The Scarlet Impostor

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘What the hell d’you mean?’

  ‘My friend, do not pretend to be more stupid than you are. Having caught you, is it likely that I would let you go? It is true that you committed many stupid blunders while you were in Germany, but even during your blundering you succeeded in killing quite a number of my subordinates; useful men who had considerable training in their work. If I released you you might be crazy enough to go back to Germany and kill others before you yourself were finally caught and shot. Besides, I would not like my charming host, the little Jacob here, who accommodates me so comfortably during my stays in London, to be inconvenienced by a visit from your police.

  ‘And do you think that I would ever have told you of the method by which we traced you through the Dutch passport office if I had thought for one moment that you might live to use that information to make trouble for our Dutch friends? No, no. One of the advantages of my friend Rosenbaum’s house is that it has a laboratory. In that laboratory there is an acid tank; a piece of equipment most useful to a scientist, but very useful also for disposing of bodies without trace. When I have done with you and Comrade Archer the acid bath will seal the lips of both of you for good. Now, as I like to be alone when carrying out experiments to discover the amount of pain which a human being can bear before the will is broken down, I will excuse you for the time being. Rosenbaum, I hope you have a good dinner for me. Go and see that nothing is lacking. Karl, take Mr. Sallust to the laboratory.’

  Karl advanced, took Gregory by the collar, and hauled him to his feet; then drew an automatic and signed with it for his prisoner to precede him towards a low door at the far end of the room, under the minstrels’ gallery.

  Gregory looked down at Archer. His big face had gone very white and little beads of perspiration already covered his brow.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry for this, Archer,’ he said. ‘I don’t bear any resentment now because you tried to do me in, and I only wish that I knew of some way to help you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Archer muttered. ‘It wasn’t your fault, I suppose. You were only doing your blasted job and trying to find out what you could. They—they can only kill us once, though.”

  Gregory turned to look at the Gestapo chief. ‘As for you,’ he said, ‘your turn will come my friend; you may be sure of that. Your boss has bitten off more than he can chew. Germany can’t smash the British Empire, and sooner or later—it may be in one year or it may be in five—Germany’s going to crack. When she does the German people are going to skin you and your kind alive. Just remember that.’

  Grauber smiled back quite pleasantly. I’m afraid you have sadly neglected your opportunities of forming a true estimate of Nazi Germany, Mr. Sallust. The Third Reich is being rebuilt through the Nazi Youth Organisations and the purification of the race. Today all that is best in my country is due to the spread of National Socialist ideology. It is a power greater than Christianity, and by it Germany will not only conquer but will go on to wider triumphs. For a long time past we have been laying the foundations of a Germany that will be the dominating force in Europe, and therefore in the world, for at least a thousand years. It is because you have so foolishly tried to obstruct the progress of this great world-force that you have to die. You must think of yourself as an insect, Mr. Sallust; an insect vainly posturing in the path of a steam-roller. And now, if you will please walk in front of Karl, I will come when I have done with Comrade Archer and see you put in your last bath.’

  There was nothing for it. If Gregory used his legs he knew that Karl would use his gun, and to be shot like a rat at Grauber’s feet would neither save Archer nor serve any other useful purpose. While there was life there was still hope, so he turned and walked towards the low door with the gunman-servant just behind him.

  Gregory hoped that to reach the laboratory they would have to cross some part of the garden, where the darkness might once more serve as his friend. He would have to risk a bullet in the back, but that would be better than the certainty of a hideous death in the acid bath, and there was just a chance that he might be able to escape owing to the black-out. But he was doomed to disappointment. They went down a long passage and through a door on the right near its end into the laboratory. Karl shepherded him across it and into a further, cell-like room without windows or furniture, where he told him to sit on the floor.

  ‘Look here!’ said Gregory quickly, ‘if you go on with this game the British Intelligence people are certain to get you before long. When they do, you won’t stand an earthly. They’ll lead you out one cold morning down at the Tower of London just as they did Roger Casement and quite a number of other people during the last war. You’ll have to face a firing-squad, and that’s not a pleasant finish. I can protect you from that and guarantee that no harm shall come to you, if you’ll put away that gun and let me out of here.’

  ‘Save your breath, man,’ Karl laughed grimly. ‘D’you think I want Herr Grauber to use the end of his cigar on me?’

  ‘You could come with me. In ten minutes we’d be back here with the police and it’d be Grauber, not you, who’d have to face the firing-squad.’

  ‘You’re wasting your breath, I tell you. Sit down, unless you want me to smash your face in with this gun.’

  ‘Why be a fool?’ urged Gregory. ‘I tell you I could get you police protection. What’s more, I’ll pay you a thousand pounds to compensate you for the loss of your job.’

  Karl’s only reply was to hit him a sudden, vicious blow in the pit of the stomach which winded him and doubled him up. Next moment the German had kicked his legs from under him so that he fell backwards on the floor, bumping his head sharply on the concrete.

  While he was still writhing in agony and half-dazed from the blow on the back of his head Karl pocketed his automatic, pulled out a length of whip-cord and tied his ankles together. Then, pulling the end of the cord up behind Gregory’s legs, he tied it to the other cord which bound his wrists behind his back, so that he was bent almost double and could hardly move without suffering acute pain.

