The Scarlet Impostor

by Dennis Wheatley

  All worked according to plan and a quarter of an hour later Erika picked him up at the third crossroad half a mile away. After a polite ‘guten Abend’ and a few casual remarks about the war, intended to convey that they had not met for some days, they drove into Munich in silence so that the elderly chauffeur should not overhear, through the open section of the glass screen which divided them from him, any remark which might arouse his curiosity.

  At the Hauptbahnhof Erika collected the tickets, and leaving his with the man on the barrier went straight through to the platform to see that their reservations were all in order. Gregory meanwhile took refuge in the gentlemen’s lavatory as they wished to minimise the risk of his being recognised hanging about on the platform, or in the train before it departed, by anyone who might have seen him in Regina Palast on the previous day.

  He had synchronised his watch with the station clock and timed his appearance to a nicety. Running through the crowd as though he feared to miss the train, he gasped out to the man on the barrier: ‘I am Herr von Leuterlachen. Has the Frau Gräfin von Osterberg left a ticket with you for me?’

  The man thrust the ticket into Gregory’s hand and he dashed on down the platform until he saw Erika leaning out of the train window and waving to him. Within a minute of his having taken his seat the long train moved out for Berlin.

  As soon as it had cleared the station he stretched himself out on one of the settees and closed his eyes, looking as woebegone as possible, while Erika carefully tucked him up in a big rug she had brought for the purpose. She then rang for the train-conductor and asked him to make up one of the beds as soon as possible, telling him that her cousin was travelling to Berlin to see a famous specialist and was so seriously ill that in normal times they would never have risked his travelling at all.

  The big, portly train-conductor was immediately sympathetic. The combination of the lovely lady, her unfortunate cousin who lay at death’s door and the generous tip which Erika gave him before he even set about his business won his heart entirely. Puffing and panting he made up the bed and offered to help her get Gregory into it.

  ‘He nearly killed himself running to catch the train,’ Erika announced, as between them they divested the groaning Gregory of his outer garments and got him between the blankets. After this had been satisfactorily accomplished the conductor asked Erika for her papers and those of her companion, as in the course of routine he had to collect them all with the tickets and return them at the end of the journey.

  Erika produced her own and then started to hunt for Gregory’s through all his pockets, but, of course, as he had not got any she naturally failed to find them, at which she simulated acute dismay.

  When they asked Gregory about it he pulled himself together sufficiently to say that he must have left his wallet at home on his dressing-table, where he knew he had put it all ready to take with him, and the explanation was accepted. Had they been foreigners they would never have got away with it, but as far as the train-conductor knew they were both perfectly good German citizens and there was nothing criminal or particularly extraordinary in a man who was suffering from an acute illness having forgotten his money and papers at the last moment. As there were no frontiers to cross passports would not be required for examination during the journey, so the fat conductor told Erika she need not worry about it, and the train rumbled on towards Berlin.

  On their arrival, the following morning the conductor secured a porter for Erika, who in turn managed to get one of the few remaining taxis which had special licences to serve the stations. The conductor got her baggage out of the train and helped her to assist Gregory on to the platform. They left him beaming after them, having thanked her profusely for a second large tip. Passing the barrier they drove without incident to Erika’s apartment in the Unter den Linden.

  The apartment was a large one on the second floor of a great modern, luxury block, but as she had arrived unexpectedly she had had no opportunity to transfer any of her permanent staff to it, even had she wished to do so. In consequence, the only servants there were the old caretaker, Franz, who had once been her father’s coachman, and his wife, Irmgarde, who had also been for many years in the service of the family. She introduced Gregory to them as her cousin Auguste—feeling confident that they would not remember Auguste sufficiently well to know the difference—casually stating that he had recently arrived from America and would be staying at the flat for some days.

  The old couple were delighted to see her, and having greeted Gregory with deep bows they began to fuss over her as though she were a little girl. All four of them then set to work to pull the covers off the furniture and make the flat habitable.

