The Black Baroness

Kuporovitch shook his head. 'No, Gregory; you are wrong there. The evacuation from Dunkirk was ordered on May the 29th and it is now June the 14th. As you and I sit here, the British Government is shipping troops back to France as hard as it can go. Do you believe for one moment that they would be doing that if they had already formed the conclusion sixteen days ago that the French meant to throw their hand in?'

'I suppose you're right,' Gregory sighed. 'If they brought the men off from Dunkirk because they feared the French were going to do a "Leopold" on us they could hardly be sending them back again while the situation remains so uncertain.'

'A "Leopold", eh?' Kuporovitch's dark eyebrows went up with a quizzical expression. 'I hope you realise, my friend, that when the history of this war comes to be written Leopold and the people responsible for Dunkirk are going to be lumped together. Whatever the English school-books may say, the school-books of the rest of the world will record that after seventeen days' fighting the Belgians ratted on the British and that after nineteen days' fighting the British ratted on the French. What other word can be applied to the fact that, while still whole and undefeated, one of the finest armies that your country has ever put into the field gave up any further attempt to wage war upon the enemy and abandoned its Ally?'

'I suppose one can't blame the French for looking at things that way,' Gregory admitted. 'The retreat and evacuation has certainly given Hitler's Fifth Column in France just the ammunition they required for their work of severing the Allies, and it's quite on the cards now that within a few days France may make a separate Peace.'

'True. But there is still hope that they may be induced to carry on the fight. Even now our good Sir Pellinore is with Mr. Winston Churchill and Lord Beaverbrook, who are on their way to Bordeaux to see if they cannot bolster up the shaking edifice.'

'Is that what you came to tell me?'

Kuporovitch nodded. 'Now that Erika is out of danger I at last felt justified in appeasing my desire to see Paris again, and when I told Sir Pellinore that he said to me: "Find Gregory, if you can, and tell him how uncertain things are now with the French. If they decide to fight on—well and good; but if they surrender there is a risk that he might be caught in France. Tell him to make his way to Bordeaux and to join me at the Hotel Julius Caesar; then I shall be able to get him safely out of the country should France collapse." '

'And what view does Sir Pellinore take of things?'

The Russian hunched his shoulders. 'He is by no means optimistic. The loss of Paris will be a grave blow to France and he gave me the impression that he felt that only a miracle could save her now.'

Gregory frowned. T believe I might have pulled off that miracle three nights ago, but that little fiend, La Baronne Noire, poisoned me when I was in Italy and I've been laid by the heels ever since.'

'Poisoned you, eh? Tell me about that.'

Gregory gave a resume of what had befallen him since he had parted from Kuporovitch on the beach at Dunkirk, and when he had finished, the Russian said:

'There is only one thing for it; we must get this woman, Gregory, and those papers of which Lacroix spoke. They are becoming of more importance every moment, now that with each hour there becomes more likelihood of France going out of the war.'

Gregory nodded. 'Lacroix can't keep me here much longer, because the Germans are at the gates, and I'm expecting to have a word from him at any time telling me that I can go. I'm quite fit enough again now to have another crack at the Black Lady and it will help a lot to have you with me; but it's rotten luck that you should have to leave Paris because the Germans are about to enter it the very day that you get here.'

Kuporovitch smiled ruefully. 'Yes; it is hard indeed. Perhaps now I shall never again see Montmartre, or the Luxemburg Gardens, or the Bois; but one thing I shall regret above all— and that is, not to have taken my aperitif with a pretty girl on a sunny morning outside Wagner's on the pavements of the Rue Royale.'

'Well, that at least is not impossible,' Gregory laughed. 'It's eleven o'clock in the morning, you could hardly have a sunnier day, and I imagine that the cafes are still open. As for the pretty girl—why not ask my nurse, Sister Madeleine? You can get there in ten minutes in a taxi. Take her out and give her a drink while I telephone Lacroix and get dressed.'

The Russian beamed; Sister Madeleine smilingly accepted his invitation when she learned how far he had travelled for the pleasure of once more visiting her native city, and they set off together while Gregory got up to have his bath.

When he had finished he was just about to telephone Lacroix; but he had no need to do so as a messenger arrived for him at that moment with a letter from the Colonel, which read:

'I hear from your doctor that you are now fit enough to travel, which is good news indeed at such a time of grief. Our troops have now completed their withdrawal and only armed police to prevent looting are left in the capital. The salle Boche will once again pollute the Champs Elysees by a formal entry at three o'clock this afternoon. Therefore, you should leave at once.

'The lady of whom we spoke when I last saw you left Fontainebleau on Wednesday morning. Perhaps she feared that the sight of an expensive car might attract unwelcome attention from the more desperate of our refugees; or it may be that she had another reason. In any case, she left, with her chauffeur only, on the box of a blue Ford van lettered in gold "Maison Pasquette—Blanchisserie".

'It is virtually certain that she will have followed the Government to Tours and Bordeaux but she has a villa in the South of France. It is called Les Roches and is at Pointe des Issambres between Saint Maxime and Saint Raphael, so later she may go there with her baggage.

'May the good God have you in his keeping in these difficult hours and grant that in happier times we may meet again.'

The bare facts in the letter would have conveyed little to a casual reader, but to Gregory they conveyed a lot. The reason that the Black Baroness had elected to journey south by van instead of by car was plain enough. A Ford van could move just as quickly as a car on a road choked with refugees, and she had no intention of leaving her most valued possessions to be destroyed by shell-fire or looted in her absence. In the van there would be much more room to take pictures, furs, jewels and letter-files than in a car, and the underlining of the word 'baggage' clearly inferred that Lacroix hoped that now Gregory was fit again he would go after those letter-files; and that, quite definitely, was what he meant to do.

Leaving a message for Kuporovitch that he would be back by half-past one, he went out to make his arrangements. Paris was a sad sight that morning. Half the shops were already shut and those inhabitants who had decided to remain were pulling down their blinds in anticipation of the triumphant entry of the Germans that afternoon. All the main streets were crowded with sorrowing, gesticulating people packing bag and baggage on to their cars in preparation for making the journey, in most cases, into the unknown.

Refugees had now been streaming south for many days, but there were still tens of thousands who had hung on until the last moment hoping against hope that they would not have to go after all, and these were now working at frantic speed lest they had left it too late and should be caught by the on-coming enemy.