by John Creasey
A door was open. A wild-faced man ran out, with blood streaming down his face. He was gasping for breath, looking desperately in all directions. Behind him staggered a man in German uniform, a gun in his hand. Palfrey expected him to shoot.
But as the fellow came forward he faltered.
Palfrey saw that as something bit at his own eyes and nose and made him start coughing. Palfrey half turned. The man who had rushed from the room lost his footing and fell forward. The smell of gas – tear-gas, Palfrey thought wildly, as it bit at his eyes and nose and mouth, making him retch instead of cough.
He staggered towards the stairs and up a few steps. The others, including von Otten, were just behind him. He saw tears rolling down their faces, as they did down his. Then the door at the head of the stairs opened and men came rushing down. The Count’s party made their way to the upper floor and stood in the passage for a while, gasping, wiping their eyes.
It was five minutes before they had recovered sufficiently to talk, and Palfrey gasped: ‘What—what was that, Excellency?’
Von Otten had clung to his dignity in spite of the gas and a paroxysm of coughing. Red-eyed, and with tears streaming down his cheeks, he said hoarsely: ‘A prisoner broke out of his cell. There is only one way to get out safely—failure to exert pressure at a given spot always releases the gas when the door is opened. That applies to every cell.’ He coughed again as he hurried along the room where the desks were still occupied by busy men; only two or three troubled to glance at the party.
‘Come with me!’ said von Otten.
Still accompanied by a guard they went into a wash-room and bathed their eyes with tepid water. They washed, and after ten minutes Palfrey felt little the worse, although his eyes smarted and he was irritated by a little cough. Von Otten appeared to have recovered fully as he said sardonically: ‘No one has ever escaped from this building, and no one ever will.’
‘It is superb!’ exclaimed Conroy. ‘Gas, then, is placed in every cell. Every cell!’
‘It circulates throughout the prison as would hot water,’ said the Count, ‘and the dose is administered through a valve which operates when the doors are opened by unauthorised persons. There is not much we have not done, you see?’
And Palfrey thought: ‘Ridzer and Machez are here, and the Legion of the Lost.’
They reached the open air at last, and it was good to draw it down into their lungs.
Palfrey cleared his throat as they waited for a car to come up, and said: ‘Excellency, the Fräulein Berg is quite safe, I hope?’
‘Quite safe!’ said von Otten. ‘Had you been convicted of treachery I would, perhaps, have found the Fräulein a most interesting companion for a short while. She would doubtless have imagined that she was prising my secrets from me!’ He laughed, mirthlessly. ‘To reward you we shall go to my apartment and dine together,’ he said. ‘There you shall be joined by the Fräulein, and your minds shall be set at rest. You will not be going back to Kelstrasse,’ he added. ‘I shall lodge you in a more commodious apartment with the other delegates, and you will not find food so unappetising.’
‘That is good of your Excellency,’ said Palfrey, humbly.
But as they climbed into a car and were driven away under an escort of motor-cyclists again, he knew that it was the worst thing possible short of complete disaster.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
One Way Out?
The apartment was luxurious; beneath the block of flats – all of them occupied by some of von Otten’s officials and their families, and the delegates to the infamous conference – there was a commodious air-raid shelter.
There was no chance of safe contact with Stefan, and Palfrey did not want to see him except on a matter justifying the risk. There was little chance of getting to Attanstrasse and the headquarters of the organisation to which the club-footed youth had belonged. Even the prospect of von Lichner getting word to them seemed negligible.
The complete hopelessness of their position was made the more depressing by the series of lectures which, in company with delegates from the other countries, they listened to day by day – once in the morning, once in the early evening.
Rabid Nazis gave the lectures. All of the delegates – with, perhaps, one or two exceptions – had been ardent collaborationists and had taken part in reprisals and betrayals which would brand them for life. It was their life or that of their country, and they plumped for their own. Palfrey was sickened by the number of questions raised after the lectures, which went at length into every kind of mental and physical torture. It showed how the final move, if it were necessary, was to be put into effect.
