The Scarlet Impostor Read online

  ‘You certainly didn’t exaggerate the importance of this mission,’ Gregory murmured. ‘When do I start?’

  ‘It is a matter of extreme urgency,’ Sir Pellinore said quietly. ‘You will leave for Germany tonight.’

  3

  The Reversed Swastika

  Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust was a great gourmet and Gregory did ample justice to an admirable luncheon, during which they talked of many things, but they kept off the subject of the trip to Germany.

  Refraining for once from lingering over the nuts and port, they returned to the great library overlooking St. James’s Park and settled down to discuss the necessary arrangements.

  ‘We shall send you over by plane, of course,’ said Sir Pellinore casually.

  Gregory gave a rueful grin. ‘I suppose that means I’ll have to make a parachute jump. I’ve done it once before, but I’m damned if I fancy the idea of coming down like that in enemy country at night; especially as there’s bound to be a black-out. I might land right in the arms of the village policeman.’

  ‘For that reason a parachute jump would be much too risky, The plane will land you on German soil.’

  Gregory raised his left eyebrow, and the old wound-scar above it whitened, accentuating the almost Satanic look which it gave to his lantern-jawed face. ‘A night-landing with no ground lights sounds a pretty tricky proposition.’

  ‘Providing the weather remains calm I don’t think there’s much likelihood of the plane’s crashing. The pilot who will take you has done the trip a number of times before for practice.’

  ‘He hasn’t had to do it in a complete black-out, though.’

  ‘True.’ Sir Pellinore smiled. ‘But we’re not altogether without arrangements at the other end, so I think you may be reasonably confident of a safe landing.’

  ‘Good. Whereabouts is he going to drop me?’

  ‘It’s essential that you should make contact with Herr Julius Rheinhardt in Traben-Trabach at the earliest possible moment, but unfortunately the country to the south of Cologne is so thickly wooded and so mountainous that no secret landing-ground could be established there which we could use with even a reasonable degree of safety. The nearest, for your purpose, is in the flat country a few miles to the north-east of Cologne. You’ll have to walk into the city, but once there you should find no difficulty in getting transport up the Rhine and along the valley of the Moselle to Traben.’

  ‘Have you any views as to the sort of kit I should go in?’

  ‘As half the men in Germany are now under arms we thought that the most inconspicuous disguise for you would be the uniform of a German private.’

  ‘Don’t like it.’ Gregory shook his head. ‘It might be all right later in the war, when thousands of them will be on leave from their units, but no leave will have been granted yet, and a stray private drifting about on his own would be liable to be questioned by any patrol and asked what he was doing snooping about the countryside instead of being with his regiment.’

  ‘You could say that you were on your way to join your unit. You will, of course, be provided with all the proper papers.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Gregory repeated. ‘Some officious Railway Transport Officer will spot me as I’m travelling up the Rhine and probably bung me on the first train for Poland. They’ve got over seventy divisions operating there already so there’s a big chance that the unit to which I’m supposed to be attached is among them.’

  ‘Well, you can go in civilian clothes if you prefer of course, but …’ Sir Pellinore broke off suddenly as the under-butler entered the room with a decanter and two big, bowl-shaped glasses. ‘… Ha! Here’s the brandy.’

  ‘Have you still got any of that pre-war—I mean pre-1914—Kümmel?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘What, the original Mentzendorff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Only that I’ve always found it an excellent aid to thought, and while I can get fine brandy in other people’s houses you seem to have cornered all the pre-1914 Kümmel in London.’

  ‘Drat the boy!’ muttered Sir Pellinore, brushing a hand over his fine white moustache. ‘Another bottle gone, and even Justerini’s can’t find me any more, but I’d sooner you drank it than most people I know. At least you appear to appreciate the stuff, and I wouldn’t mind a spot myself.

