At a steady pace he limped along for a couple of miles, meeting no one on his way. As he saw from a glance at the luminous dial of his watch it was now past midnight, and he was cynically amused to think how many experiences he had passed through during the last four hours. In that time, too, eight Nazis and Pastor Wachmuller, all of whom had awakened in their beds that morning healthy and well and with no more than their normal shares of the world’s cares, had passed from life to death. But, what was that, after all, when literally thousands of people, women and children as well as soldiers, must also have died in that same space of time on the far-flung battle-fronts of Poland?
When he thought how he had been given a chance to stop that horrible carnage, a slaughter which was now going on hour after hour and might continue for years without intermission, yet had failed to do so, a new wave of despondency overtook him. He was very tired, and sat down to rest for a while on a low, stone wall by the roadside.
Taking one of the straw-filled German cigarettes from his case he lit and smoked it until, after a few puffs, it had burned down nearly to his fingers. Just as he was crushing out the stub he saw two tiny lights approaching along the road from the direction of Coblenz.
Instinctively he drew back to take cover behind the low wall, fearing that the lights might be those of a police car. Then a new recklessness suddenly surged up in him. What the hell did it matter whether it was a police car or not? It had petrol, and was heading towards Cologne. He still had one pistol and plenty of ammunition; the car was approaching slowly as its headlamps had been dimmed according to the A.R.P. regulations. He would hold it up at the point of his gun and demand a lift. If the car held civilians, which was unlikely, they would be too frightened of him to refuse; if it held police, soldiers or Nazis he would give battle. In the event of there being only one or two men in it he might succeed in shooting them before they could shoot him, in which case he would chuck the devils into the river and make off with their damned car.
Drawing his gun and slipping back the safety-catch he held it behind him in his right hand. He would have to walk into the faint beam of the headlights to bring the car to a halt, and he did not wish to invite any armed men who might be in it to draw upon him before he had at least a fighting chance to retaliate. A few steps brought him to the middle of the road. As the car approached he waved his left hand above his head, signalling it to a halt, while he prayed with all his might for a lucky break.
The car stopped about ten yards from him and he walked up to it. If the people in the car were armed his position was about as bad as it could be, since after the blackness even the dimmed headlamps had momentarily dazzled him. As he regained his sight he saw, with a sudden sinking in the pit of his stomach, that the car was a big limousine Mercèdes and that its chauffeur was a soldier.
He was just about to whip up his automatic when the window behind the driver was pulled back and a girl’s voice came clearly on the still, night air.
‘What is it, Johannes? Why have you stopped?’
Stepping forward before the man could reply, Gregory grasped the handle of the car door and swung it open. Even in the darkened interior of the limousine he could see that the girl was its only occupant, and he addressed her in a polite but authoritative tone.
‘Guten Abend, Gnädiges Fräulein. Forgive me, please, for having pulled you up, but I have met with an accident, and I must ask you to be good enough to give me a lift to Cologne.’
‘An accident? Are you hurt?’ the girl inquired quickly.
‘Es macht nichts,’ Gregory shrugged, implying that he was making light of it. ‘Did you not see my car in the ditch half a mile back along the road? This confounded black-out! I’ve lost my cap and dirtied my clothes, but I can tidy myself up later. The important thing is that I should get to Cologne as soon as possible.’
The girl had taken out a cigarette, and now she struck a match. Gregory guessed that the act was a mere excuse to get a proper look at him; as the match flared up he also got a good look at her. She was a blonde of about twenty-six, and although her features showed clearly that she was of German origin, hers was a type that one very rarely sees in Germany.
Her face had something of Marlene Dietrich about it, and although it was not over made-up her eyelashes were darkened and she wore lipstick, two things unusual among even smart women since Hitler had decreed that the females of the species who used such aids to beauty would no longer be well regarded. The hand that held the light to her cigarette had almond-shaped, painted nails, and a pair of long, slim, silk-stockinged legs with well-rounded knees protruding from under a black skirt which was decidedly short by comparison with the prevailing German fashion.
Her clothes immediately conveyed the information that she was something more than an unusually pretty German or Austrian girl. An absurd little pork-pie hat with long streamers, as once worn by the Widow of Windsor, was perched on the front of her head; a short, high-shouldered mink coat partly concealed her smart, black-frogged suit, and her high-heeled suède shoes were not designed for walking. Gregory, who knew about such matters, could see at a glance that her outfit had never been brought in Germany; it positively screamed of London, Paris or New York.
As she had a military chauffeur it was a safe bet that she was the wife, daughter or mistress of some high Army officer, but her identity did not at the moment concern him. His one anxiety was to get as far as possible from Coblenz.
Her quick, blue eyes had already taken in the rank-badges on Gregory’s shoulders, and directly the match had flickered out she said: ‘I am going to Cologne, so I will give you a lift with pleasure, Herr General; but how about your chauffeur? Did he escape with minor injuries only?’
Gregory nodded. ‘The young fool is perfectly all right. I sent him to find the nearest garage at which he can secure help to get the car on the road again. We hit a low wall as we ran off the road, but I don’t think the car’s seriously damaged; I expect he’ll be able to bring it on to Cologne early to-morrow morning.’
