The Scarlet Impostor

by Dennis Wheatley

  Here again the production of Grauber’s card at the Bureau worked wonders. The hotel was full, but—of course, a bedroom with private bath would very shortly be at the disposal of the Herr Gruppenführer. In all the best bedrooms, one of which they would be honoured to give him, people were still dressing, as it was only eight o’clock, but would not the Herr Gruppenführer deign to take breakfast while arrangements were being made?

  Gregory signified his agreement to this proposition. Amidst a chorus of ‘Heil Hitlers’ and without anybody mentioning the word ‘ration-card’ he was provided with a chicken-liver omelette, coffee and fruit in the grill-room.

  Afterwards he acquired the morning papers and took possession of a room out of which somebody had been turned for his accommodation. By the time he had bathed, shaved and assimilated the latest war news it was half-past ten, so he thought that he would get down to his real business and pay a call at Das Kleine Schloss out at Prinz Ludwig’s Höhe to ascertain whether Erika von Epp was in Munich.

  He felt quite sure that the hotel would have accommodated him with a car had he asked for one, just as the Hotel Krönen had done the previous night. There were plenty of cars in Germany that had not been commandeered, and the only difficulty with which the ordinary person met when trying to secure one was the petrol ration. It seemed clear, however, that either the hotel managers or the members of their staffs had to sacrifice a portion of their own rations without any argument if people like Nazi Group Leaders had not got their own cars with them and urgently required means of transport.

  Gregory could have had a car, or anything else for that matter, without the least difficulty; there was no doubt about that; but in case he slipped up anywhere he thought it a wise precaution to leave no traceable link between the Regina Palast and Erika von Epp’s house, and in consequence he decided to go out there by some other means.

  Leaving the hotel, he bought some cigarettes at a tobacconist’s and inquired of the woman who served him the best way to reach Prinz Ludwig’s Höhe. She told him it was about five miles from the centre of Munich, but that he could take a local electric train from the left-hand side of the Mittelbahnhof which would get him there in about fifteen minutes.

  At the station he found that he had about twenty minutes to wait but he simply walked to the barrier, as had now become his habit, and boarded the electric train when it came in. It stopped at every station and ran for part of the way through pleasant, open country. By twenty-past eleven it had deposited him at the Prince Ludwig’s Höhe halt.

  He made no inquiries at the station, but walked away from it for nearly five minutes before stopping a postman and asking him if he knew the whereabouts of Das Kleine Schloss. The man directed him upon what proved to be quite a long walk, but at about twenty to twelve he arrived in a road bordered only by large, private houses, each of which was surrounded by trees, wide lawns and well-tended gardens. He found that of Erika von Epp nearly at its far end.

  A gravel drive led up to a long, low, two-storeyed building which was battlemented and constructed in imitation of a mediaeval fortified manor-house—hence, obviously, its name: ‘The Little Castle.’ Gregory marched up the front-door steps and rang the bell.

  It was answered by a trim maid in black-and-white uniform of whom Gregory inquired whether the Countess von Osterberg were at home.

  The girl shook her head. Unfortunately he had missed the Frau Gräfin by ten minues. She had just gone into Munich in her car.

  ‘When do you expect her back?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘Not until this evening,’ the girl replied. ‘She is both lunching and dining out.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Gregory, ‘at what time do you think she will get in after dinner?’

  ‘I can’t say for certain,’ replied the maid, ‘but I should think at about eleven o’clock.’

  Gregory considered for a moment. He thought it important that the Countess should not learn of his visit and that he intended to come out again to see her. If she did, she might get wind-up at the news that an S.S. officer was looking for her and call in one of her high Army-officer friends to be present at the interview. It was most essential that he should see her on her own, so he produced his Gestapo card and said to the girl:

  ‘Now look here, there’s no need to be frightened. Nobody’s going to harm your mistress, but I wish to question her on a certain affair and I’m coming back this evening at about eleven o’clock. If she comes in first on no account are you to say that I’ve been inquiring for her and that I’m coming back tonight. If you fail to obey me and the Frau Gräfin learns, through you or through any of the other servants here, that I’ve called this morning, the Gestapo will have something to say to you about it, and what they say will not be at all pleasant. Do you understand?’

  ‘Ja, ja, Herr Gruppenführer,’ said the girl meekly, a frightened look coming into her dark eyes. ‘I won’t breathe a word about Your Excellency’s visit.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Gregory nodded. ‘You just forget it and I’ll be along about eleven.’ Upon which he turned away and set off towards the station.

  Shortly after one o’clock he was back in Central Munich. He lunched at Humplemeyer’s, a restaurant of international repute which had been the favourite resort of Munich’s gourmets in the old days, because he thought it would be interesting to see what sort of a meal one could get in war-time Germany if one had money but refrained from using either a ration-card or blackmail. Butcher’s meat and butter were unobtainable, he found, but the restaurant had an ample supply of fish, game, tinned luxuries, forced vegetables and fruit. Prices had risen appallingly—about three hundred per cent in two months—but if one could afford to pay one could still feed as well there as at most places in Europe.

  After luncheon he went out to do his shopping, purchasing a suitcase, night-things, underclothes and so forth and ordering them all to be sent to the hotel. Back there once more he read for a while up in his room, had an hour’s nap, rang for the floor-waiter to bring him a couple of champagne cocktails and, having consumed them, went down to dinner.

  The hotel was crowded. Nearly all the male guests were in one uniform or another, and as Hitler had ordered that no mourning was to be worn for the war dead most of the women present had on colourful day-clothes, so the dining-room provided a bright and interesting scene.

  As he ate his meal Gregory wondered how to fill in his time until ten o’clock, for it would be pointless to set off for Prinz Ludwig’s Höhe before that time. He had slept a great deal in the last forty-eight hours and having finished his book, did not feel very much like starting another, as he was now all keyed-up by the knowledge that unless anything very unforeseen happened he was to see Erika von Epp that night. After all these weeks of desperate endeavour he was at last likely really to get somewhere with his mission.

  On strolling out of the restaurant he saw a number of officers and girls going down a broad staircase to the basement, so he followed them and found that underneath the restaurant there was a big ballroom. Many couples were already seated at tables round the walls and in the centre of the room there was a railed-off, oval dancing-space which was slightly lower than the rest of the floor, so that the heads of the dancers were just about on a level with those of the people sitting at the tables outside the railing. A band was playing swing music at the far end of the room and it seemed that the officers and women who represented the more fortunate classes among the Munich population were forgetting, for a time at least, the strain and uncertainty of the war.

  A waiter led Gregory at once to a small table, so having ordered a liqueur he thought that he might just as well sit there listening to the band and watching the dancers until it should be time for him to go out to Das Kleine Schloss.

  The men had the very clean, almost polished appearance common to German officers and, by and large, they were a fine-looking lot. But the women were disappointing. Most of them were dowdy by the standards of London or Paris and their figures wer
e not good. The best among them were a few blondes with china-blue eyes and pink, doll-like faces, but their hair was not well coiffured and although they appeared healthy enough they had a drab, untidy look. Little Collette, Gregory reflected, could have given them all points in general smartness of appearance.

  He had been there about twenty minutes when two officers at the table next to his muttered something and turned right round in their seats to look towards the door. Gregory turned to follow their glance, then he suddenly stiffened where he sat.

  A strikingly beautiful girl had just come in. Her pale, oval face was framed in an aureole of rich, curling golden hair. Her figure was a poem in living grace, and her clothes had a quiet, impeccable distinction. She carried herself with the hauteur of a Princess and made all the other women in the place look like scullery-maids by comparison. He recognised her instantly. It was his Lady of the Limousine.

