Come into my Parlour (15 page)

Considerably cheered by this she returned to St. Gall, but the double journey of some hundred and twenty miles each way through tunnels and mountains had made a tiring day and she did not get back until quite late, so on entering the lounge of the Pension Julich she was none too pleased to find Einholtz waiting for her.

He said that he had rung up that morning and learned that she had gone off for the day, but was expected back in the evening, so he had taken the liberty of coming over as there was a certain matter he wished to discuss with her.

While she ate a light supper he sat with her talking trivialities, and when she had finished they went out into the garden. As soon as they were seated in two wicker chairs he said:

“You will, of course, have guessed that I have come to talk to you about money.”

“I don't see why I should have,” she replied a little shortly.

“Oh, come,
Frau Gräfin,
” he shrugged. “You must have realised that had it not been for my persuasive powers your husband would never have agreed to make our contemplated trip. By persuading him to come himself, too, I very nearly succeeded in sparing you the danger and anxiety of it. His fear that someone might steal or move the car while we were busy in the Castle was the one thing I could not overcome, but that was not my fault.”

“Yes, I realise that.”

“Then you appreciate that if we succeed in securing those notes you will owe that to me?”

“Yes, I see what you mean. You have come to get an undertaking from me that if we are successful, in spite of the fact that Kurt is going with us, I still pay the ten thousand pounds to you?”

“Exactly!”

“All right.” Erika nodded. “After all, it is you who have made the whole thing possible, and will have to lead the expedition, so I think that's fair enough.”

“
Herzlichen Dank Frau Gräfin
. There is, however, one other point that has occurred to me, although I hesitate to mention it.”

“Well, what is it?” Erika asked a shade wearily. She had never liked
Herr
Einholtz very much, for all his helpfulness with her difficult husband; and now he was coming out in his true colours, as a man who was determined to make quite certain that he received a good round
sum as the price of preventing an indiscriminate massacre on a giant scale, she liked him even less; but it was imperative that she kept in with him, so she added with a little laugh, “I promise not to run away from you.”

“Please, please!” he protested. “Such a thought never entered my head. But I'm afraid I had a much more horrible one. It did occur to me, after you had gone last night, that we might become separated while we are on the other side. On such a venture one never knows what may happen. Saying, for example, that we were shot up during our return and had to scatter.”

“And I were captured or killed,” Erika supplemented.

“Yes, God forbid that such a thing should happen, but if it did, and I had the notes on me and succeeded in getting back, what do you wish me to do with them?”

“Take them to the British Legation in Berne. Mention my name and ask for an interview with the Minister. Hand him the notes and give him a week to have them looked at by a competent scientist in London; and, if the reply is satisfactory, he will pay you the ten thousand pounds. I will go into Berne again, myself, before we leave and arrange the matter.”

“Many thanks,
Frau Gräfin,
” Einholtz murmured smoothly. The arrangement did not suit him at all. He had hoped to persuade her to give him a draft cashable on his return, or at least make some arrangement by which the money would be handed over to him in exchange for a packet of papers containing any plausible-looking scientific gibberish; but she had proved much shrewder than he had anticipated. The stipulation that the notes should be examined in London before payment was made completely spiked his guns, and he saw no way round it.

This attempt to get hold of her money was a purely private venture and he was much too scared of
Gruppenführer
Grauber to prejudice the success of his official mission by pursuing it at the risk of arousing her suspicions.

Realising that she was tired, he had the good sense to say, “That's settled then,” stand up, kiss her hand and wish her good-night.

Next morning Erika wrote a long letter to Sir Pellinore. She told him everything that had taken place and what she hoped to do. He would, she felt sure, be worried about the risk she was running, but at the same time, knowing that no one else was in a position to undertake this vital task, fully approve her decision to accompany her husband and Einholtz to Schloss Niederfels.

On the Thursday she went in to Berne again and called at the Legation. His Majesty's Minister had received a note about her from
the Foreign Office and saw her in person. From him she obtained a special label bearing in bold red letters the words “MOST SECRET” and underneath, in smaller script, “To be opened personally by—”, below which she wrote Sir Pellinore's name. Having put her letter in a larger envelope she sealed the latter with the label and gave it to the Minister for despatch by the next bag. She then wrote out for him full particulars of the procedure to be followed should Einholtz later present himself at the Legation with a packet for the Minister.

Immediately after supper, on her return to St. Gall, she went to bed and took a mild sleeping draught, to ensure herself a good night's rest, against the prospect of being up all the following night; and she stayed in bed till lunch time next day.

During her lazy morning she thought much of Gregory, wishing almost desperately at times that he were with her, but she was heartily glad that he knew nothing of the dangerous business upon which she was soon to set out. In the afternoon she packed her bag, as a precaution against the grim thought that she might not return, but left it upstairs and told the girl down in the office that she was retaining her room but going off to spend the night with friends.

At five o'clock, clad in her travelling tweeds and with a small automatic in her handbag, she walked down the hill to the station and caught the local train down to Rorschach. The old lakeside town with its red roofs and slated steeples was looking lovely in the early evening light, and she lingered on the quay for a little before she took a bus along the lakeside road the few remaining miles to Steinach.

She found both Kurt and Einholtz ready to set off and all three of them went straight out to the boathouse.
Freiherr
von Lottingen's summer villa lay some four miles south-east of Friedrichshafen, so the crossing was only ten or twelve kilometres and twilight had not yet begun to fall, but Einholtz's plan was that they should appear to be going out simply for an evening's fishing. The rods and any fish that they might catch would also, they hoped, be considered evidence of their innocence if they were halted and questioned on the way to Niederfels. None of them had papers they could show, but Einholtz proposed to say that Erika was staying as their guest in Stuttgart, and they had taken her for a day's excursion on the Bodensee.

