Mediterranean Nights Read online

  She gave her name to the other clerk as Fräulein Lisabetta von Loewring, but I hadn’t time to stop and talk to her.

  Five minutes later another taxi set me down at the gates of the British Embassy. I walked through into the courtyard and entered the block of office buildings on the right. I was in luck. The office staff had gone of course, but little—well, let’s call him Harvey—was still there.

  ‘Well, Thornton,’ he grinned at me, ‘glad to see you—take a seat.’

  ‘Know who’s come in on the boat train?’ I asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Kurt Essenbach,’ I told him.

  ‘Essenbach?’ he repeated. ‘You mean the chap who went Bolshie after the war and then returned to the German service in 1925? That’s interesting—we haven’t heard a thing about him for the last two years. What’s he up to now?’

  ‘That’s your job—not mine,’ I told him, but I mentioned the Felixstowe label and suggested Martlesham as a possibility.

  ‘I’d better get through to London,’ he said, and in a few moments he was talking to someone round the corner from Whitehall. When he put down the receiver his face was grave.

  It seemed that I was right. Two days before one of the draughtsmen on the civil side had disappeared from Martlesham. Steady fellow—been working there for eighteen months. Essenbach of course—taking his time. The police had failed to trace him, so they set a watch on the ports and got our people to put a man on every boat. He’d slipped through at Dover, but the service man had picked him up half-way across—spotted the Felixstowe label—careless that, for an old hand. Anyhow they had wired from Calais and were following him to Paris.

  I learned too that Essenbach had been working in the special room because one of the seniors had gone sick—just the chance he’d been waiting for—and although the blue prints were intact it was a hundred to one he’d got a set of tracings from the diagram of our new fighter. It looked serious to me.

  Harvey said that a special man had been sent over by ‘plane, and in the meantime the chap who had spotted Essenbach on the boat would be sitting on his tail.

  I felt a bit sick that I hadn’t known they were on to him earlier—having hurried to the Embassy had spoilt my chances of what might have developed into something interesting, and as I stood up I told Harvey casually of my meeting with Fräulein Lisabetta.

  He was on me like a flash and cursed me for not having mentioned her before. You see, no first-class espionage man ever holds anything a second longer than he need. There is nearly always a messenger to meet him somewhere and relieve him of his stuff. I had left the compartment for a few moments just before we reached Chantilly, so anything might have happened then, and if I hadn’t been so rusty I should have thought of it before. Harvey was insistent that she had been sent to meet him, and when I thought it over I felt it was ten to one that he was right.

  ‘We’ve got to get her, Thornton,’ he said sharply. ‘You see that, don’t you? Our people are after him, only you and I know about her.’

  Well, I didn’t like the job a bit, so I suggested that he should either get in touch with the London men or call in the French.

  He told me that I ought to know that all London agents report direct—not to him, he wouldn’t know them if he saw them—and that they didn’t even know each other. As for the French, we were up against them just as much as all the rest in these days. If they laid hands on those tracings they would photograph them for a certainty before they passed them on to us.

  ‘Why not get on to London again?’ I asked. ‘Tell them what we suspect and they can instruct their people over here.’

  ‘But, damn it, man, you know the woman already!’ he protested. ‘Look at the lead you’ve got—give her some dinner somewhere. One of the porters at the Ritz is on my Paris list—he’ll search her room while she’s with you.’

  I didn’t like the idea, and I said so, but he began to plead with me.

  ‘Now look here, Thornton; this is really serious. If those tracings reach their destination they may do us untold harm. This woman’s got to be separated from her luggage for an hour or two—and it’s up to you.’

  Well, it was a service matter and I had no alternative but to give in, so I told him I’d telephone if I could arrange it.

  My talk with Harvey hadn’t lasted more than twenty minutes, so I was back at the hotel in under half an hour, and directly I reached my room I sat down to write a very formal and guarded note. I felt that was the best line and I was right.

