Dennis Wheatley - Traitors' Gate

'I do,' he replied quickly. 'There are still limits to what these types can get away with in Hungary. Throwing smoke bombs can be laughed off as showing disapproval of someone they had been told is concealing an enemy agent; but the Regent might get tough with them if they started taking it on themselves to break into palaces and arrest people. And there is more to it than that. Grauber hoped that his own thugs would catch us in their ambush. When they failed he went to Szalasi and asked for his help. I haven't a doubt that Szalasi replied more or less like this: "No, thank you. I'm not making a deadly enemy of Ribbentrop by snatching his girlfriend and her chum for you; and he'd know that my boys wouldn't dare do a thing like that without my orders. But I tell you what I will do. I'll tip off one of my lieutenants that I'd like enough smoke bombs thrown into the palace to drive everyone out of it. Afterwards, it will be no concern of mine if there is a scrap in the street and, of course, you will have your boys outside mingling with the crowd. It will be up to them to nobble the two birds you're after as soon as they appear, but it should be easy money to do that once they are in the open, and to bring them along to you at the Villa Petoefer." '

'So that's the game slippery Szalasi is playing!' Sabine commented indignantly.

'That, or something very like it.'

'Since he was willing only to take such half measures I wonder that Grauber didn't wait until tomorrow; because it's almost certain that by then he'll be able to get the full cooperation of the police.'

'I don't suppose he could have raised enough men of his own to man the roofs as well as the streets; so if he had waited till tomorrow, the odds are we should have got away. He did the wise thing in securing any help he could while the going was good.'

'If you're right about Szalasi, we may get away yet. When his young men have thrown all their bombs they are going to get bored with waiting about. They've driven us from the house but they seem to have overlooked the fact that we could spend the night here in the courtyard. It's not yet much after midnight. In another couple of hours they'll be thinking about their beds, and if they are not under Grauber's orders they'll pack up and go home. Say it is even three or four o'clock before they throw their hand in; we'll still have plenty of time before dawn to plan another attempt to break out, either over the roofs or wherever Grauber's men seem to be fewest.'

Inwardly Gregory groaned. Squeezing her arm, he said, 'No, darling; I'm afraid it's not going to be like that. Having rendered the palace untenable, their next act will be to do the same with the courtyard and the servants' quarters along either side of it. They must know that by now most of your household has been flushed out into the open, and it won't be long before they start on the job of forcing the lot of us out into the street.'

He had hardly finished speaking when the first tin canister came lolloping through the stone arch above the wooden double gates. It fell near one of the maidservants, who let out a scream, and next moment a spurt of the oily black smoke fountained up from it.

'Holy Mary!' Sabine muttered tearfully. 'What are we to do?'

'We've got to face it,' Gregory replied grimly. 'The game is up. I'm desperately sorry to have let you in for this desperately sorry.'

'It's quite as much my fault,' she admitted huskily. 'If I hadn't persuaded you to come back here after I got you out of the police station; if I'd let you take a chance on your own last night as you wanted to; even if I'd listened to you this morning and agreed to make a break for it without delaying to get papers and things, we wouldn't have been trapped like this.'

He shrugged. 'It is no good considering might have beens, and all you did was to urge the course that you thought at the time would be best for us. But now we've got to resign ourselves to saying goodbye. The only chance of your getting out of this is for you to surrender yourself to the top Arrow Cross boy and demand that he should take you straight to Szalasi. That should give him the feeling that he's one up on the Germans, so it's unlikely he'll refuse. Szalasi is going to be desperately embarrassed when you are handed over to him. The very last thing he wants is for Ribb to be able to pin it on him that it was he who scuppered you. All the odds are that he'll apologize for his boys and send you back here in a car. Then you must jump into the Mercedes and get Mario to drive you hell for leather to the frontier.'

'But what about you?'

'It is me that Grauber is really after, and there is nothing to be gained by my surrendering to Szalasi's boys. Ribb might be annoyed at my being caught, but he couldn't reasonably blame Szalasi for handing me over; so it's a certainty that he would hand me over, otherwise he'd make Grauber his enemy for life. All I can do when the time comes is to attempt to shoot my way through, and hope for a chance to get away up some alley in the darkness.'

He tried to keep his voice light, but he knew now that he was really up against it. The odds against his being able to get the better of half a dozen Gestapo thugs, aided by scores of Arrow Cross men, were fantastic. He could only hope that he would meet his end fighting and not get a knock on the head which would result in his being delivered alive into Grauber's hands.

That the time would soon come when he must take this last gamble with fate was apparent. While he and Sabine had been talking, four more smoke bombs had been pitched through the archway. Pipi had got the fire hose going again and had succeeded in putting two of them out, but the others were belching their evil black smoke and it was obvious that the hose could not be switched quickly enough to douse all of the swift succession of them that were now coming down in the courtyard. The group of eight or ten servants were starting to cough and splutter, and casting anxious glances at their mistress.

Old Hunyi, the bearded porter, came hobbling up. He was still in pain from the kick he had received in the groin and leaning heavily on a thick stick; but he made an awkward bow to Sabine, and said in Hungarian:

'Gracious lady, if we remain here we shall soon all be suffocated. I beg that you will deign to accept the shelter of my lodge.'

She translated to Gregory who gave a sad shake of his head and replied in German, "That would only be to put off the evil moment. From the street they can lob bombs through the windows of the lodge, and they will as soon as they have made the courtyard untenable. I'm afraid there is no possible way for us to keep out of their clutches.'

Hunyi considered for a moment. He understood German and now spoke in it. 'If we could find the trap door leading to the caves the Gnadige Frau Baronin and the Hen Commandant might get away by them.'

'The caves!' Gregory almost shouted. 'What caves?'

'The Buda hill is honeycombed with caves,' the elderly porter replied. 'There are lakes beneath our feet and many of the mineral springs rise in them. Legend has it that our forefathers took refuge down there when the Turks ravished the city in the fifteenth century. Many of the old palaces have ways down into them; and I recall, when I was a boy and Pipi's father was Steward here, hearing him say that there was a way into them through a trapdoor in the cellars.'

For Gregory this possibility meant a chance of life and freedom, and for Sabine escape from the threatening attentions of the Gestapo. He did not attempt to keep the excitement out of his voice, as he cried:

'In the cellars! But where? Could you find it?'

Hunyi shook his head. 'No, Herr Commandant. But Pipi might know where it is.'

Sabine called to Pipi to leave the hose to the footman and come over to them. Quickly they questioned him; but he could not help. He knew of the caves but had never heard his father speak of an entrance to them from the Tuzolto palace.