Traitors' Gate (30 page)

Gregory’s upper teeth closed gently on his lower lip. So he had been right. Grauber
had
got on to Ribbentrop and asked him to question his mistress. Well, it was now up to Sabine.

Only a trained eye like Gregory’s could have spotted any sign of agitation in her. She had her long legs crossed. From
beneath the edge of her crimson housecoat the bare ankle of the upper one showed and from the forepart of her foot there dangled a marabou-trimmed silver mule. It began to swing back and forth, but her voice was perfectly calm as she answered.

‘I told you last night, Joachim. He is an old friend of mine. I saw quite a lot of him before the war, when I was staying with his aunt in Paris. This morning I ran into him again at the Gellért Baths. He offered to give me lunch, and as I had nothing particular to do I accepted. You know how amusing a sophisticated Frenchman can be. But I needn’t stress that point. You must have seen for yourself last night what good company Etienne is. As you were tied up with those eternal conferences, we decided to spend the rest of the day together. Then I had the idea that it would be fun to have him to stay for a night or two. I could hardly do less after all the time he had spent taking me round Paris. He collected his things from the Vadászkürt and came here to change. After a drink we went out to have dinner at the Arizona. You appear to know the rest.’

‘I know about your having got him out of the lock-up; but what happened after that?’

‘We got in the car to drive home…’

‘He is here, then!’ Ribbentrop’s voice held a staccato sharpness.

‘No. And that is the only strange part about it. Just before we reached the Swing Bridge he said he felt ill and wanted to be sick; so I stopped the car and he got out. To my amazement, without a word to me, he ran off into an alley. I shouted after him, but he took no notice. I can only suppose that the blow on the head he had had temporarily sent the poor fellow out of his mind. I drove home and waited for some time, hoping that he would get back his wits and remember that he was supposed to be staying here. But he hasn’t put in an appearance or telephoned; so I haven’t the faintest idea what has become of him.’

‘There are grounds for believing him to be an English secret agent.’

‘What!’ Sabine exclaimed, her big eyes growing round with well-feigned astonishment. ‘But that is absurd! I know him to be a Frenchman.’

Ribbentrop shrugged. ‘Perhaps he is a de Gaullist who is
working for the British. Anyhow, after he had been questioned at the police station he knew that he had been recognised as a man wanted by the Gestapo. That would account for his leaving you like that. He knew that if he came back with you he would soon be followed here and re-arrested; so as soon as he could he seized on the chance to get away.’

‘I can’t believe it!’

‘I was dubious myself—anyhow about his being an Englishman. But Grauber claims that he knows him well; and that he is an ace-high British spy named Sallust.’

‘Who is Grauber?’ Sabine asked with a puzzled frown.

‘Have you never heard of him? He is one of Himmler’s top men and is responsible for all Gestapo activities outside the
Reich
. He is in Budapest to investigate rumours that a little clique of anti-Nazi Hungarian notables is toying with the idea of entering into negotiations with the enemy. Purely by chance he ran into this man Tavenier, or Sallust, or whoever he is. As you know, they had a fight and were both taken off to the police station. Grauber showed his credentials and wanted to remove his catch to the Villa Petoefer—that is the Gestapo Headquarters here—but the Hungarians wouldn’t let him. So he came up to the Palace, to ask me to get a special permit signed by Admiral Horthy. He was given it, but by the time he got back to the police station you had let the bird out of the cage. Back to the Palace came Grauber, in a fine rage, to demand that special measures should be taken to catch the bird again; and when I heard that you were responsible for the fellow’s release I decided that I must see you at once to find out what was behind all this.’

‘There is nothing behind it. I have not the least doubt that it is a case of mistaken identity. You had better go back to the Palace and tell this man Grauber so.’

‘You will have a chance to tell him so yourself in a few minutes.’

Sabine suddenly sat forward and asked in a voice just a shade higher than usual, ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘He left me to collect some of his colleagues who have been mixed up in this thing; but he must be on his way here by now.’

Gregory, peering down from behind the suit of armour, stiffened where he stood. Those last words confirmed his worst fears of the way matters might develop. For a moment he contemplated
slipping behind the curtain, hunting round till he found some back stairs, then trying to find a way out of the house; but instead of appearing perturbed Sabine displayed only calculated indifference.