The launch was a powerful one and soon took them well out into the lake. Einholtz then shut off the engine and the two men got out their rods, while Erika sat silent in the stern of the gently rocking boat. There was little shipping on the lake and nothing approached them to within hailing distance. Most of the other boats in view were scattered in an arc off Friedrichshafen, which they could now see in the distance as a blur of houses, and tall chimneys belching out smoke in the race to
produce German war equipment. In an hour and a half they caught three trout and two bream to go in the creel they were taking with them.

Gradually dusk came down and, switching on the engine to half speed, Einholtz edged the launch a few miles nearer to the German shore. Then he stopped it and they drifted silently again while he produced two thermoses of coffee and some sandwiches, from which they picnicked.

As he put the thermoses back in their basket, Erika said: “That was a good idea. Heaven only knows when we shall get another meal.”

“We'll get one in a few hours' time, I hope,” Einholtz replied lightly. “If our luck is in we should be able to get a cold supper and a good bottle of wine at Niederfels, while we're waiting for the moon to go down.”

His confidence cheered Erika a little as, one by one, she watched the stars come out and darkness closing down to shut out the splendid panorama of the mighty snow-clad mountains to the south. Friedrichshafen was now hidden, as all its windows were blacked out, but they could still judge its position by the lurid glow that lit the night sky from its blast furnaces.

Einholtz put on the engine at half speed again and ran it for a little, then shut it off for a few minutes while they strained their ears listening for the sound of other boats or any distant challenge. He was almost as anxious as Erika not to run foul of a German patrol boat, as, had they done so, he would have been called on to make explanations which would have given the game away and resulted in his having to arrest her out of hand. Having got her so far he would have achieved his immediate object by her capture, but he took a pride in his work and wished to complete the job artistically.

By a series of repetitions of this tactic of alternatively nosing the boat in for a few hundred yards and shutting off the engine to listen, they succeeded in getting close up to the German shore, then creeping round the big headland that lies to the south-east of Friedrichshafen, without incident. A few minutes later Einholtz turned the bow of the launch towards the land and a dark, irregular cluster of buildings loomed up. The launch bumped against a short causeway and they were all thrown sharply forward. Einholtz swore, and a voice from somewhere above them in the blackness cried:

“
Wer da?
”

Erika strove to hold her breath, and at the same time fumbled in her bag to get out her automatic, in case there was trouble.

“Who is that?” Einholtz asked in a low voice.

“Kestner,” replied the voice.

“
Gottseidank,
” murmured Einholtz; then he gave his name and
added: “You remember me. I was with the
Gräf
von Osterberg when you helped us get across the lake. The
Gräf
is with me now, also his
Gräfin
. We have business that must be attended to. Can you lend us a car, just for the night?”

The man called Kestner came down to the causeway and helped them manœuvre the launch along into a large boathouse, where two other launches were lying. When he had closed the water gate behind them he produced a torch and shone it for a moment on Einholtz's face, then he said:

“Yes, it's you all right. I can manage a car if you wish, but you must be crazy to come back here like this.”

Einholtz gave his colleague a gentle pat of encouragement in the darkness, and muttered something about a job that would take them only a few hours; then they followed Kestner along a garden path and through the double doors of a big garage at the side of the house.

When the doors were shut behind them and the light switched on, Kestner, who proved to be a fat, middle-aged man, was duly presented to Erika as
Freiherr
von Lottingen's steward. She enquired after her old friend and was told that he was now with the army on the Russian front. Von Osterberg merely said good evening to the man, then stood there in moody silence.

There were two cars in the garage, a Mercédès-Benz and a Buick. Einholtz chose the Buick, remarking that it would be less conspicuous. They filled her up with petrol and oil, of which Kestner seemed to have plentiful supplies, and as they were about to get in Einholtz suggested to Erika that she should sit with him, so as to get the hang of the car in case she should have to drive it a short distance after they had left her in it. When they had settled themselves von Osterberg got into the back, Kestner switched out the light in the garage, opened its doors and the gate on to the road. With a wave to him they drove away.

Avoiding Friedrichshafen, they took a by-road inland to Ravensburg then, some miles further on, leaving Weingarten on their right, they passed through the villages of Altshausen, Boms, Saulgau, and Herbertingen to the little Schwabian town of Sigmaringen. On leaving it they followed the north bank of the upper Danube as far as Beuron, then, turning north out of the village, they entered the forest-clad heights of the Heuberg, and by winding side-roads at length approached the straggling single street of Wilflingen above which Schloss Niederfels towered upon its wooded crag.

Their journey from the lake had proved amazingly simple. The night was fine, but on the by-roads they had followed there had been little traffic and not once had they been stopped or challenged.

At the entrance to the village a fork-road rose steeply behind the
houses to one side of the street, and this led by a series of corkscrew twists and bends up through the silent forest to the castle. Einholtz drove up it several hundred yards, then, on reaching a place where the track flattened and broadened out in a small clearing, he turned the car round, so that it was pointing downhill, and drew up on the wide grass verge beneath the trees.

As they got out he said to Erika: “It should take us twenty minutes or so to climb the rest of the hill on foot. Soon after that we should know if the place has been taken over or not. If you hear any shooting, start up the engine and get the car back on to the road, so that you'll be able to drive off without a second's delay if we can get back to you. But if it is all clear I'll blow two blasts on my whistle, then you can drive the car up and park it in the courtyard, and we'll have some supper while we are waiting for the moon to go down.”

He slung the creel of fish over his shoulder and, Erika having wished them good luck, the two men set off.

When they had disappeared round the bend she left the car with the door of its driving-seat open, so that she could slip into it at once, and walked to the far side of the clearing. The moon was now well up and from where she stood she could see the great bulk of the castle looming out over the tree-tops far above her.