Come into my Parlour (62 page)

Therefore Grauber's arrival could have no ulterior motive behind it, and Gregory recalled having glimpsed some gun-cases among the luggage strapped at the back of the
Gruppenführer's
car. In consequence, it seemed almost certain that he had simply decided to take a day off. He had brought his pansy boy-friend with him to provide amorous entertainment, and meant to spend the following day shooting in the woods, as a pleasant relaxation before glutting himself with sadistic fare when his enemy was brought in as a prisoner on the night of the 13th.

The odds were, then, that unless Helga had spoken about her visitor and described him, Grauber was still in ignorance that he had as yet
left Switzerland. The possibility of Helga talking remained a terrible imponderable which it was impossible to assess; but, fortunately, Grauber was not interested in women and probably still regarded her as little more than a servant. The fact that he had not bothered to notify her of his impending arrival could be fairly taken as some evidence of that.

On the other hand, she was Einholtz's girl-friend and Erika's gaoler, so Grauber would be certain to have some conversation with her. Still, like most people with whom the one-eyed
Gruppenführer
came into contact, she would probably be frightened of him, and refrain from volunteering any information for which she was not asked. As the girl was more or less a nymphomaniac her thoughts, too, would probably now be centred on alluring one of the hefty Gestapo men whom Grauber had brought with him. Such a woman would be certain to have an instinctive dislike of perverts, so, if the choice lay with her she would probably have as little as possible to do with Grauber, and if he confined his remarks to her to formal enquiries as to Erika's safe keeping and health, Gregory felt that there seemed a fair chance of getting into the Castle while his presence in the neighbourhood was still unsuspected.

It occurred to him that his chances might be better if he put the job off for a few nights, until Grauber got fed up with waiting for him, and departed. But he soon realised that to do so would not really make his prospects any better, and might even make them considerably worse. When Einholtz failed to appear on the following night Grauber would know at once that his plans had miscarried. A search of the Villa Offenbach would reveal nothing, but he would guess that somehow his enemy had proved too clever for Einholtz; and the discovery of the launch in von Lottingen's boathouse would be a pretty good indication that Gregory had used it to enter Germany. That would cause Grauber to order a maximum state of alertness; triple guards of his own men would be put on Erika, and every policeman in Württemberg would be ordered to join in a grand battue to hunt Gregory down. No, he decided, the attempt must be made that night or never.

As, huddled in his overcoat, he ate another cold meal, he pondered a further problem that worried him considerably. This was the time factor. If he did succeed in getting Erika out of the Castle, they had to accomplish the journey back to von Lottingen's and recross the lake before dawn. Fortunately the winter nights were long, but, even so, allowance must be made for unforeseen delays, and that meant a fairly early start.

It was as good as certain that Grauber would not go to bed before midnight, and by that time they ought to have reached the car and
just be setting off. He had planned to go in about eleven o'clock, but to do so now meant taking a great additional risk of being caught on the spot. On the other hand, if he postponed his attempt until he could be ninety-nine per cent certain that everyone in the Castle was asleep he would have to put off his time of going in until about three o'clock.

If he waited until then all hope of getting safely across the lake the same night would be gone. Even in the most favourable circumstances, Erika's rescue, getting from the Castle to the car and the sixty odd miles by by-roads from Niederfels to von Lottingen's would occupy three hours; and if they did not reach the lake side until six o'clock they would find it already stirring into its daily activity, dawn would be breaking and all attempts to evade the German patrol boats rendered hopeless by the morning light.

As a last alternative he considered going in at four o'clock—the optimum hour of unpreparedness of the inmates of the Castle—getting well clear of the Niederfels district before dawn, then lying up in some quiet spot for the day and making his bid to recross the lake the following night. But that, too, had to be dismissed. The moment Erika's escape was discovered Grauber would have the police of the whole countryside in a ferment. He would instantly assume that Gregory had beaten him to it and was responsible for the rescue. The theft of the car in Stuttgart the night before would be linked up with him and become a redhot menace unless he abandoned it. Investigation would reveal the Villa Offenbach's launch in von Lottingen's boathouse and their retreat by means of it would be cut off. They had no friends with whom they could seek shelter, very little food, no ration cards and no identity papers. With such appalling handicaps and the police in every village searching for them, in a few days, at most, they were bound to be captured.

In vain Gregory racked his brains. His original plan was the only one that offered the least chance of success, so he must go through with it. Once more he went into times and decided that about half an hour after midnight was the latest he dared leave it to go in; but the odds were that Grauber and his friends would not be in bed by then, if they were on holiday and there was no cause for them to get up early the following morning. Moreover, even if he succeeded in reaching Erika's dungeon without being detected, he might meet with unforeseen difficulties and delays in getting her out.

His final decision, therefore, was that on balance he would do better, after all, to go in as soon as the servants could be expected to be out of the way, around eleven o'clock, as he would then, at least, gain an additional hour and a half's leeway against unexpected contingencies later in the night.

His hours of waiting seemed intolerable and never-ending. The devastating break in his luck now seemed a presage of final misfortune and defeat. The cold was bitter and with the coming of night both the temperature and his spirits sank towards zero. But even the longest wait has an ending, and at last it was time for him to set out on his terrible gamble.

At half past ten he edged the car back on to the forest track and drove it at a moderate pace down through the village, then some way up the winding road to Schloss Niederfels.

About two-thirds of the way up he came to a place where the rough road widened, so he slowed down, turned the car round, and eased it in as far as he could under the shadow of the trees, with its bonnet now pointing down to the village. Getting out, he made certain that his pistol, torch, skeleton keys, chisel, pliers and file were all in their right places on his person; then, little realising that he was standing on almost the identical spot on which Erika had stood one hundred and twelve nights before, he did just as she had done when Einholtz had left her with the car and pretended to go forward to reconnoitre. Craning his head backwards, he stared up above the opposite tree-tops at the faint outline of the Schloss.