  ‘Crawshay, bring me a bottle of Kümmel—out of the bin, mind; not that muck we have for parties.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ The elderly under-butler bowed in the doorway and disappeared as quietly as he had come. Sir Pellinore looked across at his guest.

  ‘I was about to say that very few men of your age in Germany will be in civilian clothes these days.’

  ‘I know. If they’re not in the Army they’re all Brownshirts or Black Guards, or some other comic kit, and somehow I don’t fancy the idea of wearing petticoats.’

  Sir Pellinore leaned back in his chair and gave way to a great gale of laughter. ‘No, no, Gregory. I’ve seen some damned clever impersonations in my time but we could never make up that lean, ugly face of yours to look like a woman’s. I’d give a packet to see you dressed as one, though, just for the fun of the thing.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid you’ll never have the chance. Here’s the Kümmel.’

  The under-butler had returned with the cobwebbed bottle still uncorked upon a salver. Sir Pellinore took it from him, and when the door had closed behind the man he gently tapped the wax off the top of the bottle as he said to Gregory:

  ‘Never allow my people to uncork old liquor. Servants don’t understand that sort of thing these days. Cork’s gone to powder, like as not. If so, they push it in and ruin the stuff. One thing I always do myself.’

  With a skilful sideways twist of the wide-spiralled corkscrew he drew the cork, smelled it, wiped the lip of the bottle free from dust with his finger and poured out two generous rations. For a moment they both savoured the fragrance of the old liqueur, then sipped it.

  ‘By jove! How right I was to ask you for this!’ Gregory murmured. ‘Smooth as cream, isn’t it? But what a kick!’

  Sir Pellinore nodded. ‘That’s the stuff to give the gels, eh? But I bet you’d manage without it. Now, where were we? Ah, discussing your kit, of course. Well, in my view you’d stand more chance of being questioned if you went in civilian clothes than you would dressed as a German soldier.’

  ‘Soldier!’ repeated Gregory, taking another swig at the Kümmel. ‘You’ve said it. But I’m not going as a private, who’d have to stand stiff as a ramrod before every bristle-haired N.C.O. I’m going as a German General.’

  ‘Gad!’ Sir Pellinore brought his huge fist down on his desk with a mighty thump. ‘Magnificent idea! In war-time a General is monarch of all he surveys. No one ever dares to question a General.’

  ‘Not only that, but I’ll be able to represent myself to Rheinhardt and his friends as one of the Generals who is in the conspiracy and they’ll be much more likely to talk, then. I’ll see if I can get myself a uniform from one of the theatrical costumiers this afternoon.’

  ‘Nonsense! Why shouldn’t the department do the job? Plenty of German uniforms in the wardrobe. Bound to be. Only a matter of sewing on the right tab, rank-badges and so on.’

  ‘You’re right, of course. They’ll be much more reliable about details than a costumier. We’d better leave it to them.’

  ‘We will. Never do anything yourself that you can get other people to do for you. Remember that, my boy. Better than any tip for the Derby. Lots of fools have paid me good money to get other people to do their work for them.’

  ‘I can well believe you,’ said Gregory succinctly. ‘West, of Savile Row, is my tailor. If they get on to him he’ll give them my measurements as a guide for size and fit.’

  ‘Good.’ Sir Pellinore dialled a number and got through at once on a priority line to a house in one of London’s remoter suburbs. After a short conversation the matter of the uniform was arranged, and replacing the receive
r he turned back to Gregory. ‘What’s the next thing?’

  ‘Boodle,’ said Gregory.

  ‘What?’ said Sir Pellinore.

  ‘Money—the sinews of war. I shall need German Reichsmarks, and plenty of ’em.’

  ‘Of course. I’ve already seen to that. Knew you wouldn’t let me down, you see!’ Sir Pellinore opened a drawer in his desk and handed over a sealed packet which Gregory opened. It contained 5,000 Reichsmarks in notes of various denominations, and a handful of silver.

