Dennis Wheatley - The Black Baroness

The little Colonel stood up and, extending his hand, added: 'Bonne chance, mon ami, and, should the qualms natural to a chivalrous man at the thought of killing a woman make you hesitate at the last moment, remember now that France has lost one Army through the defection—or shall we say indecision?—of your countrymen it may lie with you to prevent the Army of another great Power being added to her enemies.'

Gregory nodded gravely. 'I shall not forget.' And taking Lacroix's hand he shook it with the same earnestness as if he were signing a solemn pact.

As he went downstairs a few moments later he knew that on the following day he would be setting out upon the most horrible mission that he had ever undertaken. He was going to the country of assassins to become an assassin. In his heart of hearts during these last days he had doubted if even his urge to revenge Erika would ever bring him really to that point; but now, in order that the cause of justice, toleration and liberty should not have the weight of 50,000,000 Italians flung against it in its darkest hour, it was necessary that the Little Black Baroness should die.

CHAPTER 22

The Assassin

On the following morning, Wednesday, June the 5th, Gregory slept late and lunched early. At twelve-thirty he received a telegram from Sir Pellinore, which read: ERIKA NO WORSE NO BETTER

DON'T PHONE WILL WIRE YOU IF SHE SHOWS ANY CHANGE: and with this cold comfort he had to be content for the time being.

Punctually at one o'clock the porter at the Saint Regis rang up to say that a Monsieur Ribaud had called for him in a car, and on going down Gregory exchanged warm greetings with the fat little French detective who had arrested and later cooperated with him in the previous October.

As they drove through the sunny streets of the capital, which was much more crowded than when Gregory had last seen it, owing to the great influx of refugees, they exchanged views upon the war, but neither had anything very cheerful to say so Gregory was glad when they turned off the main road into the grounds of a small chateau outside Choisy and he saw a solitary aeroplane standing outside a hangar.

Ribaud introduced him to the pilot, Raoul Desaix, a lean, lantern-jawed, middle-aged man, and five minutes later he was waving good-bye to the detective as the plane took off.

It was a four-seater civil aircraft with a cruising speed of 160 miles an hour so Gregory knew that it would be about four o'clock before they reached the Mediterranean. There was little aerial activity south of Paris. The skies were a clear, bright blue and they were flying at no great height, so he was able to amuse himself by watching the landscape unfold beneath them.

From 2,000 feet there was no indication of war at all. The fields, villages and isolated chateaux looked very peaceful and it was an utterly different world from that other part of France through which he had passed by tank, on foot and in the train during the two preceding days. By half-past three the main colour of the patchwork quilt of fields and woods below had begun to change from a greenish hue to the greyish-brown of the olive orchards and myrtle scrub of Provence. They left Avignon, with its great Papal Palace and broken bridge across the Loire, on their left, and Nimes, with its Roman amphitheatre on their right, to pass right over Aries, and a few moments later the plane came down on a private landing-ground just north of Marseilles. They refuelled there and went on, following the line of the coast until they passed over Hyeres, with its islands, then, leaving the Cote d'Azur with its miles of famous pleasure-beaches on their left, they passed out over the Mediterranean.

The colouring of the scene—the deep blue sea creaming upon the shore in a tiny white line, the gold of the beaches, the greens and the browns of the scrub, vineyards and woods, then far away to the north the mountains with the white-capped peaks of the Italian Alps standing out against a sapphire sky—was as vivid as that on a picture postcard. They had hardly left France behind when Corsica rose out of the sea ahead of them. It was perfect flying weather and the only bump they had was caused by the currents rushing up the ridge of mountains in the northern neck of the island, and as they passed over the sun baked volcanic stone Gregory felt that he could have reached down and touched it with his hand. Five minutes later they could see Elba, a little island as flat as a pancake set in the wine-dark sea on their left, and Monte Cristo's Island, little more than a huge rock, right below them; then the coast of Italy loomed up, and a little before half-past six they came down on the airport outside Rome.

Gregory used his own English passport and Desaix having made arrangements for garaging the plane they drove to the Hotel Ambassador, where they both booked rooms, and Gregory then went at once to make contact with Monsieur Antoine Collimard. The shop was shut but he was fortunate enough to find the French hairdresser at home above it, which suited him much better than being seen entering the shop by a number of assistants when it was open.

Collimard proved to be a Basque. He was small, dark-complexioned, with a little hook nose and quick, intelligent brown eyes. Gregory presented Colonel Lacroix's chit which had attached to it the original photograph of the Reverend Eustace Arberson.

The Frenchman studied Gregory's face carefully for a moment and said: 'I think I can do it well enough for a casual acquaintance to mistake you for this man at a distance, at all events, and naturally the clergyman's clothes will help a lot. But you must appreciate that, while I could make your face into a mask which would be the image of his in semi-darkness it is impossible to use make-up which would alter the shape of your nose, chin and forehead in daylight.'

'I quite understand that,' Gregory smiled, 'but, to the best of our belief, the Baroness has never set eyes on the Reverend Eustace so a superficial resemblance is all that is required, and it's more a matter of altering my own face—which she has seen for just one moment—than of making it resemble his. Do you know if she's still at the Villa Godolfo?'

'No. But I will find out. In any case, you can do nothing tonight as it will take me some hours to prepare the moustache and to study the matter of the eyebrows. There is also the question of clothes. You will see to that yourself, I take it?'

'Yes. Rome bristles with shops that sell clerical outfits, so I should have no difficulty in finding things to fit me tomorrow morning.'

'Bon! Come here a little after twelve, bringing your things in a suit-case, and by the time you leave I will have transformed you as far as lies in my power into the Reverend Eustace.'

Gregory thanked him and, returning to the Ambassador's, tried to put a telephone call through to London but he was told that there would be at least six hours' delay, so he booked one for the following morning. That night he had dinner with Desaix, whom he found to be an amiable though not particularly gifted man whose only grouse was that as he was over forty they would not let him fly a fighter plane in the service of his country.

Gregory endeavoured to console him by saying that he was doing every bit as good work by making secret trips like the present for Colonel Lacroix, and he explained that he did not know how long he would be in Rome but that he might have to leave in a great hurry. It was agreed that he should vacate his room the following morning and that they should see nothing of each other until the time came for a quick get-out to France; also that the airman should remain at the Ambassador's, going out only to places from which he could return in twenty minutes and leaving with the hall-porter the telephone number of the place at which he could be found.