  Almost at the same instant she glanced in his direction, and as their eyes met he saw first astonishment and then fear dawn in her. But she was unaccompanied and as he rose to his feet she gave him a sudden smile.

  Taking a couple of steps forward he clicked his heels in the approved manner and bowed. ‘If you’re alone,’ he said, ‘may I have this dance?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not alone,’ she answered quickly. ‘The friend I’m with was called to the telephone, but he asked me to come down and secure a table. He’ll be joining me at any minute.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Gregory smiled. ‘Let’s dance until he does come down. I’m more thrilled than I can possibly tell you to see you again.’

  ‘All right, then; just a few turns.’ She laid her hand lightly on his arm and allowed him to lead her down on to the dance-floor. The band had just struck up one of the old Viennese waltzes, and a hundred couples were already swaying to its infectious rhythm. As they glided off together she whispered:

  ‘You say you’re thrilled to see me again, but that’s nothing to what I feel. My heart nearly came up into my mouth when I saw you sitting there.’

  ‘You were glad, though?’ Gregory murmured.

  ‘I don’t know whether I was glad or sorry. Glad to see you—yes, but oh, my God! The risk you’re running by coming back into Germany!’

  ‘I came at your special invitation,’ Gregory smiled down into her eyes.

  ‘You found a new road, then; a new hope of succeeding in your mission to bring us all peace?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Given a little luck I may pull it off this time.’

  ‘But this uniform you’re wearing. The uniform of a Group Leader of the S.S.—how did you get it? It’s stolen, I suppose?’

  ‘No. Made for me in Paris. I stole the papers of the man who’s entitled to wear it, though.’

  ‘Even so, you should never have come to a place like this. It’s in just such a crowd that you might meet someone who knows the man you’re impersonating.’

  So many of the other men were staring at his lovely partner with open admiration and at himself with envy. One indiscreet phrase drifting to the ears of any of them would betray the fact that he was not entitled to the uniform he was wearing, and the results of such a slip, not only to himself now but also to the beautiful girl with whom he was dancing, would be too terrible to contemplate.

  The ease with which, lightly pressed against him and resting her long, slender hand upon his shoulder, she followed his steps was a poem in movement. He was filled with an insane desire to let Erika von Epp and his mission go hang. After all that he had been through he was entitled to a few hours’ uninterrupted enjoyment. He could go out to Prinz Ludwig’s Höhe tomorrow instead of tonight. Now that he had run his lovely Lady of the Limousine to earth, a few hours were neither here nor there, if only he could persuade her to remain with him for the rest of the evening.

  With his lips almost touching her ear as they swayed together he murmured: ‘I’ve simply got to talk to you. During all these weeks since I left you outside Cologne there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t dreamed of seeing you again. Somehow or other you’ve got to get rid of the man you’re with and spend the evening with me.’

  Her scented cheek brushed his lightly as a butterfly’s wing as she very slightly shook her head. ‘Not this evening; it’s impossible.’

  ‘Why? Is it somebody with whom you’re in love?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Somebody who’s in love with you, then? But that’s a foregone conclusion. Is it some officer home on short leave from the Front on whom you’re taking pity?’

  ‘No, not even that. But it’s somebody very important.’

  ‘If you’re not in love with him and it’s not someone who’s going back to the Front and may never see you again, he can’t possibly be as important as I am. You know that I love you, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I saw it in your eyes as you greeted me just now.’

  ‘And you love me. I saw it in your eyes, too. There was fear in them as well as surprise when you recognised me.’

  ‘This is wrong—wrong.’ She dug the nails of her right hand sharply into his palm. ‘Our countries are at war; no happiness can come of it.’

  ‘One day there will be peace, and it is my work to bring that day nearer.’

  ‘I know. But until then it’s madness for us two to talk of love.’

  ‘Maybe, but it’s the sort of madness that’s worth all the sanity that’s left in this rotten world. Make any excuse you like, but somehow you’ve got to get away from your friend and let me love you for this little hour before my work drags me away from you again—perhaps for ever.’