  As she showed Gregory to a comfortable bedroom she remarked laughingly to the old people that, his ship having been torpedoed by the British, the poor fellow had not a rag of clothes except those in which he stood up, and even that suit was badly shrunk, so he would have to use the Count’s things until he could get some for himself, Gregory had not yet shaved, as it would not have been in character as an invalid for him to have, done so while still on the train, so she left him to his ablutions in the spare bedroom while she went into her kitchen to see about food, though she felt certain that with Franz and Irmgarde there her well-filled store-cupboards would not have been tampered with in her absence.

  Once they were alone together again Gregory told her that he intended to go out and try to collect the all-important papers. She knew that it was essential for him to do so but did not at all like the idea of his going out into the street unaccompanied, in case he was challenged by the police or militia, and she begged him to wait while they tried to think of some dodge which might make him immune from such dangers.

  For five minutes they sat puzzling their wits, he in an armchair, she on his knee, until she jumped up, exclaiming: ‘I have it!’ And rummaging in a drawer she produced an old black eyeshade such as is sometimes used by tennis players or clerks working on figures by strong electric light.

  This belongs to Kurt,’ she said, ‘He wears it when he’s working in his laboratory, but it will serve our purpose quite well. If you fix it so that it comes well down over your eyes and take a stick which I will find for you, you can tap your way along the pavement and pretend that you’re a blind man, It’s very unlikely that anyone will haul you up and question you then.’

  ‘Splendid!’ he cried. ‘Darling, you’re a genius. If I manage to pull off this thing it will be entirely owing to you.’

  A few minutes later, after hugging her to him until she was quite breathless and promising to be back as soon as he possibly could, he left her.

  Having adjusted his eyeshade in the corridor he went down in the lift and out of a side-entrance of the block so as to evade the porter. Once in the street, he set off, with his head thrown back and tapping with his stick on the pavement, in the direction of the Tiergarten. People made way for him as he advanced and he waited on the kerb at each crossing until some kindly pedestrian led him over to the opposite pavement. His progress was slow but he reached the bench in the Berlin Zoo which had been specified as the place of assignation, at ten minutes to twelve, so he was in good time and he found it unoccupied.

  About five minutes later a woman—as Gregory could see by her feet—strolled up and sat down with the brief greeting of ‘Heil Hitler!’

  ‘Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer!’ replied Gregory with appropriate patriotism and innuendo, although he had not yet the least idea if the pair of black shoes and dark stockings on the ground near-by could belong to the person he had been instructed to contact.

  The rustle of paper immediately afterwards, indicating that the person was about to enjoy a picnic lunch, seemed hopeful, so he proceeded with the conversation.

  ‘I cannot see the time so would you be good enough to tell me when it is about twenty-five to one, as I should then start to make my way home to Mittagessen?’

  ‘Certainly,’ replied a pleasant treble voice in German with a d
istinctly foreign accent. ‘But you have no need to go for a long time yet. It’s only just gone one—how stupid of me, twelve I mean.’

  Good, thought Gregory, this sounds promising; and the voice suddenly came again.

  ‘I’m a hospital nurse and have often had blind people in my care. It’s wonderful how cheerful they are, but it’s the little things, such as keeping a check on time when they’re away from their homes, which are difficult for them. Are you totally blind, or is only one eye affected?’

  ‘Only one, fortunately,’ replied Gregory. ‘But as you will appreciate, I have to husband the sight of the other very carefully. That’s why I wear a shade over both whenever I am in strong daylight.’

  ‘Would you care for one of my biscuits?’ the girl asked for a moment.

  ‘How kind!’ Gregory stretched out his hand. ‘I should like one very much if you have one to spare,’

  He took the biscuit and munched it: slowly while they talked on about a number of things, but into practically every sentence that either of them spoke they managed to introduce the word ‘one’, until both of them were assured beyond any doubt that they were speaking to the person with whom they had been instructed to get in touch. It was the girl who gave the first Indication that she was satisfied upon this by saying:

  ‘Is your sight very bad or can you see a little; sufficient, for example, to watch the feet of a person walking in front of you?’

