by John Creasey
‘It—it doesn’t make sense,’ said Brian, hotly. ‘Do you mean to say he’s listened to her and is allowing her to return to the continent? That she’s in Norway now! Back among those—’
‘We’ll meet her in Berlin,’ said Drusilla.
Palfrey took his pipe from his lips. The others looked towards him, as he said slowly: ‘Ye-ess. I can see why. Full of zeal, hating the Huns like the very devil, bursting to do something, ready to sacrifice everything, wanting revenge. Not nice in the Hildes of the world, but what can be done about it? He has a particular job for her to do, I suppose. Did he tell you?’
‘She’s a perfect Scandinavian type—or Aryan type,’ Drusilla said slowly. ‘You don’t need to be told that, but they’re getting together the nucleus of a new organisation for the Scandinavian countries in Berlin. And there are others, too—the meeting of delegates is concerned. They’ve been advertising for workers, offering extremely good terms. The Marquis wants to know what it’s about. Hilde’s joining the organisation and will make contact with us in Berlin with her first reports. She’s going as a Norwegian delegate. She’ll have more confidence, he says, if she sees someone whom she knows. The strange thing is—’
Drusilla paused; Palfrey nodded sagely.
‘The untried worker, yes! Not like the Marquis. And it may be enough to upset everything we’re doing, if she loses her head, or—’ he rubbed the back of his neck thought fully. ‘No reason why she should! He’s a fair judge of people, but I would have expected him to give her a month or two’s training first. She would have been satisfied with that.’ He smiled a little wryly at the memory of Hilde’s contempt for his efforts to persuade her that she would be better off in England. ‘The thing is, the Marquis doesn’t do anything with out reason, he always has a definite purpose. Not that of getting a spy into the organisation; that’s the excuse, not the reason. No doubt of that.’
Then Stefan arrived.
He had to bend almost double in the low-ceilinged room before squatting on a pouffe in one corner, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his calm eyes regarding Drusilla. Most of them, thought Palfrey, found it good to look at Drusilla. He smiled and bestirred himself; the message had not yet been sent to Trenborg about von Lichner. That had to be arranged; the fat Hans had to be warned.
He went downstairs to see Dross in the little room behind the shop. Dross promised to look after everything, including the message to the German authorities about von Lichner’s hiding-place.
‘If needs be he will be taken somewhere else to be found,’ said Dross. ‘We will do nothing to worsen the conditions at Trenborg.’
Palfrey eyed him sharply.
‘Are they bad already?’
‘Compared with some of the things that have happened even in Denmark, they are not,’ said Dross. ‘But there is, naturally, a great state of tension. A number of people have been arrested. This rule of fear is so damnable, Doctor! But you will not misunderstand me, I am sure. We have determined that everything we can do to hinder the German effort and to help the Allies will be done. I am quite sure that there could be no traitor in our midst of whose existence we were unaware. As I say, we shall make every possible arrangement to prevent a spreading of the unholy vengeance.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Palfrey. ‘How long can we safely stay with you?’
‘You are welcome for as long as you like,’ said Dross. ‘As for safety—you will be safer nowhere else.’ He smiled gently, Palfrey saw the glow come into his fine eyes. I know what you are thinking,’ Dross went on softly. ‘You are blaming yourself for what has happened in other places and what might happen here. You should not. There is no rancour in our hearts because of it.’
Awkwardly, Palfrey said: ‘I know.’
He felt very tired when he went upstairs. Conroy opened one eye from his somnolent position in the easy chair.
‘What about the next move, Sap?’ he demanded. ‘I don’t want to sleep on it.’
‘No,’ said Palfrey with a slow grimace. ‘You know, we’ve things to find out. How did von Lichner know as much as he did?’ He opened the sealed package, picking off the sealing-wax with his thumbnail.
The others crowded about him to read the orders, to see more forged passports and papers of authority. It was a sound principle, Palfrey admitted, not to know more than the bare outlines of the next assignment until the current one was finished. He ran through some coded notes, and others written in a shorthand which he was able to transcribe and decipher.
