The Scarlet Impostor

by Dennis Wheatley

  A few minutes later his deduction was confirmed by the puffing of an engine and the chugging past him of a train on the railway to his left. He had passed through the Loop of the Siegfried Line at St. Johann and was now approaching the two-mile-deep belt of field-fortifications which formed the line itself and which had Sulzbach a little more than half-way along the road through it.

  Satisfied with his progress so far he walked a little way down the road, sat down, took a gulp of brandy and lit a cigarette.

  Fortunately the night was fine so the mud on his clothes was rapidly drying, but it had caked into a crust on his face and hands and he knew that the next problem was to find water in which he might wash unobserved. He dared not risk going to any inn as long as he was in the uniform of a private as he would be certain to be questioned by some N.C.O., while on the other hand he could not transform himself into a smart officer of the S.S. as long as his face and hands were still filthy with the dirt of the battle-field.

  Having had a very welcome rest he got back on to the road and pressed on as fast as he dared without exhausting himself. Now and again a great shell passed overhead, making a noise like a flying tram-car as it ploughed its way through the air to crash on one of the forts of the Siegfried Line. Sometimes the shells fell to his rear or on either side of him, detonating with a terrific roar that echoed down the dark valley, but none of them came near enough to necessitate his flinging himself flat to avoid splinters.

  He endeavoured to accustom himself to the surprises of the night, but try as he might he was unable to repress a start every time the darkness to one side or the other was stabbed by a huge flash which momentarily threw the trees into sharp silhouette as one of the great Krupp guns which reared their ugly nozzles to the sky from their concealed emplacements in the woods roared defiance at the French.

  At no time during his tramp was he alone upon the highway. Always there were moving shadows either in front or just behind him; figures and forms thrown up by the flickering in the sky as ambulances, Staff cars, tractors, lorries, road repair parties, water carts, motor-cycle dispatch-riders and all the other components of the immense paraphernalia of a vast army in the field came and went.

  It was four o’clock in the morning when he saw some red and green lights ahead and slowed his pace until he had ascertained that they were situated at the near end of a small bridge over which traffic was allowed to pass only in one direction at a time. Here was another place at which an Area Commandant’s police might be on the watch for deserters, and muddied all over as he was it was quite certain that he would arouse their immediate suspicions. But the bridge suggested water, so moving off the road once more he slithered down a steep bank and found, as he had expected, a shallow stream.

  Following its bank for a couple of hundred yards he tested the river-bed with one foot and finding it to be stony plunged boldly in. It was horribly cold but only about thirty feet across and at no point deeper than his knees, so he waded through it, knelt down on the opposite bank, and removing his soldier’s tunic steeled himself to wash his face, hands and head thoroughly in its clear, chill waters.

  As it was now over seven weeks since he had had his head shaved his hair had grown a couple of inches, but he had had it trimmed in Paris so that it now stood up almost straight in front in similar fashion to Grauber’s. Gregory’s hair was dark and Grauber’s fair, but so dissimilar were the two men in face and figure that he had not thought it worth while to attempt any further resemblance by having it bleached with peroxide, However, cut en brosse as it now was it tallied with a prevalent German fashion and it was still not long enough to cause him any difficulty in drying it, an operation which he performed on the inside of the tunic. Then, shivering so violently that his teeth chattered, he stripped to Grauber’s under-garments, opened the canned-fruit case and dressed himself in the smart, black S.S. uniform.

  He would have preferred to have penetrated further behind the German line before changing, and did so now only because he might not find another equally suitable spot before he was caught by the approach of dawn. In any case, he reckoned that he must now be a good six miles behind the German frontline trenches so although he was still deep in the battle zone he thought that the presence of an S.S. man on special duty would probably not be considered strange at that distance from the Front.

  Folding up the soldier’s uniform he put it in the box together with the steel helmet, the boots and some loose stones, then flung the lot in the river. Two more big swallows of brandy and the violent flapping of his arms restored his circulation a little, and within a few minutes he was back on the road again.

