The Scarlet Impostor

by Dennis Wheatley

  Having ordered a packet of cigarettes of a popular brand. Gregory leaned across to the bearded man. ‘Würden Sie mir bitte Feuer geben?’

  The man quickly fumbled for some matches and Gregory took a light from the sulphurous flame. The thin, loosely-packed cigarette tasted as though it was made of hay, as it probably was, but Gregory knew that he would have to accustom himself to the taste. ‘Danke,’ he smiled. ‘These are interesting times in which to live, are they not?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, Herr General,’ his neighbour replied with nervous haste, and Gregory realised at once that he was too scared to talk to anyone in uniform. Another disadvantage of the kit that he had chosen; but after all, it was not his business to go round seeking the opinions of individual Germans on the war. He must accept Sir Pellinore’s statement that a considerable number of Germans were desperately opposed to it and to the Nazi regime, but they would certainly not admit as much to a General, even if there were not dozens of Nazis in brown or black uniforms strutting about within a stone’s-throw of the café.

  After remarking hurriedly that it was a good thing the weather was keeping so fine for the gallant troops, the elderly man rapidly disposed of his beer, paid his score and departed.

  His table was taken shortly afterwards by two younger men, both officers, a Major and a Lieutenant. Having saluted Gregory, and with a formal: ‘You permit, Herr General?’ they sat down and began to talk together in low voices.

  Gregory’s hay-filled cigarette had lasted for barely half a dozen puffs, so he took out another and again asked for a light.

  The lieutenant stood up with the rapidity of a Jack-in-the-box, clicked his heels and supplied it. Gregory stood up to take it and, bowing slightly, murmured: ‘Von Lettow.’ The Lieutenant jerked forward from the waist like an automaton and rapped out: ‘Kuhlemann, at your service, Herr General!’ The Major sprang to his feet also, and bending abruptly at the waist, snapped: ‘Möller!’

  Gregory returned their bows and asked if they would join him in a drink. Both accepted, and more beer was brought. Gregory opened the conversation by saying that he had arrived that night from Hanover and was on his way up the Rhine to Coblenz.

  ‘Ha! You are lucky, then, Herr General!’ the Lieutenant exclaimed. ‘As Coblenz is our base for the Army on the Upper Moselle it does not need much intelligence to guess that to be your destination. You’ll see some fighting, whereas we’re stuck here in Cologne on garrison duty.’

  The Major grunted. ‘You’ll get all the fighting you want, Kuhlemann, before this war is over. It’ll be a long show, just as it was last time. Don’t you agree, sir?’

  Gregory smiled. ‘It is good that young officers should be impatient to serve the Fatherland at the front, but we older soldiers who have seen war may be excused if we are content to wait until we are ordered forward into the battle. The struggle will be a long one, yes; but we shall emerge victorious.’

  ‘Heil Hitler!’ exclaimed the Lieutenant.

  ‘Heil Hitler!’ echoed Gregory and Möller promptly, but the latter added thoughtfully: ‘It will be hard on the women and children.’

  ‘Yes, it will be hard,’ agreed Gregory, ‘but they must play their part without flinching.’

  ‘The poor devils are having to leave their homes already,’ Möller went on. ‘Look! There’s another batch of them crossing the square.’

  Gregory turned in his chair and saw a dejected group of women and children staggering along under the weight of suitcases and bundles. He had seen similar groups in the streets of Cologne earlier that morning, but had been too preoccupied with his own thoughts to wonder about them.

  ‘They’re evacuating all the towns in the Saar,’ remarked Kuhlemann, ‘but the minor discomforts they are asked to face are nothing compared to remaining there to be bombed to pieces by these English swine.’

  ‘They haven’t dropped any bombs yet,’ replied the Major mildly, ‘except on the railway siding at Aachen. They’re still busy distributing their leaflets.’

  ‘Have you seen one?’ asked Gregory; ‘I tried to get a copy in Hanover but people were too frightened of the Gestapo to pass them on to anyone in my position.’