Under cover of the darkness he brought his right hand from behind his back and replaced the automatic in his pistol holster; then he climbed in behind with the girl and slammed the door. The chauffeur, who had heard the whole conversation, immediately restarted the engine, and the big Mercèdes rolled forward again at a cautious pace.
‘You have been long in Coblenz, Herr General?’ asked the girl.
‘No. Gnädiges Fräulein. I arrived only yesterday from Frankfurt. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Otto von Heintisch. General of Engineers. My present task is to inspect the bridges of the Rhine as quickly as possible, and to report upon them,’
‘How interesting!’ she murmured, but she did not introduce herself in turn, and went on smoothly: ‘Have you seen any of the fighting?’
‘Not yet, although I hope to, of course.’ He would rather not have talked, but she seemed to expect it, so he added: ‘I was retired in 1934, and called up again only just before the outbreak of the war; so for the moment I’m really a supernumerary; but I’ve no doubt that I shall be given an Engineer Unit in due course.’
‘Do you live in this part of the country?’ she inquired.
‘No. My home is in Allenstein, in East Prussia. You know it, perhaps?’ Although Gregory had thought it wise to change his assumed name he was still using the particulars of General von Lettow’s career. He had to have some sort of background and his memory had fully absorbed the particulars which he had been given about von Lettow, whereas if he started to invent details about the mythical Otto von Heintisch he might inadvertently contradict himself later on.
The girl shook her fair head. ‘No, I have never been in East Prussia. Most of my life I have lived either in Berlin or South Germany.’
‘Except when you have been travelling,’ Gregory added with a smile which was hidden from her by the shadows. ‘I feel sure that the enchanting hat you’re wearing didn’t come out of a German workshop.’
‘Correct!’ she
laughed. ‘I see, Herr General, that you are something of a detective. I bought this hat in London only three weeks ago. I like London; it is so alive compared to our German cities.’
‘I’m afraid you may get into trouble if you say that sort of thing and it comes to the ears of the Gestapo,’ said Gregory quietly.
‘Oh! The Gestapo!’ He sensed rather than saw her disdainful shrug. ‘I hardly think that my friend, Hermann Goering, would allow them to interfere with me just because I said that I liked London. Have you ever been there?’
‘No.’ Gregory noted that he had been right in his surmise that she was someone of importance. ‘I would have liked to do so before our bombers had destroyed all the principal streets, but I’m just a German officer who has spent most of his life in military duties, and when I retired I was not rich enough to travel.’
‘Ach! Der Weltkrieg!’ she exclaimed. ‘That and the subsequent revolutions cost so many of us our private incomes and estates. I am fortunate in that I have enough money invested abroad to enable me to travel when I wish; but for most of our generation the tragic aftermath of the World War has meant poverty and some wretched job, with a yearly fortnight at Norderney or on the Bodensee as the most that can be hoped for.’
‘You flatter me, gnädiges Fräulein, by placing me in the same generation as yourself,’ said Gregory quickly. ‘I’m old enough to be your father.’
She laughed again. ‘From the glimpse I caught of you I would not have thought it, and you have the voice of a youngish man. I find it difficult to believe that you are really an old dug-out.’
‘Oh, I’m not as old as all that! I was only fifty-four when I retired not so long ago, but I have a daughter of over thirty, and I’m sure that you’re nowhere near thirty yet,’
‘Thank you, Herr General. A woman’s as old as she looks and a man’s as old as he feels, is that not so?’
‘A delightful saying and a very true one. It makes me feel much more like one of your contemporaries.’
‘Is your daughter married?’
‘Yes; she now lives in America, but I have another, a few years younger, who is also married and living in Leipzig.’
‘Ach so! And have you any sons?’
‘No, my children were all girls, and the eldest died when still a child, from ill-nourishment as a result of the war.’
‘How terrible for you! Were you at the Front when you lost her.’
‘Yes. I was a Colonel then, but I had some hand in the construction of the Hindenberg Line, and remained there until the collapse of the Home Front. My daughter died in 1918, a few weeks before the Armistice.’
As they talked the car advanced at a steady pace. Gregory was leaning back comfortably on its well-upholstered cushions, relaxed at last after his stupendous exertions earlier that night. He was feeling rather more rested, and this easy conversation with a pretty girl was an oasis of delight after the endless desert of anxiety and strain through which he had passed. His only pressing trouble at the moment was that he was extremely hungry, having eaten nothing except a few bars of chocolate during the last thirty-six hours, but he hoped to devise some means of securing a hot meal on his arrival in Cologne. In the meantime he was content to close his eyes and breathe in the subtle, exotic perfume emanating from the girl at his side.
It was with astonishment and dismay that he suddenly heard her say: ‘You tell General von Lettow’s story quite delightfully. What a pity that for my country’s sake I shall have to hand you over to be shot as a spy directly we reach Cologne.’
And he knew that the hard object that she had jammed into his side while she was speaking was the business end of an automatic.
12
Look to Thy Heart
‘I wouldn’t move if I were you,’ she went on quietly. ‘The thing I’m holding to your ribs is a pocket Mauser; only a toy, but quite large enough to kill you, and as I come from an Army family I’m used to handling firearms.’
The circumstances in which she had picked him up and her mention of von Lettow convinced Gregory that it would be useless, and therefore bad tactics, to attempt any kind of bluff. He was caught, and the best thing he could do was to admit it. His voice was under perfect control as he murmured: ‘Thank God for that! I’d hate to be accidentally shot by some flustered female. Now tell me, how did you find me out?’
‘It was quite easy,’ she replied, with a hint of amusement in her tone. ‘I have many Army friends in Coblenz, and for the last two nights I’ve been staying at the Hotel Bellevue. It was quite natural that my friends should tell me of the peculiar behaviour of a certain General von Lettow, and that they had found, on turning up his record, that the real von Lettow had died early this year. Details of his career and a description of you were in all this morning’s papers, and when you held up my car looking as though you had been dragged through a hedge backwards, though still wearing the uniform of a General of Engineers, it didn’t take much detective ability to put two and two together.’
‘So that’s the way it was. Well, congratulations on your capture. May I inquire what you intend to do with me?’
Her voice was cold as she replied: ‘I’ve already told you, I mean to hand you over to the authorities directly we reach Cologne.’
‘You were kind enough to add, though, that you thought it rather a pity that I should be shot.’
‘It is, especially if I’m correct in my belief that you’re nowhere near as old as you pretended to be when impersonating the General.’
‘I’m not, but all the same I shall most certainly be shot if you do as you suggest.’
‘I see no alternative. You’re an enemy agent, and your excellent German makes you a very dangerous one. You would pass even with the police as a German who had been brought up in the provinces, but you can’t deceive me.’
‘What do you think I am, then?’
‘I’ve travelled a lot,’ she replied, ‘and, having heard so many foreigners speaking German really well I have a trained ear for such things. I believe that you’re an Englishman, but in any case I’m convinced that you’re a foreigner and a spy. Since my country’s at war it is my duty to hand you over to the police, and I shall certainly do so.’
‘Now that seems a bit hard,’ Gregory protested, with pained politeness. ‘Of course you’re right about my being English, but just now you were good enough to say how much you liked London. This war is bound to end sooner or later, and with luck it will end sooner. I was going to try to persuade you to lunch with me in London at the Ritz, when it is over and I’ve had a chance to grow my hair again. I’m sure we’d both find lots of interesting things to talk about; yet it seems that you’re determined to rob us both of that pleasure.’
He was trying to probe her mentality. Was she as hardboiled as she appeared to be? If she was, he had got himself into a very nasty fix. As long as the car was moving he could not possibly escape without risking a bullet in his guts, a method of extinction which he had always heard to be particularly painful. Yet if he allowed her to take him as her captive to Cologne he would certainly find himself facing a firing-squad before he was much older.
‘You’re an audacious person, and I like audacious men,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘If our countries were at peace I might—just might—be tempted to accept your invitation; but as they are not, and you are my prisoner, I’m afraid that you will never lunch at the Ritz again, my friend, either with me or with anyone else.’
‘How very trying! Especially when the grouse must be so good there just now. And, talking of grouse, may I remind you that having caught your bird you’ve still got to cook it? If I decide to biff you over the head you may, or may not be able to shoot me first. Personally, I find you so enchanting that I feel I could hardly bring myself to do so; but supposing I did attempt it, d’you honestly mean to say that your finger would close upon that trigger in a determined effort to send me to perdition?’
‘I’m quite sure it would. So please don’t try any tricks.’ Her voice
was abruptly hardened again. ‘I’ve already told you that I’m well acquainted with the use of firearms. As long as you remain perfectly still you’re in no danger, but make just—one—move—and I’ll let you have the entire contents of this automatic in the ribs. I don’t intend to take half-measures and risk getting hurt myself.’
The further Gregory probed her mental processes the less he liked the way things were going. It was no joke to be held up at the end of a gun and when the holder of the gun was a girl it was humiliating into the bargain. It was true that this particular girl was doing the job with a calm deliberation that many men might have envied, but that only lessened his chances of putting a fast one over on her, and he had somehow got to terminate the lift which he had so rashly demanded before the car had proceeded very much further. Having failed completely in his attempt to scare her he decided to try another tack, and asked:
‘Has it occurred to you that I’m a very desperate man?’
‘I knew that the moment I set eyes on you.’
‘You’re very brave, then, to have wriggled that little gun out of your bag with the idea of trying to corner me, when I might have suspected what you were up to.’
‘There wasn’t much chance of that, since we’re in almost total darkness.’
‘Darkness is always the friend of treachery.’
‘Treachery?’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘But I…’
‘I was about to add,’ cut in Gregory ‘and of lovers.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I’m not going to tell you that I’m in love with you. But by God, you are attractive. Perhaps you’ll think I’m crazy, but I’d give the hell of a lot for a proper chance to persuade you to kiss me, and as things are I’ll never get it unless …’
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless you intend to be present at my execution, and the sight of the preparations for the inevitable outcome of your own handiwork fills you with a sudden wave of womanly pity.’
The Scarlet Impostor Page 13