Come into my Parlour (12 page)

As Erika answered, she was wondering how best to prolong the conversation. She did not want to rush her fences in the matter of the secret form of warfare upon which they had been engaged, and any mention of the war might lead to that. On the other hand, there seemed little more to be said about the proposed divorce. Therefore, when her husband suddenly said to her: “Erika, you must be chilly after your walk, would you like some coffee?” she accepted at once.

Neither of the men made any move to rise and after a moment von Osterberg said: “Would you mind, Fritz?”

But the lanky Einholtz laughed and shook his head. “No, Kurt, not tonight. My coffee is not good enough for the
Frau Gräfin
. Yours is always so much better. She will have cause to thank me, I know, if I leave it to you.”

With a shrug of apparent good-nature, the Count got up and left them. For a few seconds they were silent, then Einholtz said:

“Did Kurt say anything in his letter to you of our reason for leaving Germany?”

“He implied that he disliked the work upon which he was engaged.” Erika replied cautiously. She was reluctant to admit what Kurt had said to any other German—even his assistant; and in any case, she did not wish to discuss the matter with Einholtz. She wanted to get Kurt on his own; but her companion was persistent.

“The possibilities of the thing upon which we were working were too horrible to contemplate,” he said. “I was Kurt's assistant, you know; so I was in it up to my neck, just as much as he was. When we realised where our experiments must finally lead us, it was too much. We talked it over and decided to make a bolt for it together rather than go on.”

“Really!” She raised her eyebrows. “Kurt didn't say much, but what little he did say, and the fact that he was in Switzerland, on the run from the Gestapo, made me think it must be something like that. Did you have much trouble in getting away?”

“Not much. We chose our time carefully and two days later arrived at Schloss Niederfels. Kurt felt certain he could trust the servants in his own home, and he was right. We felt, too, that that was the last place where the Nazis would look for us. After a little over a week there, we managed to get in touch with one of Kurt's old friends,
Freiherr
von Lottingen—”

“Willi von Lottingen,” murmured Erika. “Yes, I remember him well.”

Einholtz nodded his nearly bald head. “That's right. Then you may also remember that the
Freiherr
has property on the German side of the Bodensee, almost opposite us here. He arranged with his old steward to receive us at night and have us smuggled across in one of his boats.”

“I see. Of course, Schloss Niederfels can't be much more than sixty miles from the north side of the lake, so the last stage of your journey was quite a short one.”

He gave her a sharp look. “Did Kurt mention to you, then, the place at which we were working?”

“No. It was what you said just now that gave me the impression that you came from some more distant part of Germany.”

“
Ach so!
Well, yes, we had to come from right up in the north; but it was getting away from the experimental station that was the most risky part of the business.” For a few minutes he described to her the difficulties of evading the check-ups at the camp so as to secure a clear twelve hours' start before their absence would be discovered; then he began to shake his head again over the inhumanity of the method of warfare that the Nazis were preparing to wage.

Seeing that they were now properly launched, Erika asked as casually as she could: “What was this frightful thing upon which you were working?”

“A new gas,” he replied, without hesitation. “A poison gas, lighter than air. That, perhaps, does not mean much to you,
Frau Gräfin
, but it would revolutionise chemical warfare. Of course, we have known how to make such gases for years, but the problems have always been:
(a)
to produce one from a chemical that is easily obtainable, and the use of which in great quantities would not interfere seriously with the manufacture of any other basic war industry;
(b)
to devise a method of making it quickly and cheaply;
(c)
to work out safety measures which would protect our own people from its deadly effects, both during manufacture and when used in battle.”

“But the British have taken tremendous precautions against gas,” she objected. “Unlike us, everyone there has a gas-mask.”

“Ah!” he sighed. “But their masks will not protect them against this new gas; and by the time they find an antidote to it, hundreds of thousands of them will have died most horribly. Their great cities will, overnight, become charnel houses. The dead will be too many for the survivors in the country districts to come in and bury. In a few months chaos and anarchy will result. Even if they do not sue for peace their powers of resistance will be so weakened that Hitler will be able to launch an invasion that would prove a walk-over.”

“There is an antidote, then?” she asked, thinking how right Sir Pellinore had been in his guess as to this new type of warfare upon which Kurt had been working.

“
Jawohl
, counter measures can always be devised against every new weapon; but that takes time. And however quickly the British scientists got to work, new masks, or attachments to the present ones, would have to be manufactured by the million. It would be months before everyone in Britain could be issued with them; and in the meantime, city after city will become a terrible festering sore filled with the dead and untended dying. It was the thought of that which proved too much for Kurt and myself.”

“It's too ghastly to think of,” she agreed. “But I suppose that if
the British had particulars of this new gas they could take precautions beforehand?”

As she was speaking von Osterberg came in, carrying the coffee.

Einholtz's eyes left her face, and he glanced quickly over his shoulder as though he had said too much and the Count would not approve of his talking so freely; but now they were on the subject Erika decided that she would not let it drop.

As her husband set the tray down beside her, she said: “Herr Einholtz has been telling me about your escape from Germany, Kurt, and the reason why you felt that you could not possibly go on with the terrible work they gave you to do there. I think you're both very brave to have risked your lives rather than go on, but I wonder if that is quite enough?”

“What do you mean by that?” asked von Osterberg.

“I mean that others will be going on where you left off. At least I suppose so?”

“Yes. We were only two in a team of twenty highly qualified scientists and scores of assistants.”

“Then, your having left, won't really make very much difference?”

“No,” he agreed, dully.

“So this ghastly thing will happen in a few months, or next year, anyway?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, do you two feel quite happy about simply having washed your hands of it? I mean,” she hesitated, “oughtn't you to do something to try to stop it?”

There was dead silence for a moment, then Einholtz said: “Are you suggesting that we should give such information as we have to the British?”

