Dennis Wheatley - Traitors' Gate

At the Vadaszkürt a clerk behind the reception desk told him that his old room had been kept for him and that his luggage had been sent up. As he took the key he got the idea the man had given him a rather queer look; but he thought no more of it until he stepped out of the lift on the third floor. The chambermaid who had done his room during his first visit was there sorting out some dirty linen. Stopping her work she bobbed him the usual curtsy and murmured, 'Kuss die hand' ; but no smile accompanied the greeting and she stared at him with an unhappy expression in her round blue eyes.

Gregory was liked by servants because he not only always had a pleasant word for them and never showed ill temper, but was tidy by nature and took some pains to save them as much work as possible. Now, it did not occur to him that this plain strong limbed peasant girl might be concerned on his account, but thinking something had upset her he smiled and asked:

'What's the trouble, Tina?'

In her halting German she stuttered out, 'Perhaps, sir, I should not tell. But there are men in your room. The Manager, he bring them up an hour ago. They wait for you. I think they are the police.'

The smile froze on Gregory's lips. His spine stiffened slightly and he had the sensation that his feet had suddenly turned to lead. But his brain raced from thought to thought with the swiftness of a prairie fire.

Could someone who had been at the meeting have inadvertently betrayed him already? No; that was hardly possible quite impossible, in fact, if the police had been waiting in his room for him for the past hour. Could one of the women at Nagykata have blabbed about his talks with Zapolya and the others? That was unlikely as they were still all in the country and would hardly have been so wantonly indiscreet as to give particulars about him and his mission to anyone in a letter or during a telephone conversation. But what of the Austrian tutor? Surely no one in the house party would have been so imbecile as to confide in him? He might have overheard something to rouse his suspicions, though, then deliberately played the part of a snooper and sent the results of his spying to the police.

As Gregory released the breath he had unconsciously been holding, the thought flashed across his mind that the police might wish to see him only on a routine matter. But he instantly dismissed it. If they were concerned with some regulation to do with foreign visitors, which he had failed to observe, they would simply have left a message for him to call at the police station, or sent a man round to catch him in the entrance of the hotel as he came in. There would not be two of them and Tina had made it quite clear that there was more than one. And they would not be waiting to confront him without warning in the privacy of his room.

The question now was what course to take. Should he face the music or cut and run for it?

It was certain that the police would be armed and, although he was carrying a small automatic that he had smuggled through the customs, a shooting match at close quarters was not a thing to enter upon lightly. Anyhow, they would be two to one and, even if he succeeded in rendering them both hors de combat, once the sound of shooting had raised a general alarm he would not be able to get out of the hotel without encountering further trouble. Yet if they did know about his secret mission and he entered his room but did not shoot it out with them, in another few minutes he would be walking back along the corridor with his wrists locked into a pair of handcuffs.

Fate, in the form of Tina's warning, had given him an alternative. He need not go on. Instead, he could step back into the lift and make a bolt for it. But what then? How much grace could he expect? The men in his room might wait there for another hour or more without suspecting that he had slipped out of their clutches. But no! The desk clerk would probably have telephoned up to let them know that he had just come in. Anyway, the clerk would telephone when he saw the man they were after going out again. Possibly, even, the clerk would call on the porters to hold him till the police could be fetched down. That would mean a fight in the hall. He could put a couple of shots over their heads to scare them into letting him pass; but they would all shout 'Stop thief!' and start a hue and cry in the street. Even if he got clear away, within a few hours he would have the whole police force of Budapest on the lookout for him. Fortunately in another hour or so it would be dark. But he would have to leave the city that night, or go into hiding with Levianski. The risk of recognition and capture would be much too great for him to go about openly any more. Such a handicap could make it almost impossible to continue with his mission. The Hungarian nobility were not the sort of people who would take kindly to furtive meetings in obscure cafés and for him to be able to make contact with them again at all depended on whether he could keep his freedom for the next half-hour.

While Tina stood there staring at him, and nervously clasping and unclasping her hands, he strove to weigh the chances. If he turned tail immediately he would become a hunted man. If he went in to his room and, should the police attempt to arrest him, fought his way free, he would likewise become a hunted man. And, as a hunted man, there could be little hope of his completing the talks that had developed in such a promising way that afternoon. Only one possibility remained of his being able to do that. It was to face the police and do his damnedest to bluff his way out of any charge they might have against him.

Next moment his mind was made up. Since there was just a chance that he might be able to carry through his mission he must take it. With a smile he said to Tina:

'Thank you very much for the warning, but I think I know what it is that the police want to see me about in private.'

Then he walked past her on his way to his room.

Thin Ice

Chapter 8

As soon as Gregory was round the corner of the landing, out of Tina's sight, he transferred his small but deadly automatic from his hip pocket to the right-hand pocket of his jacket. Walking on down the long balcony corridor he did not look ahead but over its open side down towards the restaurant, scrutinizing with new intentness the tall trees that grew among the tables in the courtyard.

It had occurred to him that should he have to make a bolt for it he would stand a better chance of getting out of the hotel quickly if, instead of dashing for the lift or stairs, he jumped into the branches of the nearest tree and shinned down it to the ground. At the moment there were only a few groups of people drinking aperitifs at widely separated tables, and there was an hour or more to go before the courtyard would become crowded with diners and waiters; so the odds were good against his being tripped or caught by grabbing hands as he ran across it.

Having decided on the branch at which he would take a flying leap, he took out the key to his room and inserted it in the lock with his left hand. His right closed about the butt of the automatic in his jacket pocket, he turned the key and pushed the door open.

Monsieur Cochefert of the French Consulate was sitting in the armchair near the window and a plump red-faced young man in the uniform of the Hungarian State Police was perched on the end of the bed. At a glance Gregory also took in the fact that the lids of both his suitcases were a little raised, evidently owing to their contents having been taken out and thrust back into them without the least care. The two men were smoking and looked bored, but a pistol lay ready to Cochefert's hand on the broad arm of the chair in which he was sitting.

The sight of the weapon and the contemptuous lack of any attempt to conceal the fact that his suitcases had been searched confirmed Gregory beyond all doubt in his belief that this was not a routine visit. Having already decided that his best hope lay in attempting to bluff his way through any trouble he raised his eyebrows in feigned astonishment at finding people in his room, then demanding sharply of Cochefert: