Codeword Golden Fleece (6 page)

De Richleau had intended to leave the following morning and go via Vienna, so that he could pick up Richard Eaton and Marie Lou, since he felt reasonably certain that they would have had no special warning that the danger was now so close at hand. Vienna, where he had spent so many happy times as a young man, was now a Nazi city, and it was imperative that the Eatons
should not get caught there; but Lucretia’s project forced him to change his plans.

Having considered the matter carefully, he took the first opportunity that offered after dinner to have a word with the Baroness. Knowing that it was hopeless to wait for her to be alone, he kept a watchful eye upon the corner of the salon where she held her court, until the officers who were exchanging witticisms with her excused themselves to join General Mack, leaving the faithful Count Ignac as her sole companion.

As de Richleau approached she smiled up at him and, patting the empty chair at her side, cried gaily: ‘Come and sit down, Duke. I have hardly seen you these last few days. You should be ashamed of yourself for neglecting me so.’

Taking her hand, he kissed it gallantly, then made a little foreign gesture of mock distress. ‘But it is you, Madame, who have neglected me. I am an old man, so how can I compete with all these handsome fellows whom you are now entertaining in your house?’

‘Nonsense, Duke,’ she protested, but her thin, clever face lit up at the compliment. ‘You are more handsome and distinguished looking than the lot of them.’

‘I wish I could believe you really thought that,’ he said half-seriously.

‘Be careful now,’ she warned him, with a swift, mocking glance from her small, black eyes, ‘or you will be making Ignac jealous.’

The Count’s face broke into a lazy smile. ‘I am told that you are far too good a shot to challenge, Duke, so I would have to console myself with the old saying that you have in England: “He who laughs last laughs longest.” In due course you will be leaving Poland, whereas I shall remain.’

‘It was of that which I intended to speak to Madame,’ said de Richleau with sudden seriousness. ‘Lucretia and I have enjoyed our stay at Lubieszow more than I can say, but I fear that we must start on our way homeward in a few days now.’

‘That is sad indeed.’ The Baroness’ ugly face took on an appropriate look, but he noted that she did not press him to stay on.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘I am most loth to go. The peace and beauty of Lubieszow have made an indelible impression upon me, and if only the troubles which threaten us all can be avoided I greatly hope that you will ask me to stay again.’

‘But of course. We should be enchanted. Lubieszow is at your disposal whenever you wish.’

‘You are too good,’ he smiled; ‘but if you mean that also to apply to the present I wonder if I may really take you at your word?’

Count Ignac could hardly conceal the suspicion which was dawning in his glance, but the Baroness said quietly: ‘Please go on, Duke.’

‘It is this way,’ de Richleau purred. ‘I had intended to go home via Vienna in order to pick up two friends of mine—a Mr. and Mrs Eaton, who are staying there; but I have so much enjoyed Lubieszow that, if it were at all possible, I would like them to see it too. I was wondering if it would be asking too much for you to extend your hospitality to them for the weekend, then we could all go home together via Warsaw.’

He saw her hesitation and, out of the corner of his eye, caught the swift, almost imperceptible, negative that Count Ignac flashed towards her by a sudden tightening of the muscles of his face. The Duke had known that they would be most unwilling to have additional strangers in the house while the conference was in progress, but he also knew that the Baroness was a snob; so, before she had time to reply, he went on smoothly:

‘She was a Princess de Blanqufort de Cantizanc Schulinoff before her marriage, and he is a Member of the British Parliament.’

The latter part of the statement was a flat lie, as not only had Richard never entered Parliament, he had never even stood for it, and everything to do with politics bored him to tears. But de Richleau was a wily man, and he felt certain that the chance of entertaining a British M.P. would intrigue the Baroness, even if extending hospitality to a Russian Princess did not.

As he expected, Count Ignac’s signals were ignored, and the Baroness smiled assent. ‘But of course, I should be delighted to put your friends up for the weekend, or for as long as they care to stay. Arrange it, please, Duke, and I shall look forward to their visit.’

‘A thousand thanks, Madame.’ He kissed her hand again. ‘If you will permit me I will go now and put through a call to Vienna.’

It was barely half past nine, and the Duke put in a personal call for Richard at Sacher’s Hotel, where he knew the Eatons would be staying. The exchange could give him no information
about delays, and, knowing that the lines must be greatly congested owing to the international crisis, he feared that he might not be able to get in touch with them that night; but at a quarter to eleven the call came through.

De Richleau wasted no time on idle pleasantries, in case he was prematurely cut off; but, having made certain that Richard realised who had rung him up, and could hear clearly, he went straight to the point.

‘Uncle has taken a turn for the worse, and we doubt if he’ll last over the weekend. He’s been——’

‘Uncle!’ muttered Richard, having not the faintest idea what the Duke was talking about.

‘Yes,’ de Richleau hurried on. ‘He’s been asking for you and Marie Lou, and if you want to make certain of seeing him again you had better do your utmost to join us here by tomorrow night. I’ve looked up Bradshaw, and there is a train leaving Vienna at twenty minutes past midnight. It will get you into Warsaw at nine-thirty tomorrow morning. I’ll make arrangements to have a car meet you at the station, which will bring you out to Lubieszow. Then we’ll all return to England together on Monday. Is that all right?’

As far as Richard was concerned it was anything but all right. He and Marie Lou had dined at ‘
Die Drei Hussaren
’ on
scampi
—those delicious Lilliputian river lobsters—cooked in cream, roast saddle of hare and
omelette au Kirsch
, washed down by a peach bola made from a bottle each of sparkling and still Hock; so they were feeling very well indeed and just going on to dance at Vienna’s most amusing ‘
Nacht Lokal
’—‘The Crooked Lantern’.

Only the discovery that he was a little short of money had caused him to stop at Sacher’s for more on their way to the night club, and it had been the merest fluke that he had been at the hotel
caisse
when the Duke’s call came through. He was not unnaturally annoyed at being asked to abandon his pleasant evening for a hasty packing and a rush for a night express on which he had not even had a chance to reserve sleepers, but since the international crisis over Danzig was now agitating everybody’s mind he had soon tumbled to what the Duke meant by ‘Uncle not being expected to last over the weekend’, and in any case such a summons from his old friend could not be ignored, so he replied at once:

‘Right oh! We’ll make the night train for Warsaw somehow.’

‘Good!’ said the Duke. ‘If there is any hitch over the car, hire one yourself and get out here as soon as you can. The place is spelt L-U-B-I-E-S-Z-O-W, and it is in the province of Polesie. See you tomorrow. Bless you both.’ Then, with a sigh of relief, he hung up the receiver.

The following day passed without episode. It was again a pleasant, sunny morning, and about half past ten the Lubieszow family and the Duke saw Lucretia and Jan off in his aeroplane, which, having circled twice, headed south for Cracow, where they planned to arrive in good time for lunch. General Mack’s people and the Germans were already in conference, and with a short break for lunch they kept at it until half past five.

De Richleau did a round of the stables with his host and spent the best part of the rest of the day listening to a variety of stations on the radio. He was by no means a wireless fan, since he maintained that casual listening, far from stimulating thought, dulled it, and he was mildly contemptuous of people who allowed themselves to become enslaved by its facile entertainment, instead of employing it deliberately on occasions when special concerts or items of real interest were being broadcast. But today he wanted to know how people all over Europe were reacting to the crisis, and to learn any hard news that was available.

As he spoke several languages with great fluency and could converse quite well in a number of others, he was able to switch from station to station as each news bulletin came on, and there was very little in them that he did not catch.

All that he heard confirmed his worst forebodings. The German propagandists had wrought themselves up to a fever pitch over Danzig. The Poles were hardly less belligerent in their determination not to give way. Italy was advocating Germany’s right to the Free City. The Czech and Austrian stations were muzzled, already harnessed by Dr. Goebbels’ propaganda machine. The rest were endeavouring to report the facts objectively, pleading for calmness, time, further arbitration; none of them openly daring to defy Hitler and use the only weapon they had—united opposition—which might have given him reason to pause.

The Duke remembered so well the 1914 crisis. If only Britain had told the Kaiser then that she meant to fight, should he invade France, instead of waiting until the German armies were already shooting and burning their way across Belgian soil, war would have been averted. But Britain made clear the position
she intended to take up—too late. It would be the same this time. If only the League States had had the courage to stand up to Hitler and tell him plainly: ‘If you attack Poland you must fight us all,’ unprepared as they were individually, he would not have dared to take on so many nations controlling among them the potential resources of half the world. But each was hoping to escape the
débâcle
, and de Richleau felt instinctively that humanity would do nothing to save itself. Only the purge of war could bring true vision and courageous statesmanship back to the pampered, effete democracies—and the sands of Time were fast running out.

About six o’clock he was listening with cynical despair to Radio Paris when he caught the sound of a motor horn. Switching off the wireless, he hurried outside and found, as he had hoped, that the car he had ordered in Warsaw early that morning to meet Richard and Marie Lou had just drawn up.

With a tired smile Richard climbed out. He was unshaven and a little bleary-eyed, but Marie Lou appeared to have survived the eighteen-hour journey somewhat better. Her small, beautifully proportioned figure was as neat as ever in smart travelling tweeds, and somehow she had managed to conceal the disorder of her chestnut hair under a round, flattish fur hat, which she wore over one ear at a rakish angle.

‘No need to ask if you had a good journey,’ laughed the Duke. ‘I can see you haven’t. I imagine it proved impossible to get sleepers at the last moment?’

‘You’re right there,’ Richard grunted. ‘We had to sit on the floor in the corridor most of the way, and were lucky to be able to do that. Half Vienna seemed to be wanting to get away on the trains last night.’

Marie Lou sighed. ‘We felt terribly guilty about taking places on the train at all. We shouldn’t even have been able to squeeze in if it hadn’t been for a gang of Nazi bullies who arrived on the platform about five minutes before the train was due to start. They went through every carriage and wherever they found Jews—men, women, or children—they flung them off. I shall never forget the faces of those poor people. It was probably their last chance to get out to Poland. Of course, we were allowed to travel because we are English, and those Nazi bullies couldn’t have been more polite, clicking their heels and saluting after they had examined our passports; and, as Richard said, if we hadn’t pushed into the corner from which an old Jewess had
been ejected, there were plenty of other Aryans behind us who would. But it was really pretty ghastly.’

‘I can imagine it,’ the Duke nodded. ‘Once war is declared, and the Nazis have to tighten their own belts, God help the Jews who are left inside the Reich! But come along! After a hot bath and a couple of cocktails you’ll both feel new people. I know the rooms you’ve been given, so I’ll take you straight up to them, then when you’re changed and rested I’ll present you to your hostess.’

Unlike the Duke, Richard was neither inquisitive nor suspicious by nature; in fact, so blind was he to everything which did not personally concern him that Marie Lou used sometimes to relate that for fun she had once walked him three times round the same London square before he woke up to the fact that they had twice passed the house to which she had asked him to accompany her. In consequence, the fact that war now appeared imminent seemed a perfectly adequate explanation for the urgent summons which had caused him to leave Vienna overnight, and it never even occurred to him that there might be anything odd about the house-party of which he had so unexpectedly become a member. He did notice vaguely at dinner that there seemed to be a somewhat undue preponderance of males, but his hostess left him little time to speculate on the reason for that.

De Richleau had warned him before dinner that, as an inducement to the Baroness to issue her invitation, he had falsely described him as an English M.P.; and now he required all his wits to avoid making a complete fool of himself as she cross-questioned him regarding the British political scene.

Both the Baroness and von Geisenheim, who was seated on her other side, knew far more about British politics than he did, yet both made the cardinal error of believing that British foreign policy was really controlled by the so-called ‘Cliveden set’, and that its members were so strongly anti-Communist that they would never allow Britain to become involved in a war against the Axis. Richard, who until then had believed that the ‘Cliveden set’ had some connection with professional bridge, heartily agreed with them as the easiest way out, and then managed to switch the conversation to personalities, for, although he took little interest in politics, he had a slight acquaintance with Lord Halifax, Lord Lloyd, Anthony Eden, Oliver Stanley, L. S. Amery, and a number of the younger Conservative members.