Having said good-bye to their hosts, they saw, as they walked back to their car, that another car had drawn up behind it and that a young man was talking to Tino. In that lonely spot, so difficult of access except by sea, they naturally supposed that he belonged to the Czech group working there; but as they approached, he hailed them cheerfully in English, with a strong American accent.
‘Hullo, folks! What goes on around here?’
Robbie, who had constantly to remind himself that he was supposed to be a Swiss, tried to make his voice as guttural as he could, and replied: ‘I understand they prospect for oil.’
‘Is that so, now,’ the American smiled. He looked about thirty, was tallish, loose-limbed and had crew-cut fair hair. Extending a muscular hand, he added: ‘Let me introduce myself. My name is Mahogany Brown—Henry Mahogany Brown.’
As he caught the flicker of surprise in Robbie’s eyes, his smile broadened to a grin and he went on: ‘Funny name, Mahogany, isn’t it? Just a quirk of humour on the part of my old Dad. I’ve two brothers and he called them Elliot Walnut Brown and James Satinwood Brown. I got Mahogany, but I’m Henry to my friends.’
Robbie shook the outstretched hand, gave his name as Max Thévanaz and introduced Stephanie as his wife. Mr. Mahogany Brown jerked a thumb in the direction of the castle far above them and asked: ‘Been up to the top?’
‘Yes,’ Stephanie replied. ‘The view is marvellous, isn’t it? And all this wild, unspoilt country is absolutely beautiful.’
‘It certainly is,’ he agreed, ‘and, if I may be allowed to say so, Mr. Thévanaz, it’s made just that bit more beautiful by the presence of your lady.’
That was just the sort of compliment Robbie was always wanting to pay Stephanie, yet never managed to, and it annoyed him that a complete stranger should get away with it so glibly. But he hid his feelings with a smile as the American went on: ‘It’s all the more pity that these vandals here should be allowed to spoil the bay with their pylon, though it doesn’t look to me the sort of gear that’s used for drilling for oil.’
‘They are using, I think, a new process,’ Robbie informed him.
For some minutes they continued talking. Apparently Mr. Mahogany Brown had seen the Czech working site from the ruined castle, and idle curiosity had brought him down to find out what was going on. It then transpired that he, too, was staying at the Hotel des Roses; so when he left them to go back to his car, he gave a cheery wave and cried: ‘I’ll be seeing you.’
Slowly the two cars made their way back up the narrow, stony track, then the American put on speed and left the other car behind. Tino, still determined to show his passengers as much of his lovely country as he could, drove them back by a different route, via Petaloudes, so that they might see the famous Valley of Butterflies. It was a delightful glen with several waterfalls and, as they walked through it, there rose a pinkish-grey cloud, formed by the myriads of butterflies that breed there year after year.
Soon after they got back to the hotel Robbie wrote to Luke, describing as exactly as possible all that he had seen on the Czech site. He then added a final paragraph:
By this time, you will have seen from the papers that the police are looking for me. Although they have not so far disclosed it, I have good reason to believe that, if they catch me, they may bring a very serious charge against me. For this reason, I am staying here under the name of Max Thévanaz. The fact is that I have landed myself in a very dangerous situation and about my only hope of getting out of it is if it can be proved that the Czechs’ activities are some form of preparation for a war against the West. There are two ways in which you can help me in this. The first is that, should the particulars I have listed above give you any idea what the Czechs may be doing, you let me know immediately as I will then do my best to check up on it. It is in the hope that you will have some idea that I can work on that I mean to keep my freedom as long as possible. The other thing is that you should pass on such information as I have secured to the police and persuade them to start an investigation. With this threat of war, there is every possible justification for their doing so; and if they do find out that the Czechs are up to no good, that would let me out. I really am in a bad spot and shall be eternally grateful for anything you can do to help.
In his letter he purposely refrained from telling Luke what had actually happened, so that it could not be said later that he had known both that Robbie was wanted by the police for having killed Cepicka and Robbie’s whereabouts, yet had failed to inform the police. Stephanie knew how much Robbie wanted to pour out the whole story to his friend but, on reading through the letter, she agreed that it would not be right to compromise him. Having sealed the letter and marked it ‘Private’, Robbie took it down to the Post Office himself, to make certain that it would catch the air mail for Athens next morning and, when it reached the capital, go by express delivery.
That evening after dinner Mr. Mahogany Brown, dressed in a smart tuxedo, came up to their table, asked Stephanie if she would like to dance and, on her replying that she would, suggested that they all move into the ballroom. The two hours that followed were miserable ones for Robbie. The American danced with practised ease and Stephanie obviously enjoyed partnering him. Robbie knew only too well that he could not compete. He felt, too, that it was one thing to flounder cheerfully round a little night-club in Patras, and quite another to make an exhibition of himself in a ballroom, with several score of sophisticated people looking on. Even when, having danced twice with the slim, loose-limbed Mr. Brown, Stephanie asked him if he wouldn’t like to dance, he said that he preferred to watch. Yet he could not altogether dislike their new acquaintance and when Stephanie, to get herself half an hour to undress, suggested that the two men have a last drink together, he found that the American had a seemingly endless repertoire of funny stories.
Next morning, when the papers came in from the daily aircraft, the news was still good. Delegations of United States and Soviet statesmen were on their way to Delhi to submit their respective cases to the mediation of the Indian Prime Minister. Hastily Robbie and Stephanie scanned the other sheets, then went through them carefully, but they held no mention of their own affair.
They were already in bathing things, which they had bought the afternoon of their arrival; so they went out to the beach. As they emerged from their first swim Robbie was far from pleased, but not surprised, to see Mr. Mahogany Brown appear. With an affability too polite to be resented, he settled himself beside them and began to talk amusingly of other pleasure resorts at which he had stayed. As they were posing as a married couple but in fact had never before been to a famous holiday beach together, they had to conduct their side of the conversation with considerable care, but the American did not appear to think it strange that they had never been to any of the places he mentioned.
Just before lunch they went in for their second swim, and Robbie at least had the satisfaction of showing that, although he was no good on a dance floor, he was much the better man in the water. As they came out Mr. Brown, who by then was calling Robbie Max and Stephanie by the name she had given herself, Julie, asked them if they had yet been along to the old city. On their replying that they had not, he declared:
‘But it’s a “must”! The place those old Crusaders built there is real history, and the greatest sight in the whole Aegean. I’ve hired a car for my stay here, and I’ll run you down there this afternoon.’
To have refused would have been not only churlish but stupid, so by three o’clock they were on their way there with him. Although they had already seen the castle and the walls of the old city from a distance, they found the third of a square mile within those walls both fascinating and astounding.
Part of the fascination lay in the narrow streets and alleys in the lower part of the city, adjacent to the harbour, where for four hundred years the Greek population had lived under Turkish rule. Coppersmiths, leather workers, cobblers and tailors still plied their trades there, as they had done for a thous
and years, in small, windowless shops. There could have been no greater contrast to the new town erected by the Italians outside the walls.
But the upper part of the city held far greater interest. There lay the great stone palaces in which the Crusaders had lived. After being driven from the Holy Land early in the fourteenth century, the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem had made Rhodes the bastion of Christianity against the Infidel and, although within sight of Turkey, they had held the island for over two hundred years. In 1480, the Sultan Suliman I had brought an army of two hundred thousand men against it, yet had been forced to abandon the siege after losing nearly half his troops. It had not been until forty years later that the Knights had abandoned Rhodes, and then upon honourable terms.
The Knights had been of several nationalities, among them French, English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Each group had been termed a ‘Tongue’ and had lived in their respective ‘Inns’ as the stone palaces in the Street of Knights were called, while their Grand Master had lived in state in the enormous castle. A great part of the castle had been allowed to fall into ruin before the arrival of the Italians, but their Governor, de Vesci, had made it his life-work to restore it. Mussolini had provided him with many millions of lire to carry out this task; so the battlements again towered up in all their pristine glory against a background of bright blue sky.
The most staggering thing about this fortress city was its walls. They extended for three miles, completely encircling the city and being strengthened by more than a dozen great protruding bastions. In most places, they were a hundred feet in height and over forty feet broad at the top; so that along their now grassy surface four or five cars could have been driven abreast.
While Robbie, Stephanie and Mahogany Brown were making the tour of the city and the vast ramparts, they naturally talked in English about the extraordinary achievements of its mediaeval builders. Stephanie expressed herself well but, being Czech, had a marked accent. Robbie, however, having temporarily forgotten that he was supposed to be a Swiss, lapsed into his normal speech. As they came down from the wall to the broad quay outside it enclosing the harbour, the American suddenly turned to him and said:
‘For a foreigner, Max, you speak remarkably good English.’
Robbie was completely nonplussed, but Stephanie stepped into the breach and said quickly: ‘That is not surprising. He was at school in England.’
That evening after dinner, Robbie again had to watch Mr. Mahogany Brown—now ‘Henry’ to them—and Stephanie obviously enjoying themselves as they danced together. He would have given a great deal to break the association but, short of being deliberately rude and probably also upsetting Stephanie, he could think of no way of doing so. And before they parted for the night, it had been agreed that next day Henry should take them in his car to Lindos.
On the Friday morning the paper reported that the statesmen from East and West had met in Delhi and that, at the opening of the proceedings, the heads of both delegations had made conciliatory speeches. Everyone was much cheered by this; guests at the hotel who had been talking of curtailing their holidays, to get home in case of trouble, decided to stay on, and the management was receiving numerous cables from people who had cancelled, renewing their bookings.
There was, however, a disturbing paragraph on an inside page of the paper headed ‘British Ambassador’s nephew wanted in connection with death of Czech official’. The letterpress beneath it read:
‘In a police statement, it has now been disclosed that Mr. Cepicka, an official of the Czechoslovak Legation, did not meet his death as a result of the car collision which occurred some miles from Vitina on the evening of Saturday last, but that he subsequently died from other causes. Mr. Robert Grenn, the nephew of Sir Finsterhorn Grenn, C.M.G., is known to have been present at the time of Mr. Cepicka’s death, but has not been seen since, and the police are anxious to take a statement from him.
It was earlier reported that Mrs. Václav Barak, the wife of another official at the Czechoslovakian Legation, who was travelling with Mr. Grenn, had gone over the precipice in their car; but no human remains have been found in the burnt-out body of the car. It is possible, however, that Mrs. Barak’s body was thrown clear and is lying still undiscovered among rocks or scrub somewhere on the mountain-side. The search for her body continues.’
It was in order to see the morning paper that Robbie had stipulated that they should not start for Lindos before half past eleven. But now they settled themselves in Henry’s car, Stephanie beside him and Robbie, with a well-stocked picnic basket, in the back, and set off.
The ancient town lay less than sixty kilometres away, down the east coast of the island; so they reached it by half past twelve. The town itself, lying in a bay behind the shelter of a great headland, was small but picturesque. It had a number of mediaeval houses, in some of which the many-generations old craft of tile painting by hand was still carried on, but the streets were so steep and narrow that they had to leave the car down in the square.
Up on the headland, dominating the scene for miles round, stood the well-preserved ruins of another vast Crusaders’ castle. After twenty minutes’ muscle-testing walk up paths with a gradient of one in four, they passed through the huge portico. Mounting still higher, they made the round of this impregnable fortress which rose, on its far side, from cliffs that dropped sheer nearly four hundred feet to the sea below. It was unique also in that, nearly two thousand years before the Crusaders built their castle, the site had been that of a splendid temple, the remains of which still stood in the centre of the castle. On its highest platform of rock, a broad flight of steps led up to a row of Doric columns, clear-cut against the brilliant blue of the sky.
Half an hour later they selected a place to picnic, just off the road near the headland on the opposite side of the bay. Thinking again of the paragraph in the morning paper, Robbie was far from happy but, as there was nothing further he could do until he received a reply from Luke, he felt that it was just as well that his mind had been occupied by Henry taking them on this expedition. After their meal they chatted, then dozed for some while. It was nearly five o’clock when they got back to the des Roses.
As Robbie passed the hall porter’s desk, the porter on duty gave him a letter with his key. It was from Luke. Robbie had not expected a reply until the following day. Evidently, Luke had received his letter the previous afternoon and had got off a reply at once, so that it had come in on the morning plane. Swiftly, Robbie opened it and read:
I am most deeply distressed to learn from your letter that your efforts have landed you in such grievous trouble, more especially as among the well-informed here all sorts of rumours are flying round. It is being said that you took Mrs. Barak away from her husband; that he was with Cepicka in the car which ran into yours and that, after your car had gone over the precipice, you had a blood row with the two of them, during which you killed Cepicka. I only pray to God that these rumours are untrue.
It is also said that, as no human remains have been found in your burnt-out car, Mrs. Barak may still be alive. This naturally leads me to speculate upon the identity of the charming young lady who brought me your cheque to cash. But the less I know from you about the business, the better; and I am grateful to you for not having compromised me in any way by admissions about what you may have done.
With regard to the Czechs, the machinery described by you bears no resemblance to the machinery normally used when drilling for oil; but, alas, I am at a complete loss to suggest to you any further line of investigation. From what you say, there are no indications whatever that they are erecting some form of radar station, and their sites cannot be designed as bases from which to launch missiles. For that it would be necessary to drill a number of holes, perhaps some twenty or thirty feet in depth, into which to sink pylons to support a heavy concrete platform, or to excavate a large chamber having a concrete platform underground; but for such a purpose one very deep hole would be completely useless.
About passing on the information you have so far secured. Soon after you left Athens, I mentioned to a friend of mine in the N.A.T.O. set-up the possibility that the Greco-Czech tobacco / oil deal might be well worth investigating. But I am afraid that it would be quite useless for me to pass on to the police your description of the apparatus the Czechs are using. There is little prospect that any action would be taken. You must remember that the Czechs hold a concession from the Greek Government to prospect for oil, and that we can offer no proof that it is not what they are doing, with a new type of machinery.
Further to this, I am the last person who could expect a sympathetic hearing from the Greek authorities on such a matter. It is certain that they would jump to the conclusion that, as the chief executive in Greece of one of the biggest oil companies in the world, I was simply endeavouring to hold up the Czech activities and queer their pitch, as a means of protecting my own company from future competition.
To end, Robbie, I can only say how sorry I am that for the present I can see no way to help you. But of one thing I am certain. Whatever you may have done has been brought about through your honest desire to serve your country. And whatever may befall you, you may rest assured of my continued friendship.
Up in their room, Robbie showed the letter to Stephanie. She read it through, handed it back to him with a shake of her head and said: ‘It’s terribly disappointing, Robbie. I feel sure Mr. Beecham would help you if he could but I do understand how he is placed, and there is nothing more we can do here. What do you intend to do now: give yourself up and trust that the truth will prevail?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I won’t do that. At least Luke says that he put the N.A.T.O. people on to this thing. If they have taken it seriously, they are far more likely to get to the bottom of it than I ever could. For all we know, they are on the job in half a dozen places—Patras, Kalamai, Crete, Milos, here, Chios and the rest. Even if they are investigating only one of the groups, there is still a sporting chance that they will find the answer to the riddle before the police get me. So I mean to keep out of their clutches as long as I possibly can.’
Mayhem in Greece Page 46