Faked Passports

by Dennis Wheatley

  The driver set them down at the Hotel Kamp. Immediately Gregory entered it he pushed his way through the crowded hall to the porter’s desk and got the man there to turn up two telephone numbers for him: that of the Finnish Foreign Office and that of the von Kobenthals. There were queues of waiting people before each telephone booth but Gregory got hold of the head porter and simply asked how much he wanted for ten minutes’ use of the line in his office. The matter was soon concluded and the moment Gregory was alone he rang up the von Kobenthals’ number.

  To his immense satisfaction he learned that although Erika was not in she was still staying with the von Kobenthals, so he left no message but in the highest spirits hung up again and turned his attention to Monsieur Wuolijoki. The Foreign Office proved more difficult and it was a little time before he could get a connection; but after a short wait he got through to Monsieur Wuolijoki, and, announcing himself as Colonel-Baron von Lutz who had just arrived in Helsinki from Germany on urgent business, secured an appointment for three o’clock that afternoon. Both love and war seemed to be going splendidly and he left the office beaming.

  Recrossing the hall, with Freddie beside him, he tackled a fair man at the reception-desk about rooms. It transpired that the hotel was very full owing to the crisis, but on Gregory’s producing a fat wad of German bank-notes the clerk said that he could let them have a reservation which had only just been cancelled, if they did not mind sharing a double-room on the sixth floor. Gregory booked it at once and, since he had been checked in on the British passport by the air-port police, signed the register in his own name. He then changed some of his German Reichmarks into Finnish currency and told the clerk that they were going out to do some shopping as owing to a mishap they had lost their luggage. Goering’s report and the mass of original papers that were with it formed much too large a packet to carry about conveniently so he handed it across the desk and added: “While I am out I shall be glad if you will take charge of this and put it in the hotel safe.”

  “Certainly, sir,” the fair man smiled. “I’ll give you a receipt for it.”

  “Thanks,” said Gregory as he took the slip. “I shall be wanting it again after lunch but it’s very important that the greatest care should be taken of it. You’re not to give it to anyone on any pretext, even if they produce this receipt, but keep it until I ask you personally for it.”

  As they stood there the sole possessions of the two Englishmen consisted of the few things that they carried in their pockets, so they went out to buy a couple of suitcases and various articles which would enable them to live for the next few days like civilised beings; including civilian clothes for Freddie, to make him less conspicuous and, above all, furs; as although they moved briskly they were already feeling the intense cold of the Finnish capital.

  The Boulevard, which constitutes the principal shopping centre of Helsinki, was unusually crowded. The newspaper vendors were doing terrific business and on every corner there were knots of fur-clad people discussing the all-important question, “Shall we or shall we not be at war with Russia this time tomorrow?” Everywhere, too, there were squads of voluntary workers sandbagging the principal buildings or frantically working upon air-raid shelters; but the normal life of the city was still going on. Every shop was open and doing a brisk business. With his excellent mastery of German, English and French Gregory found no difficulty whatever in getting the articles he required. The assistants in the shops were equally friendly whether they believed him to be German or British. Their enemy was Russia and their one question to every customer—whatever his nationality—was: “Do you think we are going to fight?”

  In view of Russia’s huge air force and the fact that the Finns could hardly expect any protection at all from their own tiny air-fleet, they were remarkably cheerful and the two Englishmen very soon saw that, whatever the view of the Finnish Government might be, the Finnish people—almost to a man—were prepared to take anything that was coming to them rather than surrender to the Bolsheviks.

  With what was left of his own money and the 3,000 marks for which he had stung Goering Gregory had brought nearly £600 out of Germany, and furs are amazingly cheap in Finland so they had ample funds to buy the best of everything they wanted.

  Helsinki has three harbours, the southernmost of which, overlooked by the unpretentious ex-Imperial Palace of the Tsars and the gilded, onion-shaped domes of the big Russian Church, is a great market. To it boats come from all parts, laden mainly with fish and farm-produce, but along the quays there are many stalls for every kind of merchandise. On this Tuesday morning an unusual number of people had flocked into the town to get the latest news so the harbour market was doing a roaring business and it was there that Gregory and Freddie completed their purchases, returning to the hotel just after one o’clock with two large suitcases stuffed full of parcels.

  Just as they were moving towards the lift Gregory noticed a pretty dark-haired girl standing at the entrance to the lounge. A moment later Freddie also saw her and, dropping his suitcase, positively leapt forward.

  “Angela!” he cried. “Darling! What in the world are you doing here?”

  For a second the girl’s face remained strained and uncertain, but ignoring the people who were talking excitedly all around them Freddie seized her in his arms, and Gregory saw by the sudden change in her expression to overwhelming happiness that for her the huge crowd no longer existed. Quietly picking up Freddie’s suitcase he stepped, smiling, into the lift and left them to it.

