He found it impossible to hire or buy a private car but at a garage with which he had done business in the past he managed to make what amounted to a hire-purchase arrangement with the owner-driver of a taxi-cab. The garage proprietor was no longer observing petrol restrictions as he was only too anxious to unload as much of his stock as he could before the Germans arrived; so Gregory was able to have the taxi's tank filled and to buy a dozen spare bidons in addition. He told the driver to run over the engine as thoroughly as possible in the short time available and to bring the cab round to the Saint Regis at half-past one: then he made a few purchases and, returning to the now almost empty hotel, ordered a large picnic basket to be made up.
At twenty to two he paid his bill, said good-bye to the sad-faced manager and went out on to the doorstep. The taxi was there but there was no sign of Kuporovitch. With considerable annoyance, Gregory assumed that the Russian amorist had found little Sister Madeleine so responsive to his blandishments that he had forgotten all about the time; but ten minutes later he had grave reason to regret his unworthy suspicions.
Sister Madeleine drove up in a taxi. As she jumped out he saw that tears were streaming down her face.
Running down the steps he asked her with a sudden sense of alarm what had happened to bring her back in such a state.
Grasping his arm she sobbed out: 'It was an accident. Just as we were leaving he stepped off the pavement too soon and a car knocked him down. Oh, how tragic—how tragic! To think that for all these years he had longed for Paris and that he should come back only to die.'
Gregory moaned. For a moment he could hardly realise that the amiable Russian, who had been so full of life only that morning, would never laugh again. For over two months now he had been an almost constant witness of destruction and death in Norway, Holland, Belgium and France, so that the corpses he had seen in the blasted villages and on the roadsides in his recent journeys had come to mean little to him, but the thought that his friend had died in an ordinary street-accident had a peculiar bitterness all its own.
There was only one small consolation—Stefan Kuporovitch had at least achieved his ambition before he died. Just for an hour or so he had seen again the Paris with which he had fallen in love when he was young. He had even drunk his Vermouth-Cassis with a pretty Parisienne in the sunshine on the pavement of the Rue Royale. Then he had stepped off that pavement into oblivion as far as the things of this world were concerned. Gregory knew only too well that there were many less pleasant circumstances in which a man could die, and after a moment he pulled himself together to ask Sister Madeleine for particulars.
Although she was a nurse the tragedy had so upset her that she was bordering on hysteria, and it was only towards the end of her account that Gregory realised that Kuporovitch was not actually dead. His skull had been fractured in two places and she had no doubt at all that his injuries were fatal, but he had still been alive when they had taken him in an ambulance to the Hospital Saint Pierre.
Gregory paid off her taxi and grabbing her by the arm led her towards his own, as he said: 'Quick! We must go there at once and hear the doctor's report.'
She warned him that the Russian's case was hopeless and when they reached the hospital a white-coated doctor confirmed her view. Kuporovitch had not regained consciousness but might last a few hours, though the doctor considered it most unlikely that he would live through the night.
Although he would have liked to stay, Gregory knew that it was of the utmost importance that he should go south after the Black Baroness with the least possible delay; so he asked Sister Madeleine if she intended to remain in Paris during the occupation.
'Yes,' she said with a sigh. 'I have an old mother who is too infirm to travel, and with the train-loads of wounded that are constantly arriving there will be plenty of work for me to do.'
Taking some bank-notes from his wallet he asked her if she would come to the hospital on the following day and make the necessary arrangements to provide Kuporovitch with a decent funeral. She took the money and agreed at once; then he thanked her for her care of him and, still half-dazed by the tragedy, sadly walked out into the sunny street.
April the 8th to June the 14th. It was just sixty-seven days since Hitler had swooped by night on unsuspecting Norway, and Gregory was thinking of the hideous chapters of history that had been made in that short time.
King Haakon and Queen Wilhelmina had been driven from their thrones. Leopold of Belgium was now branded for ever as a traitor. A million soldiers and civilians had died and another million lay wounded in the hospitals. Ten million people had been rendered homeless and another twenty million had fallen under the brutal domination of the Nazis. Paris had fallen and the enemy were in possession of the Channel ports, which brought their bombers within twenty-five miles of England. It had been one long nightmare tale of incompetent leadership, disaster, treachery and defeat.
Even in his own small world, Erika had only narrowly escaped death, Paula had died before his eyes.
Lacroix had become virtually a fugitive. And now poor Kuporovitch was dead.
He, too, had suffered three major defeats at the hands of the woman who was his enemy, and one of them had very nearly cost him his life. He was very tired after these weeks of stress and now quite alone.
But he knew that there could be no giving-up until he was dead or his battle was won.
Stepping into the taxi he said: 'Drive to Bordeaux.'
CHAPTER 25
The Black Baroness
It was just on three o'clock; the hour at which the Germans were due to march in triumph down the Champs Elysees. The sounds of battle had receded to a distant rumble, so faint that it was hardly perceptible unless one deliberately listened for it; while in the city itself there was a strange and terrible silence. The last of those who meant to leave had gone; the streets were now deserted; bowed and weeping behind locked doors and shuttered windows, the people of Paris awaited in submission the coming of the conqueror.
As Gregory drove through the once gay streets he thought of the scenes which they were soon certain to witness. Thousands of German officers and Nazi officials would bring their families out of the bombed areas of Germany to live in the comfort and security of Paris now that it was a captive city yet must remain immune from aerial attack. In his imagination he could already see the crowds of fat, stupid, ugly, vulgar German women swarming in the Rue de la Paix, the Rue du Faubourg Saint Honore, and the Rivoli, pushing and thrusting to get at the silk stockings, the hats, the frocks, the linens and the brocades; while their men jostled one another in the restaurants and bought up all the supplies in the tobacco and wine shops.
Their Fuehrer had denied them butter that they might have guns, and now they were to be given their reward. They would loot Paris of her vast store of the luxuries which they had not seen for years, and for which—if they paid at all—they would pay only in worthless paper.
Yet while those German hogs guzzled in the trough they would not realise that even this abundance must be absorbed in a few months and that the Parisian goose once having been cooked could lay no more golden eggs. The coming winter would find them cold and hungry once again, but for the time being the riches of the conquered territory would still their questioning and whet their appetites for further conquests. Dr. Goebbels would not fail to point the moral of the Blitzkrieg. He would say: