Dennis Wheatley - Traitors' Gate

'Probably you are right. But that remains to be seen. I am simply telling you that I mean to have a crack at it.'

Sir Pellinore sat down again, and tried sweet reason:

'Now look here, Gregory. You really must try to get your feet down on the earth. Naturally, havin' had an affaire with this young woman you're very distressed about her. I understand that. You'd be a cad if you weren't. But she is accused of having aided the enemy, and if you try to help her to escape you'll be betraying your own country.'

'I admit that it may look like that. But, after all, she is no longer a danger to us; and if she did get away she has no information of importance she could take with her.'

'That's true; but it wouldn't make your case any better.'

'Not if I'm caught; but I hope I won't be.'

'My dear boy, you positively must not take this risk. Your having been in love with the gel is no justification for it. You are not yourself. Your mind is being unduly influenced by your feelin's for her.'

'You are quite wrong about that,' Gregory sighed. 'It is Erika I am in love with. As I told you when I was last here, I have queered my pitch with her through insisting that I must do what I can for Sabine. But please put it right out of your mind that my intentions in this matter are dictated by sentiment. To use an outmoded phrase, it is "an affair of honour" or, if you prefer a more modern one, it boils down to "cutlet for cutlet".'

Sir Pellinore nodded morosely. 'You mean that because she got you out of clink in Budapest you feel that it's up to you to get her out of clink here. Sound enough reasoning in its day, but not accordin' to modern ideas. The age of chivalry is past.'

'More's the pity. Anyhow, I am going to attempt a damsel rescuing act, and you are going to help me.'

'By God, I'm not!' Sir Pellinore was on his feet again. 'If you are berserk enough to try this thing I can't stop you. But I'll not touch it. No, not with a barge pole!'

'Yes, you will. I'm not asking you to hold the ladder, or anything of that sort. In fact, I'll take special pains to ensure that you are not involved; but you have got to pull some strings to clear the way for me, and get me some highly secret information.'

'I'll see you in hell first!'

'There is no need to be rude.' The more violently agitated the handsome old man became the more quietly determined his lean faced junior seemed to become. Holding up a protesting hand, he went on. 'Do please sit down again and take it easy. Like it or not, you are going to listen to me for ten minutes while I tell you the basis of the plan I've formed, and what I want you to do.'

Sir Pellinore would not sit down. He poured himself another dock glass of port, tossed it straight off, and began to stride restlessly up and down the room. Like an active volcano, while listening to Gregory he occasionally rumbled protests:

'Impossible! Hell's Bells, you can't be serious! They wouldn't tell me that; why should they? You'd be playin' with dynamite. No, no; you'd never pull it off! This is the maddest scheme I've ever heard of. They'd never stand for it! But just think of the risk! It'll be the finish of you. Finish of me too, like as not. The very thought of the gamble we'd be takin' makes me shudder.' Yet gradually his objections became less vehement, and at length he said:

'God alone knows what will come of this. Still; suppose I must do as you wish. That wench is mighty lucky to have a man of your calibre feel under an obligation to her. Odds still are though that she'll spend the next seven years in prison. If she does it'll be because you've failed. Can't say I'd lose much sleep over that as far as she's concerned; but if you really make a mess of things they might hang you.'

'If I do they may hang her too or shoot her; which comes to the same thing. The French shot Mata Hari in the last war, and the Germans Nurse Cavell. This time the Boche are just butchering out of hand any of our women agents whom they catch connected with the resistance; and your friend at M.I.5. seems to think the Home Office are taking the view that we are overdue in staging a few reprisals.'

'The devil they are!' Sir Pellinore halted in his tracks. 'If that's the case your urge to play knight errant is much more justifiable. But the way you propose to set about it sends cold shivers down my spine. I'll do what you want, but I greatly fear we'll both have cause to rue it.'

They talked on for another hour. With great reluctance Sir Pellinore gave Gregory some of the secret information for which he asked, and promised to do his best to get for him the still more secret particulars, knowledge of which was essential to the success of his plan.

A little before eleven Gregory walked across the Park to do his tour of duty in the War Room. The officers on the staff there were under no obligation to maintain secrecy about where they were employed and habitually used the official paper for their correspondence; so during the night, on a sheet of the blue vellum headed 'Offices of the War Cabinet,' he wrote a note to Colonel Kasdar. It ran:

/ have visited the Baroness Tuzolto in prison and she gave me a message for you. In the circumstances I feel that it would be inadvisable for me to call at your Embassy or for us to be seen together in any public place. I should therefore be glad if you would call upon me this evening any time between six o'clock and midnight at my private address 272 Gloucester Road, S.W.7.

In the morning, on his way home, he dropped the letter in at the Moldavian Embassy.

That evening he described to Rudd the man he was expecting and told him that if anyone else called he was 'not at home.' Then he shook a cocktail, which he hoped his visitor would arrive to share with him, and sat down to wait with far from easy feelings. It was, he knew, quite on the cards that, fearing a trap, the Moldavian Military Attaché might not come; and, if he did, great subtlety and tact would be required to win him over. Sir Pellinore had been difficult enough; Colonel Kasdar might well prove more so, and if he could not be induced to play, the plan that Gregory had evolved would prove unworkable.

Half past six came, seven, half past and eight. Gloomily Gregory sat down to a cold meal that could easily be pushed, aside. In twenty minutes he had finished it. Nine o'clock struck, and he began to fear that Kasdar did not mean to come; but at a quarter past, footsteps sounded outside on the landing and Rudd showed in the tall, dark Colonel.

Gregory greeted him cordially, mixed him a whisky and soda and said, 'I expect the Baroness will have told you that it was I who brought her from Budapest to England.'

'Yes, so,' the Moldavian replied. 'Der Cafe Royal we dine at, ja. There she haf you point out to me.'

'Fine. Your having the low-down about me already should ease the wheels between us quite a lot.'

'Excuse, please, my English am not var good.'

'If you would prefer, we will talk in French or German,' Gregory suggested. T am quite fluent in both.'

The Colonel's swarthy face lit up with a smile. 'Let us use German, then,' he said in that language. 'For us Moldavians it is our second tongue.'

'By all means,' Gregory smiled back. 'What I was saying was, that since the Baroness has told you that we serve the same interests, that will make it much easier for us to understand one another without beating about the bush.'

'She did not say that.' A swift glint of suspicion showed in the Moldavian's yellow flecked eyes. 'She led me to suppose that when she met you in Budapest you were there on a secret mission for the British.'

'That is true. But didn't she also tell you that my sympathies are Fascist, and…' Gregory added the lie unblushingly '… that before the war I had many friends among the high-up Nazis?'