‘But my colleagues in the Cabinet…’ Mack began.
De Richleau shrugged. ‘Presumably you gave yourself leave of absence when you left Warsaw for Lubieszow, and indicated that you were going off on some special mission which might result in the prevention of the outbreak of war. They probably believed up to this afternoon that you were abroad. They may think so still, as the movements of all the Cabinet Ministers are guarded with the strictest secrecy in war-time, as a matter of routine; so it is quite on the cards that the patrols who stopped us this afternoon deliberately refrained from reporting that they had seen you on the road. Even if they did no one will expect to see you back in your office till tomorrow morning.’
‘Then you will definitely release me tomorrow?’
‘That we shall see.’
While they had been talking Borki had rejoined them. He now announced that he had put the car in the garage and that their rooms were ready. Mack was escorted to his turret chamber, and after a brief examination of it de Richleau expressed himself as satisfied that their prisoner would neither be able to escape from it nor communicate with the outside world. He was then locked in.
Just as the men were saying good-night to Lucretia and Marie Lou the old butler came upstairs to announce that Jan’s tutor had telephoned. He would have done so before but many of the lines were down, and the remaining ones terribly congested by thousands of people ringing up with enquiries for their friends, so the tutor had had great difficulty in getting through. Most of the windows in his apartment were broken, but he and his guest had suffered no injury. Their anxiety about Lucretia had been allayed by the old fellow’s assurance that all was well at the Lubieszow mansion.
With this good news Lucretia went happily to bed, but poor little Marie Lou spent a restless and tearful night wondering what had become of Richard, and tortured by the awful thought that she might never see him again.
Immediately after breakfast next morning the Duke and Rex went up to visit their prisoner. On their appearance Mack rubbed his hands together and said cheerfully:
‘Well, whatever you may have felt last night I trust you have now come to the conclusion that it would be extremely dangerous for you to hold me much longer?’
For a moment his two captors stood there regarding him seriously and almost sadly, until the smile faded from his face.
‘I agree,’ said the Duke at last in a cold, dispassionate voice. ‘We have reached that conclusion; and it postulates an action which will be most unpleasant for us all. You are no doubt aware of the fate that usually overtakes kidnapped people once they become dangerous to their kidnappers?’
‘Er—I don’t understand you!’ exclaimed Mack, a flicker of fear showing in his eyes. ‘I—I am not very well informed about the practices of the criminal class.’
‘Then my friend van Ryn will enlighten you as to the customary procedure in the United States.’
‘They get bumped off,’ said Rex, with unusual gravity. ‘Just as a precaution against their giving the lowdown later about the snatch gangs to the cops.’
With a trembling hand Mack lit a cigarette. ‘But you cannot mean this! You are not gangsters. You are educated men. I have done all that you asked. I have not even attempted to escape.’
Rex shrugged. ‘Now there’s a war on I guess lots of respectable characters will be acting like gangsters before they’re much older, and life’s going to be held pretty cheap in these parts for the next few months.’
Mack’s face had gone very pale, which accentuated the purple shadows beneath his eyes. ‘But this is not war!’ he burst out. ‘It’s murder, and you know the penalty for that. You—you can’t possibly murder me in cold blood!’
De Richleau’s face showed no trace of pity as he spoke again. ‘If we are caught your friends are almost certain to try to pin poor Anna Lubieszow’s death upon me, and I can be hanged only once; so it seems that I shall be saddling myself with hardly any additional risk by killing you. And, as we cannot possibly trust you, your elimination will at least give us a better chance of getting safely out of the country. As to its being “murder in cold blood”, those Nazi friends of yours who released their bombs last night were also, if you like, committing murder in cold blood; but such an expression is not usually applicable to the killing of one’s country’s enemies or the execution of a traitor, like yourself; and ever since I uncovered your plot to sell out to Hitler I have naturally regarded you as an enemy of my country in the first degree. So, you see, I have several excellent reasons for killing you, and no particular inducement to refrain from doing so.’
‘Wait!’ gasped Mack hoarsely. ‘Wait! You are wrong to regard me as an enemy of Britain. I am a great admirer of Mr. Chamberlain. You have referred to the bombing last night. It was just such horrors that I was striving to prevent. As for—’
‘Oh, let’s get through with this,’ Rex interrupted, pulling out his pistol and slipping off the safety-catch.
‘No, no! Please! Wait!’ Mack pleaded, now reduced to abject terror. ‘As I was about to say, there are the best possible reasons why you shouldn’t do this frightful thing. Killing me will not help you to get out of the country. Now that war has broken out you will find that next to impossible. Every foreigner entering or leaving will be subject to a special scrutiny, and you are already being sought by the police as spies. If you will let me go I will secure special passes for you. You can have my car to take you across the frontier. I know you don’t trust me, but surely—surely we could arrange matters somehow?’
The crafty Duke, having reduced his prisoner to the required mental state, appeared to consider for a moment, then he said slowly:
There is certainly something in what you say. However, I don’t think we could possibly risk setting you free. My immediate concern is that by this morning people really will be beginning to wonder what has happened to you, and enquiries may be set on foot. If we could think of some way to allay the suspicions of your colleagues and your friends, I should be quite prepared to accept your offer to get us all safely out of the country in exchange for your life.’