  The Major smiled and took out his pocket-book. ‘I’ve got one here, Herr General, if it would interest you to see it. We’re supposed to destroy them, of course, but I kept it as an interesting souvenir.’

  ‘Danke.’ Gregory extended his hand for the slip of paper. ‘It is not good that they should be passed freely among the civilian population, but among officers it is another matter. The loyalty of German officers can never be brought into question.’

  He read the leaflet through and handed it back. ‘What lies these English tell—but between ourselves we must admit that there’s just enough truth in it to make it highly dangerous.’

  Möller laughed. ‘Well, it’s not as dangerous as bombs would be, anyway, so we’ll hope that they stick to dropping paper.’

  Gregory felt that sufficient time had now elapsed for his purchases to have been delivered at the Edenhof so he stood up, the other two following his example. Wishing them good luck, which sentiment they heartily reciprocated, he made his way back to the hotel.

  His things had arrived, and he stood by while the porter packed them, in their wrappings, into the suitcase. He then inquired about the sailings of the Rhine steamers and learned to his satisfaction that one was due to leave Bonn for Coblenz at 1.30. The journey could have been made more quickly by rail but Gregory knew that had he actually been a serving officer he would have had a railway pass to his destination. To buy a ticket might create suspicion and to say that he had lost his voucher and ask the R.T.O. to supply him with another would have led to undesirable complications, so he had decided to make the journey by river steamer, on which it was less likely that he would be expected to produce a military chit.

  The hall-porter summoned a street porter who took Gregory’s bag and preceded him as he walked the comparatively short-distance down to the river-side, whence the local electric trains start for Bonn. The line cuts across a bend in the Rhine where the country is flat and uninteresting, so that few people make the river trip from Cologne but prefer to board the boat at Bonn, and for a short, local journey of this kind it was quite natural that Gregory should take an ordinary ticket instead of producing a military travelling pass.

  The old university town of Bonn was now empty of its students in their many-coloured caps, and in their place were great numbers of refugees, for the colleges were being used to billet the women and children who had been evacuated from the towns immediately behind the Siegfried Line.

  With a heavy-footed strut Gregory boarded the big, low-decked steamer and everybody made way for him as he forged ahead to a comfortable seat from which he could enjoy the view as they steamed up the Rhine. He had done the trip on numerous previous occasions, so when they came opposite to the Seven Sisters Mountains on the left bank and the Drakensberg, with its glass-verandahed restaurant situated high above the quiet little town of Königswinter, he went down to lunch.

  This consisted of a very small portion of veal, boiled potatoes and carrots, followed by Apfelkuchen. There was plenty of bread to go with it, but no butter, cream or cheese. Another square of his forged ration-card was punched, he paid the bill and went on deck again to enjoy a lazy afternoon gazing out across the wide river as bend after bend of it opened out new vistas showing ruined castles perched upon nearly all of the heights that came into view.

  At six o’clock they docked at Coblenz, and securing a porter to carry his bag Gregory went straight to the Hotel Bellevue which stands right on the river-front. He registered at the desk as General von Lettow, and owing to his rank managed to secure a room on the first floor that had just been vacated. Having brought a couple of books from the stall in the hotel lounge he went straight up to his room and unpacked. Then he went on to the balcony, and as he gazed down upon the scene spread out below memories came floating back to him.

  To hi
s left the river divided, and in this direction lay the most beautiful portion of the Rhine, with its famous vineyards of Johannesburg, Marcobrunn, Steinberg, Rudesheim, and the rest. At Coblenz, too, the Rhine was joined by another great river, the Moselle, up which he meant to proceed on the following morning. The Moselle was beautiful also, he recalled, but with a more gentle beauty; passing between less abrupt but more thickly-wooded slopes or lush water-meadows lying level with its banks.

  He remembered his first visit to Coblenz, as a boy. It had been over Whitsun in 1913, when his father had taken him with him on a short business trip to Germany. That Whitsun Germany had held her first air pageant, a three-days’ rally under the auspices of His Imperial Highness Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of the Kaiser. Over fifty crazy, flimsy planes made of linen and bamboo had gathered from all parts of Germany on the plateau above the town, and seven great Zeppelins had floated like huge, silver cigars above the airfield.