‘Am I to understand,’ she enquired, raising her eyebrows, ‘that you intend to stand quietly by while I am grilled by some Gestapo thug?’

‘No! No! Of course not!’ he protested quickly. ‘But they are entitled to any reasonable help that I can give them. I take it that Pipi has gone to bed?’

‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

‘I was thinking about letting these people in. It would be better to keep the servants out of this.’ As he spoke the Minister walked towards the vestibule, adding over his shoulder, ‘It is so warm, it won’t matter leaving the front door open; then they will not have to ring.’

Gregory was greatly tempted to step out from behind the armour, lean over the gallery and call softly down to Sabine, ‘Quick! Get the glass I used out of the way.’ But he decided that the risk of Ribbentrop’s returning before he could regain his cover was too great. It was just as well, for the Minister was out of sight for barely a minute and, as he re-entered the room, there came the faint sounds of a car driving into the courtyard. Turning, he walked back to the door of the vestibule, returned a loud greeting of ‘
Heil Hitler
,’ and led in the visitors. To Gregory’s dismay, he saw that Grauber had with him Cochefert, Major Szalasi and Lieutenant Puttony.

Szalasi bowed over Sabine’s hand. Grauber and Cochefert were presented to her. The whole middle section of the Frenchman’s face was swathed in a great bandage. Only his hooded eyes showed above, and his chin below it. Evidently his nose had been plugged as, when he spoke, it was in a voice so distorted that it sounded as though he had a split palate or acute adenoids. He was so shaky from loss of blood that he was given a chair, but Grauber was not invited to sit, and the pink-cheeked Puttony remained modestly in the background. After these greetings, Ribbentrop said in a cold haughty tone:

‘
Herr Gruppenführer
, the
Gnädige Fran Baronin
has consented to answer any questions you care to put to her. Please be as brief as possible.’

Having bowed his respectful thanks, Grauber asked Sabine to tell them where she had first met the man calling himself
Commandant Tavenier, and all that she knew about him.

In a quiet, detached voice, Sabine repeated with a few minor embellishments what she had already told Ribbentrop: such as the address of the apartment at which she had stayed as his aunt’s guest in Paris and approximately the date of her stay there. She gave as her reason for the visit that his aunt was a partner in a big French fashion house, and that she had been commissioned by a Hungarian shop to buy models from the firm—all of which was quite plausible as, in her poorer days, she had been for a while a professional model.

As Ribbentrop and Szalasi had both been present when she had again met Gregory the previous evening, they had no reason whatever to doubt her veracity, and both nodded confirmation as she went on to give Grauber an outline of what had happened. In the same rather bored manner, she continued with the rest of her story, ending with a positive assertion that, however much Tavenier might resemble the Englishman the Gestapo wanted to catch, he could not possibly be their man.

Having heard her out, Grauber gave her a queer little smile, and said in his high falsetto, ‘It is the
Gnädige Frau Baronin
who is mistaken.’ Then he turned to Ribbentrop, and added: ‘
Herr Reichsaussenminister
, we have proof—incontrovertible proof. Listen, please, to what
M. le Capitaine
Cochefert of the
Deuxième Bureau
has to say.’

From the moment the Frenchman had entered the hall, Gregory had realised that Grauber must have gone to the hospital where Cochefert was being treated and, on hearing his revelations, have insisted that he should leave his bed to repeat them to Ribbentrop. While arguing with Sabine in her car he had failed to take into account that his two enemies might get together again so quickly, and it was only in the past few minutes that it had struck him how disastrous their collaborations must prove. His instinctive feeling that Sabine’s story was not entirely watertight was now to prove only too well-founded and, for both their sakes, he cursed his folly in having allowed her to persuade him into coming back with her.

Snuffling his words, and obviously speaking only with considerable pain, Cochefert gave particulars of Vichy’s reply to his routine enquiry and recounted how, when cornered, Gregory had admitted that he was not Tavenier.

Sabine rose splendidly to the occasion. She shrugged and said with a slightly malicious smile, ‘In view of the damage that Commandant Tavenier has done to M.
le Capitaine’s
face, I can understand his desire to be revenged; but I do not believe one word of his story. It is typical of what one hears of the low morality of the Vichy police, and their servile anxiety to curry favour at any price with the Germans.’

Ribbentrop grinned openly, and Gregory mentally took off his hat to her. But he knew that her broadside had been fired in vain. There was the stocky, wooden-faced Puttony standing at attention in the background, and at any moment Grauber could bring him into play.

Cochefert began to splutter with rage, but choked on his own blood, and had to turn away, coughing agonisingly into a big silk handkerchief. Ignoring him, Grauber kept his single eye on Sabine, pursed up his small cruel mouth, and said:

‘The
Gnädige Frau Baronin’s
attack upon this officer is entirely unwarranted. Fortunately, we have a witness to his integrity. The Lieutenant of Police whom we have brought with us was present at the interview. He will confirm that your … er, friend confessed to being an impostor.’

‘How much are you paying him to do that?’ Sabine rapped back. ‘Everyone knows that you Gestapo people will stick at nothing to get into your hands any person you suspect.’

‘Whatever we do is done in the best interests of the
Reich
’ Grauber retorted sharply. ‘But let me tell you something else. When this “suspect”, as you call him, was arrested he secured a new lease of freedom by producing a Gestapo pass, and declaring himself to be
Obersturmbannführer
Einholtz. To my personal knowledge he murdered the
Obersturmbannführer
last December. And it is our word—and the word of all three of us—against yours,
Gnädige Frau Baronin
.’

It was useless for Gregory to reproach himself for not having foreseen that, should Grauber and Cochefert compare notes, Sabine’s story would be blown wide open. He could only strain his ears and eyes to learn how she would face the fatal breach in her defences.

Ribbentrop’s swift brain had already summed up the implications. Swinging round on her, he said, ‘One can no longer doubt that the
Herr Gruppenführer
is right. The man who has been passing here as Tavenier is the Englishman Sallust; and that makes nonsense of your assertions that he is a French
man with whose aunt you stayed in Paris. There must be some explanation. I can only assume that you knew him to be Sallust all the time, and have been playing some deep game. If this was so, please tell us?’

Sabine took the cue, smiled at him and said, ‘How clever of you, Joachim. Of course I knew; but I kept his secret with the idea of finding out what he was up to here. If these fools had not butted in, I was hoping that he might return here, and that before you left tomorrow I would be able to report to you a really valuable piece of counter-espionage.’

Gregory heaved an inaudible sigh of relief, and the Minister, having his hopes that his mistress would be able to exonerate herself so swiftly confirmed, exclaimed to Grauber with a laugh, ‘There you are,
Herr Gruppenfährer!
And that, I think, puts an end to this annoying affair.’

But Grauber was not the man to be sent about his business so peremptorily. With no trace of sarcasm, but what sounded like genuine humility, he piped, ‘I am abashed that I should have forced this disclosure from the
Gnädige Frau Baronin
. My zeal for the
Führer’s
service must be my excuse; and on that account I feel confident that she will not deny us the results of her endeavours?’

‘On the contrary, you are welcome to them,’ Sabine replied graciously. ‘He came here to investigate the possibility of Hungary’s being induced to make a separate peace with the Allies.’

‘There!’ Ribbentrop exclaimed again. ‘That ties up with what you told me of your own mission.’

‘Correct,
Herr Riechsaussenminister!
Grauber gave a jerky little bow; then turned back to Sabine with a look of deferential interrogation.

She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I have little to add. He had been here a fortnight and was convinced that he was wasting his time.’

‘Did he make no mention at all of his contacts?’

‘He said that he had talked with one or two Jews, and a number of people of some standing with whom he had scraped acquaintance; but he did not disclose the names of any of them to me.’

‘Then he was holding out on you,
Gnädige Frau Baronin
. We have very good reason to believe that a group of magnates is conspiring against the regime. It would be too much of a coincidence if he were not in touch with them.’

‘I may yet find out more if he does come back.’ She glanced at Ribbentrop. ‘It was with that object I invited him to stay here for a few nights.’