‘But, of course,’ she smiled, ‘that was my father. He would be about the same age as you.’
‘By jove now! Is he …’ Sir Pellinore hesitated.
She shook her head. ‘No, he was killed on the Russian front in the early days of the war.’
Sir Pellinore nodded sadly. ‘That damnable war. It robbed me of my only son and countless dear fellows of both our generations. As I watched them go under one by one I thought that I would not have a single friend left in the world by the time it was over.’
Gregory tactfully turned the conversation to the ordering of the meal and then said quietly: ‘Mademoiselle Szenty tells me that she is now in business.’
‘Indeed?’ Sir Pellinore looked up. ‘Well, most of us have had to come to it, and perhaps that’s not a bad thing in a way, but I hope the estates still remain in your family my dear. That beautiful old castle upon the River Theiss which I remember well. I went out to stay there once with the Count, your father, for the shooting. You have the finest partridge shooting in the world in Hungary.’
‘But how interesting,’ she smiled, ‘that you should know Schloss Scány. When were you there?’
‘Nineteen seven, no nineteen eight it must have been, I think.’
‘Ah, that was before I was born, so you would not have seen me, even as a baby. I remember it well, of course, although we had to leave it when I was nine.’
‘You have lost it then?’
‘Yes. All our money went in the deflation and for a little time my mother and I were almost paupers living in a back street in Pest.’
‘Your luck’s turned since though I gather.’ Gregory smiled. ‘How did you come to go into business?’
‘It was through an old friend of my mother’s. The man whom you saw me with at Deauville. He is very rich and very generous. He was in Budapest in 1922 and he took us from the slum where we were living, gave my mother a very nice allowance, and sent me to France and England to be educated. We owe him everything, and when he offered me a position in a French firm in which he was interested, a few years ago, I was very happy to take it.’
Gregory nodded. Philanthropist seemed a strange role for Lord Gavin Fortescue but obviously the man had his reasons for displaying this unusual generosity. Even at the age of twelve or thirteen, Gregory thought, Sabine must have displayed promise of unusual beauty. Lord Gavin had evidently decided to invest a fraction of his surplus millions in tying the mother and daughter to him by bonds of gratitude with the idea that the girl would prove useful to him later on. Doubtless it was true that she had been glad to accept a well-paid job in this Paris firm which Lord Gavin had acquired, with his usual far-sightedness, in preparation for his vast smuggling campaign; probably soon after England went off gold and brought in Protection. Later, of course, she would have found out that the business was not all it appeared at first sight but her position would have made it practically impossible for her to quarrel with her benefactor.
‘Is your mother still alive?’ he asked after a moment.
She nodded. ‘Yes, and she lives now, not as in her youth of course, with a great household, but in every comfort. While I was at school and finishing she had quite a pleasant little apartment in Buda, but since I have been in business, and my salary is a very generous one, I have been able to rent a nice house with a pretty garden for her just outside the city.’
Gregory saw that his surmise had been correct. If Sabine quarrelled with Lord Gavin now her fine salary would cease immediately and the old lady, who doubtless adored her creature comforts, would be faced with poverty again.
The lunch proved a cheerful and successful meal. Just before it was over Gregory smiled into Sabine’s eyes and said: ‘Now, what for the afternoon? How would you like me to motor you down to Hampton Court or somewhere where we could have tea on the river?’
‘I am sorry,’ she said gravely, ‘but that is quite impossible. I have my business to attend to. A buyer from one of the big Kensington stores meets me at the Royal Palace Hotel at half past three.’
‘Put him off; like you did the other fellow.’
‘No, I cannot. It is the same man. When I telephoned before lunch I made this new appointment.’
‘How about tonight. Will you dine with me?’
‘No. Unfortunately I am engaged once more.’
‘Tomorrow then?’
‘I return to France. This is a flying visit only.’
Gregory suppressed a grin, knowing that it was probably a flying visit in more senses than one. ‘But I can’t let you go so soon,’ he protested. ‘How about tea after you’ve seen this fellow?’
