Dennis Wheatley: Traitors' Gate

'Whenever you set off on a mission, though, the military authorities give you every assistance, and when you went to Russia you were accredited to the British Embassy.'

'Old Pellinore is persona grata with everyone who matters, from the King down, and he often pulls strings to get things done for the War Cabinet that they prefer not to appear in themselves; so it is easy for him to get me any help I require. But the fact remains that I am not even unofficially associated with any of our Intelligence Services.'

'Sir Pellinore could soon arrange that for you.'

'No doubt. But I don't want to be. I would be under orders then, and perhaps be roped in to play a part in some cloak and dagger job that I thought ill-conceived. When it is my life I am gambling with I prefer to make my own plans and keep them to myself. Besides, twice in the past year old man Grauber has as near as damn it got me; so I don't feel inclined to give him another chance. At least, not yet, anyway.'

Erika needed no reminding how near a shave Gregory had had last time, for she had been with him, and it still made her flesh creep to think of the sort of death that Grauber would have meted out to them. Yet, even so, death had reached out grisly fingers after their escape. That had taken place early in December and, as a result of exposure to the bitter cold, both of them had gone down with pneumonia while Gregory, in addition, was suffering from two cracked ribs.

Fortunately they had been met on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance by their devoted friend Stefan Kaporovitch, the ex Bolshevik General with whom they had fled from Finland in April 1940. Stefan had secured prompt medical aid, stood by until they became convalescent, then arranged for them to be flown back to England.

Sir Pellinore had sent them up to Gwaine Meads, a great rambling mansion situated on the Welsh border that had been in the possession of his family since the Wars of the Roses. The greater part of it was now an R.A.F. hospital maintained by him out of his private fortune; but he had retained one wing for his own use, although he never found time to stay in it himself. At the moment Erika and Gregory were its only occupants as there had been no newcomers since the end of February, when Sir Pellinore had arranged for Stefan to become a consultant to the Russian Section of the War Office; so he and his charming French wife, Marie, had gone to live in London.

By then Erika had sufficiently recovered to resume the duties she had undertaken at Gwaine Meads before she had been tricked into returning to the Continent. Technically she ranked as an enemy alien, but Sir Pellinore had saved her from internment by vouching for her, and she had since played a dual role, giving her able brain to the financial administration of the hospital and her ravishing presence to lightening the boredom of the convalescing officers.

Gregory, on the other hand, was lazy by nature and, in spite of the acute shortage of staff on the estate caused by the war, refused to be inveigled into any regular commitment. He knew little of mechanics and practically nothing about electricity; he had never used a spade, detested weeding, and considered that the only thing more soul-destroying than looking after horses was to look after cows, pigs or chickens. So he was useless in garage, stables, garden and farmyard. But he did spend a lot of his time yarning with the gallant young men who were knocking hell out of the Luftwaffe and, occasionally, he would labour furiously from dawn to dusk for several consecutive days on some suddenly self imposed task, such as painting. the summer house or reputtying the vinery.

It was now the end of March and, although for well over a month past he had again been reasonably fit, as he had just said to Erika, he felt no urge as yet to get back into the war.

Standing up, he walked over to the sideboard to pour himself a second cup of coffee. As he did so, Erika surveyed him critically. He was lean and loose limbed; of medium height but actually somewhat taller than he looked from his habit of walking with his head thrust forward, which made him appear to have a permanent stoop. His lantern-jawed face had two deep laughter lines etched like brackets on either side of his thin-lipped, resolute mouth. His eyes were brown and his eyebrows slightly bushy. From the outer end of the left one a white scar ran up towards the dark smooth hair that made a 'widow's peak' in the centre of his forehead. On occasions such as the present, when something had occurred to worry him, he always reminded Erika of a very dangerous caged animal plotting to break free. After a moment she said:

'Each time you go abroad means months of agony for me, and the risks you have already run are far greater than most men have to take in a war. You would have nothing with which to reproach yourself if you decided against ever going again on a secret mission. Why not accept this as a kindly decree by Fate that, for the rest of the war, your chances of coming through should be no worse than those of any other Army Officer?'

Officer, eh!' Gregory gave a cynical laugh. 'My sweet, you don't understand. This is not like the old war in which chaps such as myself could volunteer at the age of seventeen and were commissioned straight from our Public Schools. Now, people are called up in batches as required the gallant, the cowards, the intelligent and the morons and pushed through the military machine like so many sausages. Under this crazy system it takes a year at least for even the most promising young man to become a Second Lieutenant.'

Erika was descended from a long line of Generals and in Germany the 'officer caste' was still more sharply divided from the rank and file than it had ever been in Britain. Her big blue eyes wide, she stared at Gregory and exclaimed:

'You don't… you can't mean that they would put a man like you in the ranks?'

'They certainly would. Having held a commission in the last war counts for nothing in this one. And, as I am over forty, I'd probably find myself employed as a grave digger, or as an orderly in the Sanitary Corps. But I won't have it! I'm damned if I will! I don't mind danger but I've always loathed drudgery and discomfort.'

For a moment he glowered down at the small buff form, then he tapped it angrily with his forefinger. 'Still, I can't ignore this. Old Pellinore must get me out of it somehow. I'd better pack a bag and take the first train to London.'

Dark Days for Britain

Chapter 2

Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust was one of those remarkable products which seem peculiar to Britain. In his youth he had been a subaltern in a crack cavalry regiment and during the Boer war he had won a well deserved V.C. A few years later, his ill luck at some of the little baccarat parties that friends of his gave for King Edward VII, and his generosity towards certain ladies of the Gaiety chorus, made it necessary for him to leave the Army and he accepted a seat on the Board of a small private Bank which operated mainly in the Near East.

His acquaintances thought of him as a handsome fellow with an eye for a horse or a pretty woman, and an infinite capacity for vintage port, but very little brain an illusion which he still did his utmost to maintain so the Directorship had been offered to him solely on account of his social connexions. To the surprise of those concerned he took to business like a duck to water.

Under his bluff, jovial manner there lurked a most subtle mind, and his transparent honesty seemed to have such an hypnotic effect on Orientals and Levantines that they usually failed to realize that he had got the best of the deal until they were well on their way home. Other Directorships had followed. By 1914 he was already a power in the City; after the war he had refused a peerage on the grounds that there had been a Gwaine-Cust at Gwaine Meads for so many centuries that if he changed his name his tenants would think he had sold the place; foresight had enabled him to bring his companies safely through the slump of the early 1930'sand he had emerged from it immensely rich.