Traitors' Gate

by Dennis Wheatley

  A few minutes later, he congratulated her on the courage she had shown so far, urged her to keep it up, and rang the bell for Mrs. Sutton to let him out. When the wardress had done so he said to her:

  ‘Now that I have been put on this case I’d like to get a full picture of the prisoner’s surroundings and the routine she follows. I’ve no wish at all to interfere materially with your arrangements, but sometimes quite slight changes make them much more amenable to reason.’

  Mrs. Sutton obliged at once. She reeled off the schedule for Sabine’s day, then took him up the short flight of stairs leading up from the hall. Above was a servant’s bedroom from which the furniture had not been removed and in it Sabine was locked up at nights. When they came down she conducted him over what must in normal times have been a spacious and charming flat. Now, most of its rooms were half-empty, with soot in the fireplaces and on the floors plaster brought down by the bomb blast. They then looked in on the room which was being used by the two wardresses as a bedroom; and lastly visited the kitchen in which the other wardress, a Mrs. Wright, had just started to prepare the evening meal.

  Mrs. Wright had carroty hair and a freckled face. She was somewhat younger and a little taller than Mrs. Sutton but looked just as formidable. Gregory shook hands with her. He did not suggest any changes, said that he expected to be there again the following day, and took his departure.

  Outside, there were no taxis to be had, so he took the Underground to St. James’s Park, picked up one there and had himself driven to Boodle’s. After an hour spent drinking with friends in his Club, he walked across the road to the M.I.5. building. Five minutes later he was making his report to ‘Himmler’.

  Having greatly intrigued the purposeful looking Colonel by giving him Sabine’s version of Ribbentrop’s plot for planting her on Sir Pellinore, Gregory doled out some of the information she had supplied about the Moldavians. After the past failures of his regular interrogators this was quite enough to encourage the Colonel to leave the interrogation in Gregory’s hands, and even to press him to push on with it.

  Gregory said that as he was due to go on night duty after dinner and would need a few hours’ sleep in the morning, he would prefer not to go to the Tower again until the following afternoon. He added that he thought it would ease the wheels a bit further if he might provide the prisoner with some drink and, when he had a chance, collect for her some of her warmer clothes that she had left at Carlton House Terrace.

  ‘Go down there whenever it suits you best, my dear fellow,’ replied ‘Himmler’ cordially. ‘You have made an excellent beginning. I’ll telephone Colonel Faviell and tell him you are to be given access to the prisoner at whatever hours you like. As far as drink is concerned, there is no objection to your supplying her with a few bottles …’ he laughed suddenly ‘… providing, of course, that you don’t expect the “firm” to pay for it. I’ve no objection either to your taking her down some of her warmer clothes. Forgive me now. I still have a lot to do. Let me know how you get on.’

  For several days past the Desert Air Force had been carrying out intensive attacks against Rommel’s positions and communications; and, early in the morning, when Gregory and his colleagues were drowsing in the dimmed lights of the War Room, they were roused by the shrilling of one of the telephones. A signal had just come through that by the light of a brilliant full moon, General Montgomery had launched the Eighth Army from El Alamein in operation Lightfoot, the full-scale offensive which it had been planned should precede Torch.

  Later that day, Saturday, October the 24th, after a good sleep, a bath and lunch, Gregory again went down to the Tower. To his considerable satisfaction the Governor informed him that the prisoner had been reported sick that morning. The doctor could not say exactly what was wrong with her. It was not ‘flu but seemed to be a form of low fever. She was in no danger, anyhow for the moment, but in bed, of course, and might not be up to further interrogation for a day or two.

