Flora Mackintosh and The Hungarian Affair

by Anna Reader

  It seemed to Flora that the next minute unfurled itself in slow motion. Seeing Hans raise his gun, she seized Alice by the hand and threw her weight backwards, tipping their chairs so that their feet flew up into the air and their bodies hurtled towards the hard floor. Just before she and Alice hit the stone, Flora saw another male figure leap through the open window of the café and roll across the ground, a gun in his hand. Three guns were fired almost simultaneously, and Flora felt the air knocked from her lungs. Her right foot was twisted by an unknown force as it hung suspended in the air. And then there was silence.

  “Flora!”

  “Bertie?” she asked, trying to catch her breath as her eyes focused on the swinging lamp in the centre of the white ceiling. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, it’s me, alright,” he confirmed, falling to his knees and looking into her face for signs of injury or concussion. “Are you hurt?”

  “Nothing but a few bruises,” she said, twisting around to check that Alice was unharmed. “All alright, Ali?”

  “Absolutely fine, my love,” Alice replied cheerfully, rubbing her hands as Teddy untied her from the chair.

  As Bertie peeled her from the floor and helped her onto her feet, Flora saw that the mysterious Hungarian was standing in front of her, staring at her face. The unimpeachable suaveness which had characterised the man during his encounter with the Germans had been tempered by a look of almost awkward anxiety – and the blue eyes which had seemed so hard were now full of concern. He was indeed remarkably handsome, but now looked rather more like a charismatic don than a cold-hearted spy.

  “Hallo, Uncle Antal,” Flora said in Hungarian, laughing and offering a hand.

  “Hello, Ana,” Antal said with a relieved smile, throwing his half-smoked cigarette to the ground before drawing her into a hug.

  As her head rested on her uncle’s shoulder, Flora noticed two things: first, that one of the Germans had apparently managed to shoot the heel from her very smart shoe; and secondly that Förster and his two minions were lying dead on the ground. “What happened?” she asked, taking a step back and looking at the three men standing before her.

  Antal, Bertie and Teddy exchanged glances, and very politely waited for one of the others to explain.

  “Do go ahead, sir,” Teddy said, looking at Antal. “After pulling off that top-notch disguise, you deserve the honours. Although, I must say that your front roll through the window was also extremely impressive,” Teddy added, turning to Bertie.

  “You’re too kind,” Bertie said, with a twitch of the lip. “After you, Mr Medveczky.”

  “Thank you gentlemen,” Antal said graciously, responding to the glint in Bertie’s eye with a smile of his own. “Well then - seconds after you and your friend threw yourselves backwards, Ana – and that was very quick thinking, by the way, well done you – Förster’s bullet caught your shoe, and mine found his heart. This young gentleman –whom I assume is my contact from the Agency?” Bertie nodded. “Well, his timing couldn’t have been better, I’m happy to say, and he managed to disarm Hans here before he could fire at your friend. And as for Claus….”

  “Yes…I can fill you in on that, if you like, sir,” Teddy replied with a rather rueful grin. “I’m afraid that I rather forgot myself in the heat of it all, and entirely cut off the poor chap’s air supply. He’d been limp for at least two or three minutes by the time you arrived,” he said, looking to Bertie. “I didn’t want to give the game away, of course, as his death would rather have taken the sting out of my threat to kill him, so I just sort of….propped him in place, if you know what I mean. In fact the heel of your shoe hit him on the forehead, Flor,” he added, “so in the end I was jolly glad to have kept him there. It looked to be extremely painful.”

  “Might I ask,” Bertie said, looking a touch nervously around the café, “where the painting is, Mr Medveczky? Do you have it safe?”

  “After a fashion,” Antal replied, quite cheerfully. “Now, I suggest that we get out of here before the police arrive. I know an excellent restaurant on the other side of town, and the proprietor is a friend. We shall be quite safe there.”

