Traitors' Gate (37 page)

‘Where are they?’ he cried.

‘In my beauty box. By the dressing table. I must…’ A violent fit of coughing cut her short.

She had turned to go back for them, but he caught her by the arm. Although he was again choking and gasping he took a couple of paces forward. Then he halted and stepped back. The whole room was now filled with smoke. A few feet in it was so dense that he could no longer see the bed.

‘No good!’ he spluttered. ‘No … no good. Suffocate in there … for … for certain.’ Sabine had already stumbled from the room and was bent double in the corridor. Half-blinded again he staggered after her, pulling the door shut behind him with a bang. Gratefully they drew in the clean air; but it was several minutes before their eyes had stopped oozing tears and they had cleared their lungs sufficiently to breathe freely.

As soon as they were able they set off at a run along the broad corridor. At the stairhead they paused, still wheezing and weeping. The upper part of the hall was clear, but below, like mist upon a pond, strata of faint bluish haze were floating. It was coming from the back of the hall and under the stairs, filtering in beneath the doors of the big reception rooms that gave on to the terrace.

‘My coat!’ exclaimed Sabine. ‘Holy Mary be praised! That’s safe, anyway!’ It was still lying on one of the settees where she had left it after Mario had brought it in from the car for her. They hurried down the stairs and as Gregory helped her into it, he remarked:

‘By Jove, it’s heavy.’

She nedded ‘Sables always are; but it’s not only that. I’ve got a big flask of brandy in one of the pockets, and there’s this.’ Patting a bulging zip-up pocket in the lining, she went on, ‘When I am travelling I always keep my passport and papers in here. There’s less risk of losing them than in a handbag.’

Gregory wondered grimly if they would ever now have a chance to use their passports; but his mind was swiftly taken off speculations about the future by the doors of the vestibule
being thrust open and Pipi appearing in them clasping the nozzle of the hose. Gregory ran forward to help him and Sabine quickly did up her fur coat to hide her semi-nakedness.

Several other servants appeared with coats pulled on over their night clothes. Between them, they ran out the long flat snake of canvas through the hall to the door of the saloon. They were all jabbering in Hungarian but, from their gestures as much as anything, Gregory gathered that a shout from Pipi would be relayed to a man in the courtyard who would turn on the water, and that as it spouted from the nozzle the footman was to throw open the door.

Gregory was a little dubious about the wisdom of opening the door, but a fire might be raging behind it; and, if that were the case, in doing so lay the only hope of saving the palace. In the event, his fears proved justified. The water rushed along inside the hose rounding it out in a matter of seconds, the footman flung open the saloon door, the jet of water erupted into the room; but, at the same instant, there welled from it a great convoluted cloud of stygian blackness that swiftly enveloped them all.

Coughing and cursing, they were forced to give way before it, while Gregory yelled, ‘Shut the door! Shut the door!’ But no one could now get near enough to do so. An order was passed for the water to be turned off, and the brass hose nozzle was thrown down on the floor, still emitting great gouts of water. Several of the men, Gregory among them, soaked handkerchiefs in it and tied them over their mouths and nostrils; but they were so blinded by the smoke now pouring out through the doorway that they still could not reach it.

The hall was filling rapidly and Sabine had retreated half way up the stairs. Joining her there, Gregory said quickly, ‘Listen. It’s clear that Grauber is trying to smoke us out. I suppose he hasn’t yet got the O.K. to come in and get us, and fears that we’ll manage to slip away if he fails to have us in his clutches within the next few hours. These bombs are the sort that troops use to make a smoke screen. They don’t give out flames, so unless one sets a carpet or curtain smouldering there is very little risk of fire. If there had been a fire in the saloon we’d have seen the flames through the smoke. But the thing is that they’ll go on chucking bombs in until the whole house is rendered untenable and we’re driven from it; so if we’re to get away at all we’ve got to make the attempt now.’

Sabine glanced down at her bare chest and said, ‘I wish I had a few more clothes on. Still, fortunately it’s a warm night; and if you say we’ve got to go now, we must.’

Gregory had caught a glimpse of Mario out in the vestibule. Choking and spluttering he made his way to it through the smoke and ran the chauffeur to earth just outside in the courtyard. Mario said that he was still willing to act as a decoy. They then told Pipi of their intentions and Gregory asked him to take charge. It was agreed that there was no point in making any further attempt to use the hose unless an outbreak of flame was seen, and that all the servants should be withdrawn to the fresh air of the courtyard until it become possible to re-enter the palace without risk of suffocation. Sabine kissed Magda on the cheek and held out her hand for Pipi to kiss, then the couple wished them luck and, accompanied by Mario, they headed for the clearer atmosphere at the top of the stairs.

Even on the first floor the lights were now made dim by a blue haze thicker than that seen in a night-club at four in the morning, and it was evident that the smoke up there would soon be as dense as it was on the ground floor. Thick wreaths of it were seeping from under the door of Sabine’s bedroom and also from under that of another room, into which a bomb must have been thrown through the window.

Keeping their damped scarves and handkerchiefs pressed over the lower part of their faces, they went on up to the attics. Sabine led them into one which held a big water tank and a wooden ladder leading up to a glass sky-light. Before mounting it Gregory said to her and to Mario:

‘Now, remember; we must stick to the middle of the line of roofs. If we get too near the edge our silhouettes will show up against the sky-line. Then they’ll spot us and the game will be up. So keep low. If necessary, get down on your hands and knees and crawl. Sabine, you stick close behind me. Mario, you turn to the right as soon as you are through the sky-light. Good luck, and a thousand thanks again for the help you are giving us.’

When he reached the top of the ladder, he wrestled for a moment with the rusty lever of the sky-light; then he thrust it up and crawled out on to the roof. Sabine went up after him, her head on a level with his heels. When he had crouched
there for a whole minute without moving she called impatiently:

‘Go on! What are you waiting for?’

Instead of replying he gave only a low hiss to silence her, and waved backwards with his hand for her to remain where she was. Then he crawled a few feet across the roof, raised himself to a crouching position, sank down again, crawled back and thrust his feet over the edge of the sky-light with the obvious intention of descending to the attic.

Sabine gave way before him. When he was half way down the ladder he gently lowered the sky-light. As he reached the floor she asked in a voice still made hoarse from the smoke she had swallowed:

‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong?’

For a moment he did not reply. Then he said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, darling, but it’s no good. Grauber’s got one ahead of me. I might have guessed he would. He has either bludgeoned or bribed the caretakers in both the next-door houses to let him send men up to their roofs. On either side there are eight or ten of them just waiting for us to walk into their arms.’

To find their escape route blocked at the very outset was a wicked blow, and against such numbers there could be no possibility of forcing a passage. In deep despondency they made their way downstairs again.

On the last lap they narrowly escaped disaster. Down on the ground floor the atmosphere had become so laden with smoke particles that it was only just possible to see a hand held in front of the face. In the pitch black murk they lost their sense of direction, become separated and, for a few terrifying minutes, could find neither the doors nor one another. To regain contact they had to remove the damped covers from their mouths, so that they could shout, and the acrid fumes rasped their throats like red-hot sandpaper. By luck, a moment later, they stumbled into the vestibule, and from it were able to stagger out into the courtyard, but not before they were whooping as though their lungs would burst.

When they had recovered sufficiently they told Pipi how their plan for getting away over the roofs had been thwarted, and Gregory suggested that as a forlorn hope they should make another attempt to break out in the car. But Pipi shook his head.

‘It would be hopeless,
Herr Commandant
. Thinking you
safely gone old Hunyi, the porter, and I undid the gate a few minutes ago and looked out. The street is blocked both ways by lorries drawn across it and there are the best part of a hundred Arrow-Cross men out there.’

‘Did they make any move to rush the gate?’ Gregory asked.

‘No; they only laughed and jeered at us, and said that they were waiting for the
Gnädige Frau Baronin
and her Frenchman. And that if both of you did not come out soon, they would have to take steps to make us all do so.’

‘What about the police?’ Sabine enquired hoarsely. ‘Were there none there?’

‘No,
Gnädige Frau Baronin
, I did not see any. But there were a few firemen, and there is a fire engine farther down the street. I suppose one of our neighbours telephoned for it, and the Arrow-Cross men have refused to let it be brought up to the palace.’