‘I could telephone,’ said Mack eagerly. ‘Let me telephone any story you care to suggest. I could say that I was slightly injured in the raid last night and am in a nursing-home—or with friends.’
De Richleau was hard put to it to suppress a smile. That Mack should do a little telephoning under strict supervision had been the very object that he had had in mind ten minutes earlier, when he and Rex had entered the prisoner’s room with the grave faces suited to potential executioners.
‘Yes. That might serve our purpose,’ he agreed none too eagerly. ‘I think it would make a better story, though, if you said that you had been slightly wounded in an attempt by enemy agents to assassinate you, and that you had no intention of disclosing your whereabouts for the next few days in case another attempt was made upon you. None of the people with whom you will communicate know exactly what has happened to you, and the story I suggest will help to fox those who were with you at Lubieszow, when they hear it. They will almost certainly assume that van Ryn and I were the enemy agents and believe that, having failed in our attempt, we are no longer with you, while, if it were reported to headquarters that we were together yesterday, the police may think that your English friends have persuaded you to seek temporary shelter in their Embassy.’
For the first time since he had entered the room Rex’s ugly, attractive face lit up with his almost irrepressible grin, as he added: ‘In fact, no one at all will know what the hell to think, anyhow. Come on, let’s go down to that telephone.’
On the way downstairs, Mack said a little dubiously: ‘You now intend to keep me here several days, I gather?’
‘Not if I can help it,’ retorted the Duke. ‘That depends almost entirely on yourself. If all the necessary arrangements can be completed I should like to set out for the frontier tonight, or even this afternoon, if possible. By the by, you will, of course, include police headquarters amon
g your telephone calls, to ascertain what has happened to Richard Eaton and Simon Aron, and if they have been arrested arrange for their release.’
‘It seems that I have no option,’ grumbled Mack. ‘But I think you have a saying in English, “In for a penny, in for a pound”.’
De Richleau permitted himself to smile. His last, apparently casual, request had been the culminating point in the operation that he had undertaken on going upstairs that morning, and he had now got out of his prisoner all that he wanted—for the moment.
Downstairs they settled themselves round the telephone. Rex seated opposite the prisoner, covering him with his gun, and de Richleau next to him with his face close to Mack’s so that he could hear not only what Mack said but also what was said at the other end of the line. He kept his finger on the instrument rest so that he could cut the conversation off instantly should any of the people at the other end begin to ask awkward questions. Upstairs they had, as usual, been talking in English or French, using whichever language came most easily to them individually, but now Mack naturally reverted to Polish, having been warned that he was to use only the simplest and most straightforward phrases; but even these sounded like gibberish to Rex, and he had to wait until the whole business was through before he could learn from the Duke how matters had gone.
Mack made four calls: the first to his office, where he spoke to his principal Personal Assistant; the second to his mistress, the third to his wife, and the fourth to the Chief of Police. All of them passed off quite satisfactorily, except for the last, concerning which the Duke reported one hitch.
After referring to another department, the harried Police Chief had ascertained that Richard and Simon had been arrested three nights earlier on the road to Warsaw, and, having been brought to the capital, were being held as suspects; but he not unnaturally refused to release them unless he received a written order to do so.
‘That’s no big obstacle on the face of it,’ Rex said at once. ‘Seeing we have a Polish Cabinet Minister playing along with us, he’ll sign us an order, I haven’t a doubt.’
‘I’m sure he will oblige us,’ agreed the Duke. ‘But who’s to take it to the prison? That’s the snag.’
‘I will,’ volunteered Rex promptly.
De Richleau shook his grey head. ‘No, Rex, the fact that you and I are foreigners rules us both out. At a time like this, spy mania must be running mountains high, and, remember, we have no means of securing official paper upon which to type the order. Besides, apparently we are both wanted by the police ourselves. We should almost certainly be detained for questioning, and neither of us can afford that.’
‘How about Jan?’ Rex suggested. ‘He’s a Pole, and an officer too.’
‘We have reason to suppose that he also is wanted—at all events by the military authorities. But wait a minute! I believe you’ve hit it. His Excellency will, I’m sure, be kind enough to sign two documents instead of one. I will go and see if Borki can find us a typewriter.’
It proved that Borki not only had a typewriter but, as he handled all Jan’s business affairs, was an excellent typist. Matters were explained to him, and after a short search some plain but fine quality paper was found, on which he typed two notes, the Duke giving him the gist of what was required and leaving to him the choice of the most suitable Polish expressions.
Both were headed ‘Commander-in-Chief’s Headquarters, Polish Army, September 2nd’, as it seemed plausible that Mack might either have gone there in his official capacity, or taken refuge there from his would-be assassins; and that later this might serve further to fog the issue of his disappearance.
