by John Creasey
‘Phe-ew!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s another lucky break.’
He opened the drum of the automatic, and shook the bullets out on to the palm of his hand, then examined each one carefully. The fourth he picked up had a faint red mark on the tip. He slipped it into his waistcoat pocket, then reloaded the gun and put it in his hip pocket. He was smiling when he had finished, and as he regarded himself in the mirror he asked aloud: ‘To complain to the management, or not to complain? That is the question.’ Pursing his lips, he put his head on one side, and then nodded decisively. ‘A complaint, promptly administered, is the wise thing.’
He went downstairs hurriedly, attracting considerable attention, demanding to see the manager and declaring in round English that he had been robbed.
Having voiced his complaint, he was approaching the lift when a feminine voice called from behind him: ‘Sap. Sap, it is you?’
Palfrey swung round, seeing a tall, slim girl approaching him. She was tall, and by English standards lovely.
‘Drusilla, by all that’s holy! You in Orlanto!’ He pumped her hand vigorously. ‘When did you get here? And the same hotel—the Fates be praised! Are you staying long?’ He kept her hand while pouring out the questions, until Drusilla Blair laughingly took it away.
‘I got here five hours ago, and I’ve just been out to Torvil for an hour, but it was too stiflingly hot in the casino. What are you doing here, that’s the question?’
‘Come upstairs,’ said Palfrey, ‘and we can answer each other’s questions and have a drink.’ He took her elbow and led her upstairs, then scowled when he saw a portly man entering his room. ‘Oh, confound it, the detective wallah is investigating or something. Where’s your room?’
‘On the first floor,’ said Drusilla. ‘Did you say detective?’ She looked surprised and faintly apprehensive.
‘Oh, some sneak-thief decided to have a look round,’ said Palfrey. ‘The sleuth won’t be there long, but we may as well talk in peace and quiet.’ He followed her to her rooms, sent for a waiter, ordered a long drink for Drusilla and a lime juice for himself.
‘A robbery, lime juice at this time of night, and red-rimmed eyes,’ she said. ‘Do they all tie up, Sap?’
‘Yes,’ said Palfrey. He stood up again, went to both doors leading from the room and made sure they were locked, and then returned to her. His tall, round-shouldered figure seemed to fill out, and he was a long way removed from both the diffident gentleman of Clive’s acquaintance and the aggressive, because frightened, man Hermandes knew. ‘Drusilla, I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.’
‘If I didn’t know better I’d take that as a compliment,’ said Drusilla dryly. ‘But the famous doctor and the well-known actress don’t deal in compliments any more.’ She made a moue at him. ‘The famous doctor having joined the well-known actress in the ancient art of espionage, he seems to have had a pretty warm baptism. Is everything all right?’
Palfrey raised his hands.
‘I don’t know. The first part went off according to plan, but since then things haven’t run as I thought they would. I’ve seen Salvos, and he’ll be all right, but I need to keep an eye on him for another three weeks, I’ve announced, so that will keep me in Orlanto for that time, if it’s necessary. For the rest—’
He told her his story graphically.
He considered it fitting that he should tell Drusilla before anyone else; but for Drusilla – who was one of many to take advantage of his initials, and call him ‘Sap’ – he would not have been in Orlanto except on a strictly professional visit to Don Salvos. The knowledge that the Orlanto doctors had applied for permission for him to leave England and attend to their great man had led her to suggest to people of authority in London that he be approached to take a part in activities normally far beyond his sphere.
Drusilla had urged that his visit to Don Salvos would provide a perfect cover for his real mission, while at the same time a doctor and a specialist in certain disorders was an essential unit in an under-cover organisation active throughout Europe, particularly in the so-called neutral countries.
Palfrey had been approached by the persons of High Authority and shown himself eager and enthusiastic. Consequently he had been introduced to Drusilla, the secret envoy, and been enormously surprised, for he had known her only as a talented actress with a Continental as well as an English reputation.
He finished his story, and also his drink. Drusilla’s had been neglected for a long time, and she eyed him with a new appreciation.
‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘I’d have given a fortune to have seen you with Hermandes! Who was the other man? Do you know?’
‘I haven’t the foggiest notion,’ admitted Palfrey; ‘and I can’t give you a description that would be any good, the poor fellow has aged forty years since he was captured. But he’s a man escaped from Germany, and so a man we want to talk to.’
‘Ye-es.’ Drusilla crossed her legs and smoothed down her skirt. Her dark hair was a little untidy as she rumpled it with her left hand. ‘Ye-es, he might be able to give us information, Sap, but before we worry about that we want to know who is after him over here, and who warned Hermandes that you’re not just what you seem.’
Palfrey smiled disparagingly.
‘You needn’t worry about that, it’s obvious enough. Mr. Clive saw me manhandle a pickpocket, and he doubtless manoeuvred my abduction. So let’s assume that he passed on a warning that I might be a little more awkward than looked likely. I wonder what’s the best way of learning more about the gentleman?’
‘I don’t recognise him from your description,’ admitted Drusilla, ‘but the Marquis might know of him.’
