But she was a splendidly courageous person so she did not seek by a single word to dissuade Gregory from his decision, and her intense distress was shown only by a slight moistening of her very beautiful blue eyes.
An hour later the tramp had berthed and by six o'clock Uli von Einem had joined them with papers enabling them to go ashore. He was a thin, fair man, who in the past had been one of Erika's innumerable admirers, and he possessed all the tact of a born diplomat. Privately, he thought it a queer business that his lovely friend should arrive, without even a beauty-box for baggage, on a tramp steamer that had come from Leningrad, but the one lesson that Freiherr von Einem had learnt since the Nazis had come to power was that the less one knew officially about anything the less likelihood there was of finding oneself carted off, without warning, to a concentration-camp. The passports of both Erika and her friend were in perfect order except that they lacked Norwegian visas, and Erika had intimated that they were both on urgent secret business connected with the prosecution of the war, so von Einem had accepted her statement without comment.
Gregory had thrown overboard the Gestapo uniform that he had stolen from Grauber so he was dressed in a ready-made suit which he had bought off the first Mate of the tramp, but its poor quality was concealed under his rich furs. Erika also was still in her furs, and their only belongings were contained in a single handbag that Gregory had brought out of Russia with him, so they were not long delayed by the Customs. Von Einem drove them to the Grand Hotel in the Karl Johansgt and, having accepted an invitation to lunch with them on the following day, left them there.
On going into the lounge they saw, to their delight, that Kuporovitch had succeeded in evading the Norwegian coastguards. He was sitting with a long-stemmed glass in front of him but as soon as he caught sight of them he disposed of its contents and came hurrying over with a gay wave of his hand.
The Russian was a clean-shaven man in his early fifties. His grey hair was brushed smoothly back and, strangely contrasting with it, his eyebrows, which were still black, ran thin and pointed towards the temples of his smooth white forehead. Under them were a pair of rather lazy blue eyes, but their glance was apt to be deceptive as behind them lay an extremely shrewd intelligence. Up to the age of twenty-nine he had been an officer of the Imperial Russian Army, but when the Revolution had broken out a strange set of circumstances had resulted in his joining the Bolsheviks. After the Civil War he had come to loathe and despise his new masters, yet with the laudable desire to keep his head on his shoulders he had concealed his antipathy for many years with superlative skill. For a long time past he had been hoarding foreign currency with the idea of escaping from the dreary, depressing land of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics so that he might spend his old age among civilised people, and his great ambition was to see the Paris of his youth again.
Greeting his friends in French—which was their common language—he said with a smile: 'I've booked rooms for you— two bedrooms with a bathroom in between, so that you can preserve the proprieties of this charming old world into which I am so delighted to have returned. Come upstairs and I will show you.'
Upstairs, perched on Erika's bed and smoking a long cheroot, he told them, with many chuckles, of his adventures that day. It had all been too easy. He had walked to the nearest village, found its school and routed out the village schoolmaster, to whom he had said: 'I am a member of the French Legation in Oslo and was returning there after a visit to Kristiansand. When the train halted in the station here I got out to get some hot coffee in the buffet and the train went on without me. Unfortunately, too, it carried on my baggage and a small attache-case in which I had some papers and my ticket. Would you oblige me by acting as interpreter at the station so that I can buy another ticket and take the next train on?' The Norwegian had been most polite and helpful, so Kuporovitch had arrived in Oslo without the least difficulty.
Having washed and tidied themselves they went down to the grill-room. The head waiter was nearly guilty of raising an eyebrow when he saw them approaching, for Kuporovitch was in shoddy 'ready-mades' that he had bought at an old-clothes shop in Leningrad, Gregory was in the first Mate's second-best suit and Erika's tweeds showed obvious signs of the hard wear they had sustained; but as the man's glance swept across their faces he noted Erika's regal beauty and that in spite of their shabby clothes both her escorts had the air of men who were used to being obeyed. With a swift bow he led them to a sofa-table.
The under-waiter who took their order brought the maitre d'hotel scurrying back again, his face now wreathed in smiles. The strangely-dressed trio had ordered a superb meal and some of the best wines that his cellar boasted. He did not know that the broad-shouldered, middle-aged man with the black, pointed eyebrows had been cooped up in Russia for nearly a quarter of a century and that it was many months since the others had had a meal in a good restaurant. They were speaking French but he put them down as rich Germans who had been suffering from the Nazis' impoverished larder and had somehow managed to get away to Norway.
Although they had spared no pains or expense in ordering their favourite dishes, the meal was not the success that it should have been, because the black cloud of war and the coming separation weighed heavily upon the spirits of the little party. The tables were widely spaced so they were able to talk freely without risk of being overheard, and when they had reached the coffee and brandy stage Gregory turned to the Russian.
'The time has come, Stefan, when we must discuss plans. I shall have to leave here in a day or two—as soon as I can get a plane—for England. What do you intend to do?'
Kuporovitch smiled. 'Now that I am a free man once more I can hardly wait until I get to Paris; but the devil of it is that I have no passport. What are the intentions of Madame la Comtesse?'
'It would be unwise for her to remain here long. The Germans are so thorough that solely as a matter of routine von Einem will have reported our arrival in Oslo. It may take a week or two passing through the files of petty officials, but sooner or later the Gestapo will learn where she's got to.'
'Does that matter now that she is in a neutral country?'
Gregory grinned. 'You don't know the Gestapo, my friend. They're quite capable of kidnapping Erika or arranging one of their jolly little motor-car accidents in which she would be knocked down and killed.
Besides, as we told you on the tramp, by the merest fluke we happened to come into possession of the German war plan. They've followed it step by step so far, and Norway is the next on their list. Her life would not be worth a moment's purchase if she were still here when they staged an invasion.'
Erika drew slowly on her cigarette. 'What d'you suggest then?'
'Stage 7 of the plan lays it down that Sweden is strong enough to require a separate operation, so she should be left for the time being, but that Norway and Denmark can be taken over together. Sweden would then be entirely isolated and so in no position to resist whenever the Germans consider it convenient to take control there. The plan then passes to Stage 8, which concerns Holland and Belgium, and no further mention of Sweden is made at all. As it's quite on the cards that the Germans will be content to absorb Sweden's entire exports without actually walking into the place for some considerable time, I suggest that Erika should move there.'