"Where Eagles Dare" - читать интересную книгу автора (Маклин Алистер)

7

For the second time in fifteen minutes Smith and Schaffer stopped at the doorway outside the gold room's minstrels' gallery, switched out the passage light, paused, listened, then passed silently inside. This time, however, Smith reached through the crack of the almost closed door and switched the light back on again. He did not expect to be using that door again, that night or any other night, and he had no wish to raise any eyebrows, however millimetric the raising: survival was a matter of the infinitely careful consideration of all possible dangers, no matter how remote that possibility might at times appear.

This time, Smith and Schaffer did not remain at the back of the minstrels' gallery. They moved slowly to the front, till they had come to the head of the broad flight of stairs leading down to the floor of the gold room and then sat down on the front oaken benches, one on each side of the gallery's passageway. They were still shrouded in deep gloom, completely invisible from below.

Colonel Kramer's stock of V.S.O.P. Napoleon brandy was certainly taking a beating that night, Smith reflected. The Colonel, Reichsmarschall Rosemeyer, Jones and Anne-Marie had been joined by three others—Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen. Those last three were no longer manacled and under heavy guard. On the contrary there was no sign of any guard, and the three men were sitting deeply relaxed and side by side on one of the massive gold lame-covered couches, glasses of brandy, and no small ones at that, in their hands. Even Anne-Marie now held a glass in her hand. It appeared to be an occasion for a celebration of some note.

Kramer lifted his glass towards the three men seated in the couch.

“Your health, gentlemen. Your very good health.” He turned to the Reichsmarschall. “Three of the best in Europe, sir.”

“I suppose they are necessary,” Rosemeyer said in resigned distaste. “At least, their courage is beyond dispute. Your health, gentlemen.”

“Your health, gentlemen,” Jones said bitterly. He sat forward in his chair and hurled his glass into the fire. The glass shattered and there was a momentary tongue of flame as the brandy ignited. “That's how I drink the health of double agents.”

Schaffer leaned across the passage-way and whispered: “I thought you said he couldn't act?”

“Nobody's ever paid him twenty-five thousand bucks a night before,” Smith said sardonically.

“Tut, tut, General. Best Venetian glass.” Kramer shook his head deprecatingly then smiled. “But an understandable fit of pique. When your heroic rescuers turn out to be, well, birds of a different feather—”

“Double agents!” In his contempt, Jones almost spat out the words.

Kramer smiled again, tolerantly, and turned to the three men on the couch.

“And the return trip, gentlemen? As well organised as your outward journey?”

“That's about the one thing the close-mouthed so-and-so told us,” Carraciola said with some bitterness. “A Mosquito bomber is to come to pick us up. Salen, a little village north of Frauenfeld in Switzerland. There's a little civilian airfield just to the north of Salen.”

Schaffer bent across the passage again and said in an admiring whisper: “You really are a fearful liar.”

“So Salen it is,” Kramer was saying. “We know all about it. The Swiss are very good at looking the wrong way when it suits them: but for reasons of our own we find it convenient not to protest too much. Odd things happen at Salen ... However. A little message to London. Arrange pick-up times and so forth. Then a helicopter to the border—so much easier than walking, gentlemen—a rubber dinghy for the Rhine and then a short walk. You'll be back in Whitehall, reporting General Carnaby's transfer to Berlin, before you know it.”

“Back in London?” Thomas shook his head in slow emphasis. “Not on your nelly, Colonel. With Smith and that Yank still at large? What happens if they find out what's really happening? What happens if they remain at large? What happens if they get a message through to London—”

“What do you take us for?” Kramer said tiredly. “You will also, of course, be reporting the unfortunate demise of your leader. As soon as we located that still-warm radio set in the left luggage office we put on bloodhounds from the barracks. Your precious Major Smith was the last man to handle that set and he left a pretty clear trail. The hounds traced him along the east side of the village as far as a garage and then up to the lower station of the Luftseilbahn.”

“The cable-car?” Thomas was frankly disbelieving.

“The cable-car. Our Major Smith is either a very foolhardy or a very dangerous man—I must confess I know nothing of him. And there, at the lower station, the hounds completely lost the scent. The handlers circled the station with the hounds and then brought them into the cable-car itself. But the trail was cold. Our quarry appeared to have vanished into thin air.”

“It was then that one of the searchers had the original idea of examining the thin air, so to speak. He climbed up and examined the roof of the lower station. Surprise, surprise, unmistakable signs in the snow and ice that two men had been up there before him. From that it was only a logical step to examine the roof of the cable-car itself, and sure enough—”

“They're inside!” Christiansen exclaimed.

“And won't get out again.” Colonel Kramer leaned back comfortably in his chair. “Have no fear, gentlemen. Every exit is blocked—including the header station. We've doubled the guards outside and the rest have just begun to carry out a floor to floor search.”

In the gloom of the minstrels' gallery Smith and Schaffer exchanged thoughtful glances.

“I don't know,” Thomas said uneasily. “He's a resourceful devil—”

Kramer held up a hand.

“Fifteen minutes. I guarantee it.” He shifted his glance to Jones. “I don't pretend to look forward to this, General, but shall we get on with your—ah—medication?”

Jones glared at Carraciola, Christiansen and Thomas and said, very slowly and distinctly: “You—bloody—swine!”

“Against all my principles, General Carnaby,” Rosemeyer said uncomfortably. “But if we could only dispense with force—”

“Principles? You make me sick!” Jones stood up and made a strangled noise in his throat. “The hell with you all! The Hague Conventions! Principles! Officers and gentlemen of the Third Woody Reich!” He stripped off his uniform jacket, rolled up a sleeve and sat down again.

There was a brief and uncomfortable silence, then Kramer nodded to Anne-Marie who put down her glass and moved off to a side door leading off the gold drawing-room. It was obvious to everyone that Anne-Marie wasn't feeling in the least uncomfortable: the half-smile on her face was as near to that of pleasurable anticipation as she could permit herself in the presence of Rosemeyer and Kramer.

Again Smith and Schaffer exchanged glances, no longer thoughtful glances, but the glances of men who know what they have to do and are committed to doing it. Carefully, silently, they eased themselves up from the choir-stalls, adjusted the straps of their shoulder-slung Schmeissers until the machine-pistols were in the horizontal position then started slowly down the stairs, well apart and as close as possible to their respective banisters, to minimise the danger of creaking treads.

They were half-day down, just beginning to emerge from the dark gloom of the gallery, when Anne-Marie re-entered the room. She was carrying a small stainless steel tray: on the tray were a glass beaker, a phial containing some colourless liquid and a hypodermic syringe. She set the tray down on an occasional table close to Jones and broke the phial into the narrow beaker.

Smith and Schaffer had reached the foot of the stairs and were now advancing towards the group round the fire-place. They had now completely emerged from the shadows, and were in full view of anyone who cared to turn his head. But no one cared to turn his head, every seated person in the drawing-room was engrossed in the scene before him, watching in varying degrees of willing or unwilling fascination as Anne-Marie carefully filled the hypodermic syringe and held it up to the light to examine it. Smith and Schaffer continued to advance, their footfalls soundless on the luxuriously deep pile of the gold carpet.

Carefully, professionally, but with the trace of the smile still on her lips, Anne-Marie swabbed an area of Jones's forearm with cotton wool soaked in alcohol and then, as the watchers unconsciously bent forward in their seats, picked up Jones's wrist in one hand and the hypodermic in the other. The hypodermic hovered over the swabbed area as she located the vein she wanted.

“Just a waste of good scopolamine, my dear,” Smith said. “You won't get anything out of him.”

There was a moment's frozen and incredulous stillness, the hypodermic syringe fell soundlessly to the floor, then everyone whirled round to stare at the two advancing figures, carbines moving gently from side to side. Predictably, Colonel Kramer was the first to recover and react. Almost imperceptibly, his hand began to drift to a button on a panel beside his chair.

“That button, Colonel,” Smith said conversationally.

Slowly, reluctantly, Kramer's hand retreated from the button.

“On the other hand,” Smith went on cordially, “why not? By all means, if you wish.”

Kramer glanced at him in narrow-eyed and puzzled suspicion.

