The Legion of the Lost, стр. 9
Orleck’s eyes smiled for the first time.
‘That is good—Stefan, of course, Stefan Andromovitch. It is a queer parcel of people that you bring, Doctor! So—Stefan will be the patient, Miss Blair the nurse. You, please, and Conroy will stay here. For Mr. Debenham’ – obviously he took a delight in using the English prefixes – ‘what, now, can we find for Mr. Debenham? He is a very good Saxon type, yes! He could mix with the guards at the hospital, even inspect them. An emissary from Berlin, come to report on the way they behave. Are you satisfied, Dr. Palfrey?’
‘More than satisfied,’ said Palfrey quietly.
‘That is good. Then I will go to make the final arrangements. Downstairs where they are drinking and gambling and trying to drown their fears, they will all the time be wondering what you are planning for them. For I have let it be known that most important emissaries have come from Berlin, as I told you. What do you say? They will be shaking in their shoes, yes?’
Stefan, nearest the door, said very gently: ‘Will they?’
The others turned and stared at him, but saw only his back. He was stretching out his hand towards the door. Palfrey, guessing what was in his mind, began to talk swiftly in Norwegian of instructions from Berlin. Stefan turned the handle of the door and pulled it open.
The thin-faced Gestapo man was standing back, looking startled, his lips parted. For perhaps thirty seconds no one spoke; Palfrey half expected to hear the man roar for others but a moment later the Gestapo agent’s right hand was raised as he muttered:
‘Heil Hitler!’ There was no life in it. ‘Herr Orleck, I came to ask if you would be good enough to—’
‘You came to ask?’ demanded Orleck softly as he rose to his feet with his eyes glittering. ‘You came to ask? You came to spy, you mean! You came to find whether I have reported well on your work. Come inside, swine, come inside and submit to the interrogation of His Excellency. Come inside!’
In Orleck’s voice there was so deep a contempt, so coarse a hatred, that it startled Palfrey, who was some seconds before beginning to wonder whom Orleck meant by ‘His Excellency’. Then he realised that Orleck was putting up a bluff, admirable in conception, but not necessarily so in execution.
Chapter Four
Stefan Acts a Part
There was an exchange of glances between Orleck and Stefan as the latter turned from the door. Stefan rasped, in fluent German: ‘Your papers, quickly!’
‘At once, Excellency!’ The thin-lipped man sprang to attention and saluted, then realised that he had not been told to do that, and fumbled with the button of a pocket-flap. Stefan knocked his hand away and wrenched the button off.
‘Now perhaps you can reach your papers!’ he roared.
‘At—at once, Excellency!’ The man’s fingers trembled as he took out a wallet. Stefan snatched it away from him, then shook the contents out on to the bare table. Two obscene postcard photographs fell face upwards. Stefan picked them up contemptuously and tore them across and across. Then he took up the man’s papers and began to read them. Palfrey saw that his victim’s eyes were almost starting from his head – they were turned towards the other contents of the wallet, not the official passes.
‘So—Ulrich Romberg, officer of the Third Reich,’ sneered Stefan, ‘a very faithful servant of the Third Reich, I have no doubt. Otherwise you would not be sitting in a room with a crowd of other lazy, good-for-nothing dolts, smoking, card-playing, wasting the time which you have been given in which to serve your country.’
‘You will recall,’ said Orleck in his cracked voice, ‘that Romberg was amongst those I named in my report, Excellency, as being suspected of taking bribes to permit breaches of the rules governing Norway. ‘I tabulated his offences. They included—’
‘It is a lie!’ gasped Romberg. ‘Herr Orleck has been misinformed, Excellency.’
‘We shall see,’ said Stefan, then gathered all the papers together in his large hands. ‘Which of these are you so anxious for me not to see, Romberg?’
The room was very quiet.
Stefan tossed paper after paper aside and then came to a small, folded card. Romberg’s thin neck worked; his Adam’s apple fluttered up and down; there was abject terror in his eyes. Stefan glanced up at him quickly, making the man jump and open his mouth. Then the Russian’s eyebrows were raised.
‘So?’ he said. He opened the card and began to read. His frown deepened. ‘So?’ he muttered again, in a deeper voice, continuing in a tone which seemed to tremble with outraged righteousness. ‘You are a good servant of the Reich, Romberg. Here are instructions to your men, also to officials generally, to allow certain enemies of the Reich to remain at large on payment of certain sums. On payment of certain sums! Regularly, for a month, they are allowed to remain free on such a consideration!’
‘They—they are allowed to be free so that they can be watched and possibly lead to the apprehension of others, Excellency,’ gasped Romberg. ‘The money is taken from them to make them careless, only that—to make them careless!’
Stefan glared at him, then flung the card into his face, swept his left hand round and gave the man a flat-handed blow; from Stefan it was one of such power that Romberg went reeling against the wall; he cowered against it, muttering under his breath.
Stefan turned to Orleck.
‘It was time I came,’ said Stefan harshly, ‘past time I came. Send for men to take him away,’ he added imperiously. ‘The sight of the dog nauseates me.’
‘At once, Excellency!’ said Orleck.
He broke into a shuffling run which looked more odd because of the long coat flapping about him. He opened the door and hurried away, while Romberg, perspiring freely, and