  ‘H’m,’ he reflected, ‘that’s the equivalent of about £400 in our money if used inside Germany. Yes; that’ll keep me in cigarettes for the time being. There’s another thing, though. As a General I shall be immune from officious questioning, but I’ll have to register at hotels and so forth, so I’ll need an identity.’

  ‘Passport people will fix that for you this afternoon. They’ve plenty of enemy material to select from, and what they haven’t got they can fake up for you so well that nobody’ll know the difference. It’s just a matter of your choosing any name you consider suitable.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not good enough. True, the German Army’s so large that it has several hundred Generals; but even so, most of the high officers must know each other, by name at least. If I happened to run into someone who was a keen student of their Army List and he’d never heard of any General of the name I was going under, I’d soon find myself in hot water. It would be much safer to take the name of some existing General.’

  ‘The water would boil over right away, my boy, if you happened to walk into that particular General’s command.’

  ‘Oh, I quite see that,’ Gregory agreed with a twisted smile, ‘and it wouldn’t do to try to impersonate a General who’s at all well known. I was thinking of trying to find one who is of the German Army, but not in it.’

  ‘What the devil are you talking about?’

  ‘I mean a General who is at present outside Germany on a mission and can’t get back—Military Attaché somewhere, or something like that. Or I tell you what; better still, I’ll impersonate a dead dug-out.’

  ‘A dead dug-out?’

  ‘Certainly. Like every nation at war, Germany must be calling up innumerable officers who’ve been retired for some years but who’re still active enough for training troops in garrison duty. We must find a man like that; someone not very important but whose name must be vaguely known to a reasonable proportion of Army officers; a man who might easily have been recalled from his retirement but who has actually died within the last year or so.’

  ‘If he had died, though, a certain number of people would be sure to know of it.’

  ‘A few, but not many. Unless he’s a very big shot, nobody takes much notice of what happens to a General once he retires and leaves the way open for his juniors. If I ran into anyone who knew him personally I’d be in the soup, of course, but the chance of that is comparatively remote if we can find a man who has died after several years’ retirement.’

  ‘How about age? You don’t look like a General who’s been retired for several years.’

  ‘I don’t think we need worry about that. When a man’s passed his first youth he can easily add ten years to his age by the way in which he carries himself. Besides, though I hate like hell to do it, I shall shave my head like a typical Prussian, and when my dark hair’s gone I think you’ll be amazed to find how much older I shall look.’

  ‘Very well, then, I’ll get on to the right people immediately you’ve gone and we’ll try to trace a suitable defunct General for you. If we can, I’ll have your papers made out in his name. If not, you’ll have to put up with being a Colonel, but that would serve the purpose almost as well.’

  ‘Fine. Now, is there any other information at all that you can give me?’

  Sir Pellinore put his hand in his waistcoat pocket and drew out a small, gold swastika which he pushed across the desk. ‘See anything unusual about that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gregory replied at once. ‘It’s a reversed swastika—the sort they call the male, as opposed to the female which the Nazis use as their symbol. The male swastika is a pre-Christian emblem which had much the same significance in ancient times as the Cross has had since. It was supposed to signify the power of Light among the Aryan peoples, whereas the female kind signified the power of Darkness. I’ve often wondered how the Nazis came to make such a howling blunder as to select the evil symbol for their own emblem.’

  Sir Pellinore guffawed. ‘Well, Erika von Epp, or rather the Countess von Osterberg, to give her her new title is the real owner of this little thing.’

  ‘How did it come to you?’

  ‘That bright young blade in the Guards I was telling you about found it one morning caught in the top of his sock.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Gregory raised his eyebrows, and the two men grinned at one another. ‘And how did it come to get there?’