  When he got up to his room he unpacked his parcels and had a wash at the fixed basin. It then occurred to him to have a look at the typescript which he had stolen from under the bundle of notes out of Goering’s safe, and removing his shoe he drew the pages out from the false sole. The script consisted of six folded sheets of transparent paper, all of which were almost entirely covered with close type. It was a carbon copy and evidently the original had been done by an amateur as there were many typing errors and crossings-out. Gregory deduced that whoever had typed it had been unused to such work and did not wish to have to do it a second time but wanted as many copies as possible. It was in German and headed: “ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE NEXT FAMILY-DAY”.

  Gregory read the first page and it appeared to consist of somebody’s scheme to hold a big family meeting which was to include the discussion of certain business plans.

  Many relatives were mentioned, mostly by their Christian names, and none of these conveyed anything to Gregory. There was no date on it and no signature at its end. The script was thumbed and dirty so he was inclined to think that it had been got out by some old gentleman who was a remote relative of Goering’s and who at some time or other had wished to rope in the now famous ‘Hermann’ for some big social gathering that he was planning.

  It seemed that he had risked his neck for a document which had no political significance whatever, so with considerable disappointment he folded it and put it back into his shoe for further examination when he had more leisure. He had only just re-laced his shoe when Freddie came bursting into the room. His face was flushed, his eyes shining.

  “Isn’t it marvellous?” he cried. “Angela’s here! That was her I ran into downstairs a few minutes ago.”

  “I had a sort of suspicion that it might be,” Gregory smiled, “and I gather it didn’t take you long to make up your quarrel either.”

  “Quarrel?” Freddie repeated with surprise. “Oh, we never quarrelled really—we’ve always loved each other.”

  “Splendid. Anyhow, I thought she looked a most lovely person and I’m more happy for you than I can possibly say, Freddie. But what’s she doing in Helsinki?”

  “Her father was transferred from our Consulate at Amsterdam to our Consulate here a fortnight ago. Apparently the pressure of work here has been increasing ever since the war started so Mr. Fordyce was sent out to lend a hand. He’s a widower, you know, so wherever he goes Angela always goes too, to look after him. They want us both to lunch with them. If i
t’s O.K. by you, I said we’d meet them downstairs in about ten minutes’ time.”

  Gregory laughed. “I shall be delighted to lunch if they won’t mind my slipping away immediately afterwards. I’ve got an appointment with a man at the Finnish Foreign Office for three o’clock.”

  “Oh, no, that’ll be all right.” Freddie dived at his suitcase. “I must get some of these parcels unpacked so that I can have a wash and change into my new clothes; then we’ll get down to the lounge again.”

  Downstairs they found that the Fordyces had secured a table and were with difficulty retaining two empty chairs for their guests as the lounge was absolutely packed with people. Half the population of Helsinki seemed to have assembled there to see as many of their acquaintances as possible and discuss the latest rumours.

  While Freddie made the introductions Gregory was smilingly taking in the father and daughter. M. Fordyce was a tallish man still in his early forties and as yet had not a single grey hair on his dark, smooth head. His double-breasted lounge-suit was of grey Glenurquhart tweed and he was unmistakably English. Angela was even prettier than Gregory had supposed from his first glimpse of her. Like her father she was dark and had blue eyes, a combination which suggested a touch of Irish blood in the family, but her skin was of that smooth whiteness which is spoken of as magnolia blossom and sometimes found in a special type of dark beauty. Gregory noticed that she used very little make-up and thought that just a touch more colour on her lips and cheeks would have made her still lovelier; her eyes, however, nature could not have been improved upon, as she had long, dark, curling lashes.

  After a glass of aquavit they went into the crowded dining-room and enjoyed an excellent meal. The smoked salmon—which is as cheap in Finland as herrings are in England—was, curiously enough, not of such good quality as that usually served in London; but the mussel soup was delicious, as the mussels—in which the Finnish coast abounds—had not been out of the sea for more than an hour. Stuffed pike, cooked over a wood-fire, followed and afterwards Gregory and Freddie tried their first bear steaks. Ordinarily, bear meat is inclined to be tough but this had been treated with oil—in the same way as the Italians prepare a tournado—and the meat had a distinctive, rather pleasant flavour of its own. To celebrate Freddie’s and Angela’s unexpected reunion Mr. Fordyce stood them champagne, and they finished up with a good selection of cheeses and Turkish coffee.

  As they were celebrating the meal was naturally a happy affair, but most of the faces about them were grave and anxious owing to the crisis. Many of the women in the room were quite good-looking but very few of them had on any make-up; the lack of which left their faces curiously colourless compared with the usual restaurant crowd in London, and Freddie remarked upon the fact.

  “My dear,” Angela laughed, “didn’t you know that for a girl to paint her face is the one deadly sin in Finland? That’s why I make up so little here. The tarts use cosmetics as a badge of their profession but even they use only as little as possible—just enough to show that they are tarts—otherwise they would never be able to attract the better class of men.”

  “I see,” Gregory smiled across at her. “I thought it must be because they were rather puritanical, the old Protestant strain coming out. The Finns are said to be rather like the Scots in many ways, I believe, and nothing is more dreary than a Sunday in Scotland. They are Protestants, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, Lutherans,” Fordyce volunteered.

  Gregory nodded. “I imagine it’s the long winter nights which make people in the northern countries like Scotland and Scandinavia so keen on education—plenty of time for reading—and once people get interested in books they almost always educate themselves.”

