The Forbidden Territory Read online

  THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORY

  Dennis Wheatley

  Edited by Miranda Vaughan Jones

  To

  JOAN

  This souvenir of one of the most difficult years of my life, which by our united efforts has turned out to be one of the most successful, and, thanks to her, has certainly been one of the happiest.

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  I. A Cry for Help

  II. A Plan of Campaign

  III. “Valeria Petrovna”

  IV. Cigars and Pistols for Two—

  V. The “Tavern of the Howling Wolf”

  VI. The Secret of the Mine

  VII. Simon “Almost” Falls in Love.

  VIII. The Price of Information

  IX. Beyond the Pale

  X. “Where the Railway Ends”

  XI. Which Shows That a Little Yiddish can be Useful

  XII. Escape

  XIII. Stranded in Siberia

  XIV. The Secret of the Forbidden Territory

  XV. Enter the Princess Marie Lou

  XVI. The Dark Château

  XVII. The Fight on the Roof-Tops

  XVIII. Simple Simon met a Gunman

  XIX. Hidden Corn

  XX. Sanctuary

  XXI. The Homing Pigeon

  XXII. “He who Fights and Runs Away—”

  XXIII. A Passport has Been Arranged

  XXIV. Conferences in Kiev

  XXV. The Caves of Death

  XXVI. The Dash for the Frontier

  XXVII. “There’s Many a Slip…”

  XXVIII. The Last Round

  A Note on the Author

  Introduction

  Dennis Wheatley was my grandfather. He only had one child, my father Anthony, from his first marriage to Nancy Robinson. Nancy was the youngest in a large family of ten Robinson children and she had a wonderful zest for life and a gaiety about her that I much admired as a boy brought up in the dull Seventies. Thinking about it now, I suspect that I was drawn to a young Ginny Hewett, a similarly bubbly character, and now my wife of 27 years, because she resembled Nancy in many ways.

  As grandparents, Dennis and Nancy were very different. Nancy’s visits would fill the house with laughter and mischievous gossip, while Dennis and his second wife Joan would descend like minor royalty, all children expected to behave. Each held court in their own way but Dennis was the famous one with the famous friends and the famous stories.

  There is something of the fantasist in every storyteller, and most novelists writing thrillers see themselves in their heroes. However, only a handful can claim to have been involved in actual daring-do. Dennis saw action both at the Front, in the First World War, and behind a desk in the Second. His involvement informed his writing and his stories, even those based on historical events, held a notable veracity that only the life-experienced novelist can obtain. I think it was this element that added the important plausibility to his writing. This appealed to his legions of readers who were in that middle ground of fiction, not looking for pure fantasy nor dry fact, but something exciting, extraordinary, possible and even probable.

  There were three key characters that Dennis created over the years: The Duc de Richleau, Gregory Sallust and Roger Brook. The first de Richleau stories were set in the years between the wars, when Dennis had started writing. Many of the Sallust stories were written in the early days of the Second World War, shortly before Dennis joined the Joint Planning Staff in Whitehall, and Brook was cast in the time of the French Revolution, a period that particularly fascinated him.

  He is probably always going to be associated with Black Magic first and foremost, and it’s true that he plugged it hard because sales were always good for those books. However, it’s important to remember that he only wrote eleven Black Magic novels out of more than sixty bestsellers, and readers were just as keen on his other stories. In fact, invariably when I meet people who ask if there is any connection, they tell me that they read ’all his books’.

  Dennis had a full and eventful life, even by the standards of the era he grew up in. He was expelled from Dulwich College and sent to a floating navel run school, HMS Worcester. The conditions on this extraordinary ship were Dickensian. He survived it, and briefly enjoyed London at the pinnacle of the Empire before war was declared and the fun ended. That sort of fun would never be seen again.

  He went into business after the First World War, succeeded and failed, and stumbled into writing. It proved to be his calling. Immediate success opened up the opportunity to read and travel, fueling yet more stories and thrilling his growing band of followers.

