'Of course I'm right,' Sabine insisted, and leaned forward to press the self-starter.
'No; wait!' he caught her hand. 'What is to happen in the meantime?'
'You are coming home with me. You'll be perfectly safe there.'
'I shan't, and neither would you be. As it was you who secured my release and I drove off with you in your car, your house is the first place they'll come to when the balloon goes up in the morning.'
'Really, darling! I think that whack on the head must have temporarily deprived you of your wits. Is it likely that I shouldn't have realized that? I shall say that I was driving you back to the house to change your clothes when you said that having been knocked out had made you feel sick. So I stopped the car for you to get out. Then, to my amazement, instead of being sick, you ran off down a side turning; and I haven't the faintest idea what became of you afterwards. That is entirely in keeping with what would probably have happened if I had really believed you to be Tavenier.'
He nodded. 'Yes; that is just about what I should have done. Knowing that the Germans had got on to me, once you had got me out of prison I should have left you as quickly as I could. In fact, just as I meant to.'
'Exactly. And the very last place you would have let me take you to would have been my house; because they are certain to make enquiries there.'
'Yes, they probably would even if I had got out of prison by some other means. The odds are that they will find out that after I left the Vadaszkürt this afternoon the driver of the carriage took me and my luggage to your palace. That is the sort, of thing that worries me. What reason are you going to give them for having done that?'
'A perfectly straightforward one. I greeted you in front of a table full of people last night as an old friend, and mentioned that I had stayed with your aunt in Paris. I wished to return her hospitality, so asked you to stay for a few days, and you accepted. There is nothing wrong about that.'
Gregory had a feeling that there was somewhere, but another thought struck him and he asked, 'What about Ribb? Won't he kick up rough when he hears that you invited your ex-boyfriend, without his aunt, or a wife or chaperone of any kind, to come and stay with you?'
'No. That is one of Ribb's good points. At times he fools around rather half-heartedly with little film starlets and I never make scenes. But in return I assert my right to go about with whom I like, and he stands for that, because he enjoys my companionship more than anyone else's. Providing I am always on hand when he either wants to talk or show me off to his friends, and I don't let other men make up to me while he is present, he doesn't seem to mind much what I do when he is otherwise engaged.'
'You are a clever girl, and I give you full marks,' Gregory said with a smile. But he at once became serious again, and added, 'All the same, I can't possibly let you run any further risks on my account. At least, not as far as coming back to, your house is concerned. I'll lie low in the city tonight and tomorrow; then, if you are really confident that you can get away with it, we'll do our trip to the frontier on Sunday.'
'No, Gregory; no!' She hit the wheel angrily with the palm of her hand. 'You are being stupid again. My whole plan hangs on your taking my chauffeur's place, and driving me off as though we were setting out for Berlin. How on earth can we do that if I have to pick you up somewhere? And if you came to the house early Sunday morning, you might be spotted entering it. All sorts of complications might crop up. The only certain way for us to pull it off is for you to come back with me to the house now.'
He sighed. 'There is an awful lot in what you say. But I'm so scared that something may go wrong when the police come along to question you about me in the morning. If you tell them that I bolted from you tonight, and after that they find that you are concealing me, you won't have a leg to stand on. You'll be in it up to the neck.'
'There's no reason why they shouldn't believe me.'
'You never can tell. Some little thing may make them suspicious; then they might insist on searching the house.'
'They wouldn't dare!'
'Wouldn't they? You don't know Herr Gruppenführer Grauber.'
'Is he the man who recognized you?'
'Yes; and he is the most ruthlessly efficient swine that ever wielded a rubber truncheon. What is more, he has personal reasons for wanting to take me into little pieces, so he'll stick at nothing to ferret out where I've got to.'
'Where did you come up against him before?'
'Oh, in lots of places. The first time was in England and the last in Russia. But Fate seems to take a special delight in throwing us together, and during the past three years we have done our best to kill one another in half a dozen countries.
'You misled me, then, about your mission to Budapest being a special thing. From what you say, it's clear now that all through the war you have been working against the Germans as a secret agent.'
'No, I didn't mislead you. I simply refrained from telling you about my previous wartime activities because I didn't want to quarrel with you and you had made it clear that you were on the Germans' side.'
'I am. Oh, Gregory!' Her voice held a sob of acute distress. 'Why are you English so blind? Can't you see that the Russians are the real enemy? If we don't destroy them now we have the chance, they'll destroy us later. They are evil, utterly evil; and given time they will grow so powerful that either by peaceful penetration or by war they will become masters of the whole world.'
He sighed. 'You may be right. God knows. I've no illusions about Communism, and the way in which it turns all those who come under it into slaves. But first things must come first. Stalin is little worse than Hitler and…'
'That is not true! I know Hitler is a fanatic about some things, and that his persecution of the Jews is unforgivable, but…'
'No ruler who employs men like Grauber can be allowed to continue to enforce his will on millions of people. But this is not the time for us to wrangle about degrees of evil. What I was about to say was that Grauber is the head of the Gestapo
Foreign Department; so, apart from Himmler, there is no German who has a bigger pull with your police, and they will stick at nothing to get me for him. That is why, if they have the least suspicion that you are lying, they will search your house.'
'I tell you they will not. This is not Germany, you know. First they would have to go away and get a search warrant; so you would have plenty of time to make yourself scarce.'
'They might bring one with them.'
'I should refuse to allow them to execute it until I had telephoned to the Palace. I would get on to Ribb and have him speak to Admiral Horthy; and he would send an order that they were to leave me in peace.'
'If they were hunting for an English spy at the request of the Germans I don't see why Ribb should interfere.'
'Then I'll tell you. The top Nazis hate each other's guts. All of them are always trying to get hold of some piece of dirt that will discredit one of the others with the Fuhrer; and Ribb and Himmler are at daggers drawn. Ribb would accept my version of what had happened and jump to the conclusion that one of Himmler's boys was trying to pull a fast one on him by seizing this excuse to search my house in the hope of finding some thing among my papers that could be used against him later.'