Codeword Golden Fleece

by Dennis Wheatley

  Folding up his paper, he went on: ‘I must leave you now, and as tomorrow is Sunday I shall not come. I go this afternoon to spend the weekend at a country house in the mountains.’

  ‘Well, thanks a lot for bringing me the news,’ smiled Rex, standing up. ‘I hope you have a good time, and I’ll look forward to seeing you Monday.’

  When the Rumanian had gone he sat down again to try to sort out the effect of these surprising new developments on his own situation.

  He had naturally supposed that days ago the German Legation would have made a formal charge against the Duke, Simon and himself for the attack on von Geisenheim and that the Rumanian police would be doing their utmost to catch them. But von Geisenheim was the only person who definitely knew the identity of his attackers, and it seemed that he had been too badly coshed to make any statement. Owing to the suddenness of the assault the Attaché would probably never remember more than that two men attacked them as they entered their car and that the one who had struck him down had been a Jew. The only people, therefore, who could have given any lucid description of the occupants of the Chrysler would have been the chauffeur and the patrol man, and, by a strange decree of fate, both of these had died before any statement could be taken from them.

  Rex saw that the unexpected turn in the Rumanian political situation, together with the God-sent mistake of the Rumanian police in jumping to the conclusion that the previous owners of the Chrysler were responsible for the attack on von Geisenheim, had changed the whole situation, and that he now had little to fear.

  On reaching this conclusion, his first exciting thought was, why should he not now own up to the fact that his real name was van Ryn and ask for one of the members of the American Legation whom he had met in Bucharest to come up and identify him?

  He was on his feet now, pacing up and down; but his next thought brought him up with a jerk. How would the Rumanians take that? What reason could he give for having concealed his real name all this time? If someone from the Legation came to Cernauti, it would emerge that he had arrived in Bucharest soon after the war had broken out. The Legation official could do no more than say that he was Mr. van Ryn, and the Rumanians would want to know what he had been up to for the past three weeks. He dared not tell them about the oil barges and the option. To do so was to risk some pro-Nazi hurrying off and securing the Golden Fleece for the Germans before he had a chance to retrieve it himself. If he could not tell the truth, what explanation could he give of all the lies he had told and how could he explain his recent snooping about the Polish frontier under a false name? One did not have to be a German to be a spy and in their pay. The Rumanians would believe that was what he was and keep him a prisoner while still further investigations were made. Even when Richard turned up his evidence would be worse than valueless, and he would probably be held too, as having abetted a suspect by making a false declaration.

  The thought was utterly maddening, but the odds were too great on the Rumanians taking umbrage at the way he had lied to them and refusing to let him go until they had checked up all his movements for the whole time he had been in their country. His only hope was to stick to his story and pray that Richard might be able to come and get him out sooner than could at present be expected.

  From the heights of exaltation Rex was plunged back into the deepest gloom. But suddenly a new thought struck him. If he no longer had anything to fear from the von Geisenheim affair, then neither had Simon.

  In that case, once Simon had got out of that infuriating muddle resulting from his having dressed up in a woman’s clothes, the police would have no reason to detain him. He had probably been released the day after his arrest. He would have returned at once to the Peppercorn. By hook or by crook he would have got into their old room and, once there, it was a hundred to one he would have found the message that had been left for him under the china vase on the mantelpiece. Then he would have made his way to Cernauti as quickly as he could. He was probably in the town already and might even have been there for several days nosing round trying to pick up his friend’s trail.

  On realising this heartening possibility Rex did a little dance in the middle of the floor; but he soon stopped and sat down again as he considered the implication of this unlooked-for dispensation of Providence. For over half an hour he pondered the problem of how Simon could help to bring about his release, but he could see no daylight there. He saw no way of discovering Simon’s whereabouts in Cernauti, and, even if he knew it and asked Ferari to send for him, how could he be primed with the Mr. Mackintosh story before he arrived at the prison?