  ‘There are times,’ Gregory admitted, ‘when my sight is perfectly good, and you have such charming feet that I should be delighted to follow them anywhere if you cared to test me out.’

  ‘One might almost imagine that you’d come here for that special purpose,’ she said with a low laugh, ‘and although your German is excellent I have a feeling, somehow, that you may be a foreigner.’

  ‘I am one’ Gregory replied, mutilating the German language most horribly, as instructed, finally to clinch the point that he was, in fact, British Secret Service agent No. 1.

  ‘We’ve been expecting you for a long time,’ she remarked quietly, ‘and several of us have had to take turns of three or four days apiece in coming here, in case one of the Park police became suspicious at seeing the same person eat lunch on the same bench for so many weeks at a stretch. Thank goodness you’ve turned up at last and can relieve us of our frightful responsibility!’

  ‘It hasn’t been an easy matter to get here,’ Gregory told her, ‘but now I am in Berlin I want to get through with the business as quickly as possible.’

  ‘We’ll go then.’ She stood up. ‘But you’re pretending to be a blind man, I think it would be better if we went off together than if you followed me. After all, a blind man and a hospital nurse happen to go very well together, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes. If we’d had the chance, we couldn’t have planned it better,’ Gregory agreed with a smile. ‘But what sort of a nurse are you? I’m sure you’re not a German, from your voice.’

  ‘Oh, no. I’m an American and I’m working for the American Red Cross. Of course, they don’t know that I’m helping with this sort of thing as it would be a contravention not only of neutrality but of Red Cross ethics, and there would be a most appalling rumpus if I were found out.’

  ‘There’d be worse than a rumpus, I’m afraid!’

  ‘Yes. The Germans shot Nurse Cavell for the same sort of thing, didn’t they? And I suppose they’d shoot me. Still, I’m game to take a chance on that. After all, since I happened to be in the Mission here before the outbreak of War I’m giving ninety per cent, of my time to the German wounded; so I reckon I’m entitled to take the other ten per cent., being my own leisure, to do something for the British. Although we’re stuck here in Berlin there’s not one of us who isn’t heart and soul with the Democracies all along the line, though we can’t say that except among ourselves.’

  While they had been talking the American girl had led him out of the park. They traversed several streets, then entered a block of old-fashioned office buildings. Although it was Sunday many of them were open as in Germany a considerable proportion of the professional and business classes work on Sunday mornings. On the first floor they passed through the door of one that had the brass plate of a solicitor on it.

  A bespectacled clerk came forward from behind a barrier and greeted the girl, with a strong American accent, as Miss Vanderhoorst, upon which she asked if her brother was in.

  ‘Why yes, Miss Vanderhoorst, I’ll let him know right away,’ said the clerk, and disappeared into an inner office from which he returned a moment later to say that they were to go right in.

  A tall, pleasant-faced man of about thirty came forward to greet them. With a cheerful ‘Hallo, Lorna!’ he kissed his sister who, when the door was closed, said simply:

  ‘He’s turned up at last, Cornelius; this is No. 1.’

  ‘Well, now, I’m delighted to see you.’ Vanderhoorst shook Gregory warmly by the hand. ‘I’d sooner have sat with a load of dynamite in my office all these weeks than these two scraps of paper which may mean so much to the Allied cause. But Johnnie Beardmore, of your Embassy, begged me to take charge of them before he had to clear out and I just couldn’t say no, because we’re all hoping that you’re going to wipe these skunks of Nazis right off the face of the earth.’

  ‘You and your sister have done us an immense service,’ said Gregory, as he took off his eyeshade. The difficulty was we couldn’t discover the right man to deliver them to; that’s why I couldn’t relieve you of them before. But I’m hoping to be able to hand them over tonight.’

