The Scarlet Impostor

by Dennis Wheatley

  The sound was like music to Gregory’s ears. Anything might happen in an air-raid; a bomb might even wreck the building in which he was lying and leave him, unharmed or only wounded, to be found by the rescue-squads. If there was no air-raid shelter in the house Grauber, Rosenbaum and Karl might leave it for the nearest public shelter, and if they did they might be delayed in returning or do something to arouse the suspicions of the A.R.P. wardens or of the others with whom they took shelter. At least the warning might afford him an hour or so’s postponement of sentence, and every extra moment of life was precious in that it gave him just a fraction more hope of the occurrence of some miracle which might enable him to escape death.

  The siren was still sounding when he heard fresh footsteps hastening along the corridor. Once more his heart sank. Many people were now openly declaring that they did not intend to take refuge in a shelter until they actually heard the antiaircraft guns firing.

  Perhaps Grauber and Co. were of that school of thought. In any case it was reasonable to suppose that there would be some ten minutes’ respite between the giving of the warning and the arrival over London of enemy aircraft, and no one knew better than Gregory the amazing amount that can be done by an active man in the comparatively short space of ten minutes. It would allow ample time for Grauber to have half-a-dozen helpless men put in an acid tank, if the tank were big enough, and to reach his dug-out afterwards well before the raiders came over.

  His muscles tense, his nails digging into the palms of his bound hands, Gregory waited through seconds that seemed like ages. Someone outside was fumbling with the key; then the lock clicked back and the door was flung open. Framed in the oblong of light there stood not Grauber or Karl, but Rosenbaum.

  The light glinted on his pince-nez; it glinted also on something else—a long carving-knife that he held in his hand. Gregory felt his gorge rise, The little brute was going to stick him like a pig, or cut his throat.

  With extraordinary quickness for a man of his years Rosenbaum flung himself forward. Gregory squirmed away but was seized by the shoulder and thrust over on his face. He waited, bracing himself to endure the vicious stab between the shoulder-blades that would send the blood spurting up into his mouth. The sweat was streaming in rivulets down his temples. He wanted to cry out, but no sound issued from his throat.

  Suddenly the siren ceased its wailing and as from a great distance he heard Rosenbaum’s voice. ‘The air-raid warning has saved you,’ he said. Then Gregory realised that he was hacking with the knife at the cords that bound him.

  ‘That, and the fact that Grauber is terrified of bombs,’ Rosenbaum went on, panting as he worked. ‘He and Karl dashed out to the car. By now they will have run into the big garage at the bottom of the road and will be taking refuge in the deep air-raid shelter on the corner there.’

  ‘Oh, thank God! Thank God!’ Gregory breathed, almost unable to believe in his good luck. His limbs now freed he struggled to his feet and added: ‘But I owe my life to you.’

  ‘Yes. Grauber sent me to put you both in the tank while he fled to safety,’ Rosenbaum muttered, as he turned to cut the cords that bound Archer’s still hands.

  ‘It’s useless to do that,’ said Gregory; ‘the poor fellow’s dead.’ Although he was quite certain of it he leaned over and verified his statement by feeling Archer’s heart. It was absolutely still.

  Rosenbaum groaned. ‘The horror of it! The horror of it! And in my own house. But what could I do?’

  ‘I suppose Grauber’s got you under his thumb?’ asked Gregory quickly.’

  ‘Yes. My brother—my twin brother, who is my other self—is in Germany. He is in a concentration-camp, but as long as I serve them he lives in reasonable comfort. If I refuse, they have promised that he will have a lingering death. They say that they will beat him with flexible steel rods for two minutes every day until he dies.’ Suddenly Rosenbaum, began.

  ‘Steady, now!’ Gregory laid a comforting hand upon his shoulder, but the little man went on, sobbing out in gasping breaths:

  ‘England is the country of my adoption. I was naturalised many years ago, and since then I have always thought of England as my country. I love her and would give every penny I possess to help her in her war against these brute beasts. But what could I do—what could I do? At first I refused to help them, but they cut off my brother’s little finger with his signet-ring upon it and brought it to me. Grauber brought it. ‘A present for you, my little Jacob,’ he said, and handed me a jeweller’s box. I opened it, and there was my brother’s finger, lying upon white velvet. I have no wife, no children. My brother is everything to me, and although we lived in different countries we have travelled thousands of miles in the last forty years so that we might be together for at least a few days in every month.