  ‘Then I’ve had my journey for nothing,’ said Gregory. ‘Unless … yes, unless you will allow me to take the opportunity of going round the Tower. It is years since I’ve seen it properly, and …’

  The Colonel was on his feet in an instant, exclaiming enthusiastically, ‘But of course! I’ll show you round myself! Delighted to do so! Wonderful old place this! In normal times we get thousands of foreign visitors but it staggers me how few English people bother to come here. You would think being able to look at the Crown Jewels would be enough to induce them to visit us even if there were nothing else to see. But there are more things of interest in the Tower than there are in all the other historical buildings in London put together. It is the whole of English history from 1066. Before that even. We have still standing part of the original Roman wall built round ancient London, and in 885 repaired by Alfred the Great. It was in this house that Elizabeth was imprisoned before she became Queen, and Guy Fawkes was tried upstairs in the Council Chamber after the Gunpowder Plot. Come along and I’ll show you.’

  They inspected the State Axe and the site of the Block on Tower Hill, where so many noble heads had rolled. In the White Tower they visited the Chapel built by William the Conqueror—one of the most perfect examples of Norman architecture in England—and the wonderful collections of arms, armour and military trophies; then saw the instruments of torture in the basement, and the spot where the bones of the two murdered Princes in the Tower had been discovered in the time of Charles II. But the Bloody Tower was said to have been the actual scene of that crime, and of many others. In the stone walls of its chambers could still be seen the prayers and inscriptions cut so patiently by men and women who had made history and, mostly, left it only for the scaffold.

  Coming out of the archway under it, the pit in which lay Traitors’ Gate was immediately opposite them. Crossing Water Lane they halted by the guard rail which fenced off the broad flight of stairs up which Prisoners of State had come after landing from the barge that had brought them down the Thames.

  ‘May I go down and look through to the far end of the tunnel?’ Gregory asked innocently.

  ‘By all means, if you like,’ the Colonel replied. ‘But it is blocked up. Has been ever since the Duke of Wellington had the moat drained when he was Governor here. So it comes to a dead end against the embankment, which is at the same level as this on the other side.’

  Throwing a leg over the rail Gregory slipped down on to the top step, ran quickly down the others and across the floor of the old moat to the gate. Its two halves were both formed from five thick horizontal beams, each held to the other by some twenty upright bars about six inches apart. The two central beams had slots holding a stout cross-bar which was secured by the biggest padlock Gregory had ever seen. From end to end it was a foot in length and its semicircular clasp was at least an inch in diameter.

  The gate had no other fastenings at its top or bottom, but one glance was enough to show Gregory that the padlock would prove too much for him. To have filed through the hinged clasp would have taken hours and to blow the lock would have needed so big a charge that its explosion must be heard. Even if by bringing in a Bunsen burner he could have cut through the clasp fairly quickly there remained the question of whether he would be able to get the gate open; and there was no way in which he could test that before the event. Each side of it, he reckoned, must weigh something in the neighbourhood of a ton, and all the odds were that it had not been opened for years; so the great hinges would have rusted and made it impossible to shift.

  He had no need to peer between the bars to see the end of the tunnel, as it was not flush with the farther wall of St. Thomas’s Tower. The tunnel ran on for some twenty feet, forming another great pit similar to the one behind him; so daylight lit it from both ends. Its sides were formed by stone blocks each about two feet in height, and there were nine rows of them. The arch above the gate was filled by more beams with stout trellis works between them, and under the beam that ran parallel with the top beams of the gate there
was a row of wicked iron spikes, so there could be no question of climbing over it.

  Hiding his disappointment, Gregory rejoined the Governor, who then took him farther than he had yet been along Water Lane and through a gate in the Outer Wall that led on to the tree-lined embankment—which stretched unbroken from the western to the eastern end of the fortress. Along its whole length, pointing out over the river, were a long line of artillery pieces of all ages, and they went over for a closer look at some of the more interesting ones.

  Gregory noted that there had been a sentry on the gate through which they had come. The gate was only about fifty yards east of St. Thomas’s Tower, and he soon saw that two other sentries were stationed one at each end of the embankment. When he and the Colonel came opposite to the Tower, while they were examining the cannons he stole several quick looks up at it.

