Come into my Parlour (20 page)

A few hundred yards before they reached the villa Erika tapped on the glass screen, and Hans drew the car up at the side of the road. As he was doing so she squeezed the old woman's hand and leaning over kissed her withered cheek; then she said:

“It is hopeless for me to attempt to thank you, lady Mother. You have been an angel to me, and I shall never forget your kindness.”

“Think no more of it, child,” replied the
Gräfin
Bertha brusquely.
“But don't get yourself carted off to England again. It is not fitting that a von Osterberg should accept the hospitality of our enemies while we are at war. Now get along. God be with you.”

Erika got out, spoke a word of thanks to Hans and, leaving the car, was soon swallowed up by the darkness. Her mother-in-law had suggested waiting for a while, until it could be assumed that she had got safely off, but Erika knew that if she was spotted at all she would have to run for it, and that any attempt to regain the car would have involved the old lady. This being the last thing she wished to do, she had dissuaded her from waiting on the excuse that even if she found the boathouse guarded she would no longer need the car, as she meant to try to find a night's lodging in the nearest village and could quite well walk there.

As she walked down the road she heard the car turn, reverse and drive off, and somehow the sound gave her an extraordinary lonely feeling. But within another two minutes she was opposite
Freiherr
von Lottingen's villa trying to still her mounting heartbeats as she nerved herself for the most dangerous part of her undertaking.

The garden gate stood slightly open. No one was about, so she slipped through it. In the faint starlight she saw that the paths were weedy and the flower-beds overgrown from two summers of neglect. There was just enough light for her to see the black silhouette of the villa against the night sky and make out the roof of the boathouse to its left and a little way below it. Pausing for a moment, she listened intently. No crack of light showed at the side of any window in the villa, and it was so silent that she could hear her own breathing. A gentle rain had begun to fall, and she tried to think that this was a sign the gods were with her, as it would decrease visibility on the lake and make the launch she hoped to get out less likely to be seen from one of the patrol boats. Getting her torch and her little automatic out of her handbag, she put the torch in the left and the other in the right hand pockets of her coat, then slung the bag over her left arm, and, stuffing her hands in both pockets, went cautiously down a side path that led to the boathouse.

It took her five minutes, treading very gently, to reach the back of the broad, squat building. She could now hear the water lapping against its far end and the faint hissing of the rain as it spattered softly on the roof. It suddenly occurred to her that she ought to have brought some kind of jemmy in case the place was locked, and she cursed herself for this stupid omission which might prove the ruin of her plan. But next moment she found the door, and it gave noiselessly at a touch from the toe of her shoe.

Slipping inside, she closed it carefully behind her and, with her left
hand, brought out her torch. As she snapped it on she saw that the three launches were lying there motionless in the water.

Next second her heart missed a beat. Beyond the low cabin roof of the nearest boat a man was standing. Instinctively she raised the torch a little, but even before the beam lit his features she knew that it was Einholtz.

He was standing there quite still, grinning at her; and it flashed through her mind that, somehow, he must have known that she had gone to earth in the castle all the time, found out about her plan and, with deliberate malice, let her carry it out until freedom was almost within her grasp, simply for the fun of coming ahead to wait for her there, with the certainty of catching her as she took the last fence.

Her right hand was still in the pocket of her coat. He lifted his right hand to raise his soft hat in mocking salutation. It never touched the felt, but the hat lifted all the same. As he raised his hand she fired twice, through the pocket of her coat.

The two sharp reports were still echoing round the boathouse as one of her bullets whisked his hat from his head. She heard him cry out, then saw him spin round and fall with a crash on to the floor boards. A whiff of the burnt cloth of her pocket came strongly to her nostrils.

Her mind was quite clear and now working like a dynamo. If there were other Nazis in the villa her shots would have roused them and they would be down there within a few moments. In any case the steward must be somewhere about and he might be armed. There was still a chance that she might get out on to the lake and yet elude pursuit, but that or all the horrors of a degrading death in a Nazi concentration camp hung on the swiftness of her actions in the next sixty seconds.

Jamming the torch back into her pocket, she ran to the loop of rope that secured the stern of the nearest launch round a low bollard. Breaking her nails on the coarse fibre of the rope she tore at it until she had wrenched it back and thrown it clear. As it splashed into the water she sprang forward to unloose the bow painter.

She had just grasped it when a quiet voice behind her said:

“
Guten Abend, Frau Gräfin
. How fortunate that I allowed that dolt Einholtz to go ahead, or it might have been me lying there now.”

At the first sound of the voice, Erika swivelled round as though she had received a lash from a whip. Outlined in the faint light of the doorway loomed the heavy figure of a very broad-shouldered man. In his right hand she glimpsed a big pistol which was pointing straight
between her eyes, and above the pale blob of his face she could see the high crown of an S.S. cap.

As her hand went towards her pocket again, he snarled: “No, you don't. And you needn't bother about undoing that rope. We shall not need the launch tonight. You remember me, don't you?
Gruppenführer
Grauber.”

Erika would have known that high-pitched lisp anywhere. It was for ever coupled in her mind with the big pasty face and cruel solitary eye that had mocked her, day after day, as she had squirmed on the floor of a squalid hutment while its owner spent an hour by the clock every afternoon gently flicking the muscles of her arms, legs, thighs and buttocks with a little whip, until he had half flayed her.

She was still crouching beside the bollard, her hand hovering within a few inches of her pocket; but she was staring straight into the muzzle of his heavy gun. He had the drop on her just as she had, only a few moments ago, had the drop on Einholtz. Had she had her pistol in her hand she would have squeezed the trigger, taking a chance that her shot would get in first and deflect his aim, and accepting the possibility that they might kill one another, as then, at least, if she had to die she would have had the satisfaction of dragging this fiend down to death with her. But she knew that before she could even get her hand on the butt of her pistol his gun would flash, and its leaden slug smash through the bone of her skull.

She did not want to die. Her whole soul cried out in revolt against it. She
must
feel Gregory's strong arms about her again before her body went to moulder in the grave, and only by continuing to face whatever terrors life had in store for her could there be any hope of that. Yet Gregory was in Russia, thousands of miles away, and close at hand there were underground chambers where the Gestapo's victims moaned for the devil to take their souls if only he would release them from their pain. She had sworn to herself never again to fall alive into their hands. Perhaps time really did not exist, and if she met death bravely now, in what would seem to her no more than a few moments, Gregory would be with her in some other world, lovelier than this by far. Her hand twitched once and dived into her pocket.

Grauber did not fire. In two strides he was upon her. His heavy boot lifted and caught her, still crouching, under the chin. As she spread-eagled backwards, she thought for a moment that he had kicked her head right off her body. The darkness became intenser;
red stars and circles flashed before her eyes; there was a frightful pain where her spine met the base of her neck. She was only semi-conscious when she felt him grip her wrist and give it a frightful wrench that made another pain shoot through it like a knife, as she released her hold on her pistol.

As though from a great distance she heard his voice. “You little fool! Surely you didn't think I'd shoot you? After all the trouble you've given us that would be much too easy a way to let you out. We are going to have lots of pretty little games together before they shove what's left of you into a furnace. Do you remember the little games we used to play in Finland? That is quite a long time ago and I have invented a lot of others since, which I must show you. Get up!”

Her mind still swimming and only partly there, Erika made no move.

“Get up!” he repeated, and kicked her savagely on the shin.

The fresh pain brought her round completely, and knowing that other kicks would follow if she did not obey, she made a great effort which brought her lurching to her feet.

As she stood there swaying weakly, she heard a loud groan. Grauber heard it too. He looked towards the place where Einholtz had fallen and snapped at her:

“Stay where you are. One move from you and I'll smother every hair on your body in mutton fat, then light them up as candle wicks.”

Leaving her leaning for support against the side of the boathouse, he strode over to his subordinate. When he had kicked her under the jaw she had bitten the side of her tongue. It was rapidly swelling and hurt her terribly. The blood from it tasted salt in her mouth and the back of her neck ached atrociously.

Time had ceased to exist for her. How long she stood there she did not know, but Grauber's voice, and after a time that of Einholtz's answering him, vaguely penetrated to her dulled senses. She gathered that one of her bullets had seared Einholtz's scalp, temporarily knocking him out, but that he was now rapidly recovering and intensely angry.

After a while Grauber came back to her, and Einholtz was beside him. Erika's eyes had now become accustomed to the dim light, so she could see that the latter's face was very pale and that a trickle of blood from his wound was running down it.

When he was within a yard of her he suddenly raised his fist and struck her in the face. With a little whimper she went over backwards; he then began to kick her.

“Stop that!” grunted Grauber. “I mean to make her talk, and if you give her too much she won't be able to.”

Erika lay there, moaning, where she had fallen. Already she was wishing that she were dead, yet knew that she had not yet gone through one hundredth part of what they meant to do to her. When Grauber again ordered her to get up she made no attempt to do so, hoping now that if he kicked her enough it might result in some internal injury that would carry her off quickly.

Instead of kicking her again he stooped, thrust his great hand into her mop of tumbled hair, clutched a big handful of it and began to drag her bodily towards the door.

She screamed, but he paid no attention to her yells. Levering herself up with one foot, she swung her head round and bit him savagely in the hand.

He let go her hair with a curse, sucked at his hand for a minute, then, stooping again, grabbed one of her ankles. As he pulled her after him once more her head and shoulders bumped along the boards, then out on to the gravel path.

“Let me go!” she panted. “Let me go and I'll walk! I'll walk, I promise you!”

“That's better,” he chuckled, releasing his grip, and, staggering to her feet, Erika lurched up the path between them.

At the gate a Mercedes-Benz, with a uniformed chauffeur at its wheel, was waiting. Grauber said to Einholtz:

“We had better go into Friedrichshafen and have that wound of yours attended to at the local headquarters.”

“
Jawohl, Herr Gruppenführer,
” muttered Einholtz, sullenly.

With a word to the driver Grauber pushed Erika into the car and climbed in after her. It was a big car, but he was such a bulky man that there was not room for more than the two of them on the back seat, so Einholtz let down one of the small seats opposite. The two men pulled down the blinds of the car, Grauber switched on a little blue light in its roof, and the driver let in the clutch.

Einholtz wiped some of the blood that was still trickling down his face away from the corner of his mouth, glared at Erika, and suddenly jabbed his heel down hard on her instep.

“You little bitch!” he snarled, as she jerked away her foot. “You thought you'd been so damned clever, didn't you, getting that old woman to hide you? But I had the tapes on you from the very first morning. If you'd had any sense you might have guessed that any maid who had to serve that old cow would hate her guts, and that Helga would prove no exception.”

He chuckled suddenly, and went on. “Anyhow, that girl would give away her own mother for a good healthy man like me. How we laughed, up in her room every night, to think of you down there so
smugly thinking you'd put a fast one over the Gestapo. I could have pulled you in any time, but there was no hurry about that, and as I was having my fun I thought I'd wait till you made your breakaway. There's no sport like catching the bird just as it thinks it's out of the cage.”

“If you're not careful you'll try that once too often,” lisped Grauber.

“I knew you were behind her,
Herr Gruppenführer,
” grunted Einholtz sourly.

“Perhaps. But that wouldn't have stopped you getting a bullet through your brain instead of through your hat. You wouldn't have a headache now if you had been willing to stop their car at the crossroads where I picked you up. I let you have your way because I know this little spitfire better than you do, and I had an idea that she might teach you a lesson.”