Dennis Wheatley - The White Witch of the South Seas

`Really! Then I'll try one.' Handing the menu back to the waiter, he went on: `As a young man I was a foreign correspondent. Later I carried out several special investigations for Sir Pellinore, the grand old man I mentioned a few minutes ago. He was a banker and immensely wealthy. When the war came he asked me to go into Germany and attempt to get in touch with a group of Generals who were conspiring to overthrow Hitler.'

Manon 's eyes widened. `So you became a secret agent. How thrilling!'

`That's it and it was on my first mission that I met Erika. She came from a famous Bavarian family and was the daughter of General von Epp. When I met her she was married to a Count von Osterberg. In the early days she had been pro Nazi and was a great friend of Hermann Goering's, but she had quarrelled with Hitler about his persecution of the Jews and she proved to be my lead to the conspirators.'

'What was she like?'

'Golden haired, blue eyed and rather like Marlene Dietrich. She was said to be one of the loveliest women in Germany. We fell for one another right away, but she refused to leave Germany for England with me after the failure of the Munich Bomb Plot.

Instead, she took refuge in Finland. There we met again? Later we were in Norway together, then in Belgium, where she was shot and badly wounded; but I got her off from the beaches of Dunkirk? Indue course I carried out many other missions for Sir Pellinore. On one occasion I went into Germany to get Erika out after she had been lured back there and had fallen into a trap." Finally, we met again in Berlin in the last week of the war. The Russians were storming the city and we escaped only by the skin of our teeth' You see now how it was that we couldn't get married until the war was over:

`It all sounds incredibly exciting. Are you still a secret agent?'

Gregory Laughed. `Good gracious, no. I gave up that sort of thing long ago.'

`What do you do for a living,’ then?

'Nothing. Sir Pellinore was a most generous patron. That enabled me to buy a charming estate in Dorset, and Erika and I settled down there. The old boy had no children and when he died he left me a large part of his fortune; so I can well afford to spend the greater part of the year travelling. Since I lost Erika I've done little else.'

Manon sighed. As Gregory's death was predicted for that night, his confirmation that he was very rich added insult to injury. That Fate should have sent her such a charming lover and one who could afford to indulge her every whim, yet rob her of him before she had a chance to make a bid to share his wealth, was doubly cruel.

After a moment he said, `Now it's your turn to tell me about yourself.'

She shrugged. `My story is nowhere near so exciting as yours. I was born in Algiers and come from an old French colonial family. I was only ten when the war started. It didn't make very much difference to our lives, although there was great excitement at the time of the Anglo American landings.

1 Faked Passports.

2 The Black Baroness.

3 V for Vengeance, Come Into My Parlour and Traitor's Gate.

4 They Used Dark Forces.

After the war my parents sent me to Paris to complete my education, and I lived with an aunt. I liked Paris much better than Algiers; so when my schooling was finished I stayed on there, and as the family was not very well off I earned my living for six years working in an art gallery.

`Naturally my parents expected me to spend my holidays with them, and it was in Algiers that I met Georges de Bois Tracy. He was a good bit older than me, but quite attractive, and he owned hundreds of hectares of vineyards in one of the best wine producing districts. By then I was twenty five and had had several affairs, but none of them with men who could afford to keep a wife with my extravagant tastes; whereas Georges could give me everything I wanted. At least. I believed so at the time.

`That he didn't wasn't altogether his fault. It was mainly due to the increasingly troubled state of Algeria. From the time of the victory celebrations in 1945 there had been unorganised risings and an agitation for independence. These had been suppressed with a firm hand; but the agitation continued and in 1947 the Muslims, led by Missali Hajj, got the vote. Everyone in Algeria knew that they were living on a volcano, but it seemed that the Government had control of the situation and there was no reason to suppose that there was any serious menace to the white population.

`Matters still stood like that when I married Georges in June 1954. I had expected to spend most of my time living a pleasant social life in his house in Algiers and to be able to make trips to Paris two or three times a year. But on November 1st, less than five months after my marriage, there were simultaneous risings in seventy localities. Our estate was a long way from the capital and we were out there at the time. There was no trouble in our area, but the risings continued sporadically all over the country; and Georges decreed that we must remain on our property to protect it.

`We armed our employees and they were loyal to us, but they might not have remained so if Georges and I had left them on their own for any length of time. Now that bands of Arabs were carrying out organised raids on the isolated homes of the white Colons, to leave the place for even a few

days was to risk returning to find it burned to the ground and every cask of wine in the bodegas stove in.'

`Surely,' Gregory remarked, `your husband could have remained there and let you live in the city? In any case, he ought to have done that if the place was likely to be attacked, rather than expose you to danger.'

`Oh, he could have, but he wouldn't,' Manon replied bitterly. `He was obsessed by jealousy and feared that if we lived apart even for a few weeks I would start an affaire with another man. So I was condemned to lead a dreary life out there in the country, miles from anywhere. And, of course, we were attacked several times. In the spring of 1956 the Front of National Liberation was formed, and things got steadily worse. Again and again I begged Georges to sell out for what we could get, as on the income from his investments we could have left Algeria and gone to live in reasonable comfort in Paris. But he had inherited his property from four generations of forbears and flatly refused to give it up.

`In1958 the F.L.N. formed a Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic. Although it could not establish itself on Algerian soil, it was recognised by all the Arab States and by then was conducting widespread terrorist activities all over the country. But that same year Charles de Gaulle came back to power. We all took heart because we thought that, being a strong man, within a few months he would restore order.

`Instead, matters became even worse. The months dragged by and in 1961 he permitted the referendum on self determination. The O.A.S. of which, of course, we were members succeeded in preventing the Arabs from getting a clear majority, but in '62 that cochon de Gaulle betrayed us and declared Algeria independent.

`To be left at the mercy of a coloured Government seemed the last straw, but Georges still refused to sell out and emigrate. A1though I had no money of my own, I had practically made up my mind to leave him; but that summer he developed heart trouble, so I felt that I must remain with him, anyhow until he showed signs of getting better. But he didn't. In the autumn he had a fatal attack.'

Manon paused to light a cigarette. While she did so she recalled vividly the afternoon on which the attack had occurred. Georges had called to her to get from his desk the drops he took to counter such attacks. She had, and had actually given them to him. Then, on a sudden impulse to end matters and regain her freedom, she had snatched the bottle back from him, thrown it out of the window and, with distended eyes, watched him die in agony. For the thousandth time she cursed herself for her folly in not having simply kept the bottle. But that was another matter.