The Legion of the Lost, стр. 62
Amongst the students was Hilde.
Palfrey wondered what passed through her mind when she sat and listened, rarely showing any expression. She did not once get to their apartment, although it was known that she was now staying in the same place – Palfrey wondered if she were in von Otten’s private rooms; he had been there only on the night of the dinner party.
She was quite as helpless as they were. Once, when Palfrey managed to speak to her, he asked her if she had seen Bohn. She said she had not, Bohn was away from the capital.
On the fourth day of their ‘new life,’ they gathered in a bedroom shared by the three men. It was the largest room of three, in a suite. Drusilla had the smallest room and the third was used as a lounge; they took all meals in a restaurant on the ground floor.
Drusilla, sitting in front of a dressing-table and running a comb through her hair, watched the reflection of the trio in the mirror. Conroy was scowling, Brian looked grimly out of the window, his hands clenched by his side.
Only Palfrey looked as if he were able to relax in any way.
Conroy said slowly, bitterly: ‘We can’t get at Stefan. We can’t get at our two prize specimens. We can’t do anything about the Legion—my oath, when I think of the men caught up in that hellhole it makes my blood boil! The only chance we’ve got is cutting and running with our tails between our legs, and if we do save our own precious skins, that’s as much as we can hope for. There’s nothing else we can do—just plain damn-all. And you know it!’
Palfrey said, tentatively: ‘I’m not so sure, Alex. The mind has been working gently—very gently, but with some assorted results. I often think of little Dross,’ said Palfrey. ‘He believes in miracles. Actually we don’t want a miracle, we want a well-conceived plan. What’s the secret of the impregnability of the Potsdamer Plate?’
‘About a hundred thousand tons of concrete,’ said Conroy.
‘Wrong. The secret is tear gas. It gets everywhere, it goes everywhere. The corridors, the upper rooms, the cells. Not bad. It could even be the Achilles heel. I mean, suppose—’ he coiled a few strands of hair about a forefinger and drew it taut from his head. ‘Supposing it weren’t tear gas? Supposing it were ether, or a narcotic of some kind, to induce sleep. We have stores available at this rendezvous and that. Some of the anti-Nazi Germans use it themselves, as I told you.’
‘Aw, heck, forget it!’ snapped Conroy. ‘Supposing you waved a wand and made them all fall down asleep, what then?’
‘It would be an interesting situation, to say the least,’ said Palfrey, musingly. ‘Whom can we rely on for help? Stefan—we can risk contact with him at Rendezvous 3, but it would only be justified if we thought we should be able to get results. The people at Attanstrasse, who are doubtfuls. Our own agents. Possibly—no more than possibly, von Lichner. No, we’re not alone. Develop the idea! If the guards and the prisoners are asleep, we can get in. If we have sufficient contacts in Berlin we can get most of the prisoners away and give them at least a chance to escape. We know exactly what to do if we get Ridzer and Machez, we should have a chance of getting off ourselves.’
‘There may be something to it,’ said Conroy, narrowing his eyes and looking at Palfrey steadily.
‘A possible way out,’ said Palfrey dreamily. ‘Perhaps the only way out.’ He smiled vaguely. ‘And we’re trusted, you know. We may be watched but we’re trusted as much as anyone else here. I’m going to contact Stefan.’
Conroy said: ‘Why not one of us? And—’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Can we be sure that Stefan’s at large?’
‘If he’s been seen in Berlin, we shouldn’t be here like this,’ said Palfrey. ‘I’ll go out for a breather after the morning lecture,’ he added, ‘and see what I can do. Your job is to fob off our watch-dog.’
Chapter Thirty
Contact with Stefan
Palfrey walked along the wide stretch of the Adolf Hitler Platz. The sun was shining brightly down and what few Berliners were free to be out at twelve o’clock in the morning were hurrying past the closed-up shops and the blasted buildings which looked like gigantic, rotten teeth. He suddenly turned towards the road. There was room for many lines of traffic, but only four thin lines were moving, although in the distance there was the rattle of a bus. There were pedestrians on the side-walk, then barrows being pushed along, then cyclists, then horse-drawn vehicles.
A few large cars moved past swiftly, gone almost before they came in sight.
Two hundred yards behind them was the block of flats where they had lived for the past four days.
Palfrey moved casually towards the curb, then stepped between two cyclists and moved, much more swiftly than he appeared to, into the middle of the boulevard. He called something over his shoulders. Not far behind the others he saw the gross figure of Stolte, their watch-dog for that day. Stolte laboured up to the others, alarmed.
‘Where does he go?’ he demanded. ‘Where, please?’
‘He said he’d be back in a moment,’ said Drusilla.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Stolte, as if to reassure himself.
He gazed across the road but Palfrey was soon lost amongst the crowd on the far side-walk. Stolte licked his lips, then fell behind them, obviously uneasy but preferring to stay within sight of the others.
Palfrey stood and looked back when he felt at a safe distance; he was satisfied with what he saw. He quickened his pace along the boulevard, more eager than ever to start the wheels moving. The