  Ten minutes after I had sent the letter to her room she telephoned; said how kind it was of me to think of her—that she was feeling better and would like to dine, provided I did not mind that she was not permitted to dance afterwards—then she asked what restaurant I suggested.

  I mentioned one or two and we settled on the Tour d’Argent.

  I took the opportunity of securing her room number by inquiring at the office to which room I had been talking, and I found that she was next to Essenbach—on the same floor as myself. That settled it in my mind that they were acting together. You see, it is so handy to have another room near your own into which you can slip, when you are liable to be beaten up at any moment.

  I told Harvey what I had done, and he asked me to ring him again at a Passy number before I left the Tour d’Argent. He would have heard by then from his man at the Ritz.

  When the Lady Lisabetta joined me in the hall an hour or so later, she looked more charming than ever.

  I should have enjoyed that dinner if I hadn’t known what was going on behind the scenes. In the war, of course, I’d become hardened to dealing with the actress-courtesan type who dabble in espionage, but this was a woman of distinction, so you can imagine how I disliked the false position I was in!

  After we had finished dinner I excused myself for a moment and got Harvey on the ‘phone. ‘Well,’ I asked, ‘all serene?’

  But it wasn’t—his man had drawn blank at the hotel, so she must have the goods on her, and my heart sank like a stone. You see, I knew what was coming next before he spoke.

  ‘You know the drill?’ he said.

  I knew the drill all right, but I told him I couldn’t do it—he must send one of his Paris people along to take over—but he protested that anyone who didn’t know her wouldn’t have a chance—and wanted to know what sort of midsummer madness I was suffering from.

  Then of course I realised where I was drifting. If she had been old and ugly it would never have entered my head to kick at being asked to take the usual steps. As it was, I just hated the idea, but I had to go through with it.

  ‘All right,’ I agreed reluctantly, ‘where?’

  He told me he would send along a man in a red muffler and black cap to pick me up.

  When I rejoined her I suggested another ration of the Old Original Chartreuse. I wanted to give Harvey’s man time to reach the Tour d’Argent, and as we weren’t going on anywhere she agreed, so we sat there for a bit drinking that marvellous liqueur, which the old monks made before they were kicked out of France. I lit another cigarette and endeavoured to make amusing conversation, but it was a poor effort. She pursed up that big generous mouth of hers with a humorous look and accused me of having spotted someone more attractive than herself when I went out to telephone.

  I laughed it off, of course, but I was glad when I felt enough time had elapsed to send for the bill.

  Outside on the doorstep I had a quick look round—Harvey had done his job and there was the taxi. The driver’s language was a joy as he wangled his cab in front of two others—I recognised him immediately by the cap and muffler.

  She didn’t notice that we had veered away from the direction of the Ritz until we crossed to the Place de la Concorde. Then she gave me a sharp look and asked where he was taking us. I apologised blandly enough—said I’d forgotten it before, but a friend of mine had asked me to deliver a letter personally in Paris; as I was leaving very early next day I’d thought she wouldn’t mind
if I dropped it on the way back that night.

  She sank back in her corner with a little shrug, and I smothered a sigh of relief at her acquiescence—at least I had escaped the wretched business of holding her down for the rest of the journey. You see, I had the rotten job of getting her to a certain house where we could commit the quite illegal act of having her searched.

  A few minutes later the driver gave a sharp toot on his horn and swung the cab through a pair of big gates into the courtyard of a private house.

  I got out and ran up the steps, the frost glass door was opened almost immediately—Harvey stood waiting for me in the hall.

  ‘Got her?’ he asked at once.

  I nodded. His lined face lit up with one of those rare smiles. ‘Good boy,’ he said, ‘bring her in.’

  I waited a moment, then I went out again and spoke to Lisabetta, told her a story about a business deal in which we were all interested—that the chap who owned the house wanted to write a note for me to take south, and pressed her to come in for five minutes while he did it.