  The central windows, which he judged to be those of the hall and the rooms on either side of it—in one of which he had seen Sabine—were immediately above the pit in which lay the dead end of the tunnel. It was a drop of fifty feet, and even if he could lower her and himself they would then be in the eighteen feet deep pit instead of on the embankment. As her bedroom was on the other side of the tower and looked out on Water Lane, it would be pointless to come down from the window there. By swinging like a pendulum on a rope from the window of the room in which he had seen her, it might be possible to land on the embankment instead of in the pit, or the attempt might be made from a window of one of the flanking tower rooms—if he could get her to it. But even then it would mean a drop of thirty feet and take at least ten minutes for the two of them to accomplish. It was the thought of the time factor which made him rule it out. With one sentry within fifty yards, and two others walking their beats with an uninterrupted view of the tower, it was almost a certainty that they would be spotted. More out of curiosity than anything else he asked the Governor:

  ‘Are the sentries here issued with ball cartridge?’

  Colonel Faviell laughed. ‘Good gracious, no! We’ve had plenty of air raids, but at least we have no cause to fear a seaborne assault by the enemy. There is little point in their being here really, now the Jewels have gone; but it is tradition that we should have them, and tradition dies hard.’

  In spite of this reassuring reply, Gregory still felt that the odds on being caught, if they came down from a window, were so big that as an escape route it was not worth further consideration. They returned to the King’s House, where the Governor gave him tea; then, having thanked him for a most interesting afternoon, Gregory made his way back to the West End.

  Next morning he rang up the Tower to confirm that Sabine was still too ill for her interrogation to be continued, and asked that when she was better he should be notified by a message to the War Room; then he telephoned M.I.5 to inform Colonel ‘Himmler’ of the situation. After that, as it was a Sunday, he rang up Sir Pellinore to suggest that since Sabine was no longer his guest they should resume their Sunday night suppers, and the Baronet said he would be pleased to see him.

  At Carlton House Terrace that evening, as soon as Gregory had been provided with a glass of sherry, he told his host of his visit to Sabine, and that she had sent a message conveying her most abject apologies for her shocking abuse of Sir Pellinore’s hospitality and her hope that, as she had been inspired by patriotic motives, he would not think too badly of her.

  ‘Queerest apology I’ve ever had,’ grunted Sir Pellinore. ‘And I don’t want any more like it. Still, shows the wench has good manners. That’s more than many young people have these days. Can’t help bein’ sorry for her, in a way. Confounded nuisance though. You and I are bound to be dragged in at her court martial, and made to look a pair of fools. Fine kettle of fish your idiocy has landed us in.’

  Gregory gave the ‘soft answer that turneth away wrath’ and changed the subject.

  During the meal their talk, as usual, ranged over the battle-fronts. The previous Sunday night Lancasters had carried out a terrific raid on Le Creusot, practically eliminating the great munition works there that French collaborators had been running at full blast for the benefit of the Germans. The Admiralty had announced a great increase in the strength of our Fleet, the two great new battleships Anson and Howe now being in commission, and that since the beginning of the war we had accounted for no less than 530 enemy submarines. The Germans were still hurling their troops against Stalingrad but the attacks showed signs of weakening. Moscow claimed that some of the German divisions had lost up to seventy per cent of their effectives; and it did really begin to look as if the all-important city on the Volga would succeed in holding out through the winter. On the past two nights the R.A.F. had bombed Genoa, causing great havoc among wharfs and shipping. As the port was Rommel’s principal supply base, these actions were clearly designed to assist operations in North Africa; and General Montgomery’s offensive had started well, some points in the enemy’s main defences having been penetrated.

  They took their port up to the library, and when they had settled down there Gregory told Sir Pellinore the story, as disclosed by Sabine, of her plot with Ribbentrop. The older man listened with the greatest interest, then exclaimed:

  ‘Strap me! What a lot these Nazis are! Just think of Anthony Eden, sayin’ he had a mistress, lettin’ her shield a German spy, then go as a spy with him to the Fatherland in the hope of making John Anderson look a fool in front of Churchill. Berchtesgaden must be a regular thieves’ kitchen. It’s the gel who’s got the raw end of the deal, though. And it’s worse for her than it would be for a man. Prison plays the very devil with women’s looks. She’ll be prematurely old and no good for anything by the time she comes out.’