  ‘That is why I have a laboratory here. He is an analytical chemist and I built it so that his visits to me should interfere as little as possible with his work. Even during the last war we used to meet quite frequently in Holland, for money talks, you know. How could I let him be beaten to death—how could I? Yet not only have I been forced to become a traitor, but I am also made an accessory to this poor man’s death. If the police catch me now they will hang me for murder.’

  ‘Steady! Steady!’ Gregory tried to check the spate of words. ‘I haven’t the least idea what view the authorities would take of your case, but “a life for a life” is a tenet in which I believe, and since you’ve saved mine you can rely upon me to do everything I can to save yours.’

  ‘You mean that? You mean that?’ Rosenbaum seized his hand and pressed it between his own. ‘You will give me your protection?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, and I think it reasonable to suppose that a court might be lenient in view of the terrible form of mental compulsion that was brought to bear on you. The Law makes a very clear distinction in such cases between a willing accomplice and one who acts only under duress, and even if you’d tried you couldn’t have prevented Archer’s death; Grauber would simply have shot you too. And incidentally you saved me from a pretty sticky finish. You’ll have to come clean, though, and tell us everything you know about Grauber and his friends.’

  ‘By my brother—my brother!’ Rosenbaum’s voice rose again in an agonised wail.

  ‘Have you any proof at all that he’s still alive?’

  ‘No; only that these devils tell me so and torture me with threats of what they could do to him.’

  Gregory shrugged. ‘What reliance can you place upon their word? In innumerable cases, for months after a Nazi victim has been dead and buried in an unknown grave, they’ve told his widow and friends that he was still alive and have played upon their hopes for his eventual release. That’s happened with thousands of people. Your brother may already have been dead for weeks. On the other hand, if he’s still alive he may quite possibly survive until the war is over. Nothing that you can do will help him if he’s dead and nothing that you can do for the Germans will ensure his better treatment. But if he is still alive you can shorten the length of his imprisonment by doing your best to help England win the war, because on the day she does so everyone in the German concentration-camps will be freed.’

  ‘It is true—it is true what you say, yet never before had I thought of it like that. All right, then; tell me what I must do…’

  Suddenly the air-raid siren shrieked again with a long, steady blast, giving the all-clear signal. Apparently the raid had been merely a false alarm, or the raiders had been driven back before crossing the shore. Barely two minutes had elapsed since its first warbling note had ceased and Rosenbaum had begun to babble out his confession.

  ‘Quick!’ cried Gregory. ‘Grauber will be coming back. Got a gun?’

  Rosenbaum shook his head. ‘No; but there is no need for one.’

  ‘I’d give a packet to meet him with an automatic in my hand,’ Gregory snarled, ‘but as I’m not armed and he is I’m not going to chance running into him again just yet. We must get out of thi
s!’

  ‘He will not come back. It was to see you that he came over to London. He got what he wanted out of Archer and he had just finished his supper when the air-raid warning went, Karl packed his bag for him while he was feeding and it was all ready for him in the hall. Karl also telephoned after he had packed, making arrangements for him to leave England secretly tonight. As he left the house Grauber snatched up his bag and ran out with it. Now that the all-clear has gone he has nothing to come back here for and will by now be on his way to the coast.’

  Thrusting Rosenbaum before him Gregory strode into the laboratory, saying swiftly: nevertheless, I’m not taking any chances. If he’s got half an hour to spare he may come back just to enjoy the fun of seeing me put into that acid bath. If you don’t mind, we’ll continue our conversation in the garden—near one of the doors to the street for preference—so that we can slip away into the darkness if necessary.’

  ‘Perhaps that would be best.’ Rosenbaum turned, locked the door of the cell and put the key in his pocket, did the same at the door of the laboratory and led Gregory out through a side-entrance into the open air.

