The Legion of the Lost, стр. 44
‘You are tired, yes,’ said Stolte, standing up and pawing at Drusilla’s shoulder. ‘Yes, yes, Fräulein, I can see that. Perhaps I can arrange for you to have more comfortable quarters than these, they are all right for the men, you understand, but for you—’ he leered at her.
Palfrey said stiffly: ‘Fräulein Berg is one of our party, Herr Stolte, and she will remain with us.’ He wanted to kick the beast, but feared that any further sign of hostility would lead to serious trouble. Somehow Drusilla persuaded the German to go, but he promised to be back that evening when they had rested.
Palfrey and the others finished the food which had no definable taste, then looked about the suite of rooms. There were four, including a small single room with an iron bedstead, a bedroom with two double beds, a room which was empty of all furniture, that which they had first entered, and a bathroom. None of them troubled to wash; Palfrey was almost asleep before he remembered the letter which the little girl had delivered.
He was sharing a bed with Brian when he jerked up to a sitting position, reaching out for his coat which was hanging on the foot of the bed. He found the letter, took it out, pushed it beneath the mattress, then lay back with a gasp of sheer fatigue.
He did not know how long he slept, but he was the first to wake up. Confusedly he blinked about him, parched and stiff. Then he saw Stefan and Conroy on the other bed, Conroy’s dark head small and compact beside Stefan’s. He yawned and groaned, stretching his arms above his head: then climbed out of the bed and sat for a few seconds on the edge. He remembered Drusilla and the letter at the same time. He searched for the letter, getting in a panic when it did not come to hand immediately, then, holding it, he stepped across to the door.
Drusilla was in the small single room, and he wondered whether it had been wise to leave her there alone.
Neither Brian nor Conroy had stirred, but Stefan was awake and looked at him without blinking.
‘I forgot to tell you. Lisa gave me a letter yesterday,’ Palfrey whispered.
‘What was in it?’ asked Stefan.
‘I don’t know yet,’ said Palfrey, holding the letter up.
‘Wait a moment!’ said Stefan. He climbed out of the bed and tiptoed to the door, a mammoth figure in his underclothes, wearing shorts and a singlet, his fine muscles rippling. He reached the door and flung it open.
‘Good morning!’ gasped Herr Stolte from outside.
Palfrey stepped in Stefan’s wake and said gently: ‘Herr Stolte, I do not like your behaviour. I shall find it necessary to complain to the Party unless you conduct yourself very differently. I shall be prepared to talk to you’ – he paused – ‘this evening. No earlier!’
Stolte licked his lips, creased his face into a strained smile.
‘Yes, thank you, Herr Professor! I was coming to inquire, that was all, coming to inquire.’ He backed away, bobbing his head. He was a gross, grotesque hulk of a man; obviously, firm measure would be most effective with him. But, thought Palfrey as he watched him go downstairs, he might easily prove dangerous.
Stefan closed the door.
‘It has occured to me,’ he said as if there had been no interruption, ‘that the message might tell us not to come to Berlin, Sap.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Palfrey. ‘I did have that idea myself.’ He slit open the envelope with his forefinger and took out the note; then he frowned, for it was not from the Marquis. Nor was it signed or headed. It was written in German characters, carefully printed in a mauve-coloured ink. It ran:
Dr. Palfrey, I have done all that it is possible to do in Trenborg, but I cannot protect you in Berlin. Others know that you will be going there. There is a suspicion that you are going to try to release Professors Ridzer and Machez. I would advise against it. And be very wary of Count von Otten.
That was all.
Stefan and Palfrey, reading it in silence together, stared at each other. Palfrey formed his lips in a soundless whistle. Stefan ran a hand over his hair and said softly: ‘Still very accommodating of the Baron, Sap!’
‘Ye-es,’ said Palfrey. ‘But that isn’t all. By a long way.’ He began to curl some hair about his forefinger. ‘If they know we’re after Ridzer and Machez it won’t be so easy. It might even be impossible.’
‘That might be what the Baron wants us to believe,’ said Stefan.
‘Isn’t it time we learned more about von Otten?’ asked Conroy.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Herr Stolte’s ‘Conducted Tour’
It was past time they knew more about von Otten, Palfrey agreed; he left the house soon afterwards on an errand of inquiry. Not far away was a little general shop, which he visited and where, before long, he was talking to a German who had been on the Marquis’s pay-roll for years. A vague, indeterminate-looking man, he discussed von Otten with a passionate intensity which made Palfrey realise how much the man was hated.
Next to Himmler, it seemed, von Otten was then the most powerful member of the Gestapo. As far as was known his work concerned the occupied and neutral countries. It was certain that delegates from both of these were either in or on their way to Berlin – the purpose of it was not known.
Those who crossed von Otten’s path, said the little man, were always taken to the new prison on the Potsdamer Platz. He knew little about the place except that the Germans considered it impregnable. A number of prisoners from other places – Germany as well as occupied countries – had been taken there recently, together with large numbers