  ‘That won’t be the case if I can help it.’

  ‘Eh? What d’you mean by that?’

  ‘I’m planning her escape.’

  The Baronet’s blue eyes bulged. ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘I’m not. I was never more serious in my life.’

  ‘Then you’re crazy. You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’

  ‘I tell you I am planning her escape. And what is more I need your help.’

  Sir Pellinore sprang to his feet. ‘God in Heaven, man! Is it likely! You’re drunk! Barmy! Off your rocker!’

  ‘I’m as sane as you are.’

  ‘Then you’re pulling me leg, and I don’t like it. I can take a joke, but this has gone far enough.’

  ‘It has hardly started yet,’ Gregory replied calmly. ‘I assure you that I am in deadly earnest. I mean to do my damnedest to get Sabine out.’

  ‘But damn it all! You can’t have realised the implications. To make such an attempt would be treason.’

  ‘I know that; but I hope to escape being tried for it.’

  ‘You would be, if you were caught. And you will be. You can’t get prisoners out of a place like the Tower. It’s not some tin-pot little concentration camp.’

  ‘I know.’ Suddenly Gregory smiled. ‘Yesterday afternoon the Resident Governor kindly took me all over it.’

  ‘My God, you must be made of solid gall! All the same, if you had reconnoitred the place for a month you wouldn’t be any better off. To make such an attempt would be madness. It couldn’t possibly succeed.’

  ‘Probably you are right. But that remains to be seen. I am simply telling you that I mean to have a crack at it.’

  Sir Pellinore sat down again, and tried sweet reason:

  ‘Now look here, Gregory. You really must try to get your feet down on the earth. Naturally, havin’ had an affaire with this young woman you’re very distressed about her. I understand that. You’d be a cad if you weren’t. But she is accused of having aided the enemy, and if you try to help her to escape you’ll be betraying your own country.’

  ‘I admit that it may look like that. But, after all, she is no longer a danger to us; and if she did get away she has no information of importance she could take with her.’

  ‘That’s true; but it wouldn’t mak
e your case any better.’

  ‘Not if I’m caught; but I hope I won’t be.’

  ‘My dear boy, you positively must not take this risk. Your having been in love with the gel is no justification for it. You are not yourself. Your mind is being unduly influenced by your feelin’s for her.’

  ‘You are quite wrong about that,’ Gregory sighed. ‘It is Erika I am in love with. As I told you when I was last here, I have queered my pitch with her through insisting that I must do what I can for Sabine. But please put it right out of your mind that my intentions in this matter are dictated by sentiment. To use an outmoded phrase, it is “an affair of honour” or, if you prefer a more modern one, it boils down to “cutlet for cutlet”.’

  Sir Pellinore nodded morosely. ‘You mean that because she got you out of clink in Budapest you feel that it’s up to you to get her out of clink here. Sound enough reasoning in its day, but not accordin’ to modern ideas. The age of chivalry is past.’

  ‘More’s the pity. Anyhow, I am going to attempt a damsel-rescuing act, and you are going to help me.’

  ‘By God, I’m not!’ Sir Pellinore was on his feet again. ‘If you are berserk enough to try this thing I can’t stop you. But I’ll not touch it. No, not with a barge pole!’

  ‘Yes, you will. I’m not asking you to hold the ladder, or anything of that sort. In fact, I’ll take special pains to ensure that you are not involved; but you have got to pull some strings to clear the way for me, and get me some highly secret information.’

  ‘I’ll see you in hell first!’

  ‘There is no need to be rude.’ The more violently agitated the handsome old man became the more quietly determined his lean-faced junior seemed to become. Holding up a protesting hand, he went on. ‘Do please sit down again and take it easy. Like it or not, you are going to listen to me for ten minutes while I tell you the basis of the plan I’ve formed, and what I want you to do.’

  Sir Pellinore would not sit down. He poured himself another dock glass of port, tossed it straight off, and began to stride restlessly up and down the room. Like an active volcano, while listening to Gregory he occasionally rumbled protests: