Chapter One

The Little Man with Red Hair

It was a queer fact, Palfrey thought as he slid the key into the lock, that although nearly six months had passed since he had seen Stefan the other might have been with him all the time, for there was no strangeness. His pleasure in meeting was spoiled only by Stefan’s information that a little, oldish man with red hair and a stiff leg had been seen sneaking into Palfrey’s flat.

There were no preliminaries; quite suddenly and unexpectedly faced with a situation which puzzled them, they were working in unison again.

Palfrey turned the key in the lock.

Stefan put out a hand and drew Drusilla to one side, then stood by her. He placed her so that she was hidden by his vast figure, while he was invisible from anywhere in the room unless a man stood on the threshold.

Palfrey, wondering whether his first comments to Stefan had been heard, pushed the door open further.

No one was in the small lounge-hall, and all the doors were closed, just as they had been when he had left earlier in the morning. He had no man at the flat, which was a small one; certainly no one had the right of entry.

He made sure that no one was there and that all the doors were closed, then turned and beckoned the others. Stefan stepped in, still holding Drusilla’s arm. They stood in the middle of the lounge-hall, their ears alert for any sound. Stefan was the first to move towards the door nearest the window, one of four which led from the semicircular hall. As they followed him the sound grew more distinct and unmistakable; it was the rustling of papers.

Stefan spoke in a whisper which only just carried to Palfrey’s ears.

‘The study, Sap. A quest for papers, perhaps,’ said Stefan, speaking as if this were an abstract problem.

He put his fingers about the handle of the door, turning it gently and then pushing. The door was locked on the inside.

Both he and Palfrey left the locked door and stepped to the window. Neither of them went on tip-toe but each walked as if naturally and without any effort at stealth; yet they made no sound at all. It was not entirely due to the thin carpet.

The window was open a little at the top. Palfrey watched Stefan climb on to a chair, then look out and put his head through the gap. The Russian seemed lost in contemplation; when he withdrew his head he said slowly: ‘I could get from this window to the next, Sap, although not without making some noise. Will you cause enough disturbance to cover what sound I make?’

‘Ye-es,’ said Palfrey, a little dubiously. ‘Are you sure you can make it?’

‘Of course,’ said Stefan. ‘My extra inches give me the advantage sometimes. Would it perhaps be wise if Drusilla went to the back door and kept watch from there in case our little visitor decides to go out the back way?’

Drusilla grimaced at him.

‘I think you want to get me out of the flat,’ she said, ‘but I suppose I’d better go.’

When she had gone Stefan regarded Palfrey with a slow, attractive smile.

‘No fool, your Drusilla,’ he said. ‘But in case the little stranger should be difficult, I think it best that we act quickly. You will knock at the door, Sap, while I am at the window? Your knock will prevent him from hearing the window opening. Is it’ – he frowned – ‘is it possible to open the door from the outside even though it is locked? Quickly, I mean?’

Palfrey, with a hand at his hip-pocket, said: ‘I’ve another key. If it’s only locked we can push the key out and use this one. The carpet on the other side should deaden the sound.’

‘Experiment,’ said Stefan simply.

Palfrey took the study key from his key-case and pushed it into the lock. It stopped before it was right in. Gently he pushed and the other key began to yield. He nodded and Stefan stepped to the window.

There was a soft sound from inside, different from the constant rustling of paper. When nothing else happened, Palfrey turned and nodded to Stefan.

They acted almost simultaneously.

Stefan pushed up the window, which squeaked noisily; Palfrey turned his own key in the lock and thrust the door open.

He felt a little foolish as he stared into what seemed to be an empty room. There was nothing the matter there; none of the furniture was disturbed; all of the drawers in his desk were closed. The window, however, was wide open; by it, two newspapers were fluttering in the breeze.

A moment later Stefan swung into sight, one hand gripping the top of the window, one foot resting on the sill. Palfrey paused, but not to admire the speed and precision with which the Russian negotiated the difficult task of getting from one window to another. He turned and went into the lounge-hall, then tried the doors of the other rooms. None of them was locked, all of the rooms were deserted. The small kitchen led to a little pantry on one side and the back door on the other. That was locked. Palfrey used a key and opened it. He saw Drusilla standing somewhat conspicuously in the small area at the back of the house, by the foot of an iron staircase.