  ‘Well, here’s the guardian of the treasure!’ Vanderhoorst laughed as he waved a hand to an autographed portrait of Herr Doktor Joseph Goebbels. ‘I got landed with that at a charity auction best part of two years ago, but the ugly little blighter’s been mighty useful to me since. Any officials who happen along think I’m just one whale of a pro-Nazi from having his dial right on my desk. Wouldn’t he throw a fit if he knew what he’d been hiding for us all this time!’

  As he spoke Vanderhoorst took the photograph out of its frame, and producing a penknife prepared to remove the actual photographic print from its cardboard mounting.

  ‘One moment,’ said Gregory. ‘Are the letter and the list underneath the photo?’

  ‘Sure; I took it off, put them under it and carefully stuck the print back in its place again.’

  ‘Then may I rob you of the whole thing?’ Gregory asked. ‘If I could carry it back with me just wrapped in a sheet of paper I’d look a patriotic Nazi directly I produced it to anyone who chanced to stop me, whereas the whole scheme would be blown sky-high, and me with it, if I were searched and they found those two papers loose in my pocket.’

  ‘Take it, and welcome!’ Vanderhoorst grinned. ‘You’ve no idea what a nasty turn the little swine’s face gives me when I come along to the office mornings after I’ve had a bit of a jag. Here, Lorna, there’s some paper and string over there, just wrap it up for our friend, will you, there’s a dear.’

  It was the first chance Gregory had had to get a proper look at Lorna Vanderhoorst, and he saw that she was a dark, attractive girl of about twenty-five, with a firm chin and fine, laughing eyes.

  While she was doing up the photograph her brother said to Gregory: ‘Now, about your getaway. Bar accidents, the next underground leaves this city of sin this very night.’

  ‘D’you mean that you can get me out of Germany?’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  Gregory smiled, ‘I thought you implied just now that the assistance you were rendering us was confined to having taken charge of these papers?’

  ‘Sure thing! It was, originally, but I tumbled to it by pure chance that a friend of mine—another American—who’s been living for a long time in Berlin is up to his neck in it with the British. If he’d made that one slip with the Nazis instead of with me it would have cost him his neck, but as it was there was no harm done. He’s been acting for your people ever since the war began, as Underground
Transport Officer. I don’t know the details. It was much better that I shouldn’t, because if I’d become mixed up in his show I might have got hauled in myself, then I wouldn’t have been here to hand you these papers when you came along, and that was vastly more important. For that reason we’ve kept clear of each other for some time now, but he’s still around so I don’t doubt his service is still running.

  ‘I’ll let him know you’ve turned up and’ll be wanting a free ride home. Tonight there will be a taxi waiting with its flag down on the corner of the Ederstrasse and the Wilhelmstrasse, between 10.30 and 10.45. Just ask the driver if he’s waiting for me. If he says yes, give him your number, jump in, and leave the rest to him.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Gregory. ‘As a matter of fact, though, I should like to stay over and see this thing through now.’

  ‘Well, I gather the service is pretty regular. It’s run specially to get British agents in and out of Germany and leaves Berlin twice weekly. The car’s at the same place every Sunday and Wednesday night. I’ll let my friend know you’ll be along sometime, but if you delay your departure you’ll have to take a chance on the Gestapo’s not having got wise to the outfit and smashed it up. But, of course, that might happen any time.’

  ‘I’ll have to risk that,’ Gregory nodded. ‘Anyhow, it’s a comfort to know that help may be available when I’m ready to beat it for home.’

  Lorna had tied up the photograph, and turning to a cupboard Cornelius produced a bottle of Scotch whisky and some glasses.

  ‘We have to keep this for state occasions these days,’ he remarked, ‘as the old blockade is giving them the works already and you can’t get it now outside the Nazis’ private palaces. Still, if ever there was a time to have one, it certainly is on this little do.’

  The three of them drank damnation to Hitler and all his crew; then, having asked his way back to the Unter den Linden, Gregory thanked the two charming Americans for their invaluable help to the Allied cause, and adjusting his eyeshade he left the office.