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  The Black Baroness

  ( Gregory Sallust - 4 )

  Dennis Wheatley

  In this exciting Scarlet Impostor story Dennis Wheatley takes as his background the seventy terrific days from Hitler's invasion of Norway in April to the surrender of the French in June. Gregory Sallust once more plays his part in adventure after adventure in Scandinavia the Low Countries and right through France; his adversary on this occasion being the Black Baroness the French associate of his old enemy Herr Gruppenfuhrer Grauber.

  THE BLACK BARONESS

  by

  DENNIS WHEATLEY

  Copyright: 1940

  Author's Note

  The sequence of the seven books which recount the war adventures of Gregory Sallust is as follows: The Scarlet Impostor, Faked Passports, The Black Baroness, V for Vengeance, Come Into My Parlour, Traitors' Gate and They Used Dark Forces. Each volume is a complete story in itself, but the series covers Gregory's activities from September, 1939, to May, 1945, against an unbroken background incorporating all the principal events of the Second World War.

  Gregory Sallust also appears in three other books: Black August, a story set in an undated future; Contraband, an international smuggling story of 1937; and The Island Where Time Stands Still, an adventure set in the South Seas and Communist China during the year 1954.

  CHAPTER 1

  Hitler's Secret Weapon

  Although it was mid-March snow still capped the tops of the Norwegian mountains which stood out white and clear against a pale, frosty sky. But the sun shone in the valleys and dappled the wavelets of the greenish sea as the little Baltic tramp steamer puffed its way into Oslo Fjord.

  On the tramp's foredeck a man and a woman sat in a pair of rickety old basket chairs that they had carried out from the tiny saloon. The woman was golden-haired and very beautiful. Her proud profile and the lazy grace with which she half-reclined in the easy chair marked her at once as an aristocrat. The man was a loose-limbed fellow in the late thirties; dark, lean-faced, and sinewy by nature, a recent bout of fever had given him an almost wolfish look, but it was relieved by a pair of smiling eyes and a cynical twist to his firm, strong mouth.

  The woman was the Countess von Osterberg or, since she preferred to be known by her maiden name, Erika von Epp. The man was Gregory Sallust or, as he preferred to be known by the name under which he was travelling, the Colonel-Baron von Lutz. It was March the 19th—six days since the Russo-Finnish War had ended and five days since they had escaped across the ice, which was beginning to break up in theGulf of Finland , to the little tramp that was now just completing the first journey of the year south to her home port.

  For the first two days of the voyage they had lain in their narrow quarters almost comatose, gradually recovering from utter nervous and physical exhaustion; the result of the ten days' ordeal through which they had passed before escaping from Herr Gruppenfuhrer Grauber, the chief of the Gestapo Foreign Department, U.A.—I.

  From the third day they had staggered out on deck to continue their convalescence in the fresh air and wintry sunshine. Gradually they were getting back to normal, but they still spoke little and slept from dusk to dawn each night, just content to be in each other's company.

  Had it not been for their third companion, the Bolshevik General, Stefan Kuporovitch, who had decided to shake the dust of theSoviet Union off his feet with them, they would have talked even less, but the Russian was a talkative person and he had passed through no such ordeal as theirs.

  It was he who had made arrangements for the three of them with the captain of the little tramp, but as they had approached the coast ofNorway they had realised that he could not enter another country without a passport. In consequence, he had been landed from the ship's boat, in the early hours of that morning, on a desolate stretch of the Norwegian shore, with the understanding that if he could evade the police he was to meet the others inOslo . So Erika and Gregory were at last alone.

  While the tramp chopped its way down the Baltic, they had avoided any discussion about the future. The war had reached a stalemate; for many months the British had appeared satisfied to blockade Germany, while the French accepted the Siegfried Line as impregnable and did not even attempt to test it by attacks in force, and Hitler seemed content to remain blockaded indefinitely, only playing upon the nerves of his opponents and neighbours by threatening a Blitzkrieg on the Balkans, the Low Countries and Scandinavia from week to week in rotation. It looked as though things might go on in that way for years; which was not a happy prospect for the two lovers in view of the fact that she was a German girl and he an Englishman,

  If Erika returned to Germany the Nazis would promptly execute her, but she refused to seek sanctuary inBritain orFrance , so her only course was to live in a neutral country where she might still work for Hitler's overthrow. Gregory, on the other hand, was perfectly free to return toEngland although, as a lone wolf, working entirely outside the Secret Service, there was no compulsion for him to do so. But Erika knew her man; he would never be content to settle down with her inNorway orSweden while his country was still lighting for its existence.

  With every mile that the tramp came nearer to its destination that thought had troubled them both more and more. They had been in love for over six months and when Erika could get a divorce from her husband they intended to get married. It seemed utterly tragic that now that they were free and together again they must part so soon.