“You will notice, Colonel,” Smith continued by way of explanation, “that my gun is not pointing at you. It is pointed at him”—he swung his gun to cover Carraciola—“at him,”—the gun moved to Thomas—“at him,”—it covered Christiansen—“and at him!” Smith swung round abruptly and ground the muzzle of the Schmeisser into Schaffer's ribs. “Drop that gun! Now!”

“Drop the gun?” Schaffer stared at him in shock and baffled consternation. “What in the name of God—”

Smith stepped swiftly forward and, without altering his grip on his gun, lifted the barrel sharply upwards and drove the butt of the Schmeisser into Schaffer's stomach. Schaffer grunted in agony, doubled forward with both hands clutched over his midriff, then, seconds later, obviously in great pain, began to straighten slowly. Glaring at Smith, the dark eyes mad in his face, he slipped the shoulder strap and the Schmeisser fell to the carpet.

“Sit there.” With the muzzle of his gun Smith gestured to a chair half-way between Rosemeyer's and the couch where the three men were sitting.

Schaffer said slowly, painfully: “You goddamned lousy, dirty, double-crossing—”

“That's what they all say. You're not even original.” The contempt in Smith's voice gave way to menace. “That chair, Schaffer.”

Schaffer lowered himself with difficulty into his chair, rubbed his solar plexus and said, “You ———. If I live to be a hundred—”

“If you live to be a hundred you'll do nothing,” Smith said contemptuously. “In your own idiom, Schaffer, you're a punk and a pretty second-rate one at that.” He settled himself comfortably in a chair beside Colonel Kramer. “A simple-minded American,” he explained carelessly. “Had him along for local colour,”

“I see,” Kramer said. It was obvious that he did not see. He went on uncertainly: “If we might have an explanation—”

Smith waved him negligently to silence.

“All in good time, my dear Kramer, all in good time. As I was saying, my dear Anne-Marie—”

“How did you know her name was Anne-Marie?” Kramer asked sharply.

Smith smiled enigmatically, ignored him completely, and continued: “As I was saying, scopolamine will do, as you're all aware, is to reveal the truth about our friend here, which is that he is not Lieutenant General George Carnaby, Chief Co-ordinator of Planning for the Second Front, but a certain Cartwright Jones, an American actor being paid precisely twenty-five thousand dollars to impersonate General Carnaby.” He looked over to Jones and bowed. “My congratulations, Mr. Jones. A very creditable performance. Pity you'll have to spend the rest of the war in a concentration camp.”

Kramer and Rosemeyer were on their feet, the others leaning far forward on the couch, an almost exactly identical expression of disbelief showing in every face. If Cartwright Jones had been earth's first visitor from outer space he couldn't possibly have been the object of more incredulous, consternation.

“Well, well, well,” Smith said with interest. “Surprise, surprise, surprise.” He tapped Kramer on the arm and gestured in the direction of Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen. “Odd, wouldn't you say, Kramer? They seem just as astonished as you are?”

“Is this true?” Rosemeyer demanded hoarsely of Jones. “What he says? Do you deny—”

In a voice that was no more than a whisper, Jones said: “How—how in God's name—who are you, sir?”

“A stranger in the night.” Smith waved a hand. “Dropped in in the passing, you might say. Maybe the Allies will let you have that twenty-five thousand after the war. I wouldn't bank on it though. If international law allows you to shoot a captured enemy soldier dressed as a civilian, maybe the opposite holds good too.” Smith stretched and politely patted a yawn to extinction. “And now, Anne-Marie, if I could—with your permission, my dear Kramer—have a glass of that excellent Napoleon. Clinging to the roofs of cable-cars works the devil with my circulation.”

The girl hesitated, looked at Kramer and Rosemeyer, found neither encouragement nor discouragement, shrugged, poured a glass and handed it to Smith, who sniffed the bouquet approvingly, drank a little and bowed again to Jones.

“My congratulations, sir. You are a connoisseur.” He sipped again, turned to Kramer and said sadly: “To think you have been wasting such excellent liquor on enemies of the Third Reich.”

