The Portuguese Escape (11 page)

Nothing was ruined. The bisque was divine, the crab cold anyhow; and the resourceful proprietor—who was also the chef—on finding that the gentlemen were very
late and one of the ladies determined to swim had not started cooking his lovely soles till he saw how things were shaping—they, too, were perfect. They had the restaurant to themselves, always a pleasant thing, and two courses of food—Guincho food at that—restored Major Torrens' equanimity; while the excitement of her swim (possibly aided by the rum) had put Hetta Páloczy into higher spirits than any of the others had so far thought her capable of. She sat between Torrens and Townsend Waller, her black hair hanging in damp elf-locks round her curious vivid face above her pretty cherry-coloured dress; she had already made profuse apologies, on returning to the balcony, for ‘keeping everyone hungry', but now, in response to Townsend's questions as to where she had learned to swim like that, she recounted her father teaching her to dive in the lake at Detvan, and later her solitary bathes in the Tisza on long hot summer afternoons, when for an hour or so quiet reigned on the Alfold. But she made it all natural, simple, and rather funny, told in her curious but expressive English—Townsend, it was evident, had fallen completely under her spell.

It was Hetta who urged that they should have coffee on the balcony, and when they went out from the small, rather steamy room to see whether it would be too chilly there, it was at once clear that she was right. The air was still warm, great stars and a young slip of moon hung in the sky, the Atlantic made a gentle thunder on the shore below.

‘Atherley, do you feel like a stroll?' Major Torrens asked. ‘If Miss Probyn will excuse us?' He directed a glance at Miss Probyn as he spoke which did not escape Hetta—she thought there was complicity in it.

‘Oh, very well,' Richard replied. It had already occurred to him that there was probably some reason for Torrens having been half an hour late at the Chancery, and whatever it was he would have to hear it sooner or later. ‘May we leave you, Julia?'

‘Of course—but come back for a cuentra.'

The two men climbed down the rickety wooden stair. ‘Don't let's attempt to stroll in this hellish sand,' Richard said.

‘Don't let's stroll at all—we can sit on that lump of rock over there,' Torrens replied, walking towards one of the flower-set outcrops. As they approached it a figure sprang up out of a dark crevice at the foot and raced away towards the road—when it passed through the broad bands of light cast on the sand from the restaurant windows they saw that it was a youth, wearing one of the loud tartan shirts affected by Portuguese fishermen.

‘Hullo! Are we being watched?' Torrens said.

‘Not at the Guincho, I shouldn't imagine.'

‘I think I'll just go and check on the cars,' said Torrens, and strode up towards the road—before he reached it a third car, parked facing towards Lisbon, started its engine and roared off into the night, its headlights twisting and swooping till it disappeared.

‘That's curious,' Richard said, contemplating his and Julia's cars, still standing by the roadside. ‘There was no one but ourselves in this place, and the others aren't open yet.'

‘Have the people here a car?' Torrens asked.

‘I don't know, but we'll soon find out.' They went back to the restaurant, where Richard walked into the kitchen and put a question in his rather moderate Portuguese. Yes, the proprietor had an
automovel
, a small van for bringing out supplies; but it had been in Lisbon all the afternoon, and had not yet returned.

‘Um,' said Torrens, when this was reported to him. ‘That wasn't a van—it was a rather big open car. Ask if they know whose it was?'

The proprietor and his family knew nothing of any car having come; busy with preparing the dinner, and getting the Menina washed and dried, they had not even heard it drive up.

‘Looks as though we
are
observed,' Richard said—‘or you, rather. Now, where shall we talk?'

‘In one of the cars, I think.' He drove Julia's large machine out into the middle of the road, well away from the scrubby growth of heath and cistus on both sides, and switched off; Richard got in too. ‘Well?' he said.

‘Things are getting rather hot in Madrid—we must get our man out as soon as we can.'

‘How hot?'

‘They've tumbled to at least two of our people; they're followed the whole time. Two flat tyres in traffic-blocks, and so on—a stiletto stuck into them, by the look of the marks. We think our passenger must either have been followed from Barcelona, or waited for when he was met at the station. Anyhow, the whole show there is compromised.'