‘Yes. That I can manage—if you wish.’
‘Fine. I’ll run you down to the Royal Palace then and pick you up afterwards. Say four o’clock—how would that do?’
‘Nicely, I t’ink. My business should not take more than half an hour.’
They sat over their liqueurs for a little, then Sir Pellinore expressed his intention of leaving them, yet from his excuses made them both believe that he did it with regret.
As they thanked him for the meal he took Sabine’s hand and said with unusual seriousness: ‘My dear, as an old friend of your father’s I want you to extend the privilege of your friendship to me too. I live at number 64 Carlton House Terrace. Any time you are in England my house and my servants are entirely at your disposal so please do not hesitate to ring me up, either day or night, if I can be of any service to you.’
A warm smile lit her limpid eyes. ‘Such hospitality makes me think of Hungary. I mean, not all English people are so very kind to strangers.’
‘That is true I fear. Nevertheless we can prove good friends on occasion. Strangers here sometimes have little difficulties with the authorities and I am in the fortunate position of being able to smooth such things over.’
‘I will not forget, Sir Pellinore,’ she promised, and a few moments later she was seated beside Gregory in a taxi on the way to Kensington.
He dropped her at the hotel and took the taxi on to his rooms in Gloucester Road. There he pressed a five pound note into Rudd’s hand and told him to go out and buy flowers, fruit, cakes and all things requisite to entertain a lady. ‘And if you give away by so much as a blink of an eyelid that you’ve ever seen her before I’ll wring your neck my lad,’ he ended gaily.
‘It ain’t the popsy we seen with old monkey-face in that car on the Calais road, is it sir?’ Rudd asked with quick interest.
‘It is, my boy, and you’ll kindly refrain from referring to her as a popsy, unless you want to take a journey in a hearse.’
‘No offence, sir, but my! Ain’t you the lucky one, and no bloomin’ error. Think she’d like eclairs for ‘er tea?’
‘Yes, eclairs and lots of other things. Go on now, get out and buy them. We’ll be back in half an hour.’
Gregory cast a hasty glance round the comfortable book-lined room, straightened the cushions on the settee quite unnecessarily, and then dashed out to get his car.
By four o’clock he was back again in it, outside the Royal Palace, ready to pick up Sabine.
She did not keep him waiting long and soon appeared with a short tubby little man to whom she said good-bye on the pavement. Gregory studied his face carefully and felt quite sure that he would know him again; but the chances were that the fellow was some quite innocent buyer who had no idea whatsoever that he had just been purchasing a line of contraband.
As soon as Sabine was in the car Gregory let in the clutch and headed west but a few hundred yards farther on he turned it, dexterously avoiding an omnibus, and shot down Gloucester Road.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked, ‘or is this a better way to avoid the traffic before we reach again the West End?’
‘I propose to give you tea in my rooms,’ he smiled. ‘Any objection?’
She hesitated. ‘Is it your custom to take a lady to your apartment on so brief an acquaintance?’
He laughed. ‘No, but ours is hardly
an ordinary acquaintance. After all, we shared a bedroom and bathroom for the night in Deauville, didn’t we, so surely you’re not going to kick at having tea in my sitting-room. We’ll be more comfortable there than in the crowded lounge of some hotel.’
‘Perhaps, but did you not warn me that when that night was over you would become the Big Bad Wolf? And now it seems you propose to take me to your cave.’
‘Here it is,’ he said, pulling up, ‘and it’s a very nice cave although it doesn’t look much from the outside.’
Sabine got out and stared for a moment at the grimy three-storey house, one of a block of twenty or more, with its little grocery shop on the ground floor abutting on the side-walk. ‘You live here—no!’ she said in considerable surprise.
‘Yes. Funny-looking place, isn’t it, but my soldier servant who went all through the War with me, and saved my life more than once, owns it. His wife left it to him and this little bit of property is about the only thing he’s got. I occupy the first floor and pay my rent regularly, which is more than most of the other tenants do, as they’re poor students studying at the university round the corner. If I cleared out the poor chap might go broke and have to sell the place. That’s why I stay on.’