‘All clear,’ he called. ‘At least, the flat is.’ He returned to the lounge-hall to find Stefan standing on the threshold of the study, his face a picture of bewilderment; the fact that Stefan showed such emotion was unusual enough to make Palfrey smile, if a little onesidedly.

‘The vanishing man with red hair,’ he mused.

‘He was here, Sap, my eyes and your evidence proves that. It is even a little disturbing,’ he admitted, ‘although we have the satisfaction of knowing that he was not here for long—I saw him entering as I reached the stairs and I know that it was just seven minutes before you arrived. And I imagined that I was being clever by waiting in silence,’ added Stefan ruefully. ‘Instead, I waited until he went away.’

Drusilla said pertinently: ‘Yes, but why did he come?’

Stefan said, tentatively: ‘Will you laugh, Sap, if I suggest that he might have left some unpleasant memento behind him?’

‘No-o,’ said Palfrey thoughtfully.

There followed a period of ten minutes during which they moved everything that was movable but found nothing in any way suspicious. The longer he searched, the less Palfrey thought it likely that the vanished stranger had secreted anything in the flat.

Then, without warning, Drusilla cried from the kitchen: ‘Sap! Sap I’

‘My oath!’ exclaimed Palfrey. ‘She’s found something!’ He was in the main bedroom, with Stefan looking through the drawers of the dressing-table. Stefan moved swiftly, but Palfrey positively bounded out of the room, pulling up short when he saw Drusilla empty-handed but bright-eyed, standing on the threshold of the kitchen. She had taken off her hat and had a towel wrapped about her waist.

‘Where is it?’ demanded Palfrey urgently. ‘What have you done with it?’

‘It?’ asked Drusilla, startled. ‘I haven’t found anything. Sap, I remember—’

Palfrey drew a deep breath and backed away, to knock against Stefan. He mumbled: ‘False alarm, it seems. I’m getting too hotheaded. What’s the brainwave, ’Silla?’

‘It’s very simple,’ said Drusilla; then the towel became unknotted and slipped to the floor. She stopped to pick it up, but Stefan forestalled her and began to tie it about her waist, again with a sober air, while Drusilla continued and looked into Palfrey’s disconcertingly direct eyes: ‘I remember where we’ve seen the little red-headed man before. He was on the bus at Penzance the day before yesterday. He sat in front of us, if you remember. He had a little woman with him, one of those large-eyed pretty little things with absurdly high heels, tiny black shoes, and no stockings. I paid more attention to her than to the man, but I remember he limped when he got out of the bus and walked away. Short, oldish, red-haired but quite definitely greying at the sides—and rather stocky.’

‘A wonderful thing, coincidence!’ declared Stefan. ‘But I am not very fond of it myself. The man was striking enough to be remembered; it is almost certainly the same one. Sap, I may remain melodramatic’ – obviously he enjoyed using the word – ‘but I think we should finish our search. The gentleman had obviously much interest in you.’

They went back to their respective tasks, but after another half an hour met together in the lounge-hall, with nothing to report.

‘He came to get something, not leave it,’ said Palfrey. ‘It’s damned odd.’ He twisted a few strands of hair and pulled it upwards, standing in characteristic pose. ‘We didn’t want anything like it just now, there might be a rumour that we’re going abroad. And it might be known that we’ve seen Brett. I’d better telephone him.’

At the back of his mind he had a sneaking hope that Brett would be able to offer some explanation about the red-haired man, but the Marquis was obviously surprised. He could shed no light on a matter which began to obsess Palfrey. Nor were Drusilla or Stefan in any better frame of mind. It was nearly two hours before Palfrey looked at the black-covered book which he had brought from the Marquis.

The first flush of eagerness had gone; he felt anxious and disturbed.

‘Is that the list of our captive friends?’ asked Stefan soberly. ‘I have been told about it, Sap.’

‘Ye-es,’ said Palfrey. ‘Well, we’d better get at it, we don’t want to lose much time. But I wish—’ he broke off. ‘Oh, let’s forget the fellow!’

Some measure of eagerness returned, as, with the book on the desk and with Drusilla sitting on his right and Stefan on his left, Palfrey began to look through the list. The first name on it was a familiar one to Palfrey, who read:

‘Jan Machez, Czechoslovakia. University of Prague. Doctor of Medicine. Special subjects: Infantile Paralysis, Paralysis—’

It did not make pleasing reading, for Dr. Jan Machez had been removed from his laboratory in the University of Prague to spend six months in Dachau. The mention of ‘Dachau’ was more than enough for all three of them to guess what he had suffered and what ordeals were stored up in his mind. The dossier went on: he had been released from the camp and taken to Breslau, where he was experimenting on the same lines as his earlier researches – the problem of infantile paralysis was important in the Third Reich. His address was given as the Research Hospital, Breslau.