  Yet it now seemed virtually certain that Simon was free, and the thought that he was probably kicking his heels in Cernauti when he might have been getting back the Golden Fleece and taking it out of the country was galling beyond words.

  Rex wondered how Simon would set about trying to find him. The obvious first step was to try all the hotels. That was it! Sooner or later he was certain to make enquiries of Levinsky, the Jewish proprietor of the Roebuck, the little place where Rex had stayed. Now, if only a message could be got to Levinsky to be given to Simon when he called!

  It was quite possible that Simon had already been there. If he had, on describing Rex he would have learnt that his friend had spent the previous Saturday night there, then paid his bill and departed, but left his suitcase behind.

  Rex brought his leg-of-mutton hand down with a resounding slap on his elephantine thigh. His suitcase! What a break that he should have decided to leave it there! When Simon was told about the suitcase he would either make the hotel his headquarters while he cast round for further indications of his friend’s later movements or at least pay Levinsky handsomely to report to him immediately the owner of the suitcase reappeared.

  Standing up, Rex began to pace the small room again. Surely the suitcase should prove a means of getting into touch with Simon? He could get Ferari to claim it for him. But what then? Simon would trace the suitcase to the prison and might attempt to play Blondin to his Richard Cœur de Lion, but that would not get them very far. It might even lead to dangerous complications, as Levinsky knew him as van Ryn.

  No. There was a better way than that. He must leave the suitcase out of it, but find some pretext for getting Ferari to let him send a letter to Levinsky in which he could incorporate a message for him to pass on to Simon.

  All through the long quiet afternoon and evening Rex turned the new situation over in his mind, first this way, then that, but he could find no better line for attempting to exploit it.

  He was furious now that a day would be lost to him through the fact that Ferari was away for the weekend. The only consolation was that it gave him the whole of Sunday to perfect his plan.

  After the most exhaustive analysis of possible repercussions he ruled out any attempt to secure his own release by getting Simon to identify him. It presented so many complications, the most dangerous of which was that Ferari must be shown any communication intended for Levinsky. In consequence, he decided that he would concentrate solely on an endeavour to put Simon wise to the fact that he no longer had the ‘Fleece’ and pass the ball to him, to get it back and safely out of the country.

  With this in mind he finally wrote the following letter:

  Dear Mr. Levinsky,

  You will no doubt remember me as having stayed at the Roebuck on the night of Saturday the 23rd. Before I left Poland I was recommended to your hotel by a Jewish friend of mine named Simon Aron. He lent me his car, a Ford V8, number UCZ827, to get away in, and it was agreed that when he crossed the frontier himself he should meet me at the Roebuck. Circumstances prevented me from returning there and in the meantime a Major Serzeski, who is the Polish Assistant Military Attaché in Bucharest, had taken the car from a parking-place in mistake for his own. I had no opportunity to trace Major Serzeski, who left the Polish Internment Camp at Grodek, I think for Bucharest, on the night of Monday the 25th. As Major Serzeski’s car was the same model as Mr. Aron’s he may not
yet have realised that the car he has got is not his own, and the title deeds to the property that Mr. Aron asked me to take out of Poland for him are still in it. So if Mr. Aron has already been to the Roebuck and left an address, or calls there to enquire for me, will you please tell him about his car and the importance of tracing up Major Serzeski immediately, in order to get his property back? You might also tell him that I am very fit and well treated here, and expect to be released in about a fortnight.

  He signed it simply:

  The Big American.

  He pondered this for a long time but did not think that he could improve upon it. There was nothing in it which conflicted with the ‘Mr. Mackintosh’ story and it would be child’s play for a subtle brain like Simon’s to pick up the salient facts that, somehow or other, he had been compelled to hide the Golden Fleece in a Ford V8 number UCZ827 that belonged to a Major Serzeski. Once Simon realised that, he would not rest until he had traced the car and, having located it, take it to bits piece by piece if necessary, until he found the packet.