‘The Marquis being in London, that doesn’t help much,’ declared Palfrey.
‘We’ll ask for information about Clive, and then get on with whatever turns up next, until we hear from the Marquis. Perhaps we won’t hear. All right, well find out what we can ourselves about your interesting Mr. Clive. Perhaps we’ll hear by return, which will be the day after tomorrow.’ She raised her hands. ‘Beginning to see, Sap? Let’s get a letter written, it can go off on the morning ’plane.’
‘Right,’ said Palfrey. ‘And there’s an idea I want to put up to the Marquis. We’ll include it.’
The Marquis of Brett stood up from his chair by a round table at which five other people were sitting. He smiled a little as he fingered some papers in front of him, and then looked at the broad-shouldered, round-faced man at the opposite side of the table.
‘Of course, gentlemen,’ he said quietly, I quite understand that none of these people, with the exception of the one who is in the service of Z.5, must know the real reason why they are going abroad. I have been at some pains to find a sufficiently plausible story for them, one which I know will ensure their full interest. I think I have succeeded. Thanks to the co-operation of the Russian and United States Governments, as well as the Free French authorities, the agents from those countries will be as much in the dark as the man I have in mind.’
The man he looked at smiled.
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Everything nicely arranged, Brett - as usual.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Brett. ‘Nicely arranged, but there are difficulties. I arranged for each one of the new agents to have a certain item of information—a trivial one, but one I knew would get back to me if it leaked out. It has leaked out, and only the five people I have named this afternoon could have given it away.’
Two of the men at the table exclaimed aloud, and the man whom the Marquis was directly addressing frowned, and then put a long cheroot to his lips. His round, pale face was familiar to every man and woman in Great Britain, and perhaps the world; and the cheroot, beloved of caricaturists, completed the picture of the Rt. Hon. Graham Hershall, Prime Minister of England.
‘Who was it?’ he asked pertinently.
‘I suppose you’re satisfied?’ asked Hershall.
‘As satisfied as I’m likely to be over anything like this,’ said the Marquis. ‘At all events I’m convinced it will do more good than harm to let them go ahead. Now about other things. Don Salvos has been approached by several people, and has set his face against taking any prominent part in politics. He’s ill, as you know. Palfrey, one of our new men, will have an opportunity to get at him in a different way, and I think Palfrey might succeed where the others have failed. At all events, he’ll try. I’ve said that it’s a thousand pities that he has retired—’
‘You needn’t go into details,’ said Hershall quietly.
‘Good,’ said the Marquis, and smiled again, a little more restrainedly. ‘There is another thing. The food situation in Catania is extremely bad, and I think we should be able to make promises that, provided everything is satisfactorily arranged, the food will get through.’
Hershall nodded.
Brett continued talking for nearly half an hour, and when he had finished there was little in the way of comment from the others.
He left the room in Downing Street some hour and a half after he had entered it, and walked across Whitehall to his office, known to some as Z.5. He felt fully satisfied by the attitude of the Government, but he was worried by the knowledge of a leakage from one of the five people he had selected, with help from Allied Governments, for a mission even more important than the six participants realised.
Chapter Four
The Marquis is Discursive
The Marquis sat opening correspondence in his study at his Brierly Place home. The study was on the first floor, and from where he was sitting the Marquis could see the grey stone of the houses on the other side of the square, and the tops of plane trees already turning colour, for the summer had been dry and the extravagant hand of nature in autumn was turning leaves from green to many varied hues.
Not far away the hum of traffic from Oxford Street filtered through the open window, while beneath the window a car door slammed, and a pleasant voice said: ‘What’s the fare, cabby?’
‘’Arf a crown, sir, please … thenks.’ Sundry noises followed of the driver changing gear, another door closing, footsteps on the pavement and then voices. One, belonging to Christian, the Marquis’s butler, was deep, and reflected pleasure.
‘Good morning, Mr. Brian. It is good to see you again.’
The finely cut lips of the Marquis curved a little. He continued to open the correspondence marked ‘P’, which no one but himself opened except under express instructions, but although he scanned several letters his attention was obviously wandering.
A small man, with an aquiline, aristocratic face, long grey hair brushed back in natural waves from his high forehead, the Marquis was a distinguished-looking representative of what it pleased some people to call the ‘decadent aristocracy’.
He stood up at a tap at the door. No more than medium height, he was dressed perfectly, was almost dandyish in his habiliment and manner; the hands which held an envelope and a letter were long, thin and white, and carefully manicured. His fastidiousness of dress and manners belonged to a bygone age.
‘Come in,’ he called.
Christian, gone grey in the Marquis’s service, appeared and announced: ‘Captain Debenham, sir.’
Past Christian strode Debenham, tall, wide-shouldered, blond and smiling, a giant seven or eight inches taller than the Marquis, his uncle. His fine white teeth glistened as he smiled and the two men gripped hands.
‘Well, Brian, it’s good to see you.’