She regarded him doubtfully for a moment and then she smiled. ‘I pay you a great compliment, for I do not t’ink that I would go into such a place with any other man that I had known only for so short a time but, you see, I trust you.’
He opened the side door with his key and as she preceded him up the rickety stairs he thought, ‘She trusts me, and I’m spying on her, ferreting out her affairs. What a rotten swine I am when one comes to think of it, but it’s that devil Gavin Fortescue we’re up against and we’ve got to save the country from unprincipled blackguards like him. I’m only using her as a stalking horse, after all, and somehow or other I’ll have to get her out of it when the crash does come, else I’ll never be able to look at myself in my shaving mirror any more.’
‘But how lovely!’ Sabine exclaimed as he threw open the door of his sitting-room and showed her in. The room was unexpectedly cheerful after the blackened exterior of the house and Rudd had done his duty nobly at the florists by spending lavishly on flowers.
Gregory guided her to the settee, stacked cushions round her and threw one at her feet. ‘A cigarette,’ he laughed, proffering an onyx box, ‘then tea.’
They had hardly settled down when Rudd came in wheeling a dumb waiter with half the contents of a baker’s shop spread out upon it.
‘Mon dieu!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you expect me to eat all this—or have you a party of twenty people coming?’
‘No, it’s just Rudd,’ he laughed. ‘Rudd’s fond of cakes and he gets all the ones that we can’t eat.’
‘ ‘Arternoon, Miss,’ Rudd said with a sheepish grin. ‘You won’t take too much notice of Mr. Gregory, I hope. He’s always been a one what likes a leg pull.’
She smiled up at him, pulling off her hat and throwing it carelessly on to a chair. ‘But you are a genius, Mr. Rudd, to provide so heavenly a tea. Look now at those eclairs. I am greedy for eclairs always and shall not leave you a single one.’
Rudd almost blushed with pleasure. ‘That’s the way, Miss, It’s a real pleasure to find for a lady what likes it when you do your best.’ He backed out of the doorway with a smile.
‘I understand now why you live here,’ Sabine said, nipping off the end of one of the eclairs with her small white teeth. ‘He is a character, that one, and I would bet, your devoted servant as well.’
Gregory nodded. ‘Yes, he’s one of the very best and I’m a stupid sentimental fool but I’d go through hell to pull him out of a hole.’
‘I believe that. You persuade yourself always that you are hard, hard as iron nails, yet for your friends you are, I think, supremely good.’
He looked at her for a moment searchingly. ‘And do you count me a friend of yours, Sabine?’
‘Yes. You are my friend, although why I do not know.’
‘Do we ever know these things?’ He shrugged. ‘Does it matter. We’re a short time living and a long time dead. Believe me, I am your friend and that’s why I wish to God you were out of all this.’
‘By this—you mean what?’ Her eyes clouded quickly.
‘I don’t know,’ he lied, ‘only that you’re mixed up in some way with a pretty nasty crowd. You’ll remember, no doubt, that the last time we were together, and I left you to get my car in the Guillaume le Conquérant at Dives I was unavoidably detained; so I was unable to run you back to Deauville after all or even send you my apologies. I suppose you know what happened to me?’
Sabine began to giggle; then she suddenly lay back and gave way to a fit of helpless laughter.
‘Go on! Laugh away,’ Gregory chid her in mock anger, ‘but it was devilish painful at the time.’
‘Forgive me,’ she sighed, struggling to regain her breath. ‘Of course I know and I was miserable until I learned that no serious harm had been done you. The Big Bad Wolf walked into the Tiger’s den and got more than he bargained for—n’est pas?’
