The room they entered was large and lofty but its furniture presented some queer contrasts. Much of it revealed the splendour of bygone days when the castle was a Tsarist stronghold. There were bearskin rugs on the now unpolished parquet floor; a fine array of antlers and heads interspersed with a collection of ancient arms decorated the walls; several settees and chairs, from which the brocade was worn and the gilt rubbed, looked like genuine Louis Seize pieces and might still have fetched a good price at Christie's, but the room had now been converted for use as a modern office. Incongruously a row of steel filing cabinets lined a part of one wall under a piece of fine Gobelin tapestry, while in the very centre of the apartment there stood a cheap pinewood desk on which were littered cardboard files and wire letter trays.
Behind the desk a clean shaven, grey haired officer with several stars on his collar was sitting smoking a cheroot. His eyebrows were still black and ran thin and pointed towards the temples of his smooth, white forehead. Under them were a pair of rather lazy blue eyes of which Gregory took quick note. He had met that lazy look before in other people and knew that it nearly always boded a shrewd intelligence. At a word from the man behind the desk the two soldiers told their story, helping each other in a friendly, conversational way as they went slang and showing none of the trepidation which is usual in privates who are addressing an officer of high rank.
When they had done the officer looked at the prisoners and said: "Parlez vous francais?"
"Oui, mon General," replied Gregory at once, giving him the benefit of General's rank although he was not sufficiently well acquainted with Soviet badges to know the Russian's actual status.
"Good," said the officer, continuing in French. "I should be glad, then, if you will give some account of yourselves." Gregory had had ample time to think out what he meant to say when they had to face an examination and he had realized that, short of telling the truth, which would certainly land them in serious trouble owing to the Russians they had shot at Petsamo, only two lines were open to them. Angela had a British passport, Erika had a German passport, he had a faked British passport in his own name and a German passport in the name of Colonel Baron von Lutz, but Freddie had no passport at all. With the two countries at war such a mixed bag was sure to arouse unwelcome suspicion so they must either all pose as Germans or all pose as British and, since Germany was now Russia’s ally, it seemed that Germans would be likely to meet with a much better reception.
Having informed the others early that morning of what he, intended to do he produced the two German passports, and announcing himself as Colonel Baron von Lutz, introduced Erika as the Countess von Osterberg and Freddie and Angela as Oscar and Fredeline von Kobenthal.
The officer glanced at the passports and asked for the other two.
"They were lost, unfortunately, with our baggage," smiled Gregory.
"Indeed?" The Russian told the soldiers to bring up chairs for their charges and went on: "Remove your furs and be seated, please; then continue."
Gregory acknowledged the courtesy and proceeded to the much more difficult task of explaining what his party had been doing up in the Arctic.
"Von Kobenthal and I," he said, "are members of the German Military Intelligence and these two ladies were acting as our assistants. Before the war broke out we were naturally able to prove about Finland with much more freedom than would have been accorded to any Soviet subjects, and we were allotted the duty of assisting your attack on Petsamo. We lived in the town for a couple of weeks during which we were able to gather considerable information about the Finnish plans for resisting a Soviet invasion and it was our job, immediately upon the declaration of war, to cross the frontier, contact the Russian Military Intelligence and pass over to them such data as we had gained.
"We left Petsamo in our aeroplane on the morning the war broke out, ostensibly for Helsinki, but fifty miles south of the town we turned east intending to cross the frontier and land at your Arctic base of Murmansk. Unfortunately, we ran into a terrible blizzard, ice formed on the wings of our plane while we were still somewhere over the frontier and we were compelled to make a forced landing. The snow was so thick that we could see nothing, but luckily for us we came down in a clearing instead of crashing among the trees.
"I will not describe to you, General, the incredible hardships which we suffered during the next twenty hours. The undercarriage of our plane had been ripped away on landing so it was impossible for us to take off again, and if we had not made a bonfire of the wreckage we should have frozen to death during the night. We should certainly have died in the forest if we had not been lucky enough to find on the following day a trapper's shack which had been provisioned for the winter. As we had no means of getting back to civilization the only thing we could do was to remain there until the coming of spring or until help reached us."
"A most interesting and exciting adventure, Monsieur le Baron," commented the Russian. "So you have been out of everything for nearly three months. And how did you manage to make a break from your snow bound prison after all?"
"A sleigh and horses were virtually sent to us as a gift of Fate," Gregory lied affably. "Four days ago we were gathering kindling in the woods when we saw three horses drawing a troika come galloping down a long clearing in the forest oil a most eccentric course. They did not appear to have any driver but we managed to head them off and halt them. We found that there was a driver in the sleigh but, as far as we could judge, he had been dead for some hours; probably he had refused to halt when challenged by some sentry. In any case, he had a bullet through his heart and evidently the horses had bolted. The following day we packed the sleigh full of provisions and set off eastward into Soviet territory. As no doubt the soldiers who brought us here will have told you, we narrowly escaped being devoured by wolves two nights later. But all's well that ends well. I can assure you that it's a great joy to myself and my friends to meet someone who can speak some other language than Russian and to find ourselves in comfortable surroundings once again."
"It is a pleasure for me to receive you here," the Russian said. "I am General Kuporovitch, the Military Governor of Kandalaksha, and I shall do my best to make you comfortable during your stay here."
"General, you are most kind," Gregory smiled, "but I was
hoping that you would provide us with facilities to proceed on our journey."
"Certainly," said the General. "Certainly, Monsieur le Baron. But we took Petsamo on the first day of the war, so your mission has long since lost its purpose. As you have been out of everything for nearly three months a few extra days will surely make no difference to any new plans which you may have formed. I see so few people here I mean, of course, people who know anything of what is going on outside the Soviet Union. It will be a great treat for me to have you as my guests."
"I can assure you, General, there is nothing that we should like better," Gregory replied most cordially; "but unfortunate my country is at war and as a serving officer it is my duty to report there as soon as possible. The families of myself and my friends probably fear that we are dead by this time, too, so while we should be most grateful for your hospitality to night I trust that you will find it convenient to help us proceed on our way south to morrow morning."