‘It should not be impossible,’ mused Stefan.

‘No,’ said Palfrey, looking at the next on the list. It was the name of another doctor, a Norwegian of whom he had heard less than of the Czech, although the name was familiar. Erik Erikson was a younger man, about Palfrey’s age; he had specialised in mental diseases and the treatment of shock. There was a note on some of his suggestions and treatment, and his name was marked with a small red cross.

‘One of the stars,’ said Palfrey.

‘It is obvious why,’ said Stefan.

‘Ye-es.’ Palfrey looked at Drusilla’s eager face as she studied the list. ‘Yes, we’ll need all the specialists in shock before we’re through. And mental men, too—my oath, there’ll be a lot to put right!’

‘Until you contemplate it in the light of something like this, you do not understand it,’ said Stefan gravely. ‘I see there are educational specialists also, local government theorists, men of science, literature, the arts. It is perhaps not surprising that all the doctors are marked as the most important.’

‘No-o,’ said Palfrey slowly.

When he had talked with the Marquis he had seen much of the importance of the task ahead of them. He had been eager when he had learned what Brett had in store for him because it had given him an opportunity to help the plight of sufferers under Nazi domination, but also to prepare, in a small measure, for the work of reconstruction.

Stefan was right; the doctors held a high place.

But as he looked through the list, he saw that few activities had been neglected; it was catholic and comprehensive. He was a little amazed that such men, outstanding in their respective spheres, remained alive. Something of the impossibility of the Nazi aim to wipe out all but their own ‘good party’ intellectuals came vividly to him – that, and the fact that these men might, sooner or later, be useful to the Hun.

There was something else.

The Nazis must know that defeat was inevitable, but they clung to a faint hope. When that went there might be an outbreak of terror equalling, if not surpassing, the worst that had been done in Poland and Russia. The sadists in power might, in the last frenzy of their writhings, make another wholesale slaughter of innocents. Men like Machez, Raffleck, and Erikson would be mown down so that their powers could not be used to ease the pains of the agonised patient.

Every single individual brought to safety might achieve much; the rescue of a goodly number would be a boon to mankind great enough to make any and all danger worth while.

But for the visit of the little red-haired man, he would have been in high spirits.

‘Certainly we can try,’ said Palfrey. ‘We should sleep on it. We’ll know what Brian and Conroy think before long.’

He broke off before he finished what he was going to say, for there was a sharp knock at the front door. It startled all of them, but Palfrey, recovering quickly, jumped to his feet and said: ‘Brian, I expect. Or it could even be Conroy.’

When he opened the door as another knock sounded more impatient than the first, Stefan and Drusilla craned their necks to see who it was. They heard Palfrey say: ‘Brian! But—’

It was not an exclamation of welcome; there was surprise and even alarm in it.

A moment later they saw the reason, for the tall, fair-haired Englishman who stepped past Palfrey – it was Brian Debenham – had a long scratch on his right cheek, which was bleeding freely, and gave the impression that he had come straight from a free-for-all. But for the set expression on his face – a handsome one in spite of the blood – he might have presented a comical figure. His clothes were dishevelled, the knee of one trouser leg was torn; when he bent his knee the cap showed through, grazed and bleeding.

‘Go straight into the bathroom, Brian, I’ll clean you up.’

‘Never mind the bathroom,’ said Brian Debenham explosively, ‘I’m going to get the police busy without giving that little tyke a chance to get far away.’ He appeared not to notice Stefan although he did pause when he saw Drusilla, said, ‘Hallo, ’Silla!’ in a detached voice, then made for the telephone.

Stefan reached his side and put out a restraining hand.

‘Don’t be too hasty, Brian,’ said the Russian. Palfrey appeared on Brian’s other side to emphasise the warning. ‘Tell us a little more about the “little tyke”,’ Stefan went on. ‘Who do you mean?’

‘A little red-haired beggar who bowled me over with his motorcycle and then pretended to help me. I was a bit muzzy-headed or he wouldn’t have got away with it. The little tyke went through my pockets! He’s stolen my wallet.’