‘That’s about it,’ Gregory agreed. ‘I expect they have told the firemen that they are using only smoke-bombs; so there is no immediate danger of fire, and all they need do for the present is to stand by.’

Sabine stamped her foot angrily. ‘They have no right to prevent the firemen coming in. One of these bombs may quite well start a fire, and in that dense black smoke it might get such a hold before anyone is aware of it that half the block may be burnt down.’

‘You ought to know by now the sort of pull these Fascist organisations have,’ Gregory could not resist remarking with a trace of bitterness. ‘In any country that wants to keep the goodwill of Hitler they are allowed to break up the political meetings of their opponents, and wreck the offices of newspapers that show a tendency to be Left-wing, while police and firemen look the other way.’

She sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right, and that really I should be thankful that they haven’t broken in and wrecked everything in the place. What I don’t understand, though, is why they make no attempt to come in and drag you off to Grauber.’

‘I do.’ He replied quickly. ‘There are still limits to what these types can get away with in Hungary. Throwing smoke bombs can be laughed off as showing disapproval of someone they had been told is concealing an enemy agent; but the Regent might get tough with them if they started taking it on themselves to break into palaces and arrest people. And there
is more to it than that. Grauber hoped that his own thugs would catch us in their ambush. When they failed he went to Szalasi and asked for his help. I haven’t a doubt that Szalasi replied more or less like this: ‘No, thank you. I’m not making a deadly enemy of Ribbentrop by snatching his girl-friend and her chum for you; and he’d know that my boys wouldn’t dare do a thing like that without my orders. But I tell you what I will do. I’ll tip off one of my lieutenants that I’d like enough smoke bombs thrown into the palace to drive everyone out of it. Afterwards, it will be no concern of mine if there is a scrap in the street and, of course, you will have your boys outside mingling with the crowd. It will be up to them to nobble the two birds you’re after as soon as they appear, but it should be easy money to do that once they are in the open, and to bring them along to you at the Villa Petoefer.” ’

‘So that’s the game slippery Szalasi is playing!’ Sabine commented indignantly.

‘That, or something very like it.’

‘Since he was willing only to take such half-measures I wonder that Grauber didn’t wait until tomorrow; because it’s almost certain that by then he’ll be able to get the full cooperation of the police.’

‘I don’t suppose he could have raised enough men of his own to man the roofs as well as the streets; so if he had waited till tomorrow, the odds are we should have got away. He did the wise thing in securing any help he could while the going was good.’

‘If you’re right about Szalasi, we may get away yet. When his young men have thrown all their bombs they are going to get bored with waiting about. They’ve driven us from the house but they seem to have overlooked the fact that we could spend the night here in the courtyard. It’s not yet much after midnight. In another couple of hours they’ll be thinking about their beds, and if they are not under Grauber’s orders they’ll pack up and go home. Say it is even three or four o’clock before they throw their hand in; we’ll still have plenty of time before dawn to plan another attempt to break out, either over the roofs or wherever Grauber’s men seem to be fewest.’

Inwardly Gregory groaned. Squeezing her arm, he said, ‘No, darling: I’m afraid it’s not going to be like that. Having rendered the palace untenable, their next act will be to do the
same with the courtyard and the servants’ quarters along either side of it. They must know that by now most of your household has been flushed out into the open, and it won’t be long before they start on the job of forcing the lot of us out into the street.’

He had hardly finished speaking when the first tin canister came lolloping through the stone arch above the wooden double gates. It fell near one of the maidservants, who let out a scream, and next moment a spurt of the oily black smoke fountained up from it.

‘Holy Mary!’ Sabine muttered tearfully. ‘What
are
we to do?’

‘We’ve got to face it,’ Gregory replied grimly. ‘The game is up. I’m desperately sorry to have let you in for this—desperately sorry.’

‘It’s quite as much my fault,’ she admitted huskily. ‘If I hadn’t persuaded you to come back here after I got you out of the police station; if I’d let you take a chance on your own last night as you wanted to; even if I’d listened to you this morning and agreed to make a break for it without delaying to get papers and things, we wouldn’t have been trapped like this.’