Codeword Golden Fleece (30 page)

They had accomplished their four-hundred-mile journey from Warsaw to Cernauti in just under twenty-nine hours, thus averaging fifteen and a half miles an hour exclusive of their three-hour halt. Considering the many hold-ups they had met with in the first part of their journey and the notoriously bad state of the Polish roads further south, it was by no means a bad performance; but in Rumania the trunk roads were far better, and they had every reason to believe that they would now be able to proceed unmolested, so they expected to achieve a much higher average. If all went well they had every hope of covering the three hundred miles to Bucharest before nightfall.

As they drove out of the city the congestion on the road soon lessened. Rumanian aircraft were patrolling the frontier, but their drone soon faded, and the brake sped smoothly through the peaceful farmlands of the Bukovina, still mercifully free of any signs of war. Their only worry now was the comparatively minor one that great clouds of dust made driving uncomfortable and delayed their progress when they had to pass other vehicles.

After covering forty miles they entered the valley of the Sereth, and the road rose steeply to wind its way through the mountains of Moldavia, which constitute the southern end of the great Carpathian range. All the lower levels were covered with vast forests, above which great rocky peaks reared their summits to the blue skies. It was a sparsely populated country of smiling peasant folk who waved to them in the pleasant villages through which they passed. Here and there in some charming but lonely bend of the valley stood an ancient monastery, but they did not house the cloistered communities such as usually inhabit them in more western lands. From time immemorial they had served as both centres of peasant industry and wayside inns for travellers passing through this lovely land, as yet almost unknown to globe-trotting tourists.

At midday they pulled up at one of these and after a meal rested for a while in its great sunny courtyard. Richard had so far sustained the journey well, as he had not been compelled to move from his mattress, but the Duke and Marie Lou were very tired. Nevertheless, anxiety to know what had happened to their friends, and particularly whether Lucretia had reached Bucharest or was still with Jan somewhere in Poland, drove them on.

At Focsani the country to their left began to open out and fall away towards the great marshy area of the Dobruja, in which lies the Danube delta, but the road steadily curved south-westward, hugging the foothills of the mountainous country on their right until they had passed through Rimnik and reached Ruzan. Here they left the mountains behind and entered the great Wallachian plain, driving across it to Ursitzem, which they entered at seven o’clock.’

They had hoped to reach Bucharest in time for dinner, but the dust and hairpin bends skirting terrifying and unprotected precipices in the mountainous region through which they had passed had kept down their speed, and the fact that they had not slept in beds for the past two nights was now telling on them heavily; so they decided to feed in the town and do the last lap of forty odd miles after dinner.

The only inn they could find was a quiet, unpretentious place, but the landlord served them himself and produced a plain but excellent meal which they helped down with the strong resinous wine of the locality.

At nine o’clock the Duke and Marie Lou forced themselves wearily out of their comfortable chairs and went out to the brake to find that after his meal Richard had fallen asleep. He did not even turn over when the engine was started up, and he was still sleeping soundly when an hour later they entered the suburbs of Bucharest.

The Rumanian capital is one of the most delightful in the world, and it owes this largely to the fact that the great majority of its houses stand in their own gardens. In consequence, the city covers a great area; but in shape it is long and narrow. It is, in fact, mainly built about one immensely long street, the inner section of which, called the Calea Victoriei, is lined by nearly all the big blocks of office buildings, hotels and shops, and the Chaussée Kisseleff, a great boulevard on which stand most of the finest private residences, leading into it.

Some way down the Chaussée Kisseleff the Duke pulled up to ask a policeman the way to the British Legation.

De Richleau did not speak Rumanian, but nearly all well-educated people in the Balkans are able to talk a second language, which is usually German or French. The policeman called over a passerby, and between them they managed to supply the required directions.

At the Legation, which proved to be just off the Chaussée in
the Strada Jules Michelet, the porter spoke enough English to tell them that Sir Reginald and Lady Kent were dining out, but he showed the Duke into a waiting-room and shortly brought one of the junior secretaries to him.