  It was very dark out there; pitch-black after the bright lights of the laboratory. They stumbled forward, Rosenbaum leading, until they reached the even blacker shadows cast by a wall and the tall bushes on either side of a path running straight to it. Rosenbaum took out a cigarette-lighter and flicked it on, revealing a door in the wall which was evidently the tradesmen’s entrance. He unlatched it and drew it a few inches open as he said:

  ‘You can slip out of here to the street if Grauber does come back.’

  ‘That’s better. And what about Karl? Is he returning to Germany with Grauber?’

  ‘No, no. Karl is a permanent agent here. He is a German who took out British naturalisation papers some two years ago. They forced me to sack my own servants and take him into my house three months before the war. He is supposed to be my butler-valet, but it is he who makes me clean his boots and make his bed while he sits about all day doing nothing. The house is in a shocking state, as they will only allow me to have a woman in twice a week to clean the big room you saw and my bedroom, in which Grauber sleeps when he stays here.’

  ‘Karl will be back for certain then, and he’s got a gun.’

  ‘Not before morning; he will have to drive Grauber to the coast or wherever they go when Grauber leaves England secretly.’

  ‘You don’t know where this is?’

  ‘No. I only know that it used to take Karl about five hours whenever he went to meet Grauber or take him on the first part of his journey home. That was before the war, though; in this black-out the journey will take much longer.’

  ‘D’you mean that Grauber came and went in secret even before war was declared?’ Gregory asked. ‘Why was that? He would have got into serious trouble if he’d been caught, and in any case it must have cost him a lot of unnecessary inconvenience.’

  ‘I think he preferred to do so to avoid becoming known by sight to the passport people at Dover and Harwich.’

  ‘I see. Of course, anyone could spot that he’s a German. If I’d been a policeman in that A.R.P. dug-out he went to I’d certainly have asked to see his papers or some proof of his identity.’

  Rosenbaum shook his head. ‘That would not have done any good. He carries a Dutch passport, and it is all in order. He speaks Dutch very fluently, too, so although the police might guess by his appearance that he was a foreigner they would find it very difficult to prove that he was a German. He is a marvellous linguist. You heard how he spoke English with less accent than myself, although I have lived here for over forty years, and he speaks French and Italian just as fluently.’

  ‘Altogether a thoroughly dangerous customer,’ said Gregory. ‘Well, we’ll see if we can’t provide him with a nice little surprise next time he visits England—and you’re going to help us.’

  ‘You really think, then, that the police will overlook my—my …’

  ‘They’d be fools if they didn’t, as you’re the only person who can enable them to catch him.’

  ‘What am I to do?’

  ‘How do you propose to account to Karl for the fact that my body’s not in the acid tank when he gets back tomorrow?’

  ‘That should not be difficult. As Grauber was running from the house he told me to put both you and Archer in the bath. It has a lid which clamps down, and as they are so sure of me Karl may not even take the trouble to unscrew it and look inside. The tank is narrow but deep, and if I had done as Grauber ordered I would have placed you in it one on top of the other. If I put Archer’s body into the bath now Karl will see it if he looks in and will imagine you to be lying underneath.’

  The thought of allowing Archer’s body to be eaten away by acid was a repellent one, but Gregory knew that he must not be squeamish over trifles. There was a war on in which thousands of people were dying every day. What did it matter what happened to a single corpse? The important thing was to catch Grauber, and in order to do so it was essential that Rosenbaum should not be suspected of having double-crossed the Gestapo, Archer had not served his country while he was alive, but he could do so now that he was dead, and it was upon this thought that Gregory said:

  ‘That’s right. Put him in the tank. Then you’re to carry on here just as though nothing had happened. Tomorrow I’ll get in touch with you again.’

  ‘That would be most unwise. I am in any case almost a recluse, and for the last few months Karl has made me take steps to prevent even the few friends that I have coming here. A telephone call would be certain to arouse his suspicions. It would be much safer for me to get into touch with you when I am away from the house.’