Amongst the students was Hilde.
Palfrey wondered what passed through her mind when she sat and listened, rarely showing any expression. She did not once get to their apartment, although it was known that she was now staying in the same place – Palfrey wondered if she were in von Otten’s private rooms; he had been there only on the night of the dinner party.
She was quite as helpless as they were. Once, when Palfrey managed to speak to her, he asked her if she had seen Bohn. She said she had not, Bohn was away from the capital.
On the fourth day of their ‘new life,’ they gathered in a bedroom shared by the three men. It was the largest room of three, in a suite. Drusilla had the smallest room and the third was used as a lounge; they took all meals in a restaurant on the ground floor.
Drusilla, sitting in front of a dressing-table and running a comb through her hair, watched the reflection of the trio in the mirror. Conroy was scowling, Brian looked grimly out of the window, his hands clenched by his side.
Only Palfrey looked as if he were able to relax in any way.
Conroy said slowly, bitterly: ‘We can’t get at Stefan. We can’t get at our two prize specimens. We can’t do anything about the Legion—my oath, when I think of the men caught up in that hellhole it makes my blood boil! The only chance we’ve got is cutting and running with our tails between our legs, and if we do save our own precious skins, that’s as much as we can hope for. There’s nothing else we can do—just plain damn-all. And you know it!’
Palfrey said, tentatively: ‘I’m not so sure, Alex. The mind has been working gently—very gently, but with some assorted results. I often think of little Dross,’ said Palfrey. ‘He believes in miracles. Actually we don’t want a miracle, we want a well-conceived plan. What’s the secret of the impregnability of the Potsdamer Plate?’
‘About a hundred thousand tons of concrete,’ said Conroy.
‘Wrong. The secret is tear gas. It gets everywhere, it goes everywhere. The corridors, the upper rooms, the cells. Not bad. It could even be the Achilles heel. I mean, suppose—’ he coiled a few strands of hair about a forefinger and drew it taut from his head. ‘Supposing it weren’t tear gas? Supposing it were ether, or a narcotic of some kind, to induce sleep. We have stores available at this rendezvous and that. Some of the anti-Nazi Germans use it themselves, as I told you.’
‘Aw, heck, forget it!’ snapped Conroy. ‘Supposing you waved a wand and made them all fall down asleep, what then?’
‘It would be an interesting situation, to say the least,’ said Palfrey, musingly. ‘Whom can we rely on for help? Stefan—we can risk contact with him at Rendezvous 3, but it would only be justified if we thought we should be able to get results. The people at Attanstrasse, who are doubtfuls. Our own agents. Possibly—no more than possibly, von Lichner. No, we’re not alone. Develop the idea! If the guards and the prisoners are asleep, we can get in. If we have sufficient contacts in Berlin we can get most of the prisoners away and give them at least a chance to escape. We know exactly what to do if we get Ridzer and Machez, we should have a chance of getting off ourselves.’
‘There may be something to it,’ said Conroy, narrowing his eyes and looking at Palfrey steadily.
‘A possible way out,’ said Palfrey dreamily. ‘Perhaps the only way out.’ He smiled vaguely. ‘And we’re trusted, you know. We m
ay be watched but we’re trusted as much as anyone else here. I’m going to contact Stefan.’
Conroy said: ‘Why not one of us? And—’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Can we be sure that Stefan’s at large?’
‘If he’s been seen in Berlin, we shouldn’t be here like this,’ said Palfrey. ‘I’ll go out for a breather after the morning lecture,’ he added, ‘and see what I can do. Your job is to fob off our watch-dog.’
Chapter Thirty
Contact with Stefan
Palfrey walked along the wide stretch of the Adolf Hitler Platz. The sun was shining brightly down and what few Berliners were free to be out at twelve o’clock in the morning were hurrying past the closed-up shops and the blasted buildings which looked like gigantic, rotten teeth. He suddenly turned towards the road. There was room for many lines of traffic, but only four thin lines were moving, although in the distance there was the rattle of a bus. There were pedestrians on the side-walk, then barrows being pushed along, then cyclists, then horse-drawn vehicles.