It transpired that during the past three weeks, owing to the war, they had had an exceptional number of callers, so at first the young man could not remember having seen Rex and Simon, but on the Duke’s giving a closer description of them he exclaimed:

‘Of course! I know the two you mean. They have been to see Sir Reginald several times and are, I feel sure, staying at the Athenée Palace.’

‘Has another friend of mine yet turned up here by any chance?’ asked the Duke. ‘A young lady, the Condesa Cordobay Coralles.’

‘Why, yes, poor girl.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ De Richleau strove to hide his sudden alarm.

‘Well, she is such a lovely person, and it’s so sad that she should have been overtaken by such a terrible tragedy. She arrived here two days ago with her fiancé—a Polish airman. They hadn’t been in Bucharest for more than two hours when he was knocked down and killed by a passing car.’

‘Are you certain?’ asked the Duke aghast.

‘I didn’t actually see it myself,’ replied the young secretary, ‘although it happened right outside the Legation. The two of them were leaving just after having made their number with Sir Reginald; and, naturally, all of us here heard about it. His name was Lubitski, or something like that.’

‘Lubieszow,’ prompted the Duke.

‘That’s it. He wasn’t killed instantly, but he was pretty badly
knocked about the head, and he died soon after they got him to the hospital. The poor girl fainted, and some of our people brought her inside. Lady Kent took charge of her and kept her here for the night. Then Sir Reginald got into touch with her friends, and they came to collect her the following morning.’

‘She is at the Athenée Palace, too, then?’

‘Yes. I suppose so.’

‘Thank you. Thanks very much,’ murmured de Richleau, still half-stunned by this terrible news. ‘I’ll go there at once. When Sir Reginald comes in you might be good enough to tell him that the Duc de Richleau called, and say that I should consider it a great kindness if he would spare me half an hour tomorrow morning. Any message about time can be telephoned to me at the Athenée Palace.’

His tiredness forgotten, but with slow steps, he rejoined the others in the brake and broke the sad tidings to them. Ten minutes later, Richard, now fully awake, was being moved from his bed to an invalid chair by the porters at the hotel. At the desk de Richleau learned that Lucretia was up in her room, but the others had gone out, and it was not known at what time they would be back.

It was now close on eleven o’clock, and, owing to the late hours that the upper classes in Rumania habitually kept, the noisy crowd in the foyer was still drifting in to dinner, but the Duke hoped that Lucretia might be asleep. In any case, both he and Marie Lou felt far too done up to face her in her grief that night, or to wait up for Simon and Rex, who might quite possibly not return until two or three in the morning. Having left a message for their friends, they escorted Richard upstairs, and after making him comfortable went to their own rooms, where they wearily pulled off their clothes and flopped into bed.

De Richleau was wakened about nine o’clock by a house-call from Rex, who greeted him with restrained cheerfulness and asked him to come along to breakfast in the suite that he was sharing with Simon and Lucretia. Normally the Duke required very little sleep and, having just had the best part of ten hours, he felt quite recovered from the fatigue which he had been feeling all through the previous day. Slipping on his dressing-gown, he crossed the sitting-room that separated him from the Eatons and gently opened their door to peep in.

The heavy curtains were still drawn, but bright streaks of sunlight coming through their chinks faintly lit the room. Richard
was awake and, raising himself on his elbow, whispered: ‘Hush! She’s still alseep, and the last two days have taken it out of her pretty badly. I want her to sleep as long as possible.’

‘That’s right,’ de Richleau whispered back. ‘I’m going along to Rex and Simon.’

After a wash and shave he joined the others in their private suite. Lucretia was not present, but the two men were overjoyed to see him safe and well, as he was to see them; and it was not until they had given rein to their pleasure in their own reunion that Simon said:

‘Not so long ago I’d taken big odds against all six of us getting safely out of Poland. ‘Fraid, though, that you don’t find us in quite the mood for a celebration. As a matter of fact, we’ve got some pretty bad news for you.’

‘You mean about Jan? I know; they told me at the Legation last night. Is it really true?’

‘Yes. ‘Fraid so. Rex and I didn’t know about it till the following morning. We went round to the hospital, but he had died within an hour of being brought in. A French-speaking doctor told us all about it. Van went right over his body, and he was so badly crushed that he had no chance.’