‘Confirmation that Ridzer and Machez are both in Berlin,’ he said. ‘We are—’ he paused, smiled, then added with a note of excitement: ‘We are a party of Swiss national dele gates to the conference in Berlin—the Swiss delegation! He has covered us well. Here are specimens of the signatures of the genuine party, a “history” of ourselves, and what we’ve been doing. The real delegation was held up by the Marquis’s agents; it’s been spirited away—’ he read more quickly, sensing the tension of the others. ‘We’ve the necessary passports coming, with our own photographs, nicely touched up, to make us safe from all but a rigid investigation. We’re to make contact with Hilde in Berlin, at the headquarters of the conference, which is being run by the Count von Otten. So we’re getting closer,’ he added gently, ‘von Otten comes into both things.’ He put the papers down and went on: ‘We’ll be all right in Berlin, accommodation has been arranged for us by the Nazis. Our trouble will be getting from here to Berlin. An odd way to travel there from Switzerland, but we’ll have to take a chance.’
They did not stay up much longer, but went into the attic-room where there were feather beds.
They had a little exercise the next day, going out, one at a time, after dark. During the day Palfrey talked with Dross about the missing men.
‘Too many have gone,’ Dross said, ‘but there is nothing we can do, Dr. Palfrey. Some, I believe, have gone to Berlin, but I will find out more if I can. One thing is certain—they have been taken away by order of the Count von Otten.’
It was on the second morning that Palfrey, shaving in the bathroom, heard a man enter the shop. He heard Dross’s wife speak, with a catch in her voice.
‘Peter, from Trenborg! He looks excited, he has been hurrying. Please God, it is not bad news!’
There were other sounds. Palfrey went on shaving but with an unsteady hand. He could hear a murmur of conversation and an occasional exclamation that might have been of dismay.
As he drew the razor across his chin for the last time he winced, then watched the blood welling up from a small cut. He looked at his hand; the fingers were trembling.
The voices went on in the large room, and downstairs. He forced himself to wash, dabbed at the cut ineffectually, then heard the sound for which he had been waiting.
The downstairs door opened, light footsteps sounded on the stairs. From the door of the bathroom he saw Dross.
Chapter Twenty
A Remarkable Fact
When the little chemist was half way up the stairs, Palfrey could contain himself no longer.
‘What is it?’ he called down. ‘What’s the news from Trenborg?’ His lips were stiff, articulation was difficult. It was not only that he was on edge for news from the fjord-side village; so much depended on what von Lichner had done, or tried to do. As Dross looked up at him a dozen thoughts ran through Palfrey’s mind, the most vivid of them that he had been an utter fool to place the slightest reliance in the German’s words.
Then Dross smiled.
Palfrey drew back a step in amazement. On the chemist’s lips was a smile of ineffable delight, a radiance which spread from his eyes and closed about Palfrey with a warm, exhilarating glow.
‘I hurried as much as I could,’ said Dross, ‘but my visitor was so excited with his good news that he could not get it all out quickly. All is well at Trenborg!’
‘Ah!’ said Palfrey. It was an anti-climax; he felt that he wanted to stand and grin inanely at the chemist. Then Dross reached the land
ing and Palfrey stirred himself, pushing open the door of the larger room.
Conroy, Brian and Stefan were seated at a small table, drinking passable coffee. Drusilla was standing by a tiny window and looking over the countryside. All of them looked at the newcomers, their conversation fading abruptly, their suspense obvious. But Dross’s smile and the expression on Palfrey’s face signified reassurance enough. Conroy pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet.