  TEN

  Before many minutes had passed, the group were gathered around a long wooden table in a dimly lit restaurant, drinking pálinka and eating sausage casserole. Teddy had flung a protective arm around Alice the moment they had left the café and had refused to move it since, and Bertie, who was sitting next to Flora, kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye, checking for as yet undiscovered injuries. She took this in remarkable good grace, but refused to be fussed over. Antal sat at the head of the table, his long legs stretched out in front of him as he smoked a cigar, looking at the people sitting before him with admiration.

  “My God, Ana,” Antal said, leaning forward to take his niece’s hand. “I needed someone I trusted to keep an eye on the painting until I could get it to London, but I never thought you would be in any danger.” He shook his head in dismay. “I suspected that my cover was under threat, but until I was given that final name in Paris I never imagined that the Germans would head to the castle, or embroil you in this – for all they knew, the list was with me. When I realised that I’d led you straight into harm’s way….”

  “It's quite alright, really," Flora said, squeezing her uncle’s hand, "I was only loafing about at school, and I'm so pleased you entrusted me with it. The final name, though,” Flora asked, a wrinkle appearing on her clear forehead, “what do you mean? What does the list have to do with it?”

  Uncle Antal released his niece’s hand, and sat back in his chair, tapping his cigar against the side of the ashtray. “You have a Miss Baxter teaching at your school?”

  Alice and Flora both nodded slowly.

  Antal put the cigar back between his lips and in a cloud of smoke, declared, “Hers was the last name.”

  Alice gasped, Flora swore in Hungarian, and Teddy’s eyes boggled.

  “Indeed. According to my French contact Miss Baxter’s fiancé was killed at the Somme, sending her quite mad with grief. She blamed the British government for her loss and in the early 20’s became associated with a small group of foreign nationals hell bent on bringing England to its knees.

  Eventually the Nazi party got wind of this faction – the Crimson Tide, they call themselves – and Miss Honoria Baxter was recruited to Hitler’s cause. She’s been operating under a number of different code names, and working in Westminster as a secretary during the school holidays – enabling her to feed information back to Berlin, whilst maintaining her cover as a respectable Housemistress at your school.”

  “Miss Baxter was with me when I received your telegram,” Flora said, blanching slightly. “She only joined the School last year, so it makes sense. No wonder Förster was on to us so quickly, Bertie.”

  “Well,” Alice said in a state of advanced indignation. “The number of times I said there was something fundamentally wrong with that woman. I do wish parents were more receptive when one tells them that one's Housemistress is unbalanced - it's all very well saying that every child thinks their teachers are vile, but when one of them actually forces fourth formers to recite Thus Spoke Zarathustra during the inter-house singing competition, when everyone else is doing Gershwin...”

  Flora helped herself to one of Bertie’s cigarettes. “It certainly explains a great deal,” she observed, maintaining an admirable degree of calm.

  “She’s a bally lunatic,” Teddy added, eying the bottle of pálinka with some interest. “Do you know that she took a pot-shot at Guss Fenton-Digby when she found him clambering over the Girls’ School wall after a nocturnal visit to his young lady? Very nearly put a bullet in his backside the day before he was due to lead the first eleven out against Marlborough. Quite mad.”

  “Well, this should draw her reign of terror to an end,” Bertie observed. “And what about you, sir?” he asked, handing the bottle to Teddy and looking across at Antal, “How did you end up here? Flora was quite convinced that
you were dead.”

  “Your telegram definitely used the word “curtains,”” Flora confirmed, raising the glass to her lips and thoughtfully appraising her uncle.

  “Yes, well it very nearly was,” Antal said frankly. He rested his cigar in the ash-tray next to his arm, and leant back in his chair. “It began about a month ago, just after I’d made contact with London to let them know that I was coming in. The list was almost complete, you see, but as soon as I made that call I suspected something was wrong; an instinct, honed over the years...”

  “We’re investigating the possibility of an internal leak, sir,” Bertie said gravely. “I fear someone in my office destroyed your cover.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if that turned out to be the case,” Antal replied calmly. “I’ve heard whisperings of something of the sort going on in London for months. Your employers need to handle that particular issue before anyone gets hurt. As it was, I managed to contain the problem.”

