Codeword Golden Fleece (53 page)

‘I see the point you make.’

Rex waved aside the admission and went on with disarming casualness: ‘If I wanted any real favours from you I’d ask for something for myself. Sending that letter’s not going to do me any good. If you don’t care to send it, that’s the end of the matter. But I thought on Saturday you’d come to the conclusion that I was just a decent guy who was having a pretty raw deal. If it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t have asked you to help me do a good turn to this little pal of mine.’

‘All right,’ Ferari smiled. ‘From my talks with you nothing now persuades me that you are not an American, and there is not one iota of proof that you ever had anything to do with the Nazis. Thousands of Jews, too, these days are sending papers precious to them out of Poland by anyone they can get to carry them over the frontier; so there is nothing of real suspicion about all this. Your letter shall be sent, and as we must keep you here yet for a while I am glad to do this little service.’

Rex thanked him, and they then got down to the morning’s news. Over the weekend Count Ciano had been summoned to Berlin; President Moscieki of Poland had resigned and a new Polish Government had been formed in France; the Latvian Foreign Minister had been sent for by Moscow, so it looked as if a second Baltic State would soon go the way of Esthonia and be forced to accept Soviet ‘protection’.

When Ferari had gone Rex congratulated himself on the result of his strategy and wondered if Simon would find any means of letting him know, should it prove successful. If he were in Cernauti he should receive the letter by the following morning at the latest; that would leave seventeen days for him to retrieve the Golden Fleece and get it to London. The safety margin was
narrowing now, as nearly half the time for which it was valid had expired; but Rex felt considerably more hopeful that they might yet pull off their great coup.

He was, however, destined to hear nothing more about his letter, except that Ferari had posted it; so as the days passed he could only hope and pray that Simon had contacted Levinsky and flung himself heart and soul into the game again.

Each morning Ferari came in with the news. That first week in October the only events of military significance were that the Royal Air Force made its first flight over Berlin and that the Germans openly adopted a policy of piracy, both sinking and seizing the ships of several neutrals. Diplomatic activity continued at high pressure, particularly in Moscow, to whom both Latvia and Lithuania in turn lost their independence. The star turn of the week was Hitler’s announcement in the Reichstag of his ‘Peace’ terms, but the statesmen of the Allies had at last learned the folly of placing any faith in the bellowings of this treacherous mountebank, and to the satisfaction of all honest men they now ignored him.

Richard’s reply to Ferari’s telegram had been despatched on the 29th of September, and in it he had said that it would be at least a fortnight before his doctors would permit him to travel. The actual fortnight would be up on Thursday, the 12th of October, but the journey from Istanbul to Cernauti would take three days, so the earliest date upon which he could be expected was Sunday the 15th.

All the same, from the beginning of his second week in prison Rex began to count the hours until what he judged to be the absolute minimum dead-line if Richard stepped off the night train from Bucharest just before midday. He even went to the length of adopting the old schoolboy end-of-term custom of drawing blocks of squares on paper, as it lessened his frantic impatience to get free, just a little, to be able to cross a few off each morning when he woke and after each meal.

On Wednesday the 11th at four o’clock in the afternoon he still had ninety-three squares uncrossed when Ferari, who had never visited him in the afternoon, entered his cell.

Rex was dozing on his bed. At this unexpected visitation he sat up quickly, full of apprehension that something that boded him no good was the cause of the Intelligence Officer’s appearing at such an unusual hour.

Suddenly his anxiety gave place to joy. In the doorway just
behind Ferrari, supported on a pair of crutches, stood Richard.

Ferari, who had behaved very decently throughout, now wasted no undue time in formalities. He said that Richard had run him to earth in his office at Divisional Headquarters and they had had a long talk together which had fully satisfied him as to his visitor’s
bona fides
. Now that he saw these two old friends exchange such hearty greetings there could be no more doubt as to Mr. Mackintosh’s identity, and he was free to go.

Rex thanked him for his kindness and accepted an invitation for himself and Richard to dine that night, although he had some doubts which he kept private as to whether they would be able to keep the appointment; then, having packed his few belongings in a brown-paper parcel, he went out to the prison courtyard to a car that Richard had hired.

‘Oh boy! It’s good to see you,’ Rex grinned, as soon as they were alone. ‘How in heck did you manage to get here four whole days ahead of schedule?’

‘It was just that we couldn’t bear to think of you being in prison for a moment longer than was absolutely necessary,’ smiled Richard. ‘And my hip has been mending so well that three nights ago Marie Lou and I decided to bounce the medicos.’

‘Have you brought her along?’

‘No. She wanted to come, but seeing the way we were kicked out of Rumania I wouldn’t let her. She agreed to my coming, though, and sent you her fondest love; so did poor Lucretia. Now, tell me what’s been going on? We haven’t heard a thing since you left us on the train.’

‘We’re in the worst muddle ever,’ Rex replied seriously. ‘It’s bad, Richard; real bad, and without any good frills attached. But before I spill the beans, where’s this fellow taking us?’

‘Back to the Royal Bukovina, where I dumped my bags and took rooms for us before I set out to collect you.’

Rex leaned forward and spoke in German to the Jewish car-driver, telling him to take them to the Roebuck, then he said:

‘I’ve bad news for you, Richard, just about the worst that could be. We got the thing we left the train to get all right, but all three of us slipped up before we could leave the country. I was pinched trying to get hold of a Polish aircraft; Simon was arrested for wearing women’s clothes. That’s well over a fortnight ago, and old Greyeyes, well…’

‘What’s happened to him?’ asked Richard sharply.

‘We don’t rightly know. There was a shoot-up outside the
British Legation the day after we got back to Bucharest. I wasn’t there, but Simon saw it. He says, well, he says …’

‘Go on!’ said Richard, his voice hard from sudden apprehension.

‘He says those Iron Guard boys gave the Duke the works.’

‘Oh, God!’ Richard groaned. ‘It isn’t true! It can’t be!’

‘I’m hoping so myself,’ Rex tried to console him. ‘But as we don’t know for certain I try not to think about it. If that’s the way it is he left us the legacy of getting the Golden Fleece safely to London. I fell down on the job and had to cache it in a mighty risky place; but I reckon I managed to tip Simon off over a week ago where to pick it up; so by this time he ought to be out of the country with it. That’s what I hope we’ll learn for certain in a few minutes now.’

Richard did not appear to hear. He sat, white-faced and silent, leaning back in his corner of the car. Within a few moments of Rex breaking the awful news to him they pulled up outside the Roebuck.

‘Sit tight,’ said Rex, getting out. ‘I’ll not be long here but I’m hoping to pick up a letter or cable from Simon.’

He found Levinsky in his little office, and the Jew rose at once to greet him with a smile.

‘Did you get my letter?’ Rex asked.

‘Oh yes, sir. The letter it comes,’ replied Levinsky in halting English. ‘Your friend come too, but till yesterday not; no, I mistaken am, he comes Monday; yesterday the day before.’

‘What!’ Rex gasped. ‘He didn’t come until the day before yesterday! Holy Michael help us! I thought he’d have called here first to enquire for me all of a fortnight ago.’

‘No, yesterday the day before, it was, and I tell him the car about. Then for you a message he gives. “Tell my friend,” he says, “good luck. I go my car to find and will to you telegraph so you news give of me to him when he returns, his suitcase to collect.’

‘Have you had any message?’ asked Rex, staring at him.

‘No, sir, not yet.’

‘Hell!’ exclaimed Rex. For some reason as yet unexplained Simon had not succeeded in picking up his trail in Cernauti until two days before, so a whole week had been lost. And even now Simon had not got anywhere, otherwise there would have been a telegram from him saying that he had located the car.

It was now sixteen days since Rex had rammed the option
under the back seat of the Ford V8, and during that time there seemed every likelihood that Serzeski had come across it. There were now only nine days left to find him, recover the Golden Fleece and get it to London.

Having asked Levinsky to telephone him at the Royal Bukovina if any message from Simon came in, Rex left the Roebuck and told the driver to take them to the larger hotel. On the way he was furiously wondering what could possibly have kept Simon in Bucharest for a whole fortnight.

Richard, knowing as yet practically nothing of the Odyssey of the Golden Fleece, was not giving it a thought. His mind was still numb from Rex’s terrible news about de Richleau. All of the Indomitable Four would have found it impossible to list his three friends in the order that he loved them best; yet, if forced to lose one of their number, Richard, Rex and Simon would all have agreed that it must not be the Duke. To Richard his loss meant an almost unendurable grief second only to that he would have felt on the death of his beloved Marie Lou.