The first was a peremptory order to the Governor of the prison to hand over the persons of Mr. Richard Eaton and Mr. Simon Aron, with their British passports and any other papers, including money, which they might have been carrying at the time of their arrest, to the bearer, who would escort them to Army Headquarters, where their presence was required with a minimum of delay.
The second, freely translated, read as follows:
‘To all whom it may concern.
‘This is to state that, owing to an entire misapprehension of certain circumstances, Jan Stanislas Ludovic Lubieszow, Count of the Holy Roman Empire and Captain in the Polish Air Force Reserve, made an attack on me and certain of the members of my personal entourage on the night of August 29th last.
‘I hereby exonerate this officer completely from all blame, since I now know him to have believed himself to be acting in the true interests of Poland. This document cancels any order that may have been issued for Captain Lubieszow’s arrest, and I am happy to take this opportunity of testifying to his patriotism, courage and loyalty.’
Both the papers were signed by ‘General Mack’ in his real name, and he was made to affix the seal of his signet ring to them. It was then arranged that Borki should take both letters to the block of flats near the University where Jan’s tutor lived, and that Jan, protected by the one, should be asked to use the other and bring Richard and Simon back to his own house directly he had secured their release.
‘The next thing,’ said the Duke to Mack, as soon as Borki had left them, ‘is the question of our leaving the country. All trains will undoubtedly be crammed to capacity and subject to wearisome delays owing to troop movements, so we will accept the offer of Your Excellency’s car. A car, too, will enable us to change our minds on the way, if we consider it advisable, as to our point of exit. There remains the matter of special passes and exit visas.’
‘They should be on proper forms supplied by our Security Service,’ replied ‘Mack’, ‘and franked by the Polish Foreign Office. But how to secure them is a problem which I leave to your fertile imagination.’
‘I thought as much, and I confess that I see no way at all of getting hold of such papers without jeopardising our whole position. However, I think a personal letter signed by Your Excellency for each one of us individually should serve our purpose equally well. I suggest something on the following lines, taking van Ryn as an example:
To the senior officers of all Military and Police Formations and the senior Civil Executives throughout Poland generally. The Bearer of this letter, Mr. Rex Mackintosh van Ryn, carrying United States Passport No. So-and-so, is personally well known to me. He is proceeding on a mission for the Polish Government and is to be allowed to cross the frontier at any point that he may select. All means of transport that he may require to facilitate his journey are to be placed at his disposal as a matter of the highest priority.’
Mack shrugged and, drawing some more paper towards him, settled down to write a series of these laisser-passer for the Duke, Rex, Marie Lou, Lucretia, Richard and Simon, under Rex’s watchful eye, while de Richleau went in search of the two girls.
He found them upstairs in a small boudoir, charmingly furnished in the style of the First Empire, where they were volubly exchanging news of all that had befallen them since they had last met in London.
When they heard the good news that Richard and Simon had been located and that arrangements had been made for their release, both girls were immensely relieved and delighted; but when the Duke added that he hoped it would be possible for them all to leave Warsaw that afternoon Lucretia’s eyes suddenly grew troubled.
The Duke noticed it but said nothing, and for a little they talked of the war. The maid who had been waiting on Lucretia for the past week spoke fairly fluent French, and ten minutes earlier she had brought the latest news up to the boudoir. The situation at the front was still vague. There had been clashes in many places, but the Polish troops were said to be fighting with their accustomed bravery and, it was reported, had thrown the Germans back across the frontier in several sectors. During the previous night the Luftwaffe had not confined its attention to Warsaw but had also bombed a number of other towns in Western Poland, and indignation at this flagrant breach of the humane conventions was widespread.
In the streets the whole population of the capital seemed to be engaged in sa
ndbagging windows, digging trenches and erecting emergency air-raid shelters against the probability of further raids. Britain and France had not yet declared war on Germany, but the Poles had the utmost faith in their allies and expected that they would do so at any hour. In spite of the previous night’s raid, the population in the capital was calm, confident and solidly behind the Government. The morale of the Army was excellent, and, as they passed through on their way to the front, the troops were boasting that within a few weeks they would have taught Hitler a lesson.
‘Poor people,’ sighed the Duke. ‘I fear they are committed to a hopeless fight.’
‘Jan doesn’t think so,’ said Lucretia quickly. ‘He says that when they are fully mobilised their Army will be nearly three million strong, and they have quite a respectable Air Force, He thinks they will easily be able to hold the Germans until the winter brings about a stalemate, and that by the spring Britain and France will be ready to launch an offensive from the west.’
De Richleau shook his head. ‘That is simply wishful thinking, I’m afraid. One glance at the map is enough to show Poland’s hopeless strategical position. East Prussia cuts right into her in the north, and her main frontier makes a huge semicircle right round to the Hungarian border in the south. There are no chains of mountains or great rivers forming natural defence lines, the country is flat and lends itself perfectly to mechanised warfare, in which the Germans will prove immensely superior to the Poles; and, vulnerable as Poland is to attack on three sides, I don’t see how she can possibly hold out for more than a few weeks.’
‘But they are so brave,’ Lucretia protested; ‘and three million men are a lot.’
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