  ‘I can’t—I can’t! I’ve told you the man I’m with is important. I’d get rid of him willingly, but it’s my work, too …’

  ‘Oh—work!’ he cut her short. ‘Surely you can let work go hang for once. Just for tonight, let’s imagine ourselves in some fairer, happier world where there’s no war, and think only of each other.’

  As they swayed to the rhythm of the waltz he began to sing its refrain softly in her ear:

  ‘Dream on, Beautiful Lady, dream and forget

  Dream on, Beautiful Lady, in love’s sweet net;

  Waking brings but regret,

  Dream on, dream and forget,

  Dream on, Beautiful Lady, in my arms yet.’

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed; ‘no please! The work I’m doing is desperately urgent. I’m trying to do the same thing as you. Everything that I have, every moment of my time, must be given to my attempt to secure an honourable peace for my country. The man I’m with is one of the key-men. If I play him properly tonight I may be able to persuade him to do something which will help the cause of peace immensely.’

  A sudden thrill of excitement caused Gregory’s grip on her to tighten. The lovely girl he was holding in his arms was so obviously of a certain German nobility that it was quite certain that nearly all her male relatives would be Army officers. Her car had been driven by a military chauffeur when he had first met her so one of her friends, at least, must be an officer of high rank. Was it possible that in her, by pure chance, he had tumbled upon somebody who could give him the key to the anti-Nazi conspiracy? He bent his head and whispered swiftly: ‘Is the man with whom you must spend the evening one of the Army leaders?’

  The perfume of her hair filled his nostrils as she shook her head and whispered back: ‘No, he is a high official of the Nazi Party.’

  Gregory felt a sharp stab of disappointment. She was evidently working on lines quite different from his own although with the same object; trying, perhaps, to foment a split among the Nazi chiefs or to organise a Peace Party among them through which some of them might hope to save their necks by throwing Hitler, Himmler and von Ribbentrop overboard.

  While he was speculating on the point she spoke again, sharply this time: ‘Look! He’s just come in. He’s sitting down at that table near the door—next to the one where there’s a girl with blue flowers in her hat.’

  They were at the other en
d of the room, right on the edge of the dance-floor near the band. As she spoke she pulled herself away from him and added in a quick, frightened whisper: ‘I must leave you now! He mustn’t see us together in case he questions me about you. Auf Wiedersehen!’

  The second before she had drawn away from him to step off the floor Gregory had turned his head over his shoulder. Between the moving forms of the dancers he caught sight of the girl with the blue flowers in her hat, at the far end of the room, and on the instant his heart seemed to stand still.

  The man sitting down at the next table was Grauber.

  28

  Once More a Fugitive

  For an instant Gregory stood there almost paralysed; then he realised that the lovely Lady of the Limousine had already left him and that they had made no plan to meet again.

  He took one swift step off the dance-floor after her, but her back was now turned to him and she was walking down a gangway between the tables. Her walk was graceful and unhurried, her head held high, as she accepted as only her due the glances of admiration which were cast at her from every side. In half-a-dozen strides he could easily have caught up with her, but he knew that it would be as much as his life was worth to attempt to do so.

  As the dance-floor was sunk like an oval pool two feet below the level of the rest of the room, the faces of the dancers were visible only to the people seated at the tables round its rim. It was that which had rendered Gregory practically immune from being spotted almost at once by anyone entering the room. He felt certain that Grauber had not seen, or at least recognised him, otherwise the Gestapo chief would not have sat down at a table but would have promptly given the alarm to the other S.S. officers who were present and ordered his arrest. But if he followed the girl he would be visible to everyone in the place. The odds were at least ten to one that Grauber had caught sight of her by now and if Gregory ran after her he would attract instant attention to himself, the result being a speedy end to his mission and probably to hers as well.