  When Ferari came in on Monday morning Rex opened the ball at once by saying: ‘I’ve had a real bad attack of conscience over the weekend.’

  ‘Oh, how is that?’ Ferari asked.

  ‘It’s this way. A little Jewish business man I knew in Poland lent me a spare car he had to get out in, and in return he asked me to take some of his family papers over the frontier. It was he who recommended me to go to a little place called the Roebuck, where I spent the one night I was in Cernauti. When I was out at Grodek the car was taken by mistake for his own by a Polish Major named Serzeski. That was only a few hours before I got into trouble, and I’ve been so mighty concerned about my own position since, I’d forgotten every darned thing about it. Aron, that’s the Jew’s name, was to settle up a few things and leave Warsaw two days after I did, so he’s probably been at the Roebuck for the past week wondering what the hell has happened to me and eating himself up with worry about his title deeds. I’ve a letter here I’ve written to Levinsky, the owner of the pub. Would you mind reading it through, and if there’s nothing you take exception to, having it posted for me?’

  Ferari took the letter and read it carefully.

  ‘Why don’t you make use your name as a signature?’ he asked after a moment.

  ‘Because he’s probably forgotten it by now. I was there only one night, and although I may have registered I don’t remember having done so. But signed like that it’s bound to ring a bell with him right away.’

  ‘This Mr. Aron. For all we know he may be another German agent, and you take this way to communicate to him.’

  ‘Hang it all, is that likely—seeing he’s a Jew?’ laughed Rex.

  ‘There are occasions when the Nazis make use of Jews. And these family papers. They are perhaps secret documents?’

  Rex laughed again. ‘If they’d been anything like that would I have been mutt enough to leave them in the pocket of the car? Come on now. You really are looking for bogeys where none exist.’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ admitted the Rumanian. ‘But why should I take any risk?’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Rex. ‘When Richard Eaton turns up here it will be proved that I’m a hundred per cent perfectly innocent American business man; yet you will have been holding me as a prisoner, to my great inconvenience, for the best part of three weeks. You owe me something for that. This little Jew did me a good turn, and I’ve let him down, largely through your interference, because if you hadn’t kept me in the cooler like this I’d have got his car back for him before now. Surely, if you won’t let me attend to my own affairs you can oblige me by letting me put things right for him as far as I can?’

  ‘I see the point you make.’

  Rex waved aside the admission and went on with disarming casualness: ‘If I wanted any real favours from you I’d ask for something for myself. Sending that letter’s not going to do me any good. If you don’t care to send it, that’s the end of the matter. But I thought on Saturday you’d come to the conclusion that I was just a decent guy who was having a pretty raw deal. If it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t have asked you to help me do a good turn to this little pal of mine.’

  ‘All right,’ Ferari smiled. ‘From my talks with you nothing now persuades me that you are not an American, and there is not one iota of proof that you ever had anything to do with the Nazis. Thousands of Jews, too, these days are sending papers precious to them out of Poland by anyone they can get to carry them over the frontier; so there is nothing of real suspicion about all this. Your letter shall be sent, and as we must keep you here yet for a while I am glad to do this little service.’

  Rex thanked him, and they then got down to the morning’s news. Over the weekend Count Ciano had been summoned to Berlin; President Moscieki of Poland had resigned and a new Polish Government had been formed in France; the Latvian Foreign Minister had been sent for by Moscow, so it looked as if a second Baltic State would soon go the way of Esthonia and be forced to accept Soviet ‘protection’.

  When Ferari had gone Rex congratulated himself on the result of his strategy and wondered if Simon would find any means of letting him know, should it prove successful. If he were in Cernauti he should receive the letter by the following morning at the latest; that would leave seventeen days for him to retrieve the Golden Fleece and get it to London. The safety margin was narrowing now, as nearly half the time for which it was valid had expired; but Rex felt considerably more hopeful that they might yet pull off their great coup.