A few large cars moved past swiftly, gone almost before they came in sight.
Two hundred yards behind them was the block of flats where they had lived for the past four days.
Palfrey moved casually towards the curb, then stepped between two cyclists and moved, much more swiftly than he appeared to, into the middle of the boulevard. He called something over his shoulders. Not far behind the others he saw the gross figure of Stolte, their watch-dog for that day. Stolte laboured up to the others, alarmed.
‘Where does he go?’ he demanded. ‘Where, please?’
‘He said he’d be back in a moment,’ said Drusilla.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Stolte, as if to reassure himself.
He gazed across the road but Palfrey was soon lost amongst the crowd on the far side-walk. Stolte licked his lips, then fell behind them, obviously uneasy but preferring to stay within sight of the others.
Palfrey stood and looked back when he felt at a safe distance; he was satisfied with what he saw. He quickened his pace along the boulevard, more eager than ever to start the wheels moving. The inertia which had settled on him was a thing of the past. The feeling of absolute helplessness was gone now that there was even a faint chance of decisive action. The stakes were high; he liked it that way, knew that the others felt the same.
Since he had first broached the idea there had been a new impetus to the adventure.
Von Otten had visited the great lecture-room and created a stir by the simple announcement that the delegates would return to their own countries the following Friday – in six days’ time. On the Friday morning they would attend a final lecture and receive their passports. Accommodation on trains would be booked to their destinations and they would be expected to show results soon after reaching home.
Six days, thought Palfrey; it had to be done by then. In one way he was glad, the waiting was becoming unbearable.
There were times when he wondered whether von Otten was playing a cat-and-mouse game, knowing what and who they were, waiting for the last moment. There would be justification for that; if he suspected their real identity he would also suspect them of having a plan of campaign, waiting only for the signal to start. That campaign would have to be governed by their contacts in Berlin.
Palfrey could imagine that von Otten would be prepared to give them ample rope, so that when he tightened it he would find the resident agents in his noose. There was no certainty of that, Palfrey knew, but the fact that none of the other delegates had been able to make contact with them – not even Hilde – although they appeared to mix freely enough with each other, made him suspect that they were being singled out for special treatment.
The waiting game could be played by both sides.
So there was an added zest and urgency in his mind as he walked along the pavement with the drab crowd. He saw fear in all of them – as well as weariness and dirtiness. Never in his life had he passed so many people from whom a stench emanated as if it were a natural odour. The lack of soap explained it; Palfrey wondered how important the lack of soap might prove in the final defeat of the Third Reich.
He thrust the irrelevancy aside.
Six days – would that give them time? Was Stefan free to move? They had to rely on him for their outside contacts, it would not be safe to evade Stolte or his stooge again.
Rendezvous 3 was a restaurant-cum-beer garden with a dilapidated appearance, one of the few remaining open. As he turned into it and saw the drab-faced, red-eyed Ber-liners eating their ersatz food he felt a flood of optimism. It was like being free again to be able to make direct contact with the Marquis’s own agent. The risk of being followed was forgotten, the fact that his presence might get the rendezvous raided and closed down did not enter his mind.
He sat at an empty table, and when an old, sad-looking man approached, asked for a Pilsener, a Berlin formula in the Marquis’s code.
The man stared at him.
‘We have none,’ he said, sadly. ‘We have had none for a very long time.’
‘When will you be having a supply?’ asked Palfrey.
He waited, knowing that the man’s response would tell him whether he was the right contact, saw the red-rimmed eyes widen, heard the soft answer: ‘When the gulls have gone away.’
And then, in whispers, although that was not surprising because most of the conversation there was in whispers, the familiar dialogue was repeated.