  He had an extraordinary World War II, being one of the first people to be recruited into the select team which dreamed up the deception plans to cover some of the major events of the war such as Operation Torch, Operation Mincemeat and the D-Day landings. Here he became familiar with not only the people at the very top of the war effort, but also a young Commander Ian Fleming, who was later to write the James Bond novels. There are indeed those who have suggested that Gregory Sallust was one of James Bond’s precursors.

  The aftermath of the war saw Dennis grow in stature and fame. He settled in his beautiful Georgian house in Lymington surrounded by beautiful things. He knew how to live well, perhaps without regard for his health. He hated exercise, smoked, drank and wrote. Today he would have been bullied by wife and children and friends into giving up these habits and changing his lifestyle, but I’m not sure he would have given in. Maybe like me, he would simply find a quiet place.

  Dominic Wheatley, 2013

  The Forbidden Territory

  Chapter I

  A Cry For Help

  The Duke de Richleau and Mr. Simon Aron had gone in to dinner at eight o’clock, but coffee was not served till after ten.

  Aron had eaten sparingly of each well-chosen course, and to one who made a hobby of such things the wines had proved a special pleasure. Since their mutual friend Richard Eaton had brought them together, he had dined on many occasions with De Richleau at his flat.

  A casual observer might have considered it a strange friendship, but despite the difference in age and race, appearance and tradition, the two had many tastes in common.

  Both the young English Jew and the elderly French exile loved beauty in its many forms, and could linger happily over a jade carving or a page of prose. They had also developed a pleasant rivalry in producing for each other great wines, fine food, and well-matured cigars.

  Aron accepted a long Hoyo de Monterrey from the cedar cabinet which the Duke’s man presented to him, and his dark eyes flickered towards his host.

  During dinner the impression had grown upon him that there was some special reason why the Duke had asked him to dine on this occasion. His intuition had not deceived him. De Richleau exhaled the first cloud of fragrant smoke from another of those long Hoyo’s, which were his especial pride, and drew from his pocket a dirty piece of paper, which he flicked across the table.

  “My friend” he said, raising his grey eyebrows a little, a slightly cynical smile on his thin lips, “I should be interested to have your opinion on this curious document.”

  Simon Aron unfolded the piece of grimy paper. It had light blue rulings upon it, and was covered with a pencil scrawl; it might well have been a page torn from an exercise-book. Simon’s full mouth broadened into a wide grin, and, with a sudden gesture peculiar to himself, he gave a little nervous laugh, stooping his bird-like head with its pronounced nose to the hand which held his long cigar.

  “Well, I’ll tell you, I’m no good at puzzles,” he grinned, “never done a cross-word in my life—but I’ll see what I can do.” As he spoke he took a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles from his pocket and
began to study the crumpled paper, reading it out slowly as he did so.

  “Dear Comrade,

  “Since I left the New York centre I have been investigating the possibilities of mineral wealth in this country.

  “There is one mine containing valuable deposits which has been closed down for a number of years, and I had hoped to get it going. Unfortunately, before I could do so, I was sent to the place where Comrade Eatonov was for a short time.

  “Work at the London centre must be almost at a standstill with the present reactionary Government in power, and if my transfer from here could be arranged for, I should badly need skilled assistance at the mine, so if you could come over, your help would be most welcome.

  “I would like to have met you in Moscow, but that will be impossible now. You can get all the information regarding the mine at Jack Straw’s. If little Simonoff is still with you, perhaps both of you could come.

  “I certainly need help pretty badly in my present position—it’s too much for me alone.

  “Your old comrade and fellow-worker,

  “Tsarderynski”

  Simon Aron shook his head with a little wriggle of his narrow shoulders. “How did it come to you?” he inquired.

  The Duke passed over a flimsy envelope with which he had been toying. “Just so, my friend,” he said, lightly, “you will note that this bears a Finnish stamp, and was posted in Helsingfors.”