Palfrey glanced at Drusilla; her lips were parted and she looked breathless. Palfrey raised a hand towards her as Dross said softly: ‘Very good, my friends. It is a most remarkable thing, a miracle! And there are those who do not believe in the hand of the Lord!’ There was deep scorn in his voice, Palfrey was suddenly reminded of Brian and his Methodist parson. ‘All the men and boys in Trenborg were arrested,’ went on Dross, ‘and all the women between twenty-one and forty. They were to be taken into Fredericia for questioning—we all know what that means. And then—’ he paused and raised a hand towards the ceiling, his eyes glowed with the fervour of an apostle – ‘and then they were all released! No explanation was given, no explanation at all! One moment they were herded together in a small room, helpless and facing unknown horrors, the next they were free and on their way to their homes and families. There is much rejoicing in Trenborg, and rightly so. The Lord be praised!’ he cried. His voice rang through the long, low-ceilinged room and brought to them all a consciousness of his deep faith. ‘But I have neglected my guest downstairs. I must return to him. You see that you have good reasons for feeling secure here?’ He smiled at them again before going out and closing the door gently.
Palfrey said: ‘Von Lichner, of course. There isn’t any reasonable doubt. He may not be all-powerful, but he managed to pull some strings. Now we have to try to work out all the implications.’ He stepped to the winged armchair, sitting down and pulling out his pipe. ‘Who has ideas?’
‘We all have,’ said Conroy. ‘It was a good move to let the Baron go.’
‘It is beginning to look like it,’ said Stefan quietly. ‘But we cannot take it for granted. What do you think, Sap?’
Excited at first but gradually quietening down, the others talked – suggestions, theories and ideas passing to and fro, offered from one, returned by the other. Stefan said: ‘You’re not forgetting, Sap, that he made it clear that he could not guarantee that we would be unmolested? ‘
‘Hardly,’ said Palfrey. ‘But he has some influence. Well—’ he stood up and knocked out his pipe in a clay ash-tray. ‘We’ll start for Berlin tomorrow morning, and see what develops there. All right with you all?’
They basked in the knowledge of the rejoicings at Trenborg for the rest of the day and were thinking of going to bed when Dross, not for the first time, came upstairs. He looked thoughtful, more so than he had during the day – and he had a slim envelope in his right hand.
‘A message has been brought from London,’ said Dross quietly. ‘It has been delayed—it reached here last night but the man who should have brought it early this morning met with an accident. Do not think it has been interfered with,’ he added hastily. ‘I am concerned only in case the delay is of consequence.’
It was the first time since the morning that he or the others had been conscious of any tension. There was a regular system of messages coming to and from Wylen and other places, mostly by air, and he had no doubt of the authenticity of the message. When he opened it he saw that it was from the Marquis, in code. It was dated two days before; there was not a great deal of writing.
Dross stood by the open door and the others crowded about Palfrey. Laboriously he decoded the message, repeating it aloud:
‘There is no doubt at all that your presence on the continent is known, and that your next objective is suspected. We have uncovered a leakage of information here. I advise an immediate return to England, but will leave the final decision to you to judge from local circumstances. It is virtually certain that Machez and Ridzer are in Berlin.’
‘He must have learned of that just after I’d left,’ said Drusilla.
‘Yes,’ said Palfrey crisply. ‘It’s not good, but it’s what we knew already. No return just yet, I think. He doesn’t say that it’s known that we’ll be posing as Swiss nationals. He would have done so if he thought the fact had leaked through. If von Lichner obtained the information, it isn’t going to affect the issue much.’
Dross said: ‘Then it is not too bad, Dr. Palfrey?’
‘Bad enough,’ said Palfrey, ‘but we’ll risk a look at Berlin, I think.’
‘Berlin?’ murmured Dross gently. ‘Are you sure?’
Palfrey looked at him sharply, guessing that there was something else in the chemist’s mind. Dross, looking very thoughtful, hesitated before he went on: ‘Berlin, Doctor, might yield you much. There is a fine new prison, as the Germans like to call it, in the Potsdamer Platz. One of our villagers has just returned from a visit there. He observed some things of interest to you outside the new prison. For instance, several of our best-known citizens—and few are not known in Denmark by the people—have been taken to the prison. Our friend saw them. And, in consultation with others whom he met, he discovered that notable personalities from other countries have been taken there. A great influx of prisoners has been observed, amongst them have been M’sieu Lapyrie, of Paris, Mynheer van Doysen, of Holland, and others equally notable. You were asking where the missing men have gone, Doctor. I do not say that this is the solution of your problem but it looks to be highly significant.’