‘It’s not so bad seeing you, sir,’ said Brian Debenham warmly. ‘And you look well.’ His eyes were a lighter blue than Brett’s, but missed little. Because of his uniform he looked even taller than he was, and he towered above the Marquis. ‘When I was told to report for special duties to Z.5, and then learned that I had to come to you, the proverbial feather wasn’t needed to knock me down.’ He grew more sober, but remained curious. ‘Have you been O.C. of Z.5 for long?’
‘For about seven years,’ said the Marquis.
‘Great Scott! After this, I know I’m dumb!’
The Marquis chuckled.
‘I kept in the background, of course. However, as I want you to work for me for a while, Brian, I’ll give you a brief outline of what Z.5 is. You know, of course, that it has to do with secret intelligence, and you may know that it’s an offshoot of Department Z, which Craigie handles so well.’
‘Is “offshoot” right,’ asked Brian.
The Marquis pursed his lips.
‘More or less; It started as an integral part of Craigie’s department, but it’s been running separately for a long time. The parent body, to give Craigie his due, specialises in trouble which develops in England, and we specialise in trouble abroad. Since the war we’ve gone further than that—our chief interest is in the occupied countries.’
Brian widened his eyes. ‘Is it, by George? I didn’t know that.’
‘It’s as well you didn’t,’ said the Marquis dryly. ‘All kinds of rumours about the activities of Z.5 go the rounds, but few of them get anywhere near the truth. However’ – he pressed the tips of his fingers together and peered at Brian – ‘the part which really affects you is a more recent development of the work. For a long time our only real interest as a Department has been the prosecution of the war. For a long time we have been doing what you would call “lifting” key-members of the occupied countries out of German hands and bringing them here to strengthen the Allied Governments and forces. But sooner or later,’ continued the Marquis in quiet, deliberate tones, ‘we had to enlarge the scope of those activities, Brian, and the day has come. In fact it came months ago.’
He paused, and Brian frowned, obviously puzzled.
‘I don’t quite follow you,’ he admitted.
‘You will,’ the Marquis assured him. ‘After the war, the peace! As a personal opinion, it won’t be long now, but whether it’s another six months or another six years, the problems of peace in the continent of Europe are going to be as big as those of the war. Reconstruction in this country is in all the headlines and on the lips of Government spokesmen pretty well every day, but reconstruction abroad is an equally large problem—in some ways a bigger one. You can see that?’
‘It often gives me shivers,’ declared Brian.
‘There are perhaps a dozen key-men in Europe whose services now, in the planning for the reconstruction of their countries, will be invaluable. Through various channels I have learned where some of those men are, and I am trying to locate others. Once they are located, Brian, I want to get them out of their prisons and into England. With some, I shall fail. With others, I hope I shall succeed. For some time I have been building up the nucleus of what you would probably term the “Rescue Squad”. And—’ he paused again before going on abruptly: ‘I want you to join it.’
Brian uttered a long, slow whistle.
‘The devil you do! What are my qualifications?’
‘A fair knowledge of languages,’ said the Marquis promptly, ‘physical courage—and you have proved you have that in Libya and in Greece—endurance, determination, a quick eye, and physical strength, together with intelligence enough to make use of unexpe
cted opportunities, and the ability, to use a metaphor, to keep an eye on the ball all the time.’
Brian put his head on one side and raised an eyebrow.
The older man’s look was long and searching, and when he spoke again he was smiling a little, although not with humour. ‘Brian, there is no room for false modesty in this. I named the qualifications because they give more clearly than anything else can do an idea of the dangers and difficulties of the task ahead. There is another reason why I have chosen you—it may seem a back-hander. You are inexperienced in espionage.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Brian slowly. ‘That is a point.’
‘Our best men—those of them who are left,’ added the Marquis meaningly – ‘are well-known to the German authorities, and to so-called neutral countries. We need fresh blood for this particular task. Consequently most of the Rescue Squad are newcomers to espionage. Remember, theirs is not the task of gathering information and transmitting it. They have one job—to rescue certain men, named men, from Axis prison camps.’
The Marquis stopped and stood back; through his mind passed a memory of the meeting at Downing Street, and his mention of a ‘plausible story’.
Brian fingered his cigarette-case, but was not thinking of cigarettes. His uncle had drawn a vision of a new world, a braver and better world than the old one.
‘Well, Brian?’ said the Marquis.
‘Of course I’m on,’ said Brian. ‘When do I start?’
Some three hours later, after a long and comprehensive talk in which many embryo plans were discussed, Brian brushed back his hair and looked across the narrow dining-table to the Marquis, sitting opposite him. For half an hour they had been alone, Christian bringing in the lunch and leaving it on a hotplate from whence they had served themselves. The sun shining through the top of the window glittered on silver, on the high polish of the table, and the snowy-whiteness of the mats upon it. It picked out the ruby red of the wine half-filling their glasses, a Rhine wine of excellence, befitting the Marquis’s cellar. It shone on Brian’s fair hair and his uncle’s grey locks; and it lent warmth and brightness to the austerity of the long, high room.