Dennis Wheatley - Faked Passports

His words were a most frightful blow to them all. It seemed impossible to think that Gregory had betrayed them; yet, on the face of it, that appeared to be what he had done. He had escaped himself without endeavouring to take them with him or even letting them know his intentions, as he obviously could have done if he had gone to his room after leaving his host. Worse; before going, either because he was too drunk to know what he was saying or for some inexplicable reason, he had told the General that they were wanted by the Gestapo.

They had barely taken in this almost unbelievable and very frightening piece of news when the General went on: "You will be treated well white you are here and, you have nothing to be afraid of; but in your own interests I advise you to stick to the story that you told me last night until you are out of my keeping. Nobody here speaks French, German or English except myself, so no one else can question you; but I shall have to do so formally this morning in front of my Political Commissar and I shall naturally translate accurately any answers which you make to my questions. Follow the orderly, please, and he will take you to your new quarters."

The orderly shepherded them downstairs to the ground floor, where some of the stone wailed rooms of the old castle had been converted into cells. They were given one apiece, each of which was furnished with bare necessities and a stove; but the General had provided them with the additional amenity of a fourth cell in which to take their meals together and sit during the day. As soon as they had been shown their cells a plain but eatable breakfast was served for them in the sitting room cell and they were locked in there.

At first they were almost too puzzled to discuss the situation. All of them felt that Gregory would never have acted as he had done without good reason; yet whether he had acted wisely was quite another matter. They had no doubt at all that, having escaped, his first concern would be to try to secure their release, but he would have to travel many hundreds of miles as a fugitive himself before he could get in touch with anybody who could possibly assist them, and by the end of the week they might all find themselves on their way to Moscow; after which they would very soon be beyond the aid of Gregory or anyone else.

Later in the morning they were taken upstairs again and questioned by the General in front of a small, fair, ferret faced man who asked innumerable questions, for which the General acted as translator; but after an hour of this it was found that they were merely going over the same old ground in circles, so they were sent downstairs again.

When they were back in their sitting room cell they discussed the situation further and decided that they did not at all like the look of it. From their long examination they gathered that the Political Commissar was greatly intrigued that such unusual fish as themselves should have swum into his isolated net and the General's attitude puzzled them greatly. His questions had shown little intelligence, and during the interrogation he had frequently glowered or shouted at them, all of which was in surprising contrast to his behaviour the night before, when he had been extremely courteous and quite clearly a man of considerable astuteness.

Freddie put the change down to the General's annoyance at Gregory's escape, but Erika said she felt that there was more to it than that; otherwise, why should he have gone out of his way first thing that morning to warn them to stick to their original story and say as little as possible in front of his Political Commissar?

Angela agreed with her. She also had felt that Kuporovitch had been pretending to be thick witted, when they knew him to be nothing of the kind, and that he was therefore hiding some secret of his own which might later prove to be to their advantage. In consequence they hoped that he might come down to see them, or send for them again when he was alone, so that they might talk to him without restraint and perhaps get a clearer view of his true feelings towards them. But the day passed without their seeing any more of him.

On the Sunday morning one of the jailers, who had now taken charge of them, indicated that they should put on their furs and led them out into one of the inner courtyards of the castle for an hour's exercise; after which they were brought back and locked up again. The same thing happened on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. This single hour a day was all the respite they had from boredom, which after the first day or two began to outweigh their anxieties. The General neither sent for them nor came to see them; so they decided that a hangover had been responsible for the sudden deterioration in his wits and manners. They had no books, papers or games and, unlike the long spell of voluntary confinement which they had spent in the trapper's house where they had had all sorts of jobs to occupy them, here they had not a stroke of work to do, apart from cleaning out their own cells which occupied only a few moments each morning.

They talked of this and that, but owing to the many weeks they had spent constantly in each other's company each of them already knew the other's views upon practically every subject, so they were reduced to useless speculation as to what had become of Gregory and their own possible fate.

It was on the Friday afternoon that Angela announced: "We shall have been here a week to night, you know, so our time of grace is. nearly up; and if you ask me, we've been counting without any justification at all on the idea that having got away himself Gregory will find some means of helping us."

"I'm quite sure he would if he could," said Erika swiftly.

"Naturally you feel that way, darling," Angela replied, not unkindly, "because you love him; but you know the old saying, 'Love in. a man's life is a thing apart; 'tis woman's whole existence'. I believe that applies in this case. If you had escaped, the only thing you'd give a damn about would be trying to save Gregory; although, of course, I'm sure you'd try and get Freddie and me out too, if you could. But Gregory probably views things differently not because he doesn't love you, but because he's a man; and so would put what he considers his duty before his personal feelings."

Freddie nodded. "Yes. I know what you're driving at. I didn't want to depress either of you by saying so, but I've been thinking on those lines myself from the very beginning."

"On account of the typescript he got from Goering's safe?" said Erika.

"That's it," Angela agreed. "You know how immensely important he considered it was; so much so that he readily risked all our lives in an attempt to get it back to London. We should never have left our refuge in the forest until the spring if it hadn't been for that. Well, the fact that we were arrested hasn't made it less important. Gregory saw a chance to get out so he took it. He may have felt like hell at having to leave us in the lurch but the typescript was the thing that was uppermost in his mind. He's probably resigned himself by now to the fact that we're all as good as dead and is trying to console himself as well as he can with the knowledge that he couldn't have helped us if he had remained a prisoner, whereas, once he was free, it was his definite duty to try to get through with those vitally important papers."

Erika smiled. "I didn't say anything about it either, but I made up my mind long ago that having once escaped that is just what he would have done; and I don't think any of us can blame him."

"Not a bit," Freddie said quickly. "The only thing I don't understand is why lie should have given it away to the General that we're wanted by the Gestapo."

"You two are not," replied Erika quietly "at least, Freddie may be, for that affair in Helsinki, but even that is doubtful; and Angela certainly isn't."