“Don't listen to him, Colonel Kramer, don't listen to him!” Carraciola shouted wildly. “It's a bluff! He's just trying—”

Smith lined up his gun on Carraciola's chest and said softly: “Keep quiet or I'll make you quiet, you damned traitor. You'll have your chance—and we'll see who's bluffing.” He lowered his gun to his knees and went on tiredly: “Colonel Kramer, I don't fancy talking and having to keep a gun on this unlovely trio all the time. Have you a guard you can trust? A man who won't talk afterwards, I mean?”

He sat back in his chair, sipped his brandy and ignored the malevolent stares from his four erstwhile colleagues. Kramer looked at him for a very long moment, then nodded thoughtfully and reached for a phone.

The armoury—now converted into a Kaffeestube—of the Schloss Adler was very much in keeping with the remainder of the castle, something out of a medieval dream or nightmare, according to how individual tastes and inclinations lay. It was a large, darkly-panelled, stone-flagged room with enormous adze-cut smoke-blackened beams and walls behung with ancient and rusty suits of armour, ancient and rusty weapons of all kinds and scores of armorial bearings, some of which could have been genuine. Three-sided half-booths lined the walls and half-a-dozen slab-topped monastery refectory tables, flanked by massive oak benches, paralleled the shorter axis of the room. The oil lamps, suspended by iron chains from the ceiling, were turned low, lending the atmosphere in the armoury an air of intimacy or brooding menace, according to one's original mood on entering. There was no doubt in Mary's mind as to its effect upon her. Her gaze followed half-a-dozen heavily armed and jack-booted men who were just leaving the armoury, then came back reluctantly to the man sitting close beside her in the corner booth.

“Well, what did I tell you?” von Brauchitsch said expansively. “Coffee to match the surroundings!”

Coffee to match the surroundings, Mary thought, would have tasted of hemlock. She said: “What did those men want? They seemed to be looking for someone.”

“Forget them. Concentrate on von Brauchitsch.”

“But you spoke to them. What did they want?”

“They say there are spies in the castle!” Von Brauchitsch threw his head back, laughed, and spread his hands palms up. “Imagine! Spies in the Schloss Adler! The Gestapo H.Q.! They must have flown in on their broom-sticks. The military commandant is an old woman. He has spies in about once a week. Now what was I saying about Dusseldorf?” He broke off, glancing at her empty coffee cup. “My apologies, my dear Fraulein. Come, more coffee.”

“No, really. I must go.”

Von Brauchitsch laughed again and put his hand on hers.

“Go where? There is nowhere to go inside the Schloss Adler. Nonsense, nonsense.” He turned in his seat and called: “Fraulein! Two more coffees. And with Schnapps, this time.”

While he was ordering, Mary glanced quickly at her watch and a momentary expression of desperation crossed her face, but by the time von Brauchitsch turned back she was smiling sweetly at him. She said: “You were saying about Dusseldorf—”

The company in the gold drawing-room had now been increased by one, a tall, cold-faced and hard-eyed sergeant who held a carbine cradled in a pair of strong and very capable looking hands. He was standing behind the couch on which Carraciola, Thomas and Christiansen were seated, and he was giving them his entire attention, apart from a frequent sideways glance at Schaffer. He had about him a reassuring air of competence.

“A very much more civilised arrangement,” Smith said approvingly. He rose, leaving his Schmeisser lying on the floor, crossed to the brandy decanter on the sideboard, poured himself another drink and made his way back to the fireplace where he placed his glass on the mantelpiece.

“This will take but minutes, only,” Smith said in a soft and ominous voice. “Anne-Marie, bring in three more capsules of scopolamine.” He smiled at her. “And I needn't remind you to bring the hypodermics.”

“Colonel Kramer!” Carraciola said desperately. “This is madness! Are you going to allow—”

“Guard!” Smith's voice was harsh. “If that man talks again, silence him!”

The guard jabbed his carbine muzzle none too lightly into Carraciola's back. Carraciola subsided, fuming, his fists clenched till the ivory showed

“What do you take Reichsmarschall Rosemeyer and Colonel Kramer for?” Smith demanded cuttingly. “Credulous fools? Little children? Imbeciles of your own calibre, who imagine you can get away with a cretinous masquerade of this nature? The scopolamine will be used after I have established my own bona-fides and after I have disproved yours. Anne-Marie?”

Anne-Marie smiled and marched away. It was not every night that she got the chance to administer three injections of scopolamine. Then she stopped and turned, eyebrows raised in interrogation, as Smith called her name again.

“One moment, Fraulein.” Smith, brandy glass in hand, was staring unseeingly into the middle distance and the watchers could see a slow smile coming to his face, a smile obviously heralding the birth of a new idea and one that pleased him very much. “Of course, of course,” Smith said softly. “And bring three note-books will you, my dear?”

“Three note-books?” Colonel Kramer's tone was neutral, his eyes watchful. “Three capsules? You give the impression that we have four enemies of the Reich here.”

“Only three enemies that matter,” Smith said in weary patience. “The American?” The fact that he neither bothered to glance at Schaffer nor even permit a trace of contempt to creep into his voice showed unmistakably his opinion of the American. “He doesn't even know what day of the week it is. Now then.” He picked up a cigar from an inlaid marquetry box, lit it and sipped some more brandy. “Let's be fair and establish my bona-fides first. Pointers first, then proof. In the best judicial fashion.”

“First, why did I invite another guard in and lay down my own gun?” He paused and went on sarcastically: “Of course! Because I wanted to increase the odds against myself. Secondly, why didn't I-kill Colonel Weissner and his men when I had them at my mercy—if, that is, I'm an enemy of the Third Reich—earlier this evening? I had some difficulty, I might tell you, in restraining our fire-eating young American here from turning himself into a one-man firing squad. Very aggressive, he was.”

“I'll damned well tell you why,” Carraciola said viciously. “Because you knew the shots would be heard!”

Smith sighed, lifted the flap of his jacket, produced an automatic and fired. The sound of the impact of the bullet thudding into the couch inches from Carraciola's shoulder completely blanketed the soft plop made by the automatic itself. Smith carelessly threw the silenced Luger into a nearby empty chair and smiled quizzically at Carraciola.

“Didn't know I had that, did you? I didn't kill Colonel Weissner because German does not kill German.”

“You are German?” Kramer's eyes were still watchful but the tone perhaps a shade less neutral.

“Johann Schmidt, at your service.” This with a little bow and click of the heels. “Captain John Smith of the Black Watch.”

“From the Rhineland, by your accent?”

“Heidelberg.”

“But that is my home town.”

“Indeed?” Smith smiled his interest. “Then I think we have a mutual friend.”

Momentarily, a faraway look came to Kramer's eyes and he said softly, apparently apropos of nothing: “The columns of Charlemagne.”

“Ah, and the fountain in the courtyard of the dear old Friedrichsbau,” Smith said nostalgically. He glanced at Kramer, and the nostalgia gave way to a pseudo-mournful reproof. “How could you, my dear Colonel? To proceed. Why—third point, I think—why did I stage this elaborate car accident—because I knew those three impostors wouldn't dare come into the open until they thought I was dead. Anyway, if I were the impostor, would I have come back when I knew the game was up? Anyway, to come back for what?” He smiled wearily and nodded at Jones. “To rescue another impostor?”

Kramer said thoughtfully: “I must say I'm rather beginning to look forward to hearing what our three friends here have to say.”

“I'll tell you now what I've bloody well got to say.” Christiansen was on his feet, ignoring the guard's gun, his voice shaking with fury. “He's fooling you, he's fooling all of us. He's a damned liar and you're too damned stupid to see the wool over your eyes. A tissue of ——— lies, from beginning to end—”

“That will do!” Kramer's hand was up, his eyes bleak, his tone icy. “You condemn yourselves from your own mouths. Every statement made so far by this officer is demonstrably true. Sergeant Hartmann”—this to the guard with the carbine—“if any of those men speak again, do you think you could silence him without silencing him permanently?”

Hartmann produced a small woven-leather truncheon from his tunic and slipped the looped thong over his wrist.

“You know I can, Herr Colonel.”

“Good. Pray continue, Captain Schmidt.”

