The Sword of Fate (41 page)

I parked the stolen bicycle on the other side of the street, and five minutes later I was still staring at the solid wooden garden gate, wondering how I could get in without disclosing my identity, when a buxom woman with a big basket on her head stopped in front of it. She was just about to ring the bell when my shout caught her in time, and I hurried across the road to her.

“Excuse me,” I said in my best Greek. “Can you tell me whose house this is?”

“It’s not a private residence,” she replied at once, “but the German Archaeological Institute.”

I smiled grimly. In order to be able to spy quite freely for the Italians the Germans had kept their Legation in Athens open until April the 3rd, and although the Greeks had feared a Nazi attack for months it had been impossible to turn them out. When the attack came the Germans had shut themselves up in their Legation while presumably waiting to be sent back to their own
country, but the Graeco-German war was still so young—although it was already as good as over—that it was unlikely that anyone had had time to mop up the various German institutions in Greece, and of course the old professors at the Archaeological Institute would be regarded as quite harmless. Doubtless in the main building work had gone on much as usual during the past nineteen days of desperate battle, and no visiting inspectors would have found anything to arouse their suspicions there, but the place made the most excellent cover for
Gestapo
agents, and I had no doubt at all that the little garden-house was one of their headquarters.

“You’re not a German, are you?” I asked the woman.

Her broad, healthy face went almost scarlet, and for a moment I thought she was going to hit me, as she choked out: “Me! A German! Do I look like it? I’m a Greek, young man, and we’ll make these Nazis curse the day that they ever set foot in our country yet!”

“Fine!” I grinned. “That’s all I wanted to know. You can see from my uniform that I’m a British officer. I’ve got to get into this place somehow, and I want you to help me. What have you got in that basket?”

“Washing—for the German gentleman who lives in the little house.”

“How many servants has he got?”

“Only one, as far as I know—a manservant who cooks and does for him. They’ve been here close on two months.”

“I’ve got to see the master, or rather a friend of his who has just gone in there,” I said. “Once I’m inside I’ll be able to manage for myself, but the trouble is going to be getting through that gate. Will you let me deliver your basket of washing?”

She nodded. “If it’s to fix some of those Germans you can and welcome, but they’d never mistake you for a washerwoman’s man in that uniform you’re wearing, even though it could do with a good clean.”

“I know.” I frowned. “I was just wondering how to get over that.” As I spoke my eye lit on a raincoat that Mondragora had left in his car. Reaching through the open back window, I yanked it out and put it on. It was of a greyish-green material, and although the lower part of my legs still remained a complete giveaway, when buttoned up it covered my uniform from below the knees to the chin.

“I may be some time,” I said to the woman, “but I want you to look after my gas-mask, tin hat and cap while I’m inside. I’ll
bring your basket back if I can, but if I have to leave in a hurry I’ll pay you for it.”

When she had taken the things I picked up the big basket and, holding it in front of me chest-high, I propped it against the wooden gates while I rang the bell.

There was a sound of footsteps on the gravel and the gateway was opened a crack.

“Washing,” I announced, in as casual and throaty a voice as I could manage.

A pair of blue eyes peered at me suspiciously from a fair-skinned shiny face, which was topped off by a typically German shaven skull.

“Vare is der vooman who usually der vashing brings?” said the servant in Greek with a heavy German accent.

“Sick,” I replied laconically. “I’m her nephew.”

Apparently satisfied, he opened the gate to let me through, and closed it again carefully after me. A quick glance round showed me that the long garden was empty, then I followed him down a narrow semi-dark open-air passage, which lay between the high garden wall and the blank side-wall of the little house.

He was about half-way along this passage when I called after him and he turned.

“Here,” I said, thrusting out the basket. “Hold this a minute, will you? I’ve just trodden on a nail.”

Grudgingly he took the basket from me, thereby rendering himself temporarily powerless to use his hands in his own defence. Immediately he was supporting the full weight of it I drew back my right fist and gave him a terrific swipe under the jaw.