  ‘She had a violent infatuation for the young rascal—and that old scandalmonger, Brantôme, would have termed her “une dame très belle et très galante”. In our own more vulgar parlance, she’s damned hot stuff. Our friend reports that she used to wear it tied to the shoulder-strap of her “undies” with a little black bow. It must have got loose one evening while they were having a romp together. Anyhow, he found it when he got home and passed it on to us at the same time as he turned in that bit of information about Erika’s having toasted Germany’s return to the good old days under the leadership of the Army chiefs. It may mean nothing, but on the other hand it may be an identification symbol that the conspirators are using. You’d better take it. It might come in handy.’

  Gregory picked up the little charm and put it carefully away in his notecase as he asked: ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No. ‘Fraid not. It’s up to you now to trace the anti-Nazi leaders through Julius Rheinhardt, or, if he proves to be a dead end, through the Countess Erika. That Bolshie feller, Archer, is not worth wasting powder and shot on.’

  ‘All the same I’d like to have his address.’

  ‘He lives at 65 Walshingham Terrace, Kennington; just south of the river.’

  ‘Thanks. What time do I start?’

  ‘Be back here at 11 o’clock tonight. Your uniform and the necessary papers will be ready for you. There’ll be a car here to take you to the airport, and I’ll come along to see you off.’

  ‘That’s decent of you.’

  ‘No.’ Sir Pellinore’s voice dropped to a lower note and he looked away a little quickly. ‘Either you won’t come back, my boy, or having seen you leave England tonight I shall have been privileged to witness the opening of a new and happier chapter in European history.’

  4

  Wings Over the Frontier

  As a taxi whisked Gregory back to Gloucester Road the streets appeared just the same as they had a few hours earlier. The sun was still shining; people were going about their Sunday occupations much as usual. Except that there was less than half the usual traffic, only the occasional heaps of sandbags protecting pavement lights, the strips of paper pasted across shop windows to prevent broken glass flying in an air raid and a sprinkling of figures in khaki really brought home the fact that there was a war on.

  The London scene remained exactly the same as it had been when he had set out from Gloucester Road, but Gregory himself was a changed man.

  The sullen, angry despondence of the morning had left him. A new elation made him infinitely more sensitive to the sights and sounds around him, yet he experienced none of the wild exhilaration which might have filled a younger man.

  He was fully conscious both of the magnitude of the task before him and of its danger. To penetrate an enemy country in war-time with forged papers meant that he would most certainly be shot as a spy if he were once caught and put behind iron bars, while it was credibly reported that Hitler’s secret police often beat their victims to a pulp with thin steel rods before they finally dragged them out to finish them off with a bullet. What such swine might do to one of the
hated English now the war was on was just nobody’s business.

  Nevertheless, being a cheerful cynic by nature, he was not unduly despondent. A true philosopher, he realised that all he could do was to take every possible precaution that his very able brain could devise; the rest must remain upon the knees of the gods. One thing that cheered him immensely was the knowledge that he was being sent out on a job that really was worth while, and it tickled his sense of humour to think that only that morning he would have jumped at the chance of a commission in an infantry regiment. Now, if only he could pull off this mighty coup, he would be able to serve his country as well as any Field-Marshal commanding a victorious army.

  In his strong, sinewy hands, unshackled by orders or interference from above, there lay the possibility of being able to bring the war to a speedy and successful conclusion. All the armed forces of the Crown could not do more than that.

  Immediately he reached 272 Goucester Road he yelled for Rudd, and his ex-batman came tumbling up from the dark and mysterious cavern in the basement where he dwelt. One look at Gregory’s face was enough to assure Rudd that he had got a job.

  ‘So yer pulled it orf, sir? Got the old gentleman ter wangle somethin’ for yer? I knew yer would. Wot’s it ter be—Army, Navy, or the blinkin’ Marines! I don’t give a cuss myself, s’long as I can lend a ’and ter shoot the Charlie Chaplin orf of ’Itler.’

  Gregory shook his head sadly. ‘I’m sorry, old friend, but I shan’t be able to take you with me. Mine’s to be a one-man show.’