Gregory shrugged. ‘I’m not grumbling. Your elderly friend sent me a note to the Normandie saying that he’d make trouble for me if I didn’t send you back to him immediately after breakfast. And I know you had no hand in it because you warned me to keep an eye open for the Limper when you spotted him in the hotel courtyard. I asked for it and I got it—that’s all. What does worry me though is to know that you’re associated with people who’d go to the length of staging a criminal attack when their wishes are thwarted. There was that assault on the young Scotland Yard man in Trouville the night before, too, you’ll remember. As for the man you call your friend, I don’t mind telling you now, that I recognised him the second I set eyes on him. It’s Lord Gavin Fortescue, and I happen to know that he’s unfit for any decent person to touch with a barge pole.’
Sabine shook back her dark curls. ‘It is he who has been so good to my mother and myself. But for him I would be perhaps a girl in a dress shop or in some Budapest nacht lokal.’
‘Maybe, but from now on I want you to watch your step. I’ve no idea how closely you’re connected with him in business but, whatever he may have done for you, don’t let him involve you more than you can help in his own affairs else ill may come of it.’
She shrugged. ‘He is kind and generous.’
‘I know, I know,’ Gregory muttered resignedly, well aware that he was trying to lock the stable door after the horse had escaped. ‘But time will show, and it worries me stiff to think he may involve you in some ghastly trouble.’
‘Sufficient unto the day of the evil thereof,’ she quoted solemnly, armoured in the belief that neither Gregory nor the police yet knew anything that really mattered about her secret business.
It was after tea had been cleared away, and Gregory was hunting in the shelves behind the settee for a copy of a book of which they had been talking, when she said suddenly: ‘Big Bad Wolf, come here.’
He turned and came up behind her. ‘What is it?’
Suddenly she stretched up her arms towards him. ‘I like you, Gregory,’ she said. ‘You are just my idea of what a man should be; very unconventional, very brave.’
Her arms closed behind his bent head and she drew his face down to hers. Gregory’s heart pounded in his chest as it had not done for a dozen years. His hands, trembling slightly, cupped themselves round her cheeks and his mouth fastened on her soft lips with all the pent-up hunger that was in him.
12
One Up to Gerry Wells
It was over an hour later when Gregory committed one of the biggest blunders he had ever made in his life.
He knew little of Sabine, except that she was enchantingly lovely, possessed a gaiety which matched his own, and that a mutual passion had swept them off their feet; so his error was, perhaps, excusable. It was only natural that, after the wonderful hour they had spent together, he should be more desperately anxious than ever t
o save her from the danger which menaced her as an associate of Gavin Fortescue.
There was no question of her guilt. He knew, and what was far worse Inspector Wells knew, that she was up to her eyebrows in the smuggling racket. She must be perfectly well aware that she was laying herself open to the severest penalties if she continued her criminal activities and, now that the police had their teeth into the business, Gregory saw with appalling clarity that it could only be a matter of time before she was arrested.
Once she was charged in a court of law there could only be one verdict upon the evidence which would be submitted. The fact that she was a young and lovely woman might gain her the sympathy of the jury, but leniency was not their province and, however reluctant they might be to do so, they would have to find her ‘guilty’. The judge would certainly not allow a plea that Gavin Fortescue had been a benefactor to her and her mother as sufficient excuse for becoming a member of his criminal organisation and would pass sentence upon her.
The thought of her as a female convict, in rough clothes, serving a sentence among thieves, prostitutes, and child-beaters, was absolutely unbearable to Gregory and momentarily it overbalanced his usual astute judgment of the best way in which to handle a situation..
She did not show him by the flicker of an eyelid that he had blundered, but listened to all he said with grave attention and apparent gratitude; yet she would not commit herself to following the line of action he urged upon her, saying that she must have time to think it over.
Feeling he had gained ground, and that at least she would not commit herself further for the time being, he mixed some cocktails and asked what she intended to do that evening.
‘I do not know—now,’ she replied slowly.
‘Why not dine with me then?’ he suggested. We’ll forget all this until you’ve had time to sleep on it.’
To his immense relief she consented, and so it was agreed that she should take a taxi back to the Carlton while he changed into evening clothes, and that he should pick her up there at eight o’clock.
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