He thought it unlikely that the two dead S.D. men would be missed until early in the morning, when they would be due to report before going off duty. Soon afterwards the country would be scoured for them and all lonely buildings in the area searched. But the longer the time that elapsed before their bodies were discovered the longer it would be before they were known to be dead, and a general call sent out giving the numbers of their motor-cycles with urgent orders to arrest anyone found using one of them. Therefore, Gregory reasoned, if he putt in an hour's hard work now, removing all signs of the struggle from the cottage and hiding the bodies in the marshes, he might delay for several hours the whole countryside becoming alive with police and troops on the look-out for him.
He stood for a moment looking down on the two dead men, then ran quickly through their pockets, taking their wallets and loose change. They were much of a size and he judged both to be an inch or two taller than himself. The man whom he had shot through the back of the head had blood all over his tunic; the other, although badly battered about the face and head, had bled comparatively little. Choosing the latter, Gregory set about the grim task of stripping him of his uniform. When he had got it off he dragged the body in a fireman's lift up across his shoulders. Bent nearly double under the weight, he carried it about fifty yards along the path by which he had come to the cottage, then for a further fifteen along a side turning on one side of which water glistened faintly between tall patches of reeds. After pausing for a minute to regain his breath, he exerted all his strength and heaved the body as far into the reeds as he could.
Returning, he collected a torch that had been part of the man's equipment and a big jug from the living-room dresser, then went round to examine the two motor-cycles. The tanks of both were well over half full, so he drew off enough from one to fill the other, then wheeled the partly empty one round to the front of the cottage. Leaving it there on its stand, he carried out the second body and sprawled it across the machine. Having satisfied himself that it would not fall off, he wheeled the motor-cycle with its gruesome load down to the place where he had thrown the first body into the water. Another heave and the second body followed the first. Upending the motor-cycle so that only the back wheel touched the ground he ran that into the water as far as he dared then let it crash down on top of the two bodies.
As the splash resounded he stood back gasping to survey his handiwork. The mudguard and part of the rear wheel of the machine still showed above the water, but there was nothing he could do about that. Anyone passing there in daylight could hardly fail to notice the partially submerged motor-cycle but only a small patch of reeds had been broken down and the marshes covered a wide area, so it might be several days before the bodies were found; and Gregory's purpose would be served if the S.D. men's fate remained uncertain for twenty-four hours.
His exertions had tired him terribly and his leg was paining him badly again, but he had now completed the most laborious part of the task he had set himself. Mopping the sweat from his forehead, he returned to the cottage at a slow walk. In a corner cupboard of the living room he found a bottle of Polish Cherry Liqueur and poured himself a good tot. It was poor stuff, made from potato spirit, and he needed no warming up, but it lent him new vigour for his further activities.
Lighting the oil stove he put a saucepan of water on to boil. While it was heating up he collected the pieces of broken china and hid them above the eye line on the top of the dresser, then changed into the uniform of the S.D. man whom he had stripped. Under one of the beds in the bedroom he found a suitcase and a hold-all. The latter being better suited to his purpose, he packed his own clothes in it, adding to them shaving and washing things that had belonged to either the Pole or Malacou, a soft Tyrolese hat with a feather in the band and such oddments of food as he found in the larder.
By that time the water was boiling. With a bucket and sponge he got down on his knees and, blessing the fact that the floorboards were covered with cheap linoleum, cleaned up the spilt blood. That done, he set about hunting for the reserve of money that he felt sure Malacou would have hidden somewhere about the cottage. Taking care to disturb things as little as possible, he searched every drawer and cupboard, looked behind the books in a small bookcase and for a loose brick in the hearth, then with a smooth skewer from the kitchen he prodded the pillows and mattresses, hoping to hear the rustle of bank notes. He had no luck, except in finding a map of Poland that would prove useful.
As a last resort he went through to a small slip room which he guessed had been occupied by Tarik. While hurriedly running through the hunchback's few poor belongings he wondered what had become of him; but could only assume that after they had all been surprised on the road either he had not returned to the cottage or, if he had, on the arrival of the S.D. men he had panicked and fled. Either way, it seemed a fair bet that, like Malacou, he was somewhere out on the marshes. Owing to the strong psychic bond that linked them, it seemed probable that by this time he had found his master and was striving to comfort him after the ordeal through which he had passed.
Gregory's search of Tarik's room did not yield even a few Polish kopecs or German Pfennige and a glance at his watch showed him that it was now nearly half past three; so he decided that he must abandon his hunt for any hoard that Malacou might have concealed in the cottage. That there was a round sum of money hidden there somewhere he would have bet his last shilling; but it now seemed certain that it had been secreted under the floorboards or somewhere in the thatch of the roof, and he could not possibly give the time to such thorough explorations.
Swiftly checking through the money he had taken from the two Nazis he found it amounted to eighty-four Reichsmarks and seven Pfennige, together with a few small-denomination Polish notes for which he had no use. That was the equivalent of about Ј7 10s. in English money; so would keep him only for a few days and was hopelessly inadequate for any attempt to get out of German-held territory. But it was better than nothing.
Still furious that his prospects of eluding his enemies should be so heavily handicapped by his failure to find Malacou's hoard, he quickly set the living-room furniture to rights so that no-one entering it would now have grounds for suspecting that a fight to the death had recently taken place there. Then he put out the oil lamp and, closing the front door behind him, went round to the back of the building.
At intervals, between his most strenuous exertions during the past hour, he had been trying to make up his mind on the best course to pursue. Lacking a solid sum to offer as a bribe, he felt certain that he had very little chance of persuading a skipper in one of the Baltic ports to run him over to Sweden. For a while he had contemplated the route Kuporovitch had taken, from Kiel up the Little Belt and across Denmark; but Kiel was over five hundred miles away and lack of money would again prove an obstacle almost impossible to overcome. The frontier of Switzerland was still more distant, and that of Spain obviously out of the question.