'There are grounds for believing him to be an English secret agent.'
'What!' Sabine exclaimed, her big eyes growing round with well feigned astonishment. 'But that is absurd! I know him to be a Frenchman.'
Ribbentrop shrugged. 'Perhaps he is a de Gaullist who is working for the British. Anyhow, after he had been questioned at the police station he knew that he had been recognized as a man wanted by the Gestapo. That would account for his leaving you like that. He knew that if he came back with you he would soon be followed here and rearrested; so as soon as he could he seized on the chance to get away.'
'I can't believe it!'
'I was dubious myself anyhow about his being an Englishman. But Grauber claims that he knows him well; and that he is an ace high British spy named Sallust.'
'Who is Grauber?' Sabine asked with a puzzled frown.
'Have you never heard of him? He is one of Himmler's top men and is responsible for all Gestapo activities outside the Reich. He is in Budapest to investigate rumours that a little clique of anti Nazi Hungarian notables is toying with the idea of entering into negotiations with the enemy. Purely by chance he ran into this man Tavenier, or Sallust, or whoever he is. As you know, they had a fight and were both taken off to the police station. Grauber showed his credentials and wanted to remove his catch to the Villa Petoefer that is the Gestapo Headquarters here but the Hungarians wouldn't let him. So he came up to the Palace, to ask me to get a special permit signed by Admiral Horthy. He was given it, but by the time he got back to the police station you had let the bird out of the cage. Back to the Palace came Grauber, in a fine rage, to demand that special measures should be taken to catch the bird again; and when I heard that you were responsible for the fellow's release I decided that I must see you at once to find out what was behind all this.'
'There is nothing behind it. I have not the least doubt that it is a case of mistaken identity. You had better go back to the Palace and tell this man Grauber so.'
'You will have a chance to tell him so yourself in a few minutes.'
Sabine suddenly sat forward and asked in a voice just a shade higher' than usual, 'What do you mean by that?'
'He left me to collect some of his colleagues who have been mixed up in this thing; but he must be on his way here by now.'
Gregory, peering down from behind the suit of armour, stiffened where he stood. Those last words confirmed his worst fears of the way matters might develop. For a moment he contemplated slipping behind the curtain, hunting round till he found some back stairs, then trying to find a way out of the house; but instead of appearing perturbed Sabine displayed only calculated indifference.
'Am I to understand,' she enquired, raising her eyebrows, 'that you intend to stand quietly by while I am grilled by some Gestapo thug?'
'No! No! Of course not!' he protested quickly. 'But they are entitled to any reasonable help that I can give them. I take it that Pipi has gone to bed?'
'Yes. Why do you ask?'
'I was thinking about letting these people in. It would be better to keep the servants out of this.' As he spoke the Minister walked towards the vestibule, adding over his shoulder, 'It is so warm, it won't matter leaving the front door open; then they will not have to ring.'
Gregory was greatly tempted to step out from behind the armour, lean over the gallery and call softly to Sabine, 'Quick! Get the glass I used out of the way.' But he decided that the risk of Ribbentrop's returning before he could regain his cover was too great. It was just as well, for the Minister was out of sight for barely a minute and, as he re-entered the room, there came the faint sounds of a car driving into the courtyard. Turning, he walked back to the door of the vestibule, returned a loud greeting of 'Heil Hitler,' and led in the visitors. To Gregory's dismay, he saw that Grauber had with him Cochefert, Major Szalasi and Lieutenant Puttony.
Szalasi bowed over Sabine's hand. Grauber and Cochefert were presented to her. The whole middle section of the Frenchman's face was swathed in a great bandage. Only his hooded eyes showed above, and his chin below it. Evidently his nose had been plugged as, when he spoke, it was in a voice so distorted that it sounded as though he had a split palate or acute adenoids. He was so shaky from loss of blood that he was given a chair, but Grauber was not invited to sit, and the pink cheeked Puttony remained modestly in the background. After these greetings, Ribbentrop said in a cold haughty tone:
'Herr Gruppenführer, the Gnadige Frau Baronin has consented to answer any questions you care to put to her. Please be as brief as possible.'
Having bowed his respectful thanks, Grauber asked Sabine to tell them where she had first met the man calling himself Commandant Tavenier, and all that she knew about him.
In a quiet, detached voice, Sabine repeated with a few minor embellishments what she had already told Ribbentrop: such as the address of the apartment at which she had stayed as his aunt's guest in Paris and approximately the date of her stay there. She gave as her reason for the visit that his aunt was a partner in a big French fashion house, and that she had been commissioned by a Hungarian shop to buy models from the firm all of which was quite plausible as, in her poorer days, she had been for a while a professional model.
As Ribbentrop and Szalasi had both been present when she had again met Gregory the previous evening, they had no reason whatever to doubt her veracity, and both nodded confirmation as she went on to give Grauber an outline of what had happened. In the same rather bored manner, she continued with the rest of her story, ending with a positive assertion that, however much Tavenier might resemble the Englishman the Gestapo wanted to catch, he could not possibly be their man.
Having heard her out, Grauber gave her a queer little smile, and said in his high falsetto, 'It is the Gnadige Frau Baronin who is mistaken.' Then he turned to Ribbentrop, and added: 'Herr Reichsaussenminister, we have proof incontrovertible proof. Listen, please, to what M. le Capitaine Cochefert of the Deuxième Bureau has to say.'
From the moment the Frenchman had entered the hall, Gregory had realized that Grauber must have gone to the hospital where Cochefert v/as being treated and, on hearing his revelations have insisted that he should leave his bed to repeat them to Ribbentrop. While arguing with Sabine in her car he had failed to take into account that his two enemies might get together again so quickly, and it was only in the past few minutes that it had struck him how disastrous their collaborations must prove. His instinctive feeling that Sabine's story was not entirely watertight was now to prove only too well-founded and, for both their sakes, he cursed his folly in having allowed her to persuade him into coming back with her.
Snuffling his words, and obviously speaking only with considerable pain, Cochefert gave particulars of Vichy's reply to his routine enquiry and recounted how, when cornered, Gregory had admitted that he was not Tavenier.