  After covering another mile and a half he entered a small town which he felt certain was Sulzbach. It was evidently being used as a Divisional, or more probably a Corps Headquarters as there were many cars about and great activity was going on while the darkness lasted. Here too the blast-furnaces were still in operation and the glow from them gave enough light for him to see quite distinctly the dreary rows of workers’ dwellings which lined the streets. Making no further effort to conceal himself he strode boldly forward until he reached a small square in the centre of the town, where he halted a soldier and gruffly asked the way to the railway-station. The man directed him without comment; five minutes later he found the station-yard and entered a small booking-office.

  Although it was 4.40 a.m. and still pitch-dark the place was as crowded as it would normally have been on a market-day morning. No civilians were to be seen; the travellers were all officers or soldiers dressed in uniform field-grey. Even the man behind the guichet in the ticket-office was a soldier, but ignoring him Gregory walked straight to the barrier and produced his Gestapo pass.

  He had accomplished the first part of his journey, but owing to cold and tiredness his spirits were low. Yet he must now face the first real test. Would he be halted by the Military Police and questioned as to what he was doing in the battle zone, or would Grauber’s pass enable him to make his way unchallenged across south-eastern Germany? Drawing himself up he gave the man on the barrier a haughty stare and waited with a beating heart.

  27

  Back into Germany

  It was an anxious moment for Gregory as the Sergeant of Military Police on duty there looked at him. He was by no means certain that the Gestapo did not have a special voucher for travelling just like Army officers, but he had pinned his hopes to the belief that they were so powerful in Germany that every door was open to them and they could go where they would without let or hindrance.

  To his infinite relief the Sergeant merely glanced at Grauber’s card of authority, then drew back immediately and gave him a smart salute. Half-lifting his hand in acknowledgement, he strutted through the barrier and walked along the platform to the R.T.O.’s office, where he asked the military clerk on duty what time the next train left for Carlsruhe. The man replied apologetically that he could not say for certain but that any train going westward would take him to Kaiserslautern whence he would be able to get a connection without difficulty.

  Swaggering out again Gregory strode up and down the platform for the next quarter of an hour, smoking cigarettes until a train rumbled in. A crowd of officers and men was waiting for it but Gregory pushed his way in among them, making straight for a first-class carriage. The train was empty, evidently having been just made up outside the station, but every seat in his compartment was instantly taken.

  The blinds were all drawn, rims of black were painted round the edges of the windows as an air-raid precaution and only a dim, blue light burned in the roof of the carriage. No heat was on and it was very cold. Three of the officers who had got in with Gregory obviously knew each other as they were talking together with the air of old friends; the remaining three seats in the compartment were occupied by himself and two others.

  As the train chugged out of the station the conversation became general, the two other officers introducing themselves to the group of three. In spite of the cold they made a jolly
party, as they were all leaving the battle-front on short leave or to be posted on special duties elsewhere, but they all eyed Gregory askance and were extremely careful to keep off both politics and the progress of the war. That suited him very well as he did not want to give his name or to enter into conversation, and closing his eyes he snuggled himself down in his corner to get some sleep.

  Like all trains behind battle-fronts this one was running to no fixed schedule and was intolerably slow. It would run on for a while at about twenty miles an hour, halt for ten minutes, run on for another stretch, halt again and so on.

  After Gregory’s eyes had been closed for some twenty minutes two of the officers began to talk in cautious whispers, but he was not interested in their probably adverse comments and soon fell into a doze.

  When he awoke it was broad daylight. The officers were all tumbling out of the carriage and on glancing out of the window he saw that the train had reached Kaiserslautern. Pulling himself together he followed the officers out on to the platform, went to the booking-office and inquired for the next train to Carlsruhe. The clerk informed him that it left number four platform at eight-fifteen and a glance at the clock had already shown him that it was twenty minutes to the hour.