  Switching off the lights, Karl closed the door and left him. As Gregory heard the key turn in the heavy lock he knew that his last chance had gone, and he began to wonder whether Grauber had sufficient mercy in his make-up to kill him before plunging him into the burning acid.

  20

  The Silent House

  As he lay there in the dark on the hard, concrete floor, his legs bent back behind him and the cords cutting into his wrists and ankles at the smallest movement, he made a great effort to think coherently.

  With the failure of his attempt to bribe Karl it really seemed that his number was up. There was, of course, always the chance of a raid by M.I.5. During the last hour he had been constantly having to remind himself that he was not in Germany but in London, his own home town. The British counterespionage system was extraordinarily efficient, as Gregory knew from Sir Pellinore’s frequent remarks on the subject. Nearly all the known secret agents of Germany in Britain had been caught and interned within forty-eight hours of the outbreak of war, and the spy-hunters had been at their work night and day ever since, raiding suspected premises, searching files, bringing in suspects for examination and following up the thousand-and-one suspicious circumstances reported by the police and the public.

  Every week the meshes of their net became finer, making it ever more difficult for enemy agents to operate, or even to remain in hiding, without being detected. The National Register had been taken on the previous Friday, and the one thing that could be said in favour of an early introduction of the rationing-system based upon it was that it would be of tremendous help to the police in checking-up on the activities of the whole population, for enemy agents who had not succeeded in procuring ration-cards for themselves would not be able to live in hotels or lodging-houses, The keepers of such places would naturally become suspicious of any guest who refused to produce a card and had all meals outside, so that enemy agents would have to depend, for accommodation at least, upon house
holders who were also in the pay of the enemy.

  Perhaps a squad of hefty fellows from the Special Branch was even now on its way through the darkened streets to Mr. Jacob Rosenbaum’s house in Hampstead. Grauber might be a very clever fellow and his English practically beyond reproach, but he could not altogether alter his very definitely Germanic appearance. Neighbours night have seen him leaving and entering the house and have reported their suspicions to the police; the authorities had asked that every citizen should report any circumstances which might strike him as at all suspicious. During the last war Scotland Yard had received four hundred telephone calls a day of such a nature.

  Having got so far, Gregory groaned and eased his position by turning over on his side a little more. There was no doubt that Rosenbaum and Co. would be caught sooner or later, but the war was young yet and Britain’s counter-espionage people were up against a problem with which they had never before had to deal: the thousands and tens of thousands of refugees from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of these poor people were genuine victims of Nazi oppression to whom Britain, with generous hospitality, was giving the protection of her shores, but one in every hundred, if not considerably more, was an enemy agent. who had been deliberately planted. It must have been the easiest thing in the world for the Gestapo to have picked certain of their own men, brought faked charges against them, raided their houses, confiscated their goods, thrown them into concentration-camps and apparently persecuted them unmercifully; all with their own consent and in order to provide them with genuine histories against the time when their escape could be arranged for and they could take refuge in friendly Britain and begin their treacherous work. There must, moreover, be thousands among these refugees who had themselves escaped, but who still had relations and friends inside the Reich through whom the Gestapo could bring pressure to bear upon them to betray the country which was affording them hospitality.

  North-West London, in particular, was now almost a foreign colony owing to this influx of refugees, so why should Rosenbaum’s house be suspect, any more than a dozen others in the same road?

  Gregory forced himself to face the facts. The chances of a police raid in the next half-hour were about as slender as those of Hitler’s being assassinated within the same period. Things looked just as black as they could, he realised, and regretfully decided that he was for it this time.

  At that moment he heard the first faint, whimpering cry. It came down the long passage, very thin but clear in the silence of the night, and the hair prickled upon Gregory’s scalp as he heard it. That fiend Grauber was torturing poor Archer.

  The sound came again; a long, wailing cry like that of an animal in pain. Gregory tried desperately to shut his ears to it and would have stopped them with his fingers if he had been able, but as it was he had to lie there listening. It seemed a brutal thought, but for a moment he hoped that the frightful groaning which now came at regular intervals might grow loud enough to be heard by someone outside the house; an air-raid warden, perhaps, out on his rounds to see that all windows were properly curtained, or a late worker making his cautious way home through the black-out. But he knew that the house was big, solidly built and set well back from the road. The sounds of Archer’s torment were carried to him under the cracks of the intervening doors and through their keyholes, but would never be heard outside.

  How long he had been lying there Gregory did not know. It seemed to him that he had been in that black, cold cell for the whole night, but he knew that in such a situation every moment spun itself out interminably and that, in fact, he had probably been there no more than half an hour before those ghastly, sickening sounds faded into silence.

  Straining his ears afresh he listened, knowing that the sands of his life were even now running out. Once Grauber had extorted from Archer the information he required there could remain no reason for his delaying further the elimination of his two prisoners.

  Suddenly Gregory caught the sound of approaching footfalls; faint at first as they came down the corridor; louder as they entered the laboratory. A firm, heavy tread was interspersed by an uneven shuffling; then a low moan penetrated to the cell.

  Next moment the door was thrown open. By the light from the laboratory he caught one glimpse of Archer. Even in the shadow of the doorway he could see that his face was distorted with pain and covered with blood. Karl stood behind him, half-supporting him by a firm grip on his collar. As he released it Archer toppled forward and fell with a groan upon the concrete floor beside Gregory.

  Gregory expected to see Grauber and Rosenbaum behind Karl, but they were not with him. Karl stooped to examine Archer, who now lay upon the floor whimpering and only half-conscious. With quick fingers he tugged at the cords which still bound his hands behind his back, and finding them firm apparently decided that it was not worth while to re-tie his ankles. As he stood erect he said to Gregory:

  ‘Herr Grauber told me to tell you that he now gives you a chance to learn from Mr. Archer all those things in which you are so interested. He himself now eats his evening meal. When he has finished he will come to watch me put an end to the two of you. Heil Hitler!’ With a contemptuous snort the ghoulish German slammed and re-locked the door.

  ‘Archer!’ said Gregory as Karl’s footsteps faded; ‘Archer, can you hear me?’

  The only response was a low groan. Archer was evidently suffering too much agony or was too bemused to talk. He rocked himself gently backwards and forwards on the floor, moaning like a child. Trussed as he was, Gregory could do nothing but lie there and listen, his heart sick within him.

  After a while Archer began to mutter incoherently to himself, and Gregory strained his ears in an attempt to catch the sense of what he was saying. It seemed that the unfortunate man was raving about the Nazis and praying to the God whom as a professed Atheist he had denied and scorned since his childhood, and had often described as a fiction invented by the priests for the enslavement of the workers, to bring the vengeance of Heaven upon his tormentors.

  In the presence of so complete a breakdown Gregory temporarily forget his own anxieties. ‘Archer! Archer, old chap!’ he said loudly, in an effort to comfort him, ‘it must have been hell, but as far as you’re concerned the worst’s over now. Try to fix your mind on your wife or count sheep or think of any damned thing except the pain you’re feeling; that may help just a little.’

  Evidently his words penetrated Archer’s pain-racked mind, for the Marxist suddenly stopped his muttering and said slowly but distinctly: ‘You must get out of here. You must get out of here and warn them!’

  Gregory knew only too well how impossible it was to do as Archer implored him, but he did not say so. Instead he inquired sharply, to concentrate the half-unconscious man’s attention: ‘Warn whom?’

  ‘Warn Madame—Madame Dubois that …’ Archer gasped; then fell suddenly silent and rolled over.

  At first Gregory thought he had fainted, but after he had waited some minutes for him to come round and Archer still made no movement he wriggled himself painfully across the floor and began to kick the Marxist gently with his bound feet in an effort to rouse him.

  Archer neither stirred not made the slightest sound. Gregory lay still again and listened intently for his breathing. There was no sound; a strained, uncanny silence filled the cell. Gregory knew then that Archer was dead, killed by shock or a weak heart. Whatever the reason, the thing that lay there in the darkness was a still warm but lifeless corpse.

  The advent of poor, tortured Archer had distracted Gregory’s thoughts for a little while from his own desperate situation, but Archer was out of it now. Those fiends could inflict no more suffering upon him. Perhaps he was lucky; he had at least escaped the additional torment of strangulation or worse. Gregory was torn by a dreadful fear that the sadistic Gestapo chief would not even afford him the mercy of a comparatively swift death, but would have him plunged alive into the burning acid. Grauber would not be able to use a
pistol for fear that its report might attract the attention of someone outside the house, but if he had one streak of humanity in his makeup he would have Gregory either strangled or brained with a pistol-butt rather than subject him to the unimaginable torment of being eaten away piecemeal by the corrosive fluid.

  Sweating with fear and suspense Gregory lay there, wondering how long Grauber would take over his supper. Half an hour or less would probably suffice most people in such circumstances, but Grauber was not the man to be hurried when all the cards were in his hands. For all his sadistic beastliness he was not the coarse, rough-neck type of German that wolfs down a meal sufficient for six ordinary people in as many minutes. The feline step, the fastidiously chosen, well-cut clothes which concealed the powerful muscles of his big body, the scent he used and the mental gymnastics of which he was capable all proclaimed him to be a cultured German with all the instincts of the brute and is vicious to the core.

  Cultured people do not as a rule wolf their food or swig vast quantities of beer, and Grauber was probably feeding on the best cold delicacies that Fortnum and Mason could produce and washing them down with a bottle of Auslese Hock which would not have disgraced the cellars of Sir Pellinore. He would doubtless linger deliberately over the excellent food and wine that Rosenbaum would certainly have provided for him, with the intention of inflicting as much mental torture as possible upon his victims before coming to see them murdered.

  All at once the fluctuating wail of a siren pierced the silence. Instinctively Gregory tried to sit up, and at the jerk the cords binding his wrists and ankles cut sharply into his flesh. It was an air-raid warning; there could be no doubt about that. The high note warbled insistently, urging the people of Hampstead to leave the streets or their beds and get down into the shelters.