Dennis Wheatley - Faked Passports

The glare from the single unshaded bulb lit the worn and ancient furnishings of the bedroom in Kandalaksha Castle and memory returned to her. Apparently there were no women servants in the castle, as one of the General's shaven headed orderlies had come into the room carrying a large can of hot water. As he put it down and laid one minute towel beside it she wondered why Gregory had not been in to see her on his way to bed the previous night.

In those hectic days they had spent in Munich and Berlin together early in November they had been the most passionate lovers. When they had met again in Helsinki his absence from her seemed only to have increased his eagerness; but their opportunities for love making had been lamentably few. Then his injury at Petsamo had changed his mentality in that respect as in all others. On waking on their first morning in the trapper's house he had accepted quite naturally the fact that he was in love with her, but it had been an entirely different kind of love. He was tender and thoughtful for her and followed her every movement with an almost dog like devotion, but he did not seem to know even the first steps in physical love making any more.

Erika had known the love of many men but to be treated as a saint and placed upon a pedestal was an entirely new experience to her and she had thoroughly enjoyed it. There was something wonderfully refreshing in Gregory's shy, boyish attempts to hold her hand or steal a kiss on the back of her neck when the others were not looking; and she had known that at any moment she chose she could reawake his passions just as they could open up the cells of his memory upon other matters. But she had deliberately refrained from doing so; feeling that they had many weeks ahead of them and that it would be such a wonderful experience for them both if she allowed him to develop his full physical love for her quite unaided.

During those weeks she had grown to love him more than ever before; but she had been cheated of the consummation of her subtle plan by the sudden flooding back of his memory after his fail upon the ice roil. All his old desire for her had returned with renewed force. But within a few hours of that Freddie had solved his puzzle, Gregory had brought home to them the immense importance of it and they were on their way again in a desperate endeavour to get the German plan for world dominion back to London; so in the last five days there had been no opportunity for them to be alone together for more than a few moments.

It was for that reason that she had felt certain that he would come to her the previous night' and kiss her into wakefulness directly he succeeded in getting away from General Kuporovitch. But she knew the reputation that Russian officers had for hard drinking and tried to console herself with the thought that their host must have plied Gregory with so much liquor after she had left them, which out of tactfulness he had fell bound to consume, that by the time he got away, hard headed as he was, he had felt that he would spoil a very perfect moment if he roused her.

When the orderly had left the room she got up to wash and dress. As she looked at her clothes she sighed a little. Her one set of undies had had to do duty with constant washings for twelve weeks and they were in a shocking state. Perhaps she would have been wiser to have availed herself of some of the things belonging to the dead wife of the trapper, but she simply had not been able to bring herself to encase her lovely limbs in those unlovely garments. The tweeds in which she had left Helsinki had weathered their hard wear fairly well, but the soles of her snow boots were wearing thin and the cold had driven her to make use of the Finnish woman's great, thick, woolen stockings. Fortunately her golden hair had a natural wave so, although to her critical eye it badly needed the attention of a hairdresser, she knew that as far as other people were concerned it still passed muster; but powder, lipstick and face creams had all been abandoned in her dressing case. Nevertheless, as she studied her face in a cracked Venetian mirror she had to admit that she was looking little worse for the lack of them.

She would have given a lot for a lipstick and some powder for her nose but she had managed to keep her face from chapping and the cold Arctic air had given her back a natural complexion which was better than anything she had had since she was a young girl. As she studied herself she decided that nobody would ever believe she was twenty eight. She did not look a day over twenty four and her figure, kept in perfect trim by the work she had had to do in these last few months, was as beautiful as ever.

On going out into the corridor she found the orderly there and Freddie standing beside him. He looked at her, blushed scarlet and looking quickly away again, said:

"Angela won't be a minute."

"Have you seen Gregory?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No. I went into his room a few minutes ago but he wasn't there so I suppose he's already with the General."

"It's rather queer that he didn't look in on me first, to say good morning," she remarked; but her mind was distracted by Angela's appearing at that moment.

Angela had not the good fortune to possess a natural wave so her dark hair was now neatly drawn back and pinned up in a small bun on the nape of her neck; but with her deep blue eyes and milk white skin she still looked extremely pretty and Erika, with a knowing eye, took in the fact that she looked prettier than ever this morning. She showed none of Freddie' embarrassment but smiled gaily as she said:

"Wasn't it fun to sleep in a proper bed again after all these weeks of dosing down on the top of the old brick oven? I wish they hadn't got us up, as I should like to have stayed in bed all day."

Erika took her arm affectionately. "Well, darling; let's hope the time is soon coming when you'll be able to, as perhaps Gregory has persuaded the General to release us. I'm sure he wouldn't have sat up all night drinking unless he thought that he could get something out of him."

The orderly beckoned to them and they followed him down the corridor to the room where they had fed the night before. The General was there, looking somewhat bleary eyed, and his manner was abrupt as he addressed them:

"I regret that I shall have to make a change in your accommodation, since the Colonel Baron has abused my hospitality."

"Really?" Erika raised her eyebrows. "What has he done?"

"As he can't be found, he must have left the castle in the early hours of the morning; although how he did it is not yet clear. If he had dropped from his window he could not get out that way, as all your rooms overlook interior courtyards; in any case, he couldn't have made the drop without using his bedding as a rope; and his bed is undisturbed."

Their first feeling oh learning that Gregory had escaped was one of elation; but it was quickly crushed as the General went on: "I expect he will soon be brought back again. The fact that he cannot speak Russian, together with this godforsaken climate, will prevent him getting very far. In the meantime I intend to see that none of you others plays me any tricks. I am having you transferred to cells downstairs until I receive instructions about you from Moscow."

While they remained silent for a moment Freddie struggled to compose a sentence in French, then said haltingly: "How long do you think that will be; and what sort of orders do you think you will receive about us when they do come in?"

The General frowned. "I should receive instructions about you in a week, or ten days at the most. What they will be I don't know, but in view of what the Colonel Baron told me last night after you went to bed, I should think that you will be sent to Moscow under guard and handed over to the German Embassy there for transfer to Berlin, as it appears that the Gestapo are most anxious to interview you."