“Thank you. I hadn't finished.” Smith felt like pouring himself another brandy, a celebration brandy or, alternatively, pinning a medal on Christiansen for having so unerringly if unwittingly exposed the chink in Kramer's armour, a wounded intellectual vanity, the lacerated professional pride of a brilliant man being reminded of his capacity for being duped by one of those who had already duped him. “For the same excellent reason I came here by the roof of the cable-car—they'd never have come into the open if they'd known I was here—and alive. Incidentally, Kramer, hasn't it occurred to you that it's impossible to enter the Schloss Adler from the roof of the header station without the assistance of a rope and someone inside?”

“Damnation!” Coming so soon after Christiansen's reminder of his fallibility, Smith's question left Kramer's self-confidence badly shaken. “I never thought—”

“Von Brauchitsch,” Smith said carelessly. “He had his orders direct from Berlin.” He placed his glass on the mantelpiece, walked across and stood before the three spies. “Tell me, how did / know Jones was an impostor? Why did you not know he was one? And if I'm not what I claim to be then what in God's name am I doing here at all? Perhaps you would like to explain that?”

The three men glared up at him in baleful silence.

“Perhaps they would indeed,” Kramer said heavily. He came and stood by Smith, staring down at the three men with an oddly expressionless gaze that was more disturbing than any show of anger could ever have been. After another and longer silence he said: “Captain Schmidt, this has gone far enough.”

“Not yet.”

“I require no more,” Kramer persisted.

“I promised you proof—those were but the pointers. A proof to satisfy the Deputy Chief of the German Secret Service—and that proof is in three parts. A yes or no, Colonel Kramer, if you please. Do you or do you not know the name of our top man in Britain?” Kramer nodded. “Then suppose we ask them?”

The three men on the couch looked at each other, then at Smith. They looked in silence. Thomas licked dry lips, a movement that did not go unnoticed by Kramer. Smith produced a small red note-book from his tunic pocket, removed a rubber band, tore out the central page, then carefully replaced the band on the book and the book in his pocket. He wrote something on the page and handed it to Kramer, who glanced at it and nodded. Smith took the paper from him, walked across to the fire and burned it.

“Now then,” Smith said. “You have here, in the Schloss Adler, the most powerful radio transmitter in Central Europe—”

“You are singularly well-informed, Captain Schmidt,” Kramer said wryly.

“Smith. I live Smith. I breathe Smith. I am Smith. Put a radio-telephone call through to Field-Marshal Kesselring's H.Q. in Northern Italy. Ask for his Chief of Military Intelligence.”

Kramer said softly: “The mutual friend you mentioned?”

“An old alumnus of Heidelberg University,” Smith nodded. “Colonel Wilhelm Wilner.” He smiled. “Willi-Willi.”

“You know that? Then it will not be necessary to call him.”

“Admiral Canaris would like you to.”

“And you know my chief, too?” Kramer's voice was even softer.

“My self-esteem urges me to say that I do—but modesty and the truth compels me to admit I don't,” Smith said disarmingly. “I just work for him.”

“I'm convinced already, convinced beyond all doubt,” Rosemeyer said. “But do as he says, Colonel.”

Kramer did as he was told. He put a call through to the radio room, hung up and waited patiently. Smith lay back in his arm-chair, brandy in one hand, cigar in the other, the picture of relaxed confidence. If Schaffer and the three men on the couch beside him were either relaxed or confident they entirely failed to show it. Behind them their guard watched his four charges hopefully, as if eager to show his expertise with a blackjack. If either Rosemeyer or Jones were thinking any thoughts at all, those thoughts didn't break through to the surface. Anne-Marie, not quite knowing what was going on, hovered around indecisively, a tentative smile of anticipation still on her face. She was the only person who moved during the period of waiting and that only because Smith crooked a finger at her and indicated his empty brandy glass: so complete was the ascendancy he had achieved that she obeyed the unspoken command without hesitation and brought back a very generous measure of brandy which she set down by his side-table to the accompaniment of a winning smile. Smith gave her a winning smile in return. But no one spoke, not once, during that seemingly interminable wait. The phone bell rang.

Kramer lifted it and, after a few preliminary exchanges, presumably with operators, said: “Colonel Wilhelm Wilner. My dear friend, Willi-Willi. How are you.” After the introductory courtesies were over, Kramer said: “We have, an agent here who claims to know you. A Captain John Smith. Have you ever—ah, so you know him? Good, good!” A pause, then he continued: “Could you describe him?”