  He had tried desperately hard to persuade himself that he was entitled to remain inNorway with her for a few weeks at least. Old Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust, who had sent him out on his strange mission, already knew the results of his wanderings, so there was no one to whom he felt bound to report. Even when he got home he might be kept kicking his heels for months before he was offered another job which really suited his unusual capabilities. Yet he knew that it was no good.Britain was at war and it was up to him to find a way of taking a new hand in the game without an hour's unnecessary delay.

  'We should be in by about three o'clock,' he murmured.

  She nodded. 'Yes; but they may keep us hanging about for hours before they allow us ashore.'

  'That depends on how soon we can get hold of your friend at the German Legation, and how long it takes him to secure entry permits for us.'

  'Yes, it's a bore our passports not having Norwegian visas but I'm sure Uli von Einem will soon fix matters up.'

  'I only hope to goodness he doesn't happen to know that you're wanted by the Gestapo or that the real Colonel Baron von Lutz was killed while resisting arrest by the Nazis last November.'

  Erika shrugged. 'As I said last night, it's not easy for any legation to keep track of what has happened to eighty million Germans while a war is going on and, even if they do know, they can't do anything to us while we're on a neutral ship. We'll just have to think up some other method of getting ashore or transfer to a ship that will take us round to a Swedish port and try our luck there.'

  'I can always get in touch with the British Legation,' Gregory said slowly, 'and I might be able to wangle some way of getting you into Norway; but if I can continue to pose as a German it will prevent a lot of unwelcome speculation as to why we're always together while we are in Oslo.'

  She turned suddenly and looked him full in the face. 'For how long is that to be, Gregory?'

  'Not very long, darling—worse luck,' he replied quietly. 'You know how things are, so we needn't go over it all and add to what we're feeling. As soon as we land I must find out when there's a plane that will take me home, so we've now got only a few days together at the most.'

  Erika could have screamed with the frightful injustice of it all. Through his crazy ambition this mountebank, Hitler
, had sown the seeds of misery, poverty and death broadcast throughout half the world. The foul crop was barely visible as yet, but in time it would strangle innumerable beautiful things, and already the shoots of the filthy weed were forcing apart the roots of countless loves and friendships.

  But she was a splendidly courageous person so she did not seek by a single word to dissuade Gregory from his decision, and her intense distress was shown only by a slight moistening of her very beautiful blue eyes.

  An hour later the tramp had berthed and by six o'clock Uli von Einem had joined them with papers enabling them to go ashore. He was a thin, fair man, who in the past had been one of Erika's innumerable admirers, and he possessed all the tact of a born diplomat. Privately, he thought it a queer business that his lovely friend should arrive, without even a beauty-box for baggage, on a tramp steamer that had come from Leningrad, but the one lesson that Freiherr von Einem had learnt since the Nazis had come to power was that the less one knew officially about anything the less likelihood there was of finding oneself carted off, without warning, to a concentration-camp. The passports of both Erika and her friend were in perfect order except that they lacked Norwegian visas, and Erika had intimated that they were both on urgent secret business connected with the prosecution of the war, so von Einem had accepted her statement without comment.

  Gregory had thrown overboard the Gestapo uniform that he had stolen from Grauber so he was dressed in a ready-made suit which he had bought off the first Mate of the tramp, but its poor quality was concealed under his rich furs. Erika also was still in her furs, and their only belongings were contained in a single handbag that Gregory had brought out of Russia with him, so they were not long delayed by the Customs. Von Einem drove them to the Grand Hotel in the Karl Johansgt and, having accepted an invitation to lunch with them on the following day, left them there.

  On going into the lounge they saw, to their delight, that Kuporovitch had succeeded in evading the Norwegian coastguards. He was sitting with a long-stemmed glass in front of him but as soon as he caught sight of them he disposed of its contents and came hurrying over with a gay wave of his hand.

  The Russian was a clean-shaven man in his early fifties. His grey hair was brushed smoothly back and, strangely contrasting with it, his eyebrows, which were still black, ran thin and pointed towards the temples of his smooth white forehead. Under them were a pair of rather lazy blue eyes, but their glance was apt to be deceptive as behind them lay an extremely shrewd intelligence. Up to the age of twenty-nine he had been an officer of the Imperial Russian Army, but when the Revolution had broken out a strange set of circumstances had resulted in his joining the Bolsheviks. After the Civil War he had come to loathe and despise his new masters, yet with the laudable desire to keep his head on his shoulders he had concealed his antipathy for many years with superlative skill. For a long time past he had been hoarding foreign currency with the idea of escaping from the dreary, depressing land of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics so that he might spend his old age among civilised people, and his great ambition was to see the Paris of his youth again.

  Greeting his friends in French—which was their common language—he said with a smile: 'I've booked rooms for you— two bedrooms with a bathroom in between, so that you can preserve the proprieties of this charming old world into which I am so delighted to have returned. Come upstairs and I will show you.'

  Upstairs, perched on Erika's bed and smoking a long cheroot, he told them, with many chuckles, of his adventures that day. It had all been too easy. He had walked to the nearest village, found its school and routed out the village schoolmaster, to whom he had said: 'I am a member of the French Legation in Oslo and was returning there after a visit to Kristiansand. When the train halted in the station here I got out to get some hot coffee in the buffet and the train went on without me. Unfortunately, too, it carried on my baggage and a small attache-case in which I had some papers and my ticket. Would you oblige me by acting as interpreter at the station so that I can buy another ticket and take the next train on?' The Norwegian had been most polite and helpful, so Kuporovitch had arrived in Oslo without the least difficulty.

  Having washed and tidied themselves they went down to the grill-room. The head waiter was nearly guilty of raising an eyebrow when he saw them approaching, for Kuporovitch was in shoddy 'ready-mades' that he had bought at an old-clothes shop in Leningrad, Gregory was in the first Mate's second-best suit and Erika's tweeds showed obvious signs of the hard wear they had sustained; but as the man's glance swept across their faces he noted Erika's regal beauty and that in spite of their shabby clothes both her escorts had the air of men who were used to being obeyed. With a swift bow he led them to a sofa-table.

  The under-waiter who took their order brought the maitre d'hotel scurrying back again, his face now wreathed in smiles. The strangely-dressed trio had ordered a superb meal and some of the best wines that his cellar boasted. He did not know that the broad-shouldered, middle-aged man with the black, pointed eyebrows had been cooped up in Russia for nearly a quarter of a century and that it was many months since the others had had a meal in a good restaurant. They were speaking French but he put them down as rich Germans who had been suffering from the Nazis' impoverished larder and had somehow managed to get away to Norway.

  Although they had spared no pains or expense in ordering their favourite dishes, the meal was not the success that it should have been, because the black cloud of war and the coming separation weighed heavily upon the spirits of the little party. The tables were widely spaced so they were able to talk freely without risk of being overheard, and when they had reached the coffee and brandy stage Gregory turned to the Russian.

  'The time has come, Stefan, when we must discuss plans. I shall have to leave here in a day or two—as soon as I can get a plane—for England. What do you intend to do?'

  Kuporovitch smiled. 'Now that I am a free man once more I can hardly wait until I get to Paris; but the devil of it is that I have no passport. What are the intentions of Madame la Comtesse?'

  'It would be unwise for her to remain here long. The Germans are so thorough that solely as a matter of routine von Einem will have reported our arrival in Oslo. It may take a week or two passing through the files of petty officials, but sooner or later the Gestapo will learn where she's got to.'

  'Does that matter now that she is in a neutral country?'

  Gregory grinned. 'You don't know the Gestapo, my friend. They're quite capable of kidnapping Erika or arranging one of their jolly little motor-car accidents in which she would be knocked down and killed.

  Besides, as we told you on the tramp, by the merest fluke we happened to come into possession of the German war plan. They've followed it step by step so far, and Norway is the next on their list. Her life would not be worth a moment's purchase if she were still here when they staged an invasion.'

  Erika drew slowly on her cigarette. 'What d'you suggest then?'

  'Stage 7 of the plan lays it down that Sweden is strong enough to require a separate operation, so she should be left for the time being, but that Norway and Denmark can be taken over together. Sweden would then be entirely isolated and so in no position to resist whenever the Germans consider it convenient to take control there. The plan then passes to Stage 8, which concerns Holland and Belgium, and no further mention of Sweden is made at all. As it's quite on the cards that the Germans will be content to absorb Sweden's entire exports without actually walking into the place for some considerable time, I suggest that Erika should move there.'

  The Russian raised his dark eyebrows. 'But surely she will be just as liable to secret attacks from the Gestapo in Sweden as she would be here?'

  'No. Here she had to disclose her true identity to get into the country. My suggestion is that she should quietly slip away from Oslo and cross the border at some place up-country; then she could settle in Sweden, under an assumed name, until I can make arrangements for her to sail to America.'

 
; 'America!' Erika exclaimed. 'But, darling, once there I may not be able to get back, and I just can't live unless I'm to have some hope of seeing you again before many months are past.'

  Gregory sighed. 'We'll talk of that later, my sweet. Your immediate safety is the most important thing. It shouldn't be difficult for you to keep out of trouble in some small Swedish town, even without a passport, for the next few weeks, and my idea was that Stefan could go with you.'

  'But I have no wish at all to go to Sweden,' the Russian protested. 'It is to see Paris again ...'

  'I know.' Gregory interrupted swiftly; 'but you didn't let me finish. Without a passport you haven't got a hope in hell of getting to France, but the British Government owes me a bit for services rendered so I mean to try to get you a passport and entry permit to France at the same time as I get them for Erika to the United States. In the meantime you can take care of each other.'

  'Ah, in that case'—Kuporovitch waved his cigar—' I shall be delighted to place myself at the disposal of Madame la Comtesse.'

  'That's settled, then,' said Gregory. 'Let's pay the bill and go up to bed.'

  Kuporovitch accompanied them only as far as the lift, since now that he was back in civilisation he had other ideas as to how he meant to spend his evening.