“Yes.” Erika leaned forward and began to speak very earnestly. “Please don't think that because I took refuge from the Nazis there that I want our country to lose the war. Holding nearly all Europe, as she does now, Germany is in a far stronger position than Britain. Surely if she is capable of winning she can do it without resorting to such an incredibly barbarous method of warfare. If we win that way, we Germans will be hated for ever afterwards. Every race in the world will be against us and, sooner or later, they'll all unite to destroy us.”

“I think you're right,” said von Osterberg suddenly. “Now we can read the neutral papers and listen freely to the radio, it seems to me that things are moving in that direction already.”

“They are,” she agreed quickly. “And that's entirely due to Hitler and his Nazis. But if he defeats the British with this new gas it will take very much longer to unseat him. The best hope for all
decent Germans and the future of our country is that the war should go on until both sides are thoroughly fed up with it. Then there would be some hope of the
Wehrmacht
eventually breaking the Nazi stranglehold and securing a fair and just peace by negotiation.”

Einholtz nodded. “I believe you're right about that,
Frau Gräfin
. But what would you have us do?”

“I feel sure I could arrange for you to return to England with me.”

Von Osterberg shook his head. “That I would never do; even if it were possible.”

“What is the alternative?” she asked. “You propose to go to South America. But how will you get on there? After your voyage is paid for, the remainder of the thousand pounds won't keep you for very long; particularly if you want to buy new scientific equipment to go on with your old work. As a matter of fact I have a far bigger sum. I never told you about it but I had quite large investments in England before the war. That money is frozen at the moment, but this information you possess must be of such value to the British I feel certain that in exchange for it they would unfreeze my capital and allow me to make it over to you.”

“You are suggesting now that I should sell one of Germany's war secrets,” her husband said, coldly, “and that, I would never do. You came here to arrange with me about a divorce. Let us stick to that and leave this other matter out of it.”

Erika finished her coffee and stood up. “All right then, Kurt,” she agreed quietly. She had seen a sudden gleam of cupidity in Einholtz's eyes at the mention of her fortune, and thought it better not to pursue the matter further for the moment.

As he held her fur for her, she added: “I wish you'd both think about it, though; quite apart from any question of the money. It seems so illogical to have sacrificed your careers and jeopardised your lives because you disapprove of this terrible thing, and yet be unwilling to take any steps to prevent it happening.”

“I wish neither to think nor talk of it any more,” von Osterberg replied with a sudden burst of violent feeling. “And it would be better for you if you didn't either.” Then he formally kissed her hand and Einholtz, maintaining a non-committal silence, showed her out into the night.

She got back to the hotel a quarter of an hour before her car was due to pick her up. The young Frenchman was still there and made another, rather half-hearted, attempt to get into conversation with her. She replied to him only in monosyllables and a few minutes later to his considerable disappointment, he saw her drive off.

On thinking matters over she decided that she had not done too
badly. She had always expected that Kurt would, at first, refuse to even consider the proposal, but he seemed ill, worried and uncertain of himself; and people in such a condition are much more easily induced to alter their opinions than the vigorous and healthy. She had at least sown the idea in both his mind and in that of Einholtz that the logical outcome of their refusing to participate further in their hellish work should be to prevent its ever coming to fruition, and Einholtz had tacitly agreed with her.

At first, when he had shown no inclination to leave her alone with Kurt, she had feared that he would prove a serious stumbling-block; but the contrary had proved the case, and she felt a strong conviction that he would not need a great deal of persuading to do a deal on a financial basis. It was clear, too, that he was much the more virile partner of the two refugees and had acquired a strong influence over Kurt. That influence would have rather frightened her in other circumstances, but as things were it looked as if it might prove greatly to her advantage.

As far as the divorce was concerned, matters could hardly have gone better. Whatever else happened, Einholtz wanted to see that thousand pounds every bit as much as did Kurt, and she felt sure that he would bully his ex-master into going to Zurich and doing his stuff in the very near future. So it only remained for her now to wait in patience until events provided her with another opportunity to go further into the question of this abominable gas.

The opportunity presented itself much sooner than she expected. On the Saturday afternoon she was sitting in a corner of the small garden of the Pension, reading a book, and, on glancing up, saw Einholtz approaching her.

Having secured her address on the Wednesday night he had got in touch with the secret Gestapo headquarters in Zurich. They had their means of ascertaining who came and went at every hotel in Switzerland, arid on Thursday evening a report had reached him. Briefly it stated that a woman answering Erika's description had arrived at the Pension Julich on the previous Monday, accompanied by a tall, fair, youngish man. Both of them passed themselves off as Swedes, but they had only been heard to speak German together and the man had a slight accent which suggested that he was possibly English. He had paid his bill and left her, giving no indication that he meant to return, on the Wednesday morning.

Einholtz had scowled as he read the flimsy. Erika was only the lesser fly. It was Gregory Sallust that his chief,
Gruppenführer
Grauber, was so anxious to catch in his web. Naturally, when Erika had appeared at the Villa Offenbach he had had high hopes that
Gregory was waiting for her in the village, or at any rate, not far off; and now it seemed that he had simply accompanied her to St. Gall, remained there with her for two nights and then left her.

But on re-reading the message more carefully he saw that the description of Erika's companion did not tally with that which had been given to him of Sallust. The big fly they were out to catch was not fair-haired, neither was he particularly young or tall, and it was known that he spoke German like a native. However, there was one thing about which Einholtz felt certain. The man had accompanied Erika to act as an advance guard, to make a reconnaisance of the Villa Offenbach before she went there, in case it was a trap. He would have done that the day after their arrival. That would be Tuesday. Of course, the tall, fair, young man who had said he was an artist and asked if there was a room to let in the Villa.