‘Awkward,' Richard commented.

‘It is, damned awkward. He's got to come on here
prontito
'

‘How?'

‘By plane. But he'll have to travel alone, and board the plane alone, the way things are.'

‘Well, I suppose he's capable of that.'

‘Of course he is!' Torrens said, rather impatiently. ‘But the point is that neither I nor anyone else here knows him by sight; and as you know, one of our friends' favourite tricks is to abstract the person who's expected, and plant one of their own agents on us instead—that's why we usually try to have anyone like this escorted and handed over by a man we do know.'

‘Well, I don't see how
I
can help you,' Richard said, frowning in the darkness. It sounded as if this affair was going to be quite as troublesome as he had foreseen.

‘Oh, can't you come off that line for a bit, Atherley? After all, we're in the same show really—we work for the same country. And I need your help.'

‘All right—but how do you imagine I can help you?'

‘Estoril is stiff with Hungarian refugees, and I expect you know a lot of them, and how reliable they are,' Torrens said. ‘It occurred to me that you might be able to get hold of someone who would be certain to recognise this type and would be willing to come to the airport and point him out—one of these Archdukes, or Counts, or someone.'

‘Is he the sort of person Archdukes would know by sight?' Richard asked.

‘Oh, probably.'

Atherley was silent for a moment.

‘Look here, Torrens,' he said at length—‘hadn't I, at
last, better be told who your mystery man is? I can't, even if I were willing to, do anything till I know that.'

‘Yes, of course. He's a Dr. Horvath; a considerable theologian, I'm told.'

‘Christian name? I'd better have the whole works.'

‘Antal.'

Richard started a little.

‘Where has he been in Hungary before he came out? In Budapest?'

‘No, down in the country somewhere, doing duty as a parish priest.'

‘Is he a friend of Mindszenty's? Been in touch with him recently?'

‘Yes,' Torrens said, surprise in his voice. ‘That's rather the point, as a matter of fact. Why do you ask?'

Richard burst out laughing, his great resounding laugh.

‘What's the joke?' Torrens asked, slightly annoyed by this mirth.

‘Only that he's the man that Countess Hetta has been cooking for for the last six years!'

‘You don't say so!'

‘Yes, it must be the one. She only calls him “Father Antal”, but she told Townsend that he was immensely learned, and she told us
both
that he constantly went in disguise to see the Cardinal. Anyhow I expect she knows his surname—if it's whatever you said, there you are.'

‘Ye-es,' Torrens said, rather slowly. ‘Yes,' he repeated more firmly—‘and I imagine she'd be reliable.'

‘Look, Torrens! Who would be more so?' Richard expostulated.

‘Sorry—you see you know her and I don't. Well, we'd better talk to her—or you had,' he said, opening trie car door. ‘I ought to let them have a signal in Madrid tonight —the sooner they get him off the better.' He paused, standing in the road beside the car. ‘I'm sorry I was so late this evening, but all this was just coming in, and I had to wait to help decode it.'

‘I don't quite see how we're to talk to her tonight,' Richard objected.

‘Oh, Julia's as safe as houses—Miss Probyn, I mean.'

‘Yes, but there's Waller. Or is he in on this?'

‘Good Lord no. The Americans want this man out, but they have left it to us to do it—we know Europe better, after all. But couldn't you and I drive the little Countess back, and let Julia take the Yank?'

‘I expect so. Anyhow do let's go and have that cuentra —any contact with secret service activities always leaves me feeling distinctly weak,' Richard said, starting down towards the restaurant; Torrens followed him laughing.

‘You'd better suggest it; you know her best,' he said.

‘Oh yes—I'll be cover.'

Richard did it quite well, as the other readily admitted to himself. Sipping a second cuentra he said, very casually —‘Julia, I've got to get back rather early, and so has the Major. And I'm sure the sooner Hetti is between the sheets the better, after all that swimming. How would it be if we three went off and left you and Townsend to make a night of it? He likes to drink till i a.m., I know.'

‘Richard, may you be forgiven!' Mr. Waller protested, while Hetta looked from one to the other of the faces about her; the phrase ‘make a night of it' left her completely at a loss, but once again she surprised a fleeting glance between Julia and Major Torrens, and her sixth sense— the particular sixth sense which becomes so strongly developed in countries where speech is never free, and spies always at one's elbow—caused her, together with this sudden change of plan, to think to herself: those two are up to something! But why, in that case, was it
she
who was being taken away?

She learned very soon. After good nights and thanks the three of them got into Atherley's car and drove off. To her surprise he did not switch on his headlights—‘You forget the lights,' she said to him.

‘No, I don't. I can see by this moon and the starshine— and there's nothing on the road at this time of night.' He spoke over his shoulder to Torrens. ‘No need to advertise ourselves, don't you think?'

‘Undoubtedly not.'

After a mile or so Atherley slowed down, and began to drive at a snail's pace. ‘Here we are,' he said, suddenly swinging the car into a small side track; this wound inland between high heathy banks, and after some seventy yards a
bend concealed the car from the road behind them— Richard stopped and switched off. ‘There,' he said—‘I think that's all right. You'll have to con me out later, Torrens. Now, will you talk to the Countess, or shall I?'

‘You might begin, I think.'

‘Very well. Hetti, what was your Father Antal's surname? Do you know?'

‘I
do
know—but it was not mentioned as a rule.'

‘I thought not. But would you tell it to me and Major Torrens?'

She hesitated. ‘I should like to know why you ask,' she said—and Torrens, at least, recognised the ingrained caution of dwellers beyond the curtain. He decided to speak himself.

‘Countess, we need to know it because we may want you to help us, and him. I am in the British Secret Service,' he added.

‘No! Oh how nice. Yulia too?'

This question caused Richard to laugh out loud.

‘Not altogether, no,' Torrens replied, ignoring the laugh. ‘But will you tell me?'

Still she hesitated—for so long that Torrens finally said, rather brusquely—‘Is he not really Doctor Antal Horvath, the theologian?'

‘Of course he is—since you know it. But why then do you ask?'

‘Because we have to be certain—just as you do, back there. Good. Now please listen carefully—would you know him by sight, even if he wore a beard?'

‘He does not wear a beard.'

‘No, I know he doesn't—but would you know him if he were wearing one as a disguise?'

‘His
eyes
I should know anywhere—but why?'

‘You'd better tell her what it's all about, Torrens,' Richard interjected. ‘You're only muddling her.'

He thought that Torrens didn't manage his explanation very well when he did embark on it.

‘He's in Madrid just now,' the Major began.

‘Impossible!'

‘Yes he is.'

‘But how can he come to Madrid?'

‘He was got out by our people—he's going to America, to do propaganda work.'

‘Talking to journalists? This also I do not believe!' Hetta said, with energy.

‘Suppose I have a go, Torrens?' Richard said. ‘Listen, Hetti—there are thousands of Hungarians in the United States who are all longing to know how everything is at home, as well as a sort of committee which acts almost like a free government, to look after the interests of Hungarians everywhere. Those are the people the Father is going to see in the first place. He's got as far as Madrid, and quite soon he's coming on here to fly to the States.'

‘Here? He comes
here?
Oh!' Her voice had that ring again. ‘Shall I see him?'

‘That's exactly what we want you to do—see him, and recognise him,' Torrens said, from the back seat.

Hetta ignored him completely.

‘Richard, please explain more,' she said.

Richard—curiously pleased by her unexpected use of his name—proceeded to tell her both how the priest had been got out, and that it was essential that someone who knew him by sight should be at the airport to meet him.

‘Oh, of course I will go. Only what time? For me the morning is the best, because Mama does nothing in the morning—and of course it is best that she does not know of all this, isn't it? In such cases, the fewer who know the better, I think.'

‘Perfectly right,' Torrens said approvingly. ‘Don't speak of it to anyone.'