Dross left them, but words did not come easily. To learn that their ultimate objective might lie in the heart of Berlin was disturbing, for the odds against any useful work there were heavy. They discussed it desultorily, not altering their decision, but Dross’s information and the letter from the Marquis were very much on Palfrey’s mind that night. He did not sleep as well as he had been doing.
Nevertheless, he felt rested when he was called by Dross before dawn the next day.
Their arrangements for getting to Kolding – on the main line railway – had been completed, and they planned to be out of Wylen before dawn broke. They were soon on the outskirts of the village, where Dross shook hands in farewell, as the first grey light dawned in the eastern sky. It grew gradually brighter as they made their way through beech woods and across heather-clad country towards the town.
They had nothing in their pockets except their identification papers as Swiss nationals. They were all familiar with the signatures of the people whom they were impersonating; and each had learned by heart a brief history of their respective counterparts. Palfrey was chiefly concerned with the fact that it was an odd way of getting to Berlin from Switzerland, but travel in Germany was odd enough as it was in all conscience, and they were not likely to meet with serious trouble en route.
So Palfrey assured himself.
They reached Kolding with an hour to spare, although the train was already in and crowded. They split up into twos, leaving Stefan as the odd man out, and walked up and down in the hope of finding a seat. The train was going to Berlin and the platforms were crowded with people hoping to squeeze in or, alternatively, trusting that another train would be run before long. The only people allowed to see travellers off, Palfrey knew, were officials of the ‘Party’ and friends of the high military officers; the others were all would-be travellers.
They must catch the train which would get them into Berlin soon after dark – unless there had been a heavy raid on any town en route during the last night or two. He had heard of none from Dross, who had been fully informed through the medium of the B.B.C.
Palfrey and Drusilla reached the engine; it was pitted with bullet holes and several pieces of steel were broken off; the hurried repair work was obvious. Most of the doors of the carriages were broken, most of the windows boarded up.
The fireman and driver were on the footplates. The driver, a middle-aged man with a grizzled beard, ogled Drusilla.
Drusilla gav
e a half smile as she turned away with Palfrey.
‘A minute,’ said the driver in German, jumping down from the footplate. ‘A minute, Fräulein, a word in your ear!’ He winked at Palfrey. ‘There will be four more carriages coupled on the train just before it is due to leave. You will be wise to stay right at the end of the platform.’
‘That’s good of you!’ said Drusilla warmly.
‘You will have to use your elbows and feet to get a seat,’ said the driver ominously. ‘Be ready for a fight!’ He winked again at Palfrey and beamed upon Drusilla, then went back to his engine. Palfrey and Drusilla walked on, encountering Stefan on the way and passing on the news, then finding Conroy and Brian. They went to the extreme end of the platform, which was almost deserted. The crowds gathered about the barrier and the entrance hall, most of them carrying their belongings in bundles, not suitcases. A few higher officials with their batman were standing aloof from the rest.
Then, amongst the crowd, Palfrey saw a little child.
There was something familiar about her pinched face and bright eyes, and the neat ribbon which tied her fair hair. Her white frock, patched with many colours, was also hauntingly familiar. He knew that it was the child whom Dross had brought with him into the stubble field! What was her name? – Lissa, yes, Lissa.
She was alone.
She came towards them with a comically mature expression on her face, like a little old smooth-faced woman. Palfrey’s heart beat fast, he was afraid that she would recognise them and perhaps draw attention to them. As she drew nearer she started to skip along with light, lively movements which made it seem so unreal that Palfrey half turned.
Then she tripped and fell heavily.
She did not cry. Palfrey, nearest her, saw her look up with a strained expression; he bent down and helped her up.
She looked into his face, still silent, but there was a message in her eyes as clear as any spoken one. More than that; beneath her frail body was a small envelope. Palfrey tightened his lips, picked up the envelope and hid it in his hand as he helped Lissa to her feet. Drusilla joined him and began to dust down the child’s frock. There were two or three scratches on her knees, but she did not seem perturbed by them as she thanked Drusilla gravely and walked more sedately towards the crowd.