  Little Gregory had been thrilled beyond words by the martial splendour of it all, and on the last night he had been allowed to stay up to see the fireworks display at Ehrenbreitstein, the grim old fortress that crowned the hill on the farther side of the Rhine. Twenty-six years had not altered a line of this unforgettable picture save for the addition of hideous steel pylons carrying electric cables.

  Yet—so much had happened since. His thoughts drifted to another occasion, a few years after the War, when he had stayed at the same hotel. His companion then had not been his father, but a very lovely lady. What marvellous times they had had together on that stolen holiday in the Rhineland! He wondered what had become of Anita now. She must be getting on, and probably had children. Ah, well! That was the way things went in this world. One could never hold happiness for very long, one had to snatch it whenever it came one’s way. With a little sigh he re-entered his room through the long windows and went down to the grill-room of the hotel for a meal.

  It was packed with Army officers, but his rank soon secured him a table. As he sat there he sensed the tension about him. Few women were present, and there was no gaiety. The diners talked in low voices and many of them kept one eye on the door, through which an intermittent stream of orderlies hurried, bringing messages or calling officers to the telephone. Coblenz was an important junction and the supply base for the Western Front. And Germany was at war.

  As soon as he had finished he went upstairs again and started to undress. It was over twenty-four hours since he had last slept and he was beginning to feel a little tired. He read for a quarter of an hour and then switched off his light.

  Things had been easy so far—incredibly easy. He had secured his kit and accomplished over half his journey without the slightest hitch. Protected by his General’s uniform, now that he was slipping into the part, he saw no reason why they should not continue so. After all, if one sees an English General in a London hotel or street it does not even occur to one that he might really be a German secret agent.

  Turning over, he dropped into an untroubled sleep. But he might not have slept so soundly if he could have foreseen the desperate plight in which the following night was to find him.

  6

  The First Link

  By breakfast-time the following morning Gregory had planned the last stage of his journey to Traben-Trabach. The twin townships lay opposite to each other about thirty-five miles away up the Moselle as the crow flies, but considerably more by road or rail.

  The road followed the twisting valley of the river, which included many huge loops in its erratic course, while although the main line of the railway ran directly across country to Bullay, the latter half of the journey to Traben was by a branch line which, like the road, followed the bends of the river.

  Rail would have been quicker, but once again he feared to arouse comment at the station owing to his lack of a military travelling voucher; if he travelled by car, however, he would evade the possibility of any such contretemps. Unfortunately it was impossible for him to hire a car, but he saw no reason why he should not commandeer one and he decided to do so.

  With this idea in mind he walked from the restaurant to the entrance of the hotel, where he was able to keep a careful watch on arrivals and departures while screening his interest behind an open newspaper. The scene was one of considerable activity, for the hotel was crammed with officers and as they came and went they all seemed intent on urgent business.

  To Gregory’s annoyance every car that drove up was already being used either by Army officers or by uniformed Nazis. He did not want to risk coming into conflict with either, but at last a medium-sized touring-car pulled up at the entrance, driven by a girl who wore an A.R.P. brassard on her arm. As soon as it halted a wiry, ferret-faced little civilian jumped out from beside her. Bustling importantly past Gregory, he thrust his way through the crush in the lounge and entered one of the lifts. No sooner was he inside it than Gregory folded his paper, strode across the pavement and saluted the driver.

  For a moment the girl looked quite startled, but he gave her his most charming smile and said: ‘I regret to trouble you, Fräulein, but I have a most urgent duty to perform and my car has not arrived. I can wait no longer, so I fear that I must commandeer yours for military purposes.’

  The girl was a fair-haired, plump-faced female and his request made her look both scared and unhappy, but Gregory did not give her time to argue. Opening the door he got in beside her and said: ‘You will drive me, please, to Traben.’

  ‘But—Herr Schnabel—’ she began, but Gregory cut her short. ‘I regret, Fräulein, but we must not delay. I am already late and the matter is urgent.’

  To his immense relief she made no further effort to protest but slipped in the clutch and took the road that led towards the Moselle. Leaving behind the huge equestrian statue which stands at the confluence of the two rivers, they were soon speeding south-westwards down the wide Autobahn.

  As the girl was obviously terrified of opening her mouth in the presence of anyone as important as a General, Gregory sought to put her at her ease by asking how long she had been in the Coblenz A.R.P.

  He learned that her name was Greta Schultz and that she had been acting as driver to Herr Schnabel, the ferrety civilian who had bustled so importantly into the hotel, only for the past fortnight. Apparently no one in Coblenz had thought that there was the least likelihood of Germany’s being plunged into another Great War. Any danger of air-raids had therefore seemed immeasurably remote, and in consequence the A.R.P. organisation of the district was hopelessly inadequate and they were now working night and day to make themselves reasonably secure. Herr Schnabel, a local Nazi of importance, had been made Chief Warden. He was a short-tempered man at the best of times and a fire at his home the previous night which had damaged both his uniforms had put him in a particularly evil mood that morning. Now that in addition he was harassed by his responsibility for the safety of the city’s civilian population and had more appointments than he could possibly manage to keep, it was quite certain that he would be absolutely furious at having his car commandeered.

  Gregory declared sententiously that military matters must come before civilian defence, and led the girl on to talk about the war. It soon transpired that she had no opinions of her own and that her views had been entirely formed for her by Dr. Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda. She retailed incredible stories of the tortures to which the Poles had subject Germans living in Poland, praised Hitler as the liberator of the German people and spoke with unbelievable bitterness of Britain, the arch-enemy, who by her policy of encirclement was unquestionably responsible for the war.

  About the Russo-German pact she was obviously completely puzzled and had no views to offer except that whatever the Führer did was right, but it was clear that the declaration of war by the Democracies had come as an appalling shock to herself and her friends, and that the bulletin issued the previous day, admitting that French troops were fighting on German soil had filled them with dismay.

  The road ran fla
t and smooth along the river-bank, winding its way south-westward in the direction of Trier and the southern corner of Luxembourg, less than seventy miles away where fighting was in progress. The first part of the journey was not particularly interesting, but by the time that the tall tower of Cochem Castle had come in sight the river had become as beautiful as the upper reaches of the Thames. On one side, its steep slopes were covered with countless irregular terraces, built up from below or cut out from the hillside to catch every ray of sunshine which might help to sweeten the grapes of the carefully-cultivated rows of vines which were grown upon them. On the other, the deeper green of pine and larch woods rose unbroken from the river-bank to the crest of the hills that fringed the valley, while here and there sheltered meadows in which cattle were peacefully grazing lay along the banks of the river.

  There was far more Army activity in this part of the country than there had been round Cologne and most of the traffic was of a military nature, but as soon as they had passed Boulay, where the main road and the main-line railway branch away from the river, the road became practically deserted. The villages of Zell and Enkirch lay sleeping in the September sunshine; quiet, friendly places which, apart from a Nazi flag or two, had remained unchanged by the coming of Hitler or the war; their inhabitants preoccupied with the tending of their vineyards and the vintaging of their wines as they had been through so many centuries.

  Just before eleven they came in sight of the twin townlets of Traben-Trabach. The road lay along the south bank of the river, so they entered Trabach first. Passing below the ruined Schloss perched upon the wooded hillside above the town they pulled up at the bridge to inquire for Julius Rheinhardt’s offices, and a policeman directed them over the river to Traben.

  The river-bank there was lined with old houses, each with its vine-covered terrace overlooking the road below; from the big, arched doorways under several of these terraces casks and cases of wine were being man-handled across the road to be loaded on to river barges. The policeman pointed out one of these as Herr Rheinhardt’s, in which his offices were also situated. Crossing the river they drove round to the back of the house and entered a courtyard, where Gregory got out, ascended a few steps at the side of the yard, and entered a door marked Bureau.