Chapter Two

Date of Departure

Palfrey eyed him soberly.

‘Was the letter from Brett in it?’

‘The one telling me to come here to see you?’ he asked. ‘No. I’d scrapped it after making a note of the day and time. I don’t think there was anything linking me with Brett or with you, for that matter. But the little tyke was obviously looking for something, wasn’t he?’ Brian lit a cigarette and contemplated Drusilla thoughtfully. ‘Very odd, Sap! I don’t know that I like it.’

‘I wouldn’t call it a polished performance,’ admitted Palfrey thoughtfully, ‘but he’s trying. What’s his game?’

Drusilla, who had been washing up the cups and saucers, came in from the other room and asked with some thoughtfulness: ‘What would we do if we wanted to find out what our opposite numbers in Germany were planning? We would know that there was little chance of finding anything written down,’ said Drusilla, ‘but we might try to make the other side think we were looking for just that. Then if we had them off their guard we would try something else. Supposing we knew where they were likely to meet? What would we do?’

‘We might try to listen in,’ submitted Stefan.

‘Ye-es,’ said Palfrey. ‘We might try to listen in, but not by eavesdropping in the normal way. We’d hardly expect to have much luck at key-holes.’ Palfrey slapped his hand against his thigh and moved swiftly to Drusilla and squeezed her about the waist.

‘Carpets,’ said Palfrey, turning abruptly to a corner of the room. ‘Floor-boards. Dictaphones. Yes, ’Silla?’

‘Of course, it might be a waste of time,’ said Drusilla dubiously, ‘but it’s worth trying.’

Palfrey was on his knees pulling at the carpet; it came up easily from one corner. Stefan and Drusilla stepped to the doorway so that the carpet could be pulled further up, Palfrey squeezed against the wall, treading on bare boards, then folded the carpet back from the corner. Stefan and Drusilla watched, eager-eyed, but it was Palfrey who first saw the traces of sawdust and two newly-sawn boards. Stefan drew a knife from his pocket and handed it to Palfrey as the latter tried to prise the sawn boards up with his fingers.

Beneath they saw the complicated coils and wires of what Palfrey immediately took to be part of a dictaphone. He did not pull it up at once but traced one strand of cable to the wainscoting: it ran along a gap between two boards for a short distance, then close against the wainscoting, protected from casual discovery by the carpet which fitted flush against the wall. It continued beneath the desk where a small instrument, like a miniature microphone, was neatly fitted.

He turned to the instrument in the floor, bent down and picked up two cylinders which were nearly a foot long and about two inches in diameter; they were made of a material that looked like shellac. ‘Very, very nicely done!’ said Stefan, still softly. ‘He came in, moved the carpet, perhaps took other cylinders away, and certainly left these here. He would not need to take very long.’

‘We should have thought of it before,’ said Drusilla quietly. ‘Sap, did you say much in this room before we came back this morning?’

‘I was alone,’ Palfrey reminded her. ‘I certainly didn’t say anything on the telephone, except talk to you. We kept off the subject that matters.’ He smiled a little vacantly. ‘One subject that matters, anyhow! He didn’t get much from the other cylinders but he would have had plenty from these. I wonder where we can get them played back to us?’

‘The Marquis will know,’ said Stefan.

When it was finished – it just included Brian’s arrival, then the second cylinder ran out – the Marquis stopped the machine and said quietly: ‘Yes, it’s a good thing you found it. But I don’t think any immediate harm has been done as far as you’re concerned. Have you laid your plans yet?’

‘I’d thought of doing it in easy stages,’ said Palfrey after some reflection. ‘For a start, go to Oslo to try to get Raffleck. We can get back to England from Oslo without a lot of trouble; then over to Copenhagen. There’s only Raffleck mentioned in Oslo,’ added Palfrey. ‘Is there anyone else there?’

‘You might be able to find out more when you arrive,’ said the Marquis. ‘We’ve no mention of anyone outstanding who would be willing to come. But it is those who are not there who matter most. When will you be ready to go?’

‘It depends on Conroy,’ said Palfrey.

‘I’ve heard that he’s on the way from Lisbon now,’ Brett told him, ‘so he will be here today. The day after tomorrow, do you think? Thursday?’

‘Thursday,’ agreed Palfrey.

Thursday was suddenly the only day that mattered in the whole of the future.