  ‘All right; you know my name and you’ll find me in the ‘phone book: Gregory Sallust, 272 Gloucester Road. We must try and fix a meeting as soon as possible, though, because I want to hear every detail that you can give me about Grauber and Karl. Could you manage anything tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes. They have to let me go into the City every day, otherwise my absence from my office would excite comment. I dare not see you there because Grauber has planted a German refugee on my staff to watch me, but I have an appointment to see my lawyer at eleven-thirty tomorrow morning and instead of going to his office I could meet you.’

  ‘Right. Where are your offices?’

  ‘My firm is Rosenbaum and Schmelling. Tea Importers, of Mincing Lane.’

  ‘And where does your lawyer live?’

  ‘His name is Reuben Sonnenschein and his office is in Norfolk Street, Strand.’

  ‘Good. In case they’re watching you we’ll meet in that neighbourhood; then they’ll see that you start from your office in the right direction, at all events. Walk down to Mark Lane Underground station and take a ticket for the Temple, but as soon as you get into the station slip downstairs at a run and nip into the first east-bound train so as to lose anyone who may be trailing you. Get out at the first stop and change into a west-bound train which will bring you back to Mark Lane and on to the Temple. Get out there and take a taxi to the Strand Palace Hotel; there’s nothing like doing one’s business in a crowd if one wants to avoid observation. I’ll meet you there at eleven-thirty sharp.’

  ‘All right, Mr. Sallust, I will do just as you say. Thank you—thank you a thousand times—for the way you have treated me. You have given me new hope; new life. In spite of all that I have done I feel that I may now hold up my head again.’

  ‘It’s for me to thank you,’ replied Gregory, smiling in the darkness. ‘We’ll meet tomorrow, then. Good night.’

  He had hardly stepped through the side-door when he sudenly pulled up short. ‘By-the-bye, I hate to bother you but could you lend me five bob for a taxi? Archer and his friends stripped me of every cent I had on me.’

  ‘Of course.’ Rosenbaum slipped his hand into his pocket and passed over two half-crowns. With a cheerful: ‘Thanks; I’ll repay you in the morning,’ Gregory left him.

  When he reached the
road he realised that he had quite forgotten to ask where he was, but as the van which had brought him there had come uphill he turned downhill, knowing that Central London must lie in that direction. At the bottom of the hill he asked his way of a policeman and found that the next turning to the left would bring him into the Finchley Road, so he strode on in the hope of finding a taxi.

  The increase of the petrol-ration from two to three gallons a day per cab had materially improved the situation for the taximen, but despite this most cabs were now out of petrol by ten o’clock at night, and between the great exodus from London and the black-out, which kept many people indoors, there was in any case little night-life to justify taxis remaining on the street after midnight. Thus every rank he passed was empty and he had a two-mile walk before he managed to pick up a cab just north of Baker Street.

  By the time he got home he was feeling the strain of his long, amazingly hectic night. It was now four o’clock in the morning and it seemed unbelievable that only seven short hours before he had pulled up in a taxi outside Tom Archer’s house in Kennington. So much had happened since. He had twice escaped death by the very narrowest of margins, and, as he realised when he looked at his haggard face in the bathroom mirror, the emotional strain had been tremendous.

  Physically, too, he had suffered severely. His nose and upper lip were clotted with dried blood as the result of a blow that one of Archer’s thugs had dealt him and he had a dozen other bruises on various parts of his body. His wrists and ankles were chafed and sore where the cords had bound him, his suit was torn and dirty and his hair dishevelled. Nevertheless he did not undress forthwith and flop into bed, for he had work to do later that day and experience had taught him that unless he did something to improve his state before going to sleep he would feel even worse when he awoke.

  After turning on a hot bath he scribbled a note for Mrs. Cummins, a neighbour who had taken on the care of Rudd’s lodgers in his absence, asking her to call him with breakfast at ten o’clock. Having pinned it outside his door he wearily pulled off his clothes, tipped a double ration of carnation bath-essence into the warm water, washed his face with tender care and lay soaking in the bath for twenty minutes, until the pain of his bruises was considerably eased. Not until then did he dry himself, get into bed and fall sound asleep.