  “Yes. They are terrific readers. You’ve only got to look at the bookshops here to see that. Practically every worth-while book that comes out is translated into Finnish, and a bookseller was telling me the other day that the editions they print are very often as large as those printed in England; which is absolutely staggering considering the relative smallness of the population.”

  “This business of make-up, then,” Freddie brought the conversation back, “is, I suppose, due to the same sort of strict morality that the Church of Scotland enforces so far as it can?”

  “Oh, no. It’s not that they’re the least straight-laced,” Angela hastened to assure him. “In fact, women are remarkably free here and the Finns have a passionate belief in the equality of the sexes. They were the first people to give women the vote; and if a servant-girl here has an illegitimate child nobody thinks any the worse of her; she just stays on in her job and the child is adopted into the family.”

  Glancing at his watch Gregory saw that it was nearly half past two, and he wanted to be in plenty of time for his appointment at the Finnish Foreign Office so he stood up and excused himself.

  Having collected his furs from the cloakroom he thrust his way through the jam of people in the hall to the desk and said to the fair-haired clerk who had booked him in: “I want those papers back now that I gave you just before midday to put in the hotel safe.”

  The fair man looked at him in blank surprise. “But you sent for them yourself—half an hour ago, sir.” He reached into a drawer and produced a chit. “We have your signature for them.”

  Chapter XIII

  The Beautiful Erika Von Epp

  I told you not to give that packet to anyone—on any pretext,” Gregory snarled, the second he could give expression to his amazement and anger.

  The clerk gave back before his angry scowl. “But, sir, you said you would be wanting the packet again after lunch and I thought …”

  “But you say you gave it to someone half an hour ago. It would then have been barely two o’clock.”

  “In Helsinki many people lunch at midday, sir, and would have finished by then. I thought you were busy, perhaps, and so had sent your friend to collect your parcel.”

  “If I had, he would have produced the receipt you gave me; and I still have it here. What have you to say to that?”

  “Only, sir, that visitors are often careless and mislay the receipts we give them. We consider it quite satisfactory if instead of the original receipt we have the visitor’s signature for anything deposited. And here is yours.” The clerk extended the slip of paper again.

  Gregory glanced at it. “That’s not my signature.”

  “Well, it’s very like it, sir.” The man shrugged apologetically and pointed to the place in the visitor’s book where Gregory himself had written his name earlier that day. The forgery would not have been passed by a bank but it was a pretty fair imitation, and as Gregory stared at the fair, blue-eyed, bespectacled clerk he suddenly formed a very shrewd suspicion as to what had occurred.

  The man behind the desk might be of Finnish nationality but he was certainly not one hundred per cent. Finnish. The Finns have no blood ties with other Scandinavian peoples—they are a race apart—and the only nation to which they are allied by blood and language is Hungary, for over a thousand years ago a colony of Finns migrated into middle-Europe and settled round Lake Balaton. The Finns are of two main types—the Karelians, who come from the North and the East and are a jolly, pleasure-loving people, and the Tavastlanders, from the South and the West, who provide the more sober element—but neither has any resemblance to the Teutons; whereas the clerk’s square head and thick neck betrayed his German origin.

  That, almost certainly, was the key to what had transpired. The fellow was either a German or had relatives in Germany, which enabled the Gestapo agents in Helsinki to exert pressure on him. As part of his secret duties he had evidently reported that an Englishman had lodged a packet of important papers with him. The member of the Gestapo to whom he reported had then copied Gregory’s signature out of the visitors’ book and made the clerk hand over the packet.

  Gregory knew that he could create a fuss, send for the manager, threaten to sue the hotel and call in the police; but none of these things would get back his vital
ly-important papers. He swiftly made up his mind that he would try to get the clerk sacked later, if he had time to spare, as the man was dangerous; but there was not a second to lose now. With the smallest possible delay he must try to get on the track of whoever had stolen the packet.

  “What was the name of the man to whom you gave my papers?” he asked quickly.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Is he staying in the hotel?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “But you knew him?”

  “Yes. He has been in here several times in the last two days.”

  “D’you know where he lives?”

  The clerk smiled blandly, with almost open insolence. “No, sir, I haven’t the least idea.”

  “All right. Describe him to me,” Gregory snapped. “And remember this: the packet was such a big one that somebody must have noticed you handing it across the counter, and one of the porters would certainly have seen the man walk out with it. I’ll have every person in the hotel questioned and if I find that you’ve lied to me about his description I’ll have you put in prison for aiding and abetting a theft!”

  The clerk wilted slightly as he protested. “But I wouldn’t dream of lying to you, sir, and the management will be most distressed about this unfortunate occurrence. The man said you had sent him for the packet and produced your signature, otherwise I should never have given it to him. He was a big man, very strong, I should say, but rather fat. He had fair hair, cut like a brush in front.”

  “A German?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir, but he spoke to me in English and I thought he might be Scandinavian or Dutch. He had a heavy, pasty face, spoke in a shrill voice and was wearing a black patch over his left eye.