  Simon examined the writing on the envelope. It was thin and angular—very different from the pencil scrawl of the letter—and bore the legend:

  Monsieur Ricillou,

  No.1 Maison Arrol,

  Londres,

  Gde. Bretagne.

  “I—er—suppose it’s not a mistake?” ventured Simon, thoughtfully. “I mean, it is meant for you?”

  The Duke ran the tips of his fingers down his lean, handsome face. “At first I was inclined to suppose that it had been sent here in error, but now I am convinced that it was intended for me.”

  “Wonder it ever got here—addressed like this!”

  “Yes, the name misspelt—also Errol House, no mention of Curzon Street, or Mayfair, or any district number. But tell me—who do you think it is from?”

  “Tsarderynski,” Simon murmured, “don’t know—never heard of him; looks like a letter from one Bolshie agent to another, on the face of it.”

  “May I suggest that you endeavour to translate the name?” The grey eyes of almost piercing brilliance, which gave character to De Richleau’s face, lit up.

  “‘Tsar,’ that’s Cassar—King,” Simon Aron began, “‘de’ of, or from—‘ryn—ah! now wait a minute—this is interesting, very interesting—” He sat forward suddenly and began nodding his narrow head up and down. “Of course—this is from our old friend Rex Van Ryn!”

  His host smiled encouragement.

  Simon read the letter through again. “And Rex is in a muddle—a really nasty muddle,” he added jerkily.

  “Exactly the conclusion I had arrived at,” De Richleau agreed. “Now what do you make of the rest of the letter?”

  For some little time Simon did not reply. In his left hand he slowly revolved the bowl-shaped glass that held some of the Duke’s wonderful old brandy, in his right he held the long evenly burning cigar. For the moment his thoughts had left the beautiful room with its lovely old panelling, its four famous pictures by great masters, and the heavy carpet which seemed to deaden every sound.

  He was thinking of Rex Van Ryn—that great hulking American with the ugly face and the enormous sense of fun. He could see Rex now, in the little sitting-room of the house in Trevor Square, which he always took when he came to London. He could hear him dilating on the question of drinks—“Never give a guy a large cocktail, but plenty of ’em—make ’em dry and drink ’em quick—come on, boys—it takes a fourth to make an appetite—here’s to crime!”—and now this strange letter out of Russia. What sort of wild escapade could have taken Rex to such a place? What kind of trouble was he up against? For Simon had not the least doubt that he was in trouble, and Simon was worried—he was very fond of Rex.

  De Richleau meanwhile sat silent at the head of the table, a striking and unusual figure. He was a slim, delicate-looking man, somewhat above middle height, with slender, fragile hands and greying hair; but there was no trace of weakness in his fine distinguished face. His aquiline nose, broad forehead, and grey devil’s eyebrows might well have replaced those of the cavalier in the Van Dyke that gazed down from the opposite wall. Instead of the conventional black, he wore a claret-coloured Vicuna smoking-suit, with silk lapels and braided fastenings; this touch of colour increased his likeness to the portrait. He watched Simon with a slight smile on his firm mouth. He knew the cautious, subtle brain that lay behind the sloping forehead of his guest too well to hurry his deliberations.

  “Let’s go through it carefully,” said Simon at last. “What’s all this business about a mine? I didn’t know that Rex ever trained as a mining engineer.”

  “Nor I,” agreed the Duke. “What do you make of the passage about Eatonov?”

  Simon’s dark eyes flickered over his spectacles at the Duke.

  “That’s where the muddle comes in—Eatonov is Richard Eaton, of course—and poor Richard went to Brixton! Rex is in prison—that’s what it seems to me.”

  “Without a doubt,” De Richleau nodded, “that reference to Eaton was a clever way of putting it—no ordinary person could understand it, but he would know that, to us, it would be abundantly clear. If one needs further confirmation, one has only to note the suggestion about his transfer being arranged for, and that ‘it will be impossible for him to come to Moscow now to meet us’; he is somewhere in Soviet Russia, but he is not a free man.”

