‘It’s good of you to have spoken to your Chief,’ Robbie said gratefully. ‘And I’ve certainly no right to complain about being under arrest. If the police hadn’t come along to pick me up, I’d probably be dead by now. I wonder, though, how they managed to trace me. Do you happen to know?’
Mahogany Brown grinned broadly. ‘Sure. I put them on to you.’
‘You what?’ exclaimed Robbie indignantly, pushing himself up with his good elbow. With an ‘ouch’ of pain, he quickly sank back again as the American replied:
‘If you’d lunched at the Ariadne, as you told me you were going to, you’d have still more to thank me for. You’d have escaped getting a bullet through the arm and what I gather must have been a pretty sticky time while Barak had you cornered. I tipped off the police to pick you up at the Ariadne. As you weren’t there and didn’t come into the Candia Palace at seven o’clock, they alerted all stations to keep a look-out for you. They might not have found you for days, but for a lucky break. Your girl friend left her ear with the lights on in the middle of a quarter of a mile of rubble. A patrolman went over to investigate, checked the car number with the one I’d given when I filed your description, and jumped to it that the pair of you must be somewhere in the effing. He telephoned his H.Q., and they sent out a search party. They spotted chinks of light coming from your hide-out and that was that.’
‘But why?’ Robbie asked in a puzzled voice. ‘What conceivable reason had you for turning me in?’
‘It wasn’t you I was worried about. It was Mrs. B. who had to be put out of circulation. You admitted to me that you’d told her about your earthquake theory, and I wasn’t trusting you not to tell her that I had fallen for it. Knowing that, she might have managed to get a message through to her pals, alerting the whole set-up that we were on to them. If a tip-off had got through, they could have dumped their bombs in the sea before our people had the chance to get them with the goods.’
‘You’re talking nonsense,’ Robbie protested. ‘She was on our side and doing her utmost to help me.’
The American gave a disbelieving shrug. ‘She was Barak’s wife and we knew that she was being used to keep tabs on you.’
‘She was to begin with; but, as I told you, Barak tried to kill her. Naturally, that altered everything. After that—’
‘It altered nothing. Communists, like other people, may change their sex relationships, but they don’t stop being Communists. She was still selling you down the river.’
‘She was not! I swear she wasn’t!’ Robbie cried indignantly.
‘She was. We have proof of that. On Barak’s body the police found a letter. It was from her, admitting that she’d slipped up, but asking to be taken back into the good books of the Party. As the price of her pardon, she offered to sell you out to him.’
‘But … but,’ Robbie stammered, ‘she wrote that with my knowledge. We’d planned to lure Barak here and get the truth out of him, but he turned the tables on us. That’s how it was that our car happened to be left outside for so long with the lights on. He prevented her from coming out and driving off in it.’
‘Where were you at that time?’
‘Hiding just outside. Our plan was that she should tell Barak that I’d be back in half an hour, and then leave him there. We hadn’t counted on his bringing another man with him. We thought that, after he had waited there for a couple of hours and I hadn’t shown up, he’d get sick of waiting and come out on his own. Then I meant to sand-bag him from behind.’
‘Very nice. But it didn’t work, eh? And I don’t have to be a crystal-gazer to tell you what happened. Instead of coming out, she stayed there chatting with him about this and that for a while. Then he told her to open her pretty mouth and let out a yodel or two, so that you’d hear and think he was beating her up. You fell for it and came bursting in to rescue her. Isn’t that just what you did?’
‘Yes. That’s why I went in. But you are utterly wrong about her. She didn’t lure me into an ambush. The cries I heard were because she was being tortured.’
‘So you say.’
After thinking hard for a moment, Robbie exclaimed triumphantly: ‘Her hand is the proof of it. That fiend Barak had broken two of her fingers. When they lugged me up into that room, her hand was all out of shape and bleeding. You have only to go over to the women’s ward to check on that. When I came to in the night and asked about her, the nurse told me that Stephanie had suffered no other injury but, as I feared, some fingers on one of her hands were broken.’
Mahogany Brown stood up. ‘I’ve a lot to do, so I must get along now. But listen, pal. You say the nurse told you about this hand. Well, it could easily have been crushed by a falling brick, and there’s only your word for it that she got her injury any other way. I know you’re nuts about this dame, and you’re not the first guy who’s been prepared to swear black is white in the hope of getting his sweetie out of trouble. But it’s just no good. She’s in this up to the neck.’
Robbie was appalled at the thought that Stephanie was believed to have aided her husband and that there might be no way in which her innocence could be proved. ‘What … what d’you mean to do with her?’ he asked hoarsely.
The American’s reply was shattering. ‘Why, she’ll be shipped back to Athens with the other saboteurs we’ve caught in Crete. Maybe she’ll get a prison sentence, maybe the Greeks will be satisfied by ordering that she’s to be repatriated to her own country. Anyhow, except in a Court of Justice, you won’t be seeing her again, so the sooner you forget her, the better.’