  His two hours’ nap, broken by the constant jolting of the train had done little to refresh him. He was still tired after his long hours of exertion and now had a filthy taste in his mouth into the bargain, so he made his way to the buffet. The girl behind the counter gave him a quick: ‘Heil Hitler!’ and although the selection of food was indifferent he was glad enough to secure a cup of Ersatz coffee and a packet of biscuits. Just as he had finished his coffee he noticed a pile of Schinkenbrötchen at the back of the counter and signed to the girl to pass them across.

  ‘I must punch your ration-card if you want one of those, Herr Gruppenführer,’ she said hesitantly, but he gave her one sharp glance and she nervously grabbed the stand of ham rolls and passed it across without more ado.

  Gregory ate a couple, stuffed two more in his pockets, flung a five-mark note to the girl, who beamed at him with sudden, astonished pleasure, and with a wave of his hand swaggered out of the buffet as though he had been a Gestapo chief all his life.

  The train for Carlsruhe was also crowded and at first he could not find a seat, but he spoke to the ticket-collector and with a swift ‘Heil Hitler!’ the man dived into the nearest first-class smoker and ejected an elderly civilian from a corner seat.

  Gregory felt horribly ashamed of taking the now vacant place as he knew that the old gentleman would have to stand in the corridor for the whole of the journey, but he dared not show it. Nodding haughtily to the collector he passed the old man without a glance and flung himself down in the corner of the smoker.

  During the journey he dozed again, rousing up only when the train ran into Carlsruhe at half-past nine. He had decided to break his journey there instead of proceeding direct to Munich because he felt it would be wise to get a really sound sleep to refresh him after his great exertions, once he could reach a town well outside the battle-area.

  With head held high and a swinging step he left the station and proceeded towards the Hotel Krönen.

  As he strode along everybody made way for him, and although the pavement bordering the old streets of the town was narrow even the women got off it lest he should have to deviate by a hair’s-breadth from his course.

  On reaching the hotel he marched straight up to the Bureau and flashing his Gestapo card in front of the small, elderly man who stood there he demanded a room.

  ‘Sofort, Herr Gruppenführer!’ The little man positively jumped in his eagerness to oblige. ‘The best! The best!’ he exclaimed, hurrying round from behind his counter. ‘The hotel is full. It is the war, you know—so many officers—but they have all gone out. I will have the belongings of one of them moved—a beautiful room with a private bath, on the first floor.’

  With a nod unaccompanied even by a smile of appreciation, Gregory followed the elderly clerk to the lift and went up with him to the first floor. Chambermaids and pages came running at the desk-clerk’s call. ‘Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!’ they cried at the sight of Gregory, and within three minutes the offending garments and belongings of the German Colonel who had occupied the room the night before had been hastily thrown into his bags and carried out.

  Gregory would have laughed had not so much depended upon his playing his new part realistically. Even he was surprised at the power which a mere change of clothes had suddenly conferred upon him and the evident fear which his presence inspired in everyone whom he encountered. He knew that he must continue to look severe if he wished to maintain this ascendancy, so he stood there frowning, dark-faced and saturnine, until the servants had left the room. Then he asked the clerk: ‘How do the trains run for Munich this evening?’

  ‘There is one at six o’clock which gets in just after midnight, Herr Gruppenführer, or there is one at eleven-thirty which will get you there by half-past seven in the morning,’ the little man replied quickly.

  ‘I will take the eleven-thirty,’ declared Gregory. ‘I wish to be called at eight o’clock this evening. At nine o’clock you will send me up a meal, as I wish to eat quietly in my room, and at a quarter to eleven you will have a car ready to take me to the station.’

  ‘Jawohl, Herr Gruppenführer, jawohl. What do you wish for dinner?’

  For the first time Gregory allowed his face to relax slightly into a smile. ‘Food is a little difficult these days, is it not? But we must not mind that; we must economise our stocks because we have a long war to fight. What do you suggest?’

  ‘I will see the head-waiter, Herr Gruppenführer, but I know that he had some Rhine trout in this morning and we could offer you a duck.’

  ‘That will do,’ nodded Gregory, ‘and send up a bottle of hock with it; a good Pfalz wine for preference.’

  ‘Jawohl, Herr Gruppenführer, jawohl!’ Washing his hands in the air, the little man bowed himself out.