The hotel was an old-fashioned place but had installed an American Bar as a concession to the modern industrialisation of Cernauti. On their arrival they bought themselves drinks and carried them through to a quiet corner of the raftered lounge.

Richard pulled himself together and strove to bring back his thoughts while for an hour Rex carried on a monologue, giving as full an account as he could of all that had happened to the Duke, Simon and himself since they had left the others on the Bulgarian frontier.

When he had finished Richard stubbed out his cigarette and said:

‘You’re right, Rex. We must try not to think about Greyeyes. His one wish would be that we should carry on with our mission
and see it through. But we’ve got so little time. That’s the devil of it. And we haven’t the faintest idea where Simon is, or this Major Serzeski either. What the hell can we do?’

‘You’re asking me,’ Rex groaned. ‘I just hate the thought of sitting still waiting for Simon to send us news.’

‘What alternative is there?’

‘We could light out of here tonight for Bucharest. Serzeski’s an Attaché at the Polish Legation, so they should know where he is.’

‘Simon will have drawn that covert already. He would have taken the night train south on Monday, and been to the Legation yesterday afternoon.’

‘Why the hell hasn’t he wired to me care of Levinsky, then?’

‘When did you send your letter to the Roebuck?’

‘Last Monday week; that was—let’s see—yes, the 2nd.’

‘Well, in it you said you wouldn’t be out of jug for a fortnight, so Simon thinks you wouldn’t get any message he might send till the 15th; that’s three days ahead, and reason enough for his not feeling that there is any urgency about wiring you yet.’

‘That’s about it. I’ll go nuts, though, if we’ve got to kick our heels in this burg for three solid days.’

‘We may not have to. Something might come in from Simon at any time. But if we go haring off to Bucharest we’ve no idea where to pick him up, and by leaving Cernauti we’ll be losing touch with Levinsky, so we won’t get the wire when it does come in.’

‘Your smashed hip hasn’t cost you your common sense,’ Rex grinned. ‘And anyhow, we’ve accepted to dine with Ferari tonight. It would look pretty fishy if we just cut the party and faded out after they’ve held me on suspicion all this time. I guess we’ll give Simon another twenty-four hours anyhow, then, if nothing comes in from him, we’ll talk about going after Serzeski on our own.’

Richard nodded. ‘Ferari won’t mind if you make my excuses, will he? I don’t think I could face a party after what you’ve told me about Greyeyes; and, anyway, my exertions today have already been about as much as I’m up to.’

‘That’ll be okay. He knows about your smash and your having got off a sick-bed to come and pull me out. The thing that might get him all hot and bothered would be my doing a fade-out within a few hours of having shaken off the gyves and manacles. I do hope, though, that you’re not feeling too done up?’

‘No, I’m all right,’ Richard smiled. ‘It’s just that I have to be a bit careful still. I had a private sleeper right through on the train, but today is the first time that I’ve been moving about for anything like as long as six hours at a stretch.’

‘You’re going to bed this moment then,’ said Rex, standing up. ‘We can
parlé
just as well in your room as we can here, and I’ll fix the best dinner the place can offer to be brought up for you before I go out. I owe you a whole packet on top of that.’

‘Nonsense. If we four had ever paid what we owed one another, we would all have gone broke before now and grown rich again on the spondulics of each other. But we’re only three now, aren’t we? Oh hell, I think I’ll just lie in bed and drink myself stupid tonight.’

There was no reply to that heartrending thought of the awful gap which had been torn in the ranks of their little company, and in silence Rex accompanied him up to his room.

When Richard was in bed they ordered some more drinks to be brought up and fitfully discussed the war news; but Poland was now definitely out, and the Western Front seemed to be entering on a stalemate, so there was little of interest to talk over.

At nine o’clock Rex went out to dine. In the past fortnight he had come to know Ferari well and had found him an intelligent and likable fellow. The evening passed very pleasantly for both of them, and the Rumanian now made it quite clear that he thought Rex had had a hard deal in being detained on such insubstantial grounds for so long. They parted a little before one in the morning as the best of friends.