  She leant forward, and I just caught her smile in the light from the open doorway. ‘Colonel Thornton,’ the eyebrows rose, ‘this is Paris—a strange house—and it is late! But I think it would be amusing to trust you!’

  A fat, motherly old person showed us into a room on the ground floor. Harvey was standing in front of the fireplace—and he wasted no time in formalities.

  He said straight out that he was there to safeguard certain interests of his Government. That he knew she had travelled from Calais with a man named Essenbach, who was in the German Secret Service, and that she must hand over anything with which she had been entrusted by him.

  As I watched her face I saw a barely perceptible tightening of the mobile mouth. She knew that she’d been trapped, and she swung round on me.

  ‘So it was for this that the kind Colonel asked me to dine? What a humiliation, and what foolishness on my part to assume that it was gallantry!’

  Harvey had the grace to say that I had been acting under his instructions and that it was a service matter. Then he told her firmly that unless she did what he asked he would have her searched.

  ‘I know nothing of Essenbach,’ she flared. ‘If you detain me here I will complain to my ambassador.’

  He explained to her quite patiently that it wouldn’t do her any good. The house was taken furnished, and it would be untenanted five minutes after our departure.

  Then she threatened to have me arrested by the police, but Harvey had her there again. He’d fixed an alibi for me with half a dozen of his friends—a card-party at a private house.

  ‘Search, then!’ She threw a contemptuous glance at me. ‘Search—but you will find nothing.’

  Harvey put his finger on the bell and the fat woman appeared in the doorway. I held the door open for Lisabetta and she left the room without a murmur.

  I took out my cigarette-case, but he refused to smoke and stood there drumming on the mantelpiece with his fingernails.

  The stout woman came in again—she had a glorious Cockney accent. ‘She ain’t got a thing on ’er, Mr. ’Arvey, sir.’

  Harvey frowned and asked her if she was dead certain.

  ‘Sure as my old man’s in ‘Eaven,’ she piped, as she held out a bundle of silk and lace for his inspection. ‘Look fer yerself, Mr. ’Arvey, sir.’

  We waved Lisabetta’s garments away impatiently and asked how she had taken it.

  ‘Like a lamb she did,’ said Phoebe. ‘I never ’ad the undressin’ of a nicer lady, and ’er undies is that fine they must ’ave cost a fortune—not like some as we’ve ’ad ’ere!’

  ‘Better take her back her things,’ he told her; ‘we shall have to keep her here a bit.’

  Old Phoebe grinned at him. ‘Very good, Mr. ’Arvey, sir—I’ll make the pore dear a nice cup o’ tea—jest to cheer ’er up like.’

  As the door closed I chuckled to myself. The comic relief afforded by that old woman had been a godsend in such a trying situation, but Harvey turned on me with an angry stare.

  ‘For God’s sake don’t laugh—it’s a damned sight too serious,’ he snapped.

  He’d been on the ‘phone to London an hour before, and they were in a flat spin. It seems their first man had reported Essenbach’s arrival at the Ritz and been told to go off duty at eight o’clock. You see it is very essential to change the shadow, otherwise you arouse the suspicions of the bird you’re after. The second man should have been there to take over, but he’d been forced down by engine trouble near Folkestone and he wouldn’t be in Paris till next day. In the meantime Essenbach wasn’t even under observation.

  That sort of breakdown doesn’t happen often, but it is one of the snags in our system that no agent is supposed to know another by sight. If number two had had to report to number one, the first chap would never have gone off duty till the second turned up—still, accidents will happen, and the moment I understood I was looking every bit as worried as Harvey.

  ‘There’s only one thing for it,’ I told Harvey at last, ‘the old direct method. Telephone your porter to leave a pass-key to Essenbach’s room on my writing-table. I may have to wring his neck, but I’ll get those tracings somehow.’