  He was, however, destined to hear nothing more about his letter, except that Ferari had posted it; so as the days passed he could only hope and pray that Simon had contacted Levinsky and flung himself heart and soul into the game again.

  Each morning Ferari came in with the news. That first week in October the only events of military significance were that the Royal Air Force made its first flight over Berlin and that the Germans openly adopted a policy of piracy, both sinking and seizing the ships of several neutrals. Diplomatic activity continued at high pressure, particularly in Moscow, to whom both Latvia and Lithuania in turn lost their independence. The star turn of the week was Hitler’s announcement in the Reichstag of his ‘Peace’ terms, but the statesmen of the Allies had at last learned the folly of placing any faith in the bellowings of this treacherous mountebank, and to the satisfaction of all honest men they now ignored him.

  Richard’s reply to Ferari’s telegram had been despatched on the 29th of September, and in it he had said that it would be at least a fortnight before his doctors would permit him to travel. The actual fortnight would be up on Thursday, the 12th of October, but the journey from Istanbul to Cernauti would take three days, so the earliest date upon which he could be expected was Sunday the 15th.

  All the same, from the beginning of his second week in prison Rex began to count the hours until what he judged to be the absolute minimum dead-line if Richard stepped off the night train from Bucharest just before midday. He even went to the length of adopting the old schoolboy end-of-term custom of drawing blocks of squares on paper, as it lessened his frantic impatience to get free, just a little, to be able to cross a few off each morning when he woke and after each meal.

  On Wednesday the 11th at four o’clock in the afternoon he still had ninety-three squares uncrossed when Ferari, who had never visited him in the afternoon, entered his cell.

  Rex was dozing on his bed. At this unexpected visitation he sat up quickly, full of apprehension that something that boded him no good was the cause of the Intelligence Officer’s appearing at such an unusual hour.

  Suddenly his anxiety gave place to joy. In the doorway just behind Ferrari, supported on a pair of crutches, stood Richard.

  Ferari, who had behaved very decently throughout, now wasted no undue time in formalities. He said that Richard had run him to earth in his office at Divisional Headquarters and they had had a long talk together which had fully satisfied him as to his visitor’s bona fides. Now that h
e saw these two old friends exchange such hearty greetings there could be no more doubt as to Mr. Mackintosh’s identity, and he was free to go.

  Rex thanked him for his kindness and accepted an invitation for himself and Richard to dine that night, although he had some doubts which he kept private as to whether they would be able to keep the appointment; then, having packed his few belongings in a brown-paper parcel, he went out to the prison courtyard to a car that Richard had hired.

  ‘Oh boy! It’s good to see you,’ Rex grinned, as soon as they were alone. ‘How in heck did you manage to get here four whole days ahead of schedule?’

  ‘It was just that we couldn’t bear to think of you being in prison for a moment longer than was absolutely necessary,’ smiled Richard. ‘And my hip has been mending so well that three nights ago Marie Lou and I decided to bounce the medicos.’

  ‘Have you brought her along?’

  ‘No. She wanted to come, but seeing the way we were kicked out of Rumania I wouldn’t let her. She agreed to my coming, though, and sent you her fondest love; so did poor Lucretia. Now, tell me what’s been going on? We haven’t heard a thing since you left us on the train.’

  ‘We’re in the worst muddle ever,’ Rex replied seriously. ‘It’s bad, Richard; real bad, and without any good frills attached. But before I spill the beans, where’s this fellow taking us?’

  ‘Back to the Royal Bukovina, where I dumped my bags and took rooms for us before I set out to collect you.’

  Rex leaned forward and spoke in German to the Jewish car-driver, telling him to take them to the Roebuck, then he said:

  ‘I’ve bad news for you, Richard, just about the worst that could be. We got the thing we left the train to get all right, but all three of us slipped up before we could leave the country. I was pinched trying to get hold of a Polish aircraft; Simon was arrested for wearing women’s clothes. That’s well over a fortnight ago, and old Greyeyes, well…’