Dennis Wheatley - The Black Baroness

Since many of them were middle-aged men, heavily married and in responsible positions, a certain amount of circumspection was observed, but, as Erika and Gregory soon discovered, the 'goings-on' in the apartments of the Frauleins, Gnadige-fraus, Baronins and Grafins concerned were just nobody's business.

'It's just the age of the men that makes the whole thing so simple,' Gregory said to Erika one day. 'If they were handsome young fellow-me-lads they would be wrapped up in girl-friends of their own nationality or their young wives, and Hitler's secret weapon might find it a bit difficult to muscle in; but it's a dozen years or more since these middle-aged gentry have had the chance of a cut at a good-looking young woman except by picking something up late at night, on the sly, and paying for it. Paula and Co. are giving them back their lost youth; without any risk of blackmail, no nasty scares about divorce, and a good time to be had by all.'

Although Kuporovitch was no younger than the average Norwegian in whom Paula and her friends were compelled to interest themselves he was infinitely more virile. Moreover, never having been burdened with a conscience or a wife, and the ethics of the Soviet Union being extremely elastic, he had kept his hand in with the prettiest young women he could find in every town where he had been stationed, so his advances had none of the nervous fumbling of the Norwegians who had lived as respectable married men for a number of years. He just bit Paula hard on the first occasion that they were alone together— so hard, in fact, that she had to wear a chiffon scarf round her neck for some days afterwards. She had, of course, hit him and flown into a fearful rage but he had flung himself on his knees and, embracing her in a bear-like hug, vowed that he had been driven crazy by her beauty; upon which her anger had given place to bewildered curiosity and a violent urge to discover what other excitements this tempestuous wooer would provide for her. In consequence, a few days later Erika remarked to Gregory, not very kindly, that to see Paula with Stefan was like watching a bird fascinated by a snake.

He was clever enough not to interfere with her 'duty' affair with the elderly Norwegian Major, neither did he overdo it and make a nuisance of himself, but he saw to it that she never had a moment of spare time and thoroughly enjoyed himself in the process. Apparently he had no other object whatever in life and while he never showed the least curiosity about the course of the war he appeared to delight in scandal as much as any old woman, so Paula produced every titbit she had for his amusement and in this way he was able to secure a mass of data about her girl-friends and the occupations of the various Norwegians they had in tow.

Gregory was delighted with Stefan's success, and although he knew that by remaining in Oslo he and Erika were as good as sitting on a powder barrel which might blow up at any moment, he felt that they were doing really useful work. Except for those forebodings of trouble to come they were able to abandon themselves to the joys of what amounted to an unofficial honeymoon while gathering much important information about the machinations of the enemy and transmitting it to Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust in London.

Gregory dared not go near the British Legation or be seen with any of its officials, for fear of arousing suspicion among Paula's set, so he could not put anything through in the Legation Bag, but as Norway was still at peace there was no censorship of mail leaving the country and he was able to communicate by the ordinary post. There was the risk that his letters might be opened or stopped by people in the Norwegian post-office who were in the pay of the Nazis, but that had to be taken, and in order to minimise such a risk he sent a duplicate of each letter that he wrote, on the following day, and used the utmost discretion in his communications.

His first effort was to buy an English edition of Ibsen's play, The Rats, on the blank front page of which he wrote: With best wishes for a happy birthday, from Gregory. Underneath his signature he put Oslo and the date. That would be quite sufficient to inform Sir Pellinore that he had got safely out of Russia and had arrived in Norway, but the astute old gentleman would naturally speculate on the meaning of this strange present, and, having looked through it to see that no passages were specially marked, he would undoubtedly concentrate upon the title.

By the same air-mail Gregory sent a postcard to his faithful henchman, Rudd, on which he wrote the laconic message: Having a grand time here, except for the fact that the whole place is overrun with vermin, knowing quite well that Rudd would immediately take the postcard to Sir Pellinore, who, linking rats and vermin, would guess that Gregory referred to the human variety.

A few days later he wrote a long, chatty letter to his nonexistent half-brother, Otto Mentzendorff, an entirely bogus personality who was supposed to be Sir Pellinore's foreign valet. In it he said that he had succeeded in obtaining a situation as butler to a German Countess, although he omitted to mention the Countess's name. He then went on to describe life as the Countess's servant and the parties she gave, disclosing the fact that all her German women acquaintances had Norwegian men-friends who held positions of some importance. There was not a word of harm or slander in the letter; it was just the sort of screed that one gossip-minded servant with a sense of humour might have sent to another, and a good half of it was devoted to a description of a mythical young woman who was supposed to be the Countess's lady's-maid upon whose virtue the writer had very definite designs.

By the time he had been in Norway a fortnight the details about his commerce with this buxom young Norwegian had reached such heights of both temperament and temperature that if anyone was following the correspondence the reader would have paid scant attention to the rest of the letter but waited for the next instalment with the utmost anxiety.

Had the writer's plan for getting into the girl's room succeeded or not? No time for more; they're calling for drinks.

Yes, it had, but he feared that their mistress had seen him slip through the door. Was he discovered? No time for more. That accursed front-door bell again!

No, he had not been discovered, but the girl had been so scared that she had turned him out immediately and forced him to leave by the window. There followed the night on which they had had the house to themselves—a god-sent opportunity; supper; the girl well primed with cherry brandy. Then: No time for more. The Countess will wear the legs off me! I am late in taking her filthy poodle for its evening outing.

So the hectic saga continued, and Sir Pellinore was kept well posted as to who was taking an interest in whom in Oslo. The man who featured most prominently in these reports was the Air Attache at the German Legation, a Captain Kurt von Ziegler. He was a lean, fair-haired man with a long, pointed nose and rather a pleasant smile, and he played a considerable part in directing the activities of the women; so he was evidently a secret member of the Gestapo. There was a distinct dash of the adventurer about him which appealed to Gregory, and he would have liked to cultivate the Captain further, but he did not dare to do so as every time he met him he feared that his assumed name of Oberst-Baron von Lutz might feature in one of the Captain's reports to Berlin. However casually the mention was made it would be quite enough to imperil the lives of Erika and himself.

The war was still meandering on, but Gregory was conscious of a growing tension. In Oslo he was able to listen to the English, French and German broadcasts as well as seeing the more detailed accounts of events in the newspapers of the three countries a few days later. It had been strongly suggested that the real reason for the Hitler-Mussolini meeting on the Brenner had been to persuade the Italians to adopt a less antagonistic attitude towards Russia and consent to a three-power Axis; but that had been offset by Molotov's making a speech which was equally offensive to Germany and the Allies.