should give best help. But it has left us deplete, very deplete.'

'I quite understand,' Gregory replied, 'It was a Sea Otter that I wanted though; so I think I had better try elsewhere. Still, I'm sorry, as furs are tricky things; and I was assured by a Mr. Levianski of New York that your firm was a reliable one.'

'You know my cousin, then!' exclaimed the furrier. 'But this is different. For you I will enquire of my friends in the trade, and somehow a Sea Otter find for you.'

'Would you, perhaps, be Mr. Leon Levianski?' Gregory now felt it safe to ask.

'Why, yes. And that you should know my cousin is of much interest. Has it been long, please, since you see him in New York?'

Gregory held the dark eyes only a few feet from his own with a steady glance, and said in a low voice. 'I have never met your cousin; but I know about the letters that you write to him.'

Levianski's face blanched slightly, then he essayed a not very convincing laugh. 'My letters! I am surprise that he should think it worth while to show to anyone. They are gossips only of things here which I think might interest him.'

'Your gossip has been found interesting by good friends of his who wish well to Hungary,' Gregory swiftly sought to reassure him. 'And I would greatly like to talk to you about this. Could you meet me for a drink somewhere this evening?'

'Yes, I could do that,' Levianski agreed after a moment's hesitation. 'Where have you to suggest?'

Gregory smiled. 'It is always safer to discuss this sort of business in a crowd. Would six o'clock at the Cafe Mignon on the Corso suit you?'

'Thank you. Yes, please. I am happy to make acquaintance.' Returning his smile, the furrier bowed him out of the door.

As it was a heavenly afternoon, Gregory decided to have a bathe. The Hungarians have a passion for bathing and, it is said, there are no less than one hundred and sixty public baths in Budapest to choose from. But he had no hesitation in having himself driven in another old fiacre across the bridge to the Margareten lnsel.

The oblong pool there was as large as a small lake. Its sides for twenty feet out, sloped very gradually so that hundreds of children could splash about along them without danger; yet there was still ample room in the middle of the pool and at its deep end for an equal number of good swimmers to enjoy themselves without undue crowding.

Gregory dived and swam for about half an hour, then came out and lay sunning himself on the sand which had been brought from the shores of Lake Balaton as a surround for the pool. It was delightful there in the warm windless air, with the faint hum of conversation and occasional laughter coming from the groups nearby. The fact that millions of men, from the arctic to the deserts of Egypt and the remotest islands of the Pacific, were at that moment desperately endeavouring to kill each other, when they might be enjoying something similar to this, struck him as both tragic and crazy.

Yet his bliss was not entirely unalloyed, for he was subconsciously a little lonely. He would have given a lot to have had Erika there or Sabine. A mental picture of the latter, as she had once sat beside him not many yards from where he was lying now, flashed into his mind. Only the more intimate parts of her slender golden brown body had been encased in a white satin swimsuit, and she had been sitting with her hands clasped round her bent knees, from time to time shaking the dark hair which fell to her shoulders, because its ends had got a little wet under the bathing cap she had just taken off.

As he thought idly of the fun they had had together he wondered where she was now, and if he would run into her. Then, with a little shock, he realized that such a meeting could prove highly dangerous. She knew him to be an Englishman, and her country was at war with Britain. She knew, too, that he had acted as Sir Pellinore's secret agent in getting to the bottom of at least one conspiracy to sabotage British interests; so she would immediately jump to the conclusion that he had come to Budapest as a spy. Women who have parted with their lovers as good friends are, he knew, more prone to be ruled by pleasant memories than patriotic considerations; so he thought the odds were that she would not turn him over to the police, but one could never tell. There was, too, the nasty possibility that should they suddenly come face to face in the presence of other people she might, from astonishment at seeing him, give him away inadvertently.

Much as he would have liked to spend a few hours with her again and hear from her what she had made of her life, he decided that he must keep a sharp lookout for her and, should he see her, beat a quick retreat before she had a chance to recognize him.