He listened intently, looking at Smith as a voice crackled over the receiver. Suddenly he beckoned to Smith, who rose and crossed over to where Kramer was sitting.

“Your left hand,” Kramer said to Smith, took it in his own, then spoke into the phone. “Yes, the tip of the little finger is missing ... and the right forearm has what?” Smith bared his right forearm without being told. “Yes, yes, two parallel scars, three centimetres apart ... What's that?... Tell him he's a traitor?”

“And tell him he's a renegade,” Smith smiled.

“And you're a renegade,” Kramer said on the phone. “Chambertin, you say. Ah! Thank you, thank you. Goodbye, my old friend.” He replaced the receiver.

“We both prefer French wine,” Smith said apologetically and by way of explanation.

“Our top double agent in the Mediterranean,” Kramer said wonderingly. “And I'd never even heard of you.”

“Maybe that's why he is what he is,” Rosemeyer said dryly.

“I've been lucky.” Smith shrugged, then said briskly: “Well, then. My credentials?”

“Impeccable,” Kramer said. “My God, they're impeccable.”

“So,” Smith said grimly. “Now for our friends' credentials. As you know, Christiansen, Thomas and Carraciola—the real Christiansen, Thomas and Carraciola—while working for—”

“What in God's name are you talking about?” Christiansen shouted. He was on his feet, his face suffused with uncontrollable anger. “The real Christiansen—” His eyes turned up as Hartmann's blackjack caught him behind the ear and he sagged to the floor.

“He was warned,” Kramer said grimly. “You didn't hit him too hard, Sergeant?”

“A two-minute tap,” Hartmann said reassuringly.

“Good. I think you may now proceed without interruption, my dear Schmidt.”

“Smith,” Smith corrected him. “As I was saying, our real agents while working for the British counter-espionage have not only been responsible for the deep infiltration of the German Secret Service into the British espionage network in France and the Low Countries but have also set up an excellent chain of spies in England—a most successful ring, as Admiral Canaris well knows.”

“It's not my territory,” Kramer said. “But that, of course, I know.”

Smith said coldly: “To your feet, you impostors, and sit at the table there. Sergeant, lend a hand to that man on the floor there. He appears to be coming round.”

Their faces baffled and uncomprehending, Carraciola and Thomas made their way towards the table and sat down, where they were shortly joined by a very shaky and sick-looking Christiansen. The sergeant remained by him just long enough to ensure that he didn't fall off his chair, then took three paces back and covered them all with his carbine again.

From the other side of the table Smith flung down in front of the three men the little note-books that Anne-Marie had brought. Then he produced his own elastic-banded note-book from his pocket and laid it on the small table beside Kramer. “If they are who they claim to be,” Smith said quietly, “it would be reasonable, would it not, my dear Kramer, to expect them to be able to write the names and the addresses or contacts of our agents in England and of the British agents who have been supplanted on the Continent by our men.” He paused significantly. “And then compare their lists with the genuine one in my book there.”

“It would indeed,” Kramer said slowly. “Proof at one stroke. Masterly, my dear Captain Schmidt—Smith, I mean.” He smiled, almost wanly. “I'm afraid I'm not myself tonight. But tell me, Captain.” He touched the banded note-book by his side. “This list of agents—I mean, carrying it around on your person. Does this not contravene every rule we have?” “Of course it does. Rules can only be broken by the man who made them. You think that even I would dare without his authority? Admiral Walter Canaris will be in his Berlin office now.” Smith nodded towards the telephone.

“What do you take me for.” Kramer smiled and turned to the three men at the table. “Well, you heard.”

“There's something terribly far wrong—” Carraciola began despairingly.

“There is indeed,” Kramer interrupted bleakly. “I don't doubt Smith's bona-fides.” Carraciola was almost in anguish now. “Not any more. But there's been some ghastly mistake—”

“You are the ones who have made it,” Smith said curtly.

“Write,” Kramer commanded. “Sergeant Hartmann.” Sergeant Hartmann stepped forward, his leather-thonged blackjack at the ready. The three men bent their heads and wrote.