That is not a nice thing to do to an inoffensive person, but this fellow was a German and we should both have attempted to do much worse things to each other if we had happened to meet that evening a few miles outside Athens with half a dozen Mills bombs in our pockets and a tommy-gun apiece.

His look of surprise as he saw the blow coming was almost comical, but he had no time to dodge it, and although he let go of the basket he was much too late to protect his face. My fist contacted good and hard with the side of his jaw, and he went flying backwards so that his head smacked against the old brick wall.

My first blow hadn’t knocked him right out, so, as he swayed there dazed for a second, I had to hit him hard again. Immediately he’d slid to the ground I took his belt off and used it to strap his ankles together, then, pulling the cover off the basket of washing,
I used a thin towel to tie his hands behind his back and stuffed a couple of handkerchiefs into his mouth so that when he came to he would not be able to cry out.

The short passage was a
cul-de-sac
, which gave access only to the back door of the garden house. The door stood open and outside it there was a dustbin, a pig-tub and a pile of empty cases. Grabbing my victim by the collar, I dragged him behind them, where he would not be seen by anyone coming through the gate. Having drawn my gun and slipped off the safety-catch, I entered the back door. It gave on to a scullery and beyond was a small but well-furnished kitchen, where the manservant had evidently been at work cleaning the table silver.

Tiptoeing into it I paused there, listening intently. On coming through the gate I had one quick glimpse of the house, and I felt sure that in a small one-storey affair of this kind there could not be more than three, or at the outside four, rooms, probably just kitchen, sitting-room, dining-room and bedroom.

Almost at once I caught the murmur of voices. A door that evidently led from the service quarters to the rest of the house was shut, and I decided that the sound was coming through a service hatch in the kitchen’s inner wall.

For a few moments I walked round the room, deliberately making a certain amount of noise, knowing that whoever was on the other side of the hatch would think that it was the manservant. I shifted some of the pots and pans, jingled the forks on the kitchen table, and turned on one of the taps in the scullery. I then shut it off, marched back into the kitchen, pulled open the service hatch and shut it again, but in doing so I had been careful not to close it quite completely; so that if I remained quiet myself I’d be able to hear much better what was going on in the next room.

The first result of my manœuvre verified a guess I had made when I had heard that this was the back lodge of the German Archaeological Institute. This nice little hide-out belonged to the Baron Feldmar von Hentzen. I could now hear his arrogant guttural tones distinctly.

Standing near the hatch, I continued to fiddle with the silver; not sufficiently loudly to disturb my enemies or to prevent myself catching the main gist of what they were talking about, but just enough to create the impression that the servant was there, busy at his work. The fellow had looked just the sort of human robot that von Hentzen would employ in a place where he had to keep a servant at such close quarters. No doubt he was completely satisfied that the man was both too scared of what might happen
to him if he was caught listening to his master’s conversations and too stupid to make use of anything that he might overhear if he did.

Mondragora and von Hentzen were talking about the war. It was evidently some time since they had met, but the Portuguese was taking advantage of his position as a neutral to go backwards and forwards through the war zone with the latest intelligence that the German agents could collect behind the Greek lines to the General Field Headquarters of the German Army, as it moved southward after the advancing troops. Baron Feldmar was grunting and chuckling over the fact that everything in the Balkan campaign had gone like clockwork and entirely according to plan; while Count Emilo, who was evidently very tired and had had a nerve-racking journey, said how thankful he was that when he went north again it would be his last trip and that next time he entered Athens it would be on the heels of the German Army.

There was a gurgling noise as drinks were poured from a bottle, and after toasting the speedy conclusion of Hitler’s latest victory the German declared that nothing would prevent his being in at the death himself, and that he meant to go out of Athens at the last moment in order to enter it again with the High Command of the triumphant army in his uniform as a Colonel of the Prussian Guard.

They talked for some time, then Mondragora said: “You’d better give me the packet now as I’m absolutely dead beat, and I must get along to the hotel so that I can put in a few hours sleep. I shall probably leave again at about three o’clock in the morning, and if anything fresh breaks before that you can always telephone me.”

Just as he was on the point of going, von Hentzen remarked, “By the by, have you still got that girl with you?”

As I listened my pulses raced, for I felt sure that he must be referring to Daphnis. The reply came at once.

“Yes. As I am a civilian no objection has been raised to my having her with me at Headquarters, and she gets through quite a lot of work when I’m not there. She picked up typing very quickly and no ordinary clerk could be trusted with the job, so she makes a most suitable little secretary.”

“
Mein Gott!
” exclaimed the German.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Count.

“Has she had any chance to communicate with anyone on the other side?” inquired the other anxiously.

“No, how could she, since all normal communications have been cut for the best part of three weeks? But what makes you think that she might wish to do so?”

The Baron’s deep voice came again: “Because I have reason to believe that she is trying to double-cross you. A report from one of our agents in Alexandria reached me only yesterday. He managed to obtain access to some of Cozelli’s files. Did you know that she was engaged to be married to that interfering young fool who now calls himself Julian Day?”

“What’s that?” exclaimed Mondragora.

“It is just as I say,” the German replied; “and if you remember I was vaguely uneasy about her
bona fides
when she turned up here in Athens early in March and offered to work for us; but you were so certain that she was all right that you vouched for her.”

“Of course. I had good reason to. She did splendidly for us in Alex until Italy attacked Greece; and you know what these amateurs are—they will never work against their own country.”

“How, then, do you account for her change of heart?”

“She told me she was quite convinced that peace could have been restored after the Greek successes against the Italians had it not been for the British, who were manipulating the small nations quite unscrupulously for their own ends, and wanted to use Greece as a continental jumping-off ground against Hitler. Of course she saw, as we all did, that the British would be flung out neck and crop, but she felt so strongly about the utterly unnecessary and great additional suffering which would be inflicted on Greece, owing to British intervention, that she wanted to lend a hand in defeating them as swiftly as possible; so that although Greece might lose her freedom for a time, the actual devastation caused by active warfare in the country would be limited.”

“Not bad,” the German grunted. “But unfortunately that’s not the case. You’ll recall that it was through Julian Day that your flat in Alex was raided. Why, I can’t quite understand, but Cozelli seems to think that Day is mixed up with us. Anyhow, he put him behind the bars for about three weeks and in the meantime got hold of the girl who, as my agent has quite definitely verified, is engaged to Day. The invitations were actually issued for the wedding. Apparently Cozelli, who’s a clever devil if ever there was one, made the girl believe that he had much more on Day than was actually the case. He had her taped, too, it seems, on some letters of hers that they found in your flat. Knowing of this
old hook-up of hers with you, he was able to blackmail her into going to Greece to get in touch with you again and to double-cross you as the price of her lover’s freedom.”

There was silence for a moment, then Mondragora spoke thoughtfully. “If this is true it explains quite a lot of things. She’s been damnably difficult these last few weeks. She suddenly made the discovery just about the beginning of this month that she was not suited to the work, and she’s pleaded with me several times since to let her go home to Egypt,
via
Turkey.”

“In view if what we now know, the explanation is clear,” said von Hentzen. “She had evidently been with you long enough to get on to something good, and ever since has been trying to get away so that she can turn her information in to Cozelli. Thank God she did not succeed and has no way of communicating; but are you sure of that?”

“Certain. She would not know how to use a wireless if I put her in a room with one. Her correspondence has been practically nil—a postcard to the old man to relieve his anxiety after she first ran away from him—and later two letters to her mother, both of which were carefully censored. In these last weeks she has been travelling with me as I moved with Marshal List’s Field Headquarters, so she could not send letters or get in touch with a neutral consulate however hard she tried.”