Epilogue
It was a week later, the 7th of May. Robbie had been back in Athens for two days. On his second day in hospital in Crete, a senior police official had taken a long statement from him. The following morning the British Consul had come to see him, with a message from his uncle that his case would be put in good hands and that he was not to worry. The Consul had then offered his services, if there was anything he could do. Robbie had asked him to find out about Stephanie, and had later received a note informing him that she was being flown back to Athens under escort that evening, with the other Czech prisoners.
His wound was clean and mending well. On the Sunday he had been pronounced fit to travel and, also under escort, had followed her that afternoon. At the Athens airport he had been met by his uncle’s P.A., and it then transpired that Sir Finsterhorn had entered into recognisance for him. His escort handed him over and he found himself a free man or, at least, in the position of one on bail.
Six weeks earlier, the knowledge that he would have to give an account of himself to his uncle would have made him sweat with fear, but the Robbie Grenn who had left Athens towards the end of March was an utterly different person from the one who returned there early in May. During those few weeks he had changed from a shy, overgrown adolescent to a self-confident, mature young man.
He had accepted his uncle’s message as a normal expression of esprit de corps, to be expected from an older relative when a member of his family was in trouble in a foreign country. However, he took it for granted that Sir Finsterhorn would resent most strongly his having got himself into a situation where he had killed a man and been hunted by the police. Mahogany Brown had, he imagined, taken all the credit for solving the riddle of the oil-prospecting by the Czechs, so he had no expectation of receiving praise for that; but at least he had the satisfaction of knowing that, however angry his uncle might be with him, he would now be able to face a dressing-down with complete indifference.
In consequence, when he reached the Embassy he was all the more surprised by his reception. Lady Grenn had returned from England. She greeted him like a long-lost son, saying how worried she had been about him, and showing great concern over his wound. Sir Finsterhorn stood beside her, patted him twice on his unwounded arm and said: ‘We haven’t had the full story yet, Robbie, but we’ve heard enough to be very proud of you.’
That evening, suppressing only the episode with Stephanie at the pool, he h
ad given them an account of all that had happened to him since he had started on his self-imposed mission. He then learned that Mahogany Brown had not taken all the credit, but had reported that they had been working together and had given him a share of it. Sir Finsterhorn had been told that by Luke Beecham, who in turn had had it from Mahogany Brown’s Chief. Before they went up to bed, Robbie had begged his uncle to help him save Stephanie from the terrible situation in which she was placed, and the Ambassador had promised to do everything that lay within his power.
On the Monday, accompanied by the lawyer who acted for the British Embassy, Robbie went to the Ministry of Justice. They had a long interview with a high official who was in charge of the prosecution against the Czechs. The upshot of it was that, as it had been Barak who had brought the charge against Robbie of murdering Cepicka, and Barak was now dead, it was probable that the charge would be dropped; but, if the Czechs insisted on a trial, one would have to be held. However, in the circumstances, that was most unlikely and, should it happen, a plea of self-defence would certainly be accepted. Robbie anxiously asked about Stephanie’s prospects; but the official would say no more than that she would be brought to trial with her compatriots, and it was not for him to forecast the sentence she would receive.
That evening Robbie dined with his good friend Luke, thanked him for taking the steps that had set Mahogany Brown on the warpath, and again recounted his adventures. But when it came to Stephanie’s prospects, Luke proved far from hopeful. He had heard on the side that the Czech Travel Bureau had been raided and among the papers seized had been Stephanie’s reports of Robbie’s activities in Patras, Corinth and Pirgos. In the face of those and her last letter to her husband, Luke felt than any plea that Robbie might make for her would be disregarded, in the belief that he had become so enamoured of her as a mistress that he would go to any lengths to get her off; so, in spite of all he could say, she would be sent to prison.
On Tuesday Robbie could settle to nothing. All day his thoughts were never far from Stephanie, alternating between desperate depression at the thought of the fate that might be in store for her, and hope that his uncle might succeed in getting her released after an interview that he was to have with the Minister for Home Affairs the following morning.
And now it was just before lunch on Wednesday. Sir Finsterhorn had come in from his interview and was facing Robbie in his study. In reply to Robbie’s almost breathless enquiry he replied:
‘Well; I have good news for you. In the first place the Greek Government wish to give you a decoration—and a good one, too.’
‘What!’ Robbie’s eyes opened wide. ‘A decoration! For me!’
‘Yes, my boy.’ Sir Finsterhorn patted him on his good arm. ‘A decoration for gallantry. From now on, whenever you have to attend a full-dress function, you’ll be able to hold up your head with the best of them. Of course, I must get permission from our people for you to accept it, but there will be no trouble about that. I’d have recommended you for a British decoration myself, if I’d thought there was any chance of your getting it. But now that we live in the era of the Welfare State, decorations are more or less reserved for fellows who can boost our export market, do things for charity or have sat behind a desk for thirty years without blotting their copy books.’
‘Thanks, Uncle,’ Robbie said quickly. ‘But what about Stephanie?’
‘Good news there, too. They are fully convinced of her guilt, of course; but, as a gesture of goodwill to me—and to you—they’ve agreed not to prosecute. They will only inform her Legation that she is persona non grata and must be sent back to Czechoslovakia.’