  We arranged that I was to take half an hour’s start. I reckoned that would be ample time to do my business, then Lisabetta was to be blindfolded, put in the taxi with Phoebe, and dropped at a quiet spot at the top end of the Tuileries Gardens. She couldn’t come to any harm there, and could either take another taxi or walk back to the Ritz.

  When I got to my room at the Ritz I found the pass-key on the table, so I changed into my bedroom slippers at once and tip-toed out into the corridor.

  Essenbach’s room was on the opposite side and about six doors down. The lights in the passage were at half-cock and not a sound broke the stillness. I passed Lisabetta’s empty room and slid the key gently into the lock on Essenbach’s door, it turned without a sound—then I pressed, and the door gave a trifle.

  With a final shove I slipped inside—then crash! something hit me on the head, and I was sent spinning to the floor. The thing was on top of me—a great weighty object, pinning me down. I tried to struggle out from underneath it, but before I could get to my knees I got another crack on my skull.

  The second blow knocked me silly for a moment, and I just wriggled feebly on the floor while a pair of quick hands ran over me. I was still half stunned, but I tried to grab my adversary’s throat. Then, with a sudden sickening jab, he thrust his knee into my stomach.

  That finished me and by the time the pain was easing a little he had lashed my arms firmly to my sides.

  The light clicked on, and there was Essenbach peering down at me—fully dressed. He had shut the door, and I saw what had knocked me endways the first time. It was a giant booby-trap—a Heath Robinson affair, but efficient. Half the furniture in the room had been used to balance a heavy steamer trunk which was bound to crash on the head of anyone who opened the door more than a foot.

  Essenbach took up a hefty automatic, complete with Silencer, from the table by his bed and pointed it at me. Then he said that he had been expecting my visit for the last two hours. Like a fool it had never occurred to me that his memory for faces might be as good as mine!

  I struggled into a sitting position with my back against the wall, but he tapped his automatic and his eyes bored down into mine, so I had to leave it at that.

  Then he began to talk in fierce soft whispers about the old days of the war and afterwards. His eyes never left my face as he told me quite calmly that he meant to do me in. He meant to ensure that I should never interfere with his future activities by recognising him again.

  Well, as you can imagine, I had the wind up pretty badly, and I felt my only chance was to scare him into clearing out at once. So I told him he could do what he damned well liked with me if he chose to risk his neck—but he’d be far wiser to get out while the going was good—the French were after him and I’d only be
aten them by a short head. Of course he didn’t believe me, but it was the best card I had. Some of the old hands at the Sûreté knew him as well as I did, and if they had the least suspicion that he was in Paris with anything worth pinching on him, they would have arrested him on some trumped-up charge and searched him.

  I told him that I’d been talking over his exploit with another of our people half an hour before at the Cercle Etrangère when we thought we were alone. Then, I said that as we left the room I’d spotted Moreau buried in a deep armchair. Moreau is in the Ministry of the Interior and I knew that Essenbach would know his name. I only had to add that as I left the club I’d seen Moreau hurrying to a telephone box, and I had him properly scared.

  He didn’t waste time talking, but jerked me to my feet and started to search my pockets. A second later he was flourishing the key of my room in my face. ‘Walk,’ he snapped at me, ‘to your room, Herr Oberst—and no noise!’

  The muzzle of his pistol was jammed hard in the small of my back, and my hands were still tied firmly to my sides, so there didn’t seem much option but to obey.

  He shoved me inside my own room and shut the door behind him—then he had the cheek to ask me how long I thought it would be before the French turned up. I lied like a trooper, of course—swore they would be there any moment, and urged him to destroy the tracings before he was caught. After all, they would have been more dangerous to Germany in the hands of the French than to any other country, and I thought I might bluff him into destroying his own handiwork.

  He considered that for a moment, then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said suddenly, ‘I will keep them—also I will get away, but first I must make you safe—lie down.’

  Well, I could quite understand that he didn’t want me chasing him down the corridor and I patted myself on the back for having bluffed myself out of a pretty desperate situation.