  “So why the message to me?” Flora asked. “If you knew the game was up, why send it?”

  “Because there was one last name to secure before I could deliver the list, Ana,” he replied. “And the last person I thought they’d be on to was a schoolgirl.

  I knew I had to get to Paris to meet the person I hoped would be able to give me the final piece to the puzzle. I also knew that there was a jolly good chance that Förster’s men would find me before I made contact with my informant, so I left a draft of my telegram at the hotel and told them to send it to you if I hadn’t returned by six o’clock the following morning. As it was, I was able to get the information I needed just in time, and before the Germans opened fire. I was not, however, in a position to halt the telegram.”

  “What happened, sir?” Teddy asked.

  Again Uncle Antal put the cigar between his lips, his words carried forth on a wave of smoke. “My contact and I met at Notre Dame, as planned. Just as she was giving me Miss Baxter’s name, two men emerged from the shadows and opened fire. My contact was killed instantly, and I flung myself backwards into the Seine, as though I had too been shot. It was so damnably cold in that river that I very nearly froze to death – however, I was able to climb out unseen on the opposite bank, and managed to track the two Germans back to their own hotel.”

  Uncle Antal paused as the waiter carried another bottle of palinka to the table, and waited until everyone had a full glass. “I spent the next few days trailing the Germans,” he continued, “to try to ascertain their next move. I was posing as a waiter at a café on the Champs-Élysées the day before yesterday when I overheard them discussing Miss Baxter. They were laughing about the fact that I’d died before joining the dots – in other words, before I had had a chance to discover that one of their moles was a Housemistress at your school, Anasztázia; no doubt put in post to keep an eye on you, in case I ever made contact. My God, when I realised that there was a chance Baxter could have intercepted my telegram….”

  Uncle Antal’s eyes grew dark at the memory, and his fingers curled around the glass in his hand.

  “There was absolutely nothing you could do,” Flora pointed out to him. “Miss Baxter really is a pill.”

  Antal looked at her and smiled slightly. “I can quite imagine. Your father and I were both plagued by a particularly unpleasant teacher at school – and not even he turned out to be a fascist spy. As far as I know, of course.”

  “And how did you end up here, sir?” Teddy asked. “Did you know Flora would be at the castle?”

  “I hoped she would,” he replied. “My options, you see, were sadly limited - if I tried to make contact with London to ask them to protect Anasztazia then I risked revealing my position and hers to the double-agent within your agency, Bertie. I therefore concluded that the most effective solution would be to continue to shadow the Germans, find out what they knew, and, as it turned out, follow them to Hungary.”

  “In the meantime, of course,” Bertie interjected, “I had found Flora, and brought her to Szentendre in the Cynthia-Rose. Where Förster was waiting for us.”

  “Baxter must have put him on the scent,” Alice interjected. “Fiend.”

  “Which means I did put you into danger as soon as I sent that damned message,” Antal said bitterly. “What a fool.”

  “It was really the Germans who were in danger,” Bertie said, smiling broadly. “Flora shot Förster during our first encounter with him, sir – she kept her head throughout all of it, and never once showed a hint of fear. Of course I tried to run resistance, to keep her as safe as possible. Which seemed to work rather well, until I was called away to Austria.” Bertie looked murderously down at the sausage casserole.

  “You weren’t away very long, Bertie,” Flora observed. “What was it all about?”

  “Absolutely nothing, I’m afraid,” he replied after a moment. “Bad information - no doubt intended to get me out of the way long enough to enable Förster to get his hands on that painting. I distrusted the tip-off at once, of course, but if I hadn’t gone then I would have been disobeying a direct order and risking ejection from the agency.”

  “I think it’d be best if you didn’t radio in to your team for a little while,” Antal observed. “At least until we get the painting safely to London.”

  “I agree,” Bertie replied, nodding slowly. “I’ve already disabled the radio on the Cynthia-Rose, and intend to stay dark until this is over.”