  Immediately he had gone Gregory drew the curtains of the windows, pulled off his clothes and tumbled into bed. In Nazi Germany it was evidently a far better proposition to be a Group-Leader of the Black Guards than a General called out of retirement, and Grauber’s card of identification had certainly proved as potent as a magic wand. Musing on these pleasant thoughts Gregory fell asleep.

  He slept on right through the day until he was called at eight o’clock. His only baggage consisted of his shaving-tackle and a piece of soap distributed among the various pockets of his clothes. He spent the next hour in bathing, shaving and redressing himself so that when his dinner-tray arrived he presented the immaculate appearance that was essential to the maintenance of his rank.

  With considerable pleasure he noted that the management had added a large champagne cocktail and a selection of vegetable and sausage hors-d’oeuvres as a fillip to his meal. In due course a cheerful-looking, plump little waitress brought him his Rhine trout and the duck, together with an excellent bottle of Deidesheimer, a water ice which he did not eat and some mushrooms on toast which he dispatched with relish.

  Having finished his late dinner, he sent for the evening papers and amused himself by reading the latest war news as seen through the distorting spectacles of Herr Doktor Goebbels. At half-past ten he went downstairs and asked for his bill.

  The desk-clerk muttered something about the manager, and a portly man of about sixty came forward, bowing and clicking his heels, to say that the hotel had been honoured by the Herr Gruppenführer’s presence, and he hoped that he would do them the honour to regard himself as their guest. The hotel and everything in it was always at the Herr Gruppenführer’s disposal. He begged the Herr Gruppenführer to speak well of it to his distinguished colleagues. Heil Hitler!

  Gregory also ‘heiled Hitler’ with extreme promptness, and with a word of thanks assured the manager of a good mark in the Party records. He was then ushered out to a waiting car by the manager, the little clerk, the head-wait
er and a number of other menials, all of whom wished him a good journey and standing in a row on the pavement with raised arms, ‘heiled Hitler’ lustily as the car drove off.

  At the station he had no difficulty whatever. It was all too easy. Civilians scattered before him, every Brown-shirt emitted an explosive ‘Heil Hitler!’ as he passed. Even the black-clad S.S., recognising his high rank-badges, came swiftly to attention at the sight of him. Railway officials ran to do his bidding, and finally some unfortunate upon the train was deprived of his first-class sleeper to accommodate the lean-faced Nazi chief.

  As he had slept all day he was feeling very fit again, so for an hour or so he read a book that he had bought on the station, while the train rumbled on through the night. But sleep was a precious thing to anyone carrying out the kind of work upon which he was engaged, and Gregory could always do with a lot of it when other matters did not require his attention, so at two o’clock he put out the light, turned over and slept once more, waking only when the guard came to inform him that they would reach Munich in another fifteen minutes.

  He was now faced with a problem similar to that which had confronted him on his arrival at Cologne—the acquisition of a suitcase, night-things, and so on in order that his lack of them should not be considered strange by the management of any hotel at which he stayed. The shops were not yet open, however, so he was compelled to postpone his shopping until later in the day.

  His status as Group-Leader Grauber, dread chief of the Gestapo Foreign Department U.A.-1, was making everything fantastically easy, and the few hours during which he had played the role had convinced him that he had no need to fear questioning by the police, Army pickets or hotel staffs, whatever he cared to demand or wherever he chose to go. His only dangers were that he might run into some other Nazi chief who knew Grauber personally or register at some hotel at which the real Grauber had stayed.

  For that reason he would much have preferred to have stayed at some small, unpretentious hotel, but by virtue of his position he dared not do so. Reckoning Hitler as an Emperor, which in all but name he was, Gregory knew that in Grauber’s shoes he must rank as a Prince, or at least a Duke, in that new Nazi aristocracy for which the best was evidently barely good enough. To stay at any small place would be certain to provoke the sort of comment that he was most anxious to avoid, so taking the bull by the horns he made straight for the Regina Palast, the most luxurious hotel in Munich.