The Black Baroness

As Erika had reported personally to Sir Pellinore three nights previously there was no necessity for her to go into great detail with Gregory about the German Fifth Column activities, but she gave him a general layout of the situation and said that she was convinced that Brussels was the centre of the whole network of the German espionage system in the two threatened countries. Gregory waited patiently until she had finished, then he asked her if she had ever heard of the Black Baroness.

'Die Schwartze Baronin,' Erika said thoughtfully. 'Yes. Mention of her has occurred now and again but never in connection with anything of sufficient importance to be worth putting in any of my reports.'

'What sort of things?' Gregory asked.

'Oh, just social gossip. She was staying with Degrelle, I think, about the time we got here and I believe poor Susie von Ertz dined with her one night.'

'Why d'you say "poor Susie"? I thought her rather an attractive, jolly girl when we met her in Oslo. Has anything gone wrong with her?'

'Why, yes. I told Sir Pellinore; but of course you wouldn't know. Susie was given a Dutch aeroplane designer to look after, but they slipped up somewhere, and his wife found out. The poor man was so upset that he poisoned himself. Unfortunately for Susie, he chose her bedroom to take his life in; so, of course, the police were called in, and they've been trying to pin a charge of murder on her.'

Gregory made a grimace. 'Poor little devil. The police are probably right, though.'

'What makes you think that, darling?'

'Well, presumably she's been under arrest since the tragedy occurred, so she must have dined with the Black Baroness beforehand. From what old Pellinore tells me, the Baroness has been hovering vaguely in the background of so many tragic "accidents" that I should think it's quite on the cards that she blackmailed Susie into giving her aeroplane designer the poison with the promise that they would help her to fake things to look like suicide afterwards.'

'Who is this Black Baroness woman, Gregory? Now I come to think of it I asked Susie, after she told me that she'd dined with her, how anyone had come by such a curious nickname. Susie just said that it was because she's such a striking-looking woman with hair and eyes that are as black as pitch; but the word seems to have a much more sinister implication than that.'

'She's a Frenchwoman and her real name is the Baronne de Porte.'

The Baronne de Porte!' Erika exclaimed. 'But, of course, I know quite a lot about her.'

'Then you're better informed than I was up to three nights ago, my sweet.'

'Darling, when I was selling armaments with Hugo Falkenstein it was my business to find out about such people. Her husband, the Baron, was a great industrialist and she married when she was quite young, but left him before she was twenty-four. She then went in for high finance, on her own account, and she has the Midas touch, so that in a few years she had amassed a great fortune; but that's years and years ago.

When making big money began to pall on her she started to take an interest in politics; perhaps because she was already an intimate friend of Paul Reynaud's.'

'Reynaud's!' Gregory repeated. 'But, good God, he's the new Premier of France.'

Erika shrugged. 'Oh, her affair with him started when he was only a promising lawyer, way back in 1916. It must have burnt itself out long ago.'

'Thank God for that.'

'Later she travelled a lot,' Erika went on, 'and she often used to stay in Rome and Berlin. In both she made many friends and there is no doubt that she acquired pro-Fascist leanings. Just after Munich she became very intimate with Baudoin, the President of the Banque d'Indo-Chine, and he is a person who wields enormous influence behind the scenes. Both of them, quite naturally, are rabid anti-Communists, but I've always believed that the Baronne was a patriotic Frenchwoman. It's a grim thought that anyone like that should actually have gone to the length of tying up with the Nazis and be working for them now that her country is at war with Germany.'

'Well, she is; and what you've just told me about Susie, together with the fact that the Baronne was staying with Degrelle, and that it was Degrelle who arranged for Paula to meet the Comte de Werbomont, seems to confirm Pellinore's belief that it's she who picks the most suitable girls for the chaps the Nazis want to get into their toils, and makes the necessary social arrangements so that each selected lovely can be thrown in the chappie's path quite naturally. I've got to get on to this Baroness woman. D'you know if she's still in Brussels?'

Erika shook her golden head. 'No; I haven't the least idea, but we'll talk to Stefan about it tomorrow and see if he can find out anything.'

"That's it,' Gregory agreed. 'You had better arrange for him to meet me somewhere for a quiet chat in the afternoon. One of the parks would probably be the best place. Then go out yourself so as to leave me free to slip away from my duties for an hour.'

'I'll telephone Stefan in the morning and tell him to meet me by the Tritton Fountain in the Pare Leopold at three o'clock; then you can turn up in my place.'

'Good. I heard that he got on splendidly with old Sir Pellinore.'

'Who could fail to do so?' Erika laughed. 'What an amazing person he is! Nowhere else in the world but England could have produced such a character. His education is appalling. He shouts at foreigners in English and takes it for granted that they will understand him. To hear him talk one would think that he knew nothing about anything at all except the idiosyncrasies of women, sport, food and drink; yet he has a flair for going straight to the root of any question and underneath it all such a shrewd brain that if he were pitted against Ribbentrop, Litvinov and Laval together I believe he'd have all three of them tied in knots. I thought him charming and I fell for him completely.'

Gregory grinned and stood up. 'I can see that it was quite time for me to reappear on your horizon. And now, d'you know what I'm going to do to you? I'll give you three guesses.'

With a mocking smile she put her arms round his neck. "How could I possibly guess, my sweet? But something tells me that I was a very rash woman to remain alone in my flat for the evening with such an attractive, forward butler.'

'You've guessed it in one, angel,' he laughed, and swinging her off her feet he carried her from the room.

At three o'clock the following afternoon Gregory was seated on the rim of the fountain in the Pare Leopold, reading an early edition of the evening paper. He noted that the British withdrawals in Norway were having a deplorable effect on the world press and that the little countries were, in consequence, getting into a worse state of jitters than ever through the fear that Germany would next attack one or other of them.

The Swedes had been in a state of unofficial mobilisation ever since the Germans had gone into Norway, nearly a month before, but they were still keeping up as bold a front as possible and shooting down any German planes that flew over their territory. Carol of Rumania was singing a very small song again and promising Hitler further commercial advantages to the detriment of the Allies. Hungary, sandwiched between Italy and Germany, had now given up all attempt at playing one off against the other and was pretty obviously doing exactly as she was told by Berlin; while the Dutch and Belgians were calling up more and more classes of conscripts and now frantically building road barriers as a precaution against a sudden invasion. Yet a strong feeling still seemed to run through the people of both countries that if only they kept their heads and refrained from giving offence to Hitler he might yet spare them, as being more useful to him while going concerns from which he could draw considerable quantities of foodstuffs and other supplies than as conquered areas of devastated territory.