  “I still don’t understand how you ended up in the café, sir,” Teddy asked. “How did you know that that’s where Flora would be?”

  “I didn’t,” Antal replied, grimacing slightly. “But I knew that that was the agreed rendezvous for the Germans – and that if they managed to get the painting away from Flora, this is where they would be heading. It was an impossible decision, Ana,” he said, looking over at his niece. “I couldn’t bear the idea of anything happening to you, but neither could I let that painting get back to Germany.”

  “Really, there’s no need to explain,” Flora replied. “I just feel awful that I let Förster take the painting from me.” She tried a small smile. “Rather a poor show from me in the end, as it turns out.”

  “Ana,” Antal cried, taking her by the hand, “if it hadn’t been for you and your friends, Förster would have taken that painting to Berlin days ago. What you did brought us precious time – I never expected you to protect it indefinitely. Just long enough to give me a chance to find a solution. And now,” he added, “I have it safe.”

  “What!” Alice cried. “We didn’t see it in the café – I assumed Förster had managed to palm it off on one of his lackeys!”

  “Precisely, my dear,” Antal replied. “As far as Förster was concerned, he handed the frame over to one Lieutenant Gruber.” There was the sound of clattering on the stone stairs. “I imagine this is him now.”

  A German officer suddenly burst into the room, the painting clutched to his chest.

  “Don’t shoot!” Antal commanded, as Bertie raised his pistol and Teddy seized the silver salt- cellar in front of him, determined to put his bowling prowess to good use.

  “You must leave immediately,” the man said in Hungarian, pressing the painting into Antal’s hands and moving swiftly to the back of the room. “German support has arrived, and they’re tearing the town apart in search of you.” As he spoke, the young man disappeared behind a mountain of vegetables and flung open a small, dark door concealed in the wall.

  “This is Péter,” Antal explained, walking quickly towards the hidden passage-way. “He’s been posing as a German soldier for the past year.”

  If Flora, Bertie, Alice and Teddy were surprised, they didn’t show it. Instead they rose from their seats, and quickly following Antal’s lead.

  “The passage passes through the cellars, under the streets,” Péter explained. “It will take you to Imre’s shop on the edge of town, and from there you can make your way across the fields. Go, quickly.”

  “Thank you, my friend,” Antal
said, shaking Péter’s hand before plunging into the darkness. Bertie plucked a torch from his pocket and handed it to Flora, who took Alice’s hand and followed her uncle. Teddy brought up the rear, still clutching the salt- cellar and wearing a grim expression. Péter closed the door behind them - apart from the ray of light emanating from the torch, they were now in total darkness.

  The group made their way silently through the dank passage-way, trying to ignore the sound of scuttling rodents and the bone-chilling coldness of the wet stone walls.

  “Anasztázia,” Antal said quietly, “when we reach the end of the passage, you go with Bertie. I need the pair of you to get that frame to London.”

  “The Cynthia-Rose isn’t far, sir,” Bertie said. “I give you my word that I’ll get Flora home safely.”

  “What about you,” Flora asked, raising her hand in the half-light to rest it on her uncle’s shoulder, “where will you go?”

  “My car is just across the fields, sir,” Teddy interjected. “There’d be plenty of room, if we could be of any assistance?”

  “Yes, do come with us,” Alice added, very taken with the idea of helping her friend’s extraordinary relation escape the Germans. “The car is positively laden with wine, and we’d be more than happy to take you anywhere you might want to go.”

  “You are both very kind,” Antal replied, permitting himself a brief laugh, “and I must say that your offer is a welcome one. Were you intending to head back to England?”

  “I have a spot of business in Burgundy, sir – I’ve promised to pick up a case or two of vino for a chum back in Oxford, you see – but yes, after that we intend to venture back across the Channel. Alice should be back at school before too long, and I’ve got Collections to think about.” Teddy blanched – in the face of Nazi hostility he had remained resolutely courageous, however the thought of his impending exams filled him with a sense of doom. Failure seemed imminent, and Pa Fortesque was unlikely to take it well.