For a moment he stood there, his thoughts for once tenuous and confused with vague speculations as to whether this would prove his last night on earth, and a half-formulated prayer that the gods would aid him to restore liberty and happiness to the woman he loved so desperately. Then he turned, and set off with firm steps up the hill.

On reaching the wide approach to the Castle he began to tread more gently. Skirting the great main gateway, he entered the smaller courtyard that he had used on his visit in the afternoon. Pausing for a moment, he gave the façade above the kitchen quarters a swift but careful scrutiny. No light showed, no sound reached his ears. Going softly forward, he reached the postern door at which he had talked with the fat woman. Trying it, he found it locked, so he moved along to the right, looking at the windows as he went. The third had been left a little open, so there was no need for him to force an entry.

For a second he hesitated, suspecting a trap. Then he cursed himself for the state that he had allowed his nerves to get into. Of all the possible entrances to this huge pile how could Grauber conceivably guess that he would elect to come in by one of the kitchen windows? If Helga had mentioned his visit, and a trap had been prepared for him, it would be somewhere down near Erika's dungeon that those Gestapo gorillas would now be waiting to spring upon him out of the darkness and stun him with their blackjacks.

Easing the upper half of the window down he levered himself up
and over it. As he felt about with his feet they came in contact with a sink, so his descent to the floor was easy and almost noiseless.

Pausing, he listened intently for half a minute, then took out his pistol and flicked on his torch. Flashing it round he saw that he was in the scullery, but only a few yards from him the door to the kitchen stood half-open.

His rubber-soled shoes making no sound on the ancient stones, he passed through it and crossed the kitchen. Its further door creaked a little as he opened it. Again he listened, but the silence was absolute. Stepping out into the passage, he walked slowly along it, taking paces of a fair length and putting each foot down squarely so that its sole and heel each bore a portion of his weight. Following the same route as he had taken with the fat woman that afternoon, he came to the door that he knew led down to the cellars. It was neither locked nor padlocked, and on his turning the handle it opened without a sound.

Again he suspected a trap. He had had to pocket his gun in order to open the door. Thrusting his foot forward, so that it should not slam to, he jerked out his automatic and spun round, to stare into the shadows behind him. There was no movement and no sound. Again he cursed silently and strove to reassure himself. There were several entrances to the tortuous underground passages of the Schloss, and he might have chosen any one of them. It was not here that Grauber would set his trap, but down there near the dungeons.

Cautiously he edged through the door, went down two steps and closed it soundlessly behind him. Shining his torch downward he safely negotiated the flight of broad stone stairs and came out under an arch into a wide vaulted passage. On either side of it there was a row of wooden doors with airholes in them. These, he knew, were the wine cellars. Further on the passage opened out into a sizeable low-ceilinged room. Three lines of stout scantlings ran from end to end of it, and upon them there still reposed a number of casks; great aums and smaller hogsheads that had once held hock, moselle, and steinwein, now mostly mildewed and presumably empty.

Turning left he went through another arch. A dark hole gaped at his feet, and recalling the plan that von Osterberg had drawn for him he realised that it was the circular stairway that led down to the foundations of the Castle, in which the more ancient and primitive dungeons lay. At that still lower level human beings had once been chained to the walls, from which must ooze a perpetual slime and moisture, while rats scampered unchecked in the darkness and, when driven to it by hunger, had gnawed the toes from the prisoners' living feet. Gregory shuddered, thanked all his gods that Erika had at least
been spared such horrors, and, skirting the dark well, turned right into another vaulted passageway.

At its entrance he paused once more. According to von Osterberg's plan this passage ran below the centre of the banqueting hall, and it was in the last vault on the left that Erika was confined. There was no other entrance to this double row of basement rooms, so it was here, if a trap had been laid, that the enemy would be lurking for him.

He tried to think how he would have laid such a trap if he had had to set it himself, and had the answer in an instant. He would have placed his men in some of the vaults at the end of the passage where he now stood, and when the midnight visitor had passed their hiding-places it would be simple as ABC for them to spring out and corner him further down the corridor.

Yet, a second later, he saw that such a plan was far from perfect. The men would have to open the doors to come out. Unless done with extreme caution that would make enough noise to warn the intruder. He would have time to swing round, and, if armed, shoot down his attackers as they emerged before they could shoot him.

No. The place to have laid the ambuscade was in the big open cellar. A dozen men could have hidden behind those old casks without being seen. After the intruder had passed they could easily have sprung upon him before he had time even to level a weapon.

Gregory breathed a little more freely. He had passed unheeding through the place where the maximum danger might have been expected to lie; so perhaps Helga had not talked, and there was no trap after all.

Then it came to him that although Grauber and his men might have concealed themselves in the big cellar that was not necessarily where they would have staged their attack. Those casks would give good cover for a man who was hunted as well as his hunters. Given even a moment's warning he might have had time to slip behind them, then he could have led his ambushers a macabre and deadly dance, shooting several of them before they could finally locate and kill him. And he was little use to Grauber dead. Grauber wanted him alive, so the task of securing him without being injured themselves would, in such a case, have proved an exceedingly difficult one.

No. They would want to catch him in the open; in a place where no means of retreat lay open to him and there was nothing that he could dodge behind. The far end of the passage where he now stood would be perfect for that. Perhaps they had been behind those casks all the time, had seen him go by and were, even now, preparing to corner him.

At that thought the cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. He strained his ears, endeavouring to catch a whisper, a footfall or the
scrape of a boot; but he could hear nothing—only the beating of his own heart as the blood pulsed in swift rhythmic jerks up to his brain.