The old man nodded when he finished, going off and bringing Palfrey a tankard of ersatz beer. Palfrey sat sipping at it for half an hour. Most of the customers went out, new ones taking their places. Soon the old man beckoned him and he went out into the garden where a few tables, badly in need of paint, and some broken chairs added to its neglected appearance. Palfrey followed him to a summer-house as dilapidated as the rest of the garden, walking across long grass where once there had been trim lawns.
They stopped by the summer-house.
‘Have you a message for me?’ Palfrey asked.
‘Your friend will be calling at one-fifteen,’ he was told. ‘He comes at one-fifteen each day.’
‘Where shall I see him?’ asked Palfrey.
‘At the back of the summer-house,’ the old man said. ‘It is sheltered by trees and bushes and you cannot be seen. He will come through the garden. That is all?’
‘Thanks—all for now!’ said Palfrey.
He was in a fever of excitement as he waited, afraid that there might be some last-minute hitch to keep Stefan away. But at precisely one-fifteen he heard a faint movement nearby and saw the bushes stirring. Stefan stepped into sight, smiling, no whit different from when Palfrey had last seen him.
They gripped hands.
‘It has seemed a long time,’ said Stefan. ‘The others—they are all right?’
‘So far, yes,’ said Palfrey. He did not need to ask about Stefan, was anxious to get the subject under way so as to judge Stefan’s reaction. He talked at some length, his eyes lighting up when he found that Stefan had contrived to find out much about the prison and how it was safeguarded.
As he started to talk of the gas he felt a little absurd; in cold blood, and now that the freshness of the idea had gone, it seemed fantastic.
Stefan nodded gently when he finished.
‘I cannot see why not, Sap,’ he said at last, ‘but it will mean much organising. We shall need some time.’
‘Not too long,’ said Palfrey. ‘Five clear days.’ He explained why.
‘I do not see why not,’ said Stefan. ‘And I have news of some consequence, my friend. I have been in touch with the strong subversive organisation in Berlin. Its headquarters, if you please, are at Attanstrasse 8—not the little grocer’s shop where you first heard of it.’ His eyes were smiling. ‘I contrived to make contact through the old man here, he is no fool. They are in touch with the Marquis’s agents, too. We can rely on numbers, if the inducement is good enough.’
‘Will it be?’ asked Palfrey.
&n
bsp; ‘The breaking open of the most-hated prison in Berlin? Will it be!’ Stefan was almost gay. ‘We are not alone in knowing of the Legion! They will jump at the opportunity, my friend, have no fear of that! It will mean—’ he paused, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. ‘Enough men to overpower the guards outside and immediately inside, although once inside a charge of the gas will be enough. The most difficult thing will be to find the prison gas-storage plant beforehand, but there will, I should think, be ways of doing that. And replacing the gas with our own—Sap, it is a grand conception!’
‘Never mind that!’ said Palfrey urgently. ‘There isn’t a lot we can do our end, you will have to look after the arrangements outside. You think you can?’
‘I shall be surprised if I cannot,’ admitted Stefan. ‘Where are you staying now?’
Palfrey told him and gave him a brief outline of the conditions at the block of flats. Stefan nodded, apparently in no way surprised. Almost casually, he said: ‘Men and women will sink so low, Sap, but we know that! We also know that there are others, like Dross and Hilde, Pastor Martin and Olaf, Orleck and Carlson—names without number. But we will avenge those who are gone, my friend.’
Now for the final stage! ‘If we succeed—’ he smiled as if success could almost be taken for granted. ‘What then?’
Palfrey said: ‘The main problem, yes! How many are there in the prison? Several hundred people at least!’
‘We can hardly get them all out of Berlin,’ said Stefan. ‘It is unlikely that we shall be able to hide any large proportion of them, but—’ he shrugged. ‘If they have a chance, then we must leave it to them. We will help where we can.’
Palfrey said: ‘Is that good enough?’
‘Can we do better?’ countered Stefan. ‘Every agent, every sympathiser, will be alert. Can we do better?’