‘Poor Lucretia’s real bad,’ Rex supplemented. ‘She was still all in when we went to collect her from the Legation, and they wanted to keep her there, but we figured that she’d be better with us. We wouldn’t let her attend the funeral, so Simon and I were the only mourners. We bought a burial plot and tidied everything up as well as we could, though it wasn’t all that easy, as neither of us could speak Rumanian, and the French around these parts is a strange dialect.’

‘You’ll find German useful with the middle classes,’ remarked the Duke, as they sat down in a decidedly chastened mood to breakfast. ‘But, tell me, what was poor Jan doing in Bucharest? I should have thought he would have remained in Poland as long as the Polish Army was putting up a fight.’

‘We’re keeping Lucretia as quiet as possible,’ said Simon. ‘Haven’t liked to question her much. Seems, though, that all that was left of the Polish Air Force was brought down to the Rumanian border to protect the Government’s new H.Q. Then, when the Ruskies decided to walk in, the Poles saw that the game was up and ordered their airmen to fly their planes over into Rumania. Preferred the idea of their being interned, I suppose, to their falling into the hands of the Nazis or the Bolshies.’

‘Yeah,’ Rex cut in. ‘That was the line they took, and, although Jan wasn’t one hundred per cent, after his crash, he still felt up to flying a plane. Having gotten hold of one, and knowing that Lucretia wanted to join us as soon as possible in Bucharest, he took a chance with the Rumanian flyers that were shepherding the Poles down, foxed their patrols and flew her straight through.’

‘Didn’t fancy the idea of Lucretia’s being shut up in an emergency internment camp for several weeks, I expect,’ added Simon.

‘Pretty risky, though,’ muttered the Duke through a mouthful of mushroom omelette. ‘They might easily have been shot down.’

Rex shook his big, curly head. ‘No, slipping through these Rumanian boys would have been dead easy to an ace like Jan. They’ve got a few good pilots, but most of them are only enthusiastic amateurs, and their machines are just old crates. Besides, there would have been plenty more Poles in the sky to keep them busy, and they’d know that Jan would have to come down further on in the interior and be interned just the same. They probably thought he was some dumb duck who didn’t understand their signals. Still, the poor old chap is a gonner now, and it’s Lucretia we’ve to worry about.’

‘Yes,’ said the Duke. ‘It seems doubly frightful that, having mourned him as dead ten days ago, she should have had him restored to her again, only to lose him now. We must get her back to England as soon as possible. Richard has made a marvellous recovery, thank God, but he will still be out of the game for some time to come, so I want Marie Lou to take him home. If Lucretia goes with them the two girls are experienced enough travellers to manage, and helping Marie Lou to look after Richard will give Lucretia something to occupy her mind, poor darling.’

‘I’ll say it was a mighty fine feat your getting him out of Poland,’ said Rex, and we’re dying to hear how you did it.’

‘It’s a long story, so do you mind if we leave that till later, and you tell me first what luck you’ve had with the Golden Fleece?’

‘Good and bad.’ Simon jerked the narrow shoulders under his silk dressing-gown. ‘Sir Reginald has been very helpful—quite unofficially, of course. We’ve met Teleuescu, chap who owns them, several times. He’s—er—well, a pretty tough customer, but he doesn’t like the Nazis. Got a Jewish wife. Nice woman. Had
tea with her the other day, and she’s pushing the boats along in our direction for all she’s worth. It’s boodle that’s the trouble.’

‘He’s sticking out for a very big price, eh?’

‘Pretty big. About four times what they’re really worth. But that was to be expected. The good news is that he’s prepared to deal at all.’

‘What is the hitch, then?’

‘Trouble is, when we got here, we found that immediately after Britain’s declaration of war, she froze all her assets, and most other countries followed suit. Consequence is none of us can now lay our hands on any ready cash or get the sort of credit that’s needed to carry through a deal like this.’

‘How about an option? One should be able to secure that for a tenth of the capital sum, and once we have it there shouldn’t be any great difficulty in persuading the British Government of the wisdom of taking it over from us.’