‘But … but,’ Robbie stammered, ‘that’s worse … worse than her being in prison here. Her own people know she double-crossed them. They’ll send her to the uranium mines. She’ll die a lingering death from radio-activity. It’s condemning her for two years to a living hell.’
* * * * *
That afternoon, Robbie again took a taxi to the parking place below the Acropolis. Slowly, he climbed the steep slope to the Propylaea, mounted its great, broken steps and came out on to the lofty plateau. Now that it was May, it was baking hot up there. The sun blazed down relentlessly, making the stones hot to the touch and dazzling to the eyes. Owing to the great heat, no conducted tours were scheduled to be taken round it in the early hours of the afternoon; so only a few perspiring tourists and people inured to tropical sunshine were strolling about the ruins.
Robbie made his way over to Athene’s olive tree. Casting a quick look round, to make sure that he was not observed, he took a small medicine bottle from his pocket. It contained another ration of his uncle’s port, to which he had helped himself after lunch was over. Pouring the wine as a libation at the foot of the tree, he bowed his head and said in his thoughts:
‘Great Goddess, you told me that, for the sake of my country and for yours, I must go on to the bitter end. Well, with Stephanie’s help I’ve done that. But must the end be so bitter?’
A light breeze rustled the leaves of the little olive tree, and a golden voice replied: ‘Strange mortal, who in this modern age still has faith in the great ones of Olympus. One by one the cruel gods who demanded human sacrifices have died. Now, those who have for so long demanded sacrifice of self, in a dreary life of humility, poverty, fasting, chastity and self-denial, are also dying. But we, who are no more than the elder brothers and sisters of men and women, created by the Maker of All Things with the same weaknesses and strengths, yet given greater powers; we, whose only wish is to see each human derive the maximum of joy from life, are the true Immortals. We shall live on for ever, and never lack the power to grant the prayers of those who believe in us.’
Then the great goddess Pallas Athene told Robbie Grenn exactly what to do.
* * * * *
The following morning, Robbie secured a special permit to visit Stephanie in prison. The Deputy-Governor received him and handed him over to the head wardress, with instructions that he should be allowed to talk to the prisoner for half an hour, on the same footing as if he were her lawyer.
In consequence, he was taken to a waiting room in which there was no barrier between prisoner and visitor, but simply a wooden table and a few chairs. Stephanie was brought there and the wardress who escorted her took a chair in the corridor outside.
Stephanie’s hand was still bandaged and her face was drawn; but she raised a faint smile as she entered the room, and said: ‘It’s nice of you to come, Robbie. I hadn’t expected to see you again.’
He cleared his throat and asked: ‘You know what they intend to do with you?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. They told me this morning. I’m not to be charged with the others. I’m to be handed over to my Legation to be repatriated.’
‘And we both know what that means.’
‘Don’t, Robbie, please. I … I’d rather not talk about it.’
‘But I must. I want to know if you think there is any chance of their letting you off.’
She shook her head. ‘No. They’ll add it to my other crimes that I was responsible for bringing about Vaclav’s death. For that, they would never forgive me. If only they’d kill me and have done. But they won’t. They … they’ll send me to the uranium mines. But please, please—’
Seeing her intense distress, Robbie cut her short and said: ‘I’ve come here to suggest a way out for you.’
‘There isn’t one,’ she said pessimistically. ‘I know you’d help me if you could, Robbie. But there’s nothing you can do.’
‘Yes, there is,’ he blurted out. ‘I can marry you. If you are married to me, you’ll become a British citizen. No one will be able to send you back to Czechoslovakia then.’
Her blue eyes wide open to their fullest extent, she stood staring at him as he hurried on: ‘Of course, I know you don’t love me; so I’m not suggesting that it should be a real marriage, although it would have to be a legal one. We … we’d live together only as we did in Rhodes. I’d take you to Englan
d with me. Then, after a few months, I’d let you divorce me. But you’d be safe there. And, later on, perhaps you’d meet some nice chap that you liked … and … and—’
Tears suddenly welled out of Stephanie’s eyes and began to run down her cheeks. She laid her sound hand on his good arm and choked out:
‘Of course I’ll marry you. Even if you were the most revolting man on earth, any woman in my position would be crazy to refuse such an offer. But … but tell me something. Down by the pool at Olympia. Did you … did you do what you did just because you wished to humiliate me … to be avenged? Or because you wanted to? I mean, had wanted to for some time?’
‘Well, I was angry with you,’ Robbie admitted. ‘It was that which gave me the courage. But I’d been having to struggle with myself for days, not to seize hold of you and kiss you as though I’d never stop.’
A radiant smile suddenly broke through Stephanie’s tears, and she whispered: ‘Then need we … need we think about a divorce? Oh, Robbie, you’re so different from any other man I’ve ever known. So kind, so gentle, so brave. Everything a woman could ever want. I think I’ve loved you from the very moment I met you.’
A Note on the Author
DENNIS WHEATLEY Dennis Wheatley (1897–1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world’s best-selling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Wheatley was the eldest of three children, and his parents were the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College, London. In 1919 he assumed management of the family wine business but in 1931, after a decline in business due to the depression, he began writing.
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