"Take it easy, darling."
She swung round with a half strangled cry. Her companion had taken off his uniform cap and removed the black eye shade. Next moment she was in Gregory's arms.
"But how-how did you do it?" she gasped between her sobs f joy when at last he released her.
His old gay smile lit up his lean, strong face. "I was a day too late when I arrived at Kandalaksha and I reached there in a raging fever that held me up for three days; but I left again on Monday evening. When I heard the Gestapo had sent a plane to fetch you I felt certain that must have been Grauber's work so I hurried back to Voroshilov's headquarters. Von Geisenheim told me what had happened and we planned this coup directly I got in last night."
He paused to kiss the red weal that ran across her cheek,' where Grauber had struck her the day before, then hurried on: "I already had Voroshilov's order for your release and when I half murdered Grauber a week ago I took everything of his that I thought might be useful to me, including his uniform and his eye patch. With the patch and the bandages he had been wearing it wasn't difficult to get myself up well enough to pass for him in the darkness. The two soldiers on the sleigh were grand fellows who had accompanied me to Kandalaksha and back; but I didn't dare to let you know about my imposture in front of them, because they both speak German."
"But the ship, darling how did you manage to get a ship? And where are we going?"
"We're going to Norway first, as this is a Norwegian vessel. If only Hitler hasn't walked into it before we get there. You remember the plan. And now the Finnish business is settled Denmark and Norway are the next on the list,
"Angela and Freddie " Erika exclaimed. "They were taken away just a week after you left. D'you know what's happened to them?"
"They're all right, my sweet. When I first came South I saw the British Vice Consul in Leningrad and fixed things up with him. No one will ever know who shot those soldiers in Petsamo so the Russians have nothing against Angela or Freddie and the Consul was going to arrange for the British Embassy to demand their release. It came off all right, too, as Kuporovitch told me when I got back to Kandalaksha. A junior secretary from the British Embassy was sent up there to fetch them, so they're on their way home' to a grand honeymoon now."
"Oh, bless them. And you'll be able to get the typescript to London if only we reach Norway safely."
He laughed. "It's been in the hands of the British Government for days. I told the whole story to the Vice Consul in Leningrad, wrote a letter explaining matters to my old friend Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust and swore an affidavit as to how that poisonous plan to brand the Nazi Swastika on every state in Europe, one by one, had come into my possession. He saw at once how damnably dangerous and subtle the whole scheme was and, although he's not supposed to do such things, he agreed to take it himself to Moscow so that it could be flown home in one of the Embassy bags. That was much quicker than my trying to take it myself, and so much more certain."
"But the ship, darling how did you get the ship?"
Gregory turned to a fur clad figure that had been standing near them. "You remember our old friend. General Kuporovitch? We left his little friend Oggie locked in a grain store that's only opened once a week; then the General and I came South together. When we reached Leningrad yesterday afternoon I passed over to him my passport as von Lutz and Voroshilov’s order. With the order, and his new identity as the Colonel Baron, he was able to go out to Kronstadt Bay, where the ice is breaking up, and arrange for the Norwegian captain of this ship to steam out and lie off here till we could join him."
Kuporovitch kissed Erika's hand. "!Madame la Comtesse!" he murmured. "This Gregory of yours is a man in a million and Between us we are ten thousand devils. It is I who have left prison and I feel young for the first time in twenty years. How marvellous it will be to see Paris again. The three of us together, eh? We must celebrate our freedom there for at least a month."
Erika shook her head. "You've forgotten, General, that I'm
German. I can't go to either of the Allied countries before the war is over, since I won't go as a refugee. I'm afraid you'll both have to leave me in Norway."
"Perhaps," Gregory said thoughtfully; "but Norway won't be safe for very long. We three know that; and we know, too, that the Allied Governments won't make a patched up peace after they've seen Goering's typescript. But each time Hitler is compelled to break away from the plan and lash out in a new direction through the pressure of the German people, whom he cannot hold unless he redeems his promise to them of speedy victories, he will weaken himself. Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and the rest each will take its toll of German lives, planes, steel and petrol. Even if Hitler succeeds in overrunning them he will have to police them afterwards and tie up hundreds of thousands of men to keep them under, just as he has already had to do in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. In the meantime, just as in the last war, the British and French 'War Cabinets will be reconstructed to bring in more forceful elements, and while Germany exhausts herself the might of the Allies will constantly increase, until under the leadership of Churchill, perhaps, since he is the most dynamic and inveterate enemy the Germans ever had, the full, colossal power of the Free Peoples will stem the Nazi tide of conquest. Once that happens, Hitler's edifice will go to pieces like a house of cards; so the war may be over much sooner than people think."
"Then perhaps we'll be able to celebrate together in Paris by the Spring." Kuporovitch wafted an ironic kiss from his gloved finger tips to the fading, icy shore of the new territories Just acquired at such appalling cost by the Union of Soviet Slave' Republics and rolled the words round his tongue.
"Ah Paris in the Spring! "
"Yes," said Gregory. "Or Berlin."
The End