  “The letter was posted in Finland,” Simon remarked.

  “Certainly.” The Duke pushed the old brandy across the table to his guest. “It looks as if the letter was smuggled out of Russia, evidently Rex was afraid that his messenger might be searched at the frontier, and so made him commit the address to memory. From the envelope I doubt if the man could even speak English. The whole thing, with its talk of centres, comrades, and reactionary Governments, is obviously designed to throw dust in the eyes of any Soviet official.”

  “Who is Jack Straw? I don’t—er—understand that bit at all. The only Jack Straw’s that I’ve ever heard of is the Castle on the Heath.”

  “Jack Straw’s Castle—what is that?” The Duke looked puzzled.

  “An inn on Hampstead Heath—place where Dick Turpin, the highwayman, used to make his headquarters…” Simon corrected himself, “Though I’m not certain that wasn’t The Spaniards’.”

  “What can an inn on Hampstead Heath have to do with a mine in Russia? There must be some other explanation.”

  “Perhaps,” Simon hesitated, “it is the meeting-place of some secret Bolshevik society.”

  “But, my friend, if Rex has fallen foul of the Ogpu, surely they would be the last people to give us any information about him?”

  “It might be a society of counter-revolutionaries, and Rex has been arrested for being in touch with them.”

  “If you are right, Rex may have gone to Russia on behalf of these émigrés, and been arrested on that account—if so, the mine may be anything of value—perhaps even secret information.”

  “Well—I’ll tell you,” said Simon, “I don’t like it a little bit—look at the last sentence in that letter—‘I certainly need help pretty badly in my present position, it’s too much for me alone!’ ”

  The Duke gently laid the long blue-grey ash of his cigar in the onyx ash tray. “There is not a doubt,” he said, slowly, “our good friend Van Ryn is a prisoner in Soviet Russia—Rex is one of the bravest men I have ever known, he would never have written that last paragraph unless he were in dire distress. It is a cry for help. Where he may be in that vast territory which constitutes the Union of Soviet Peoples, it will be no easy task to discover. He has found somebody—a fellow p
risoner, perhaps—who was about to leave the country, and persuaded him to take this letter in the hope that it would get through. The chances were all against it reaching it’s destination, but as it has done so—the point is now—what are we to do?”

  Simon Aron leant forward and laughed his short, jerky laugh into his hand. “Well—er—I hate to say so,” he laughed again, “but it seems to me that you and I have got to take a trip to Russia.”

  Chapter II

  A Plan of Campaign

  “Now this,” said the Duke, “is indeed a pleasant surprise. I thought you might bring fresh light to bear upon some aspect of this affair—but to have your actual help was more than I had dared to hope.”

  “Very fond of Rex,” said Simon briefly.

  “I know,” De Richleau nodded, “but our situations are so different. My life is one of leisure—in fact, now that old age is creeping upon me, and more and more pursuits become barred to a man of my years—I find it increasingly difficult to pass my time in an interesting and agreeable manner. You, on the contrary, as a young partner in a great financial house, have always to be on the end of the eternal telephone. You even grudge a single afternoon spent away from your office in the City. I had imagined that it would be quite impossible for you to get away.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I was—er—thinking of taking a holiday—going down to Monte for a few days—might just as well go to Russia!”

  De Richleau smiled rather grimly. “I fear that this will be a very different kind of holiday, my friend. However, we will not talk of that. It is some days since I received this letter, so I have already made certain inquiries and preparations.”

  “Tell me,” said Simon, shortly.

  “First I cabled to my old friend, the President of the Chesapeake Banking and Trust Corporation—Van Ryn the elder—for news of Rex. Let us go into the other room, and I will